On April 8, 1629, in a small Christian town, a Christian court with a Christian judge, issued a verdict declaring one of their town's residents to be legally both male and female at the same time.
Thomas/ine Hall was born at All Saint's Church in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, sometime in the early 1600s. Their parents, assigning them the female gender role, named them Thomasine, raised them as a girl, and trained them to perform traditional women's crafts such as needlework. Though assigned female, Thomas/ine sometimes dressed in male clothing in private at home.
But at the age of 12, they were sent off to live with their aunt in London. There, Hall was made to wear women's dresses, grow their hair long, and behave like a lady in so-called "cultured society". They lived there for 10 years in total, and during this time observed the popularity among the aristocracy of crossover fashion choices between the sexes.
In the early 1620s, now a young adult and able to make their own choices, Hall decided to adopt a masculine hairstyle, and changed "into the fashion of a man" in order to follow their brother into military service. After serving in both England and France for a time, Hall returned home to Plymouth where they reverted to a feminine presentation and earned a living making bone lace and needlework.
Around 1627, Thomas/ine began to grow unsatisfied with their life in England. Like many other working-class people of their day, Thomas/ine was interested in the opportunity for a new life in the English colonies of North America. They decided to take their chances in the colonies as an indentured servant. Donning men's clothing once again, they signed a contract as an indentured servant with a ship leaving for Jamestown, using the name Thomas. From there, they relocated to a nearby settlement called Warrosquyoacke. This tiny village of less than 200 people was the home of two tobacco plantations, located where present-day Smithfield, Virginia is.
Thomas/ine went to work for a man named John Tyos on the smaller of the two tobacco plantations. However, they were not particularly strict about presenting consistently as male in this new environment. At first, Hall continued to dress as and perform the work of a man. But at some point, they started to dress as a woman and take on traditional women’s labor again. For his part, John appears to have had no problem with this switch, as he later swore to the community at large that he believed Thomas/ine was a woman. But other members of the community were less accepting of the change.
When asked one day about why they sometimes wore female clothes, Thomas/ine replied cryptically "I goe in womans apparel to get a bitt for my Catt". It's unclear what they meant by this. Various historians have suggested that Hall may have dressed as a woman in order to seduce women, or alternatively in order to have sex with men. Rumors began circulating about their sexual exploits about town.
One such rumor claimed that Thomas/ine had had sex with a maid from a different household, an enslaved woman who went by the name "Great Besse". This particular rumor was, in the minds of these Christian settlers, extremely problematic due to the ambiguity of Hall's gender. If Thomas/ine was a man, this act was the crime of fornication, and they would have to stand trial for it. But if Thomas/ine was a woman, there was no crime.
Three "respectable" Christian women of the community, Alice Long, Dorothy Rodes, and Barbara Hall, took it upon themselves to find out which. The women snuck into Thomas/ine's room in the dead of night, watching them while they were sleeping. This first attempt at spying on Thomas/ine unclothed yielded no clear result. So they did it again and again. They eventually decided amongst themselves that Thomas/ine lacked a "readable set of female genitalia" and was therefore definitely male.
The matter was brought to John Tyos, the plantation owner, and owner of Thomas/ine's contract. The women convinced him to interview Thomas/ine partly because of the rumors, and also because another member of the community, a man named John Atkins, had proposed buying out Thomas/ine's contract, and their gender would determine both the kind of work they could perform and the price of their contract. During this interview, Hall confessed that they had “a piece of flesh growing at the belly as big as the top of my little finger,” but that they “had not the use of the man’s parts". Male incompetence was considered sufficient to determine female sex during the early modern colonial period. Therefore, Tyos thought Thomas/ine’s report was reasonable. He found that they were a woman, and ordered them to wear women’s clothing. This finding meant they could not be prosecuted for debauching Besse.
John Atkins purchased Thomas/ine's labor contract, and they took up a position in his home as a woman laborer. However, the three women who spied on Thomas/ine were not happy with this decision. They conducted a physical examination of Thomas/ine while they slept, and when this too yielded uncertain results, demanded that Atkins conduct a more thorough physical exam. During this examination, Thomas/ine told Atkins they had “a piece of a hole". John Atkins and the three women searched Thomas/ine for evidence of a vagina. When they could not find it, they went back to Tyos, who reversed his decision and declared Thomas/ine was a man and must therefore wear men’s clothing.
At this point, the entire community was aware of Thomas/ine’s situation. Two more men stopped Hall on a public road. The men stripped Thomas/ine of their clothing, pulled out their genitalia, and decided that Hall was “a perfect man.” As far as the community was concerned, Thomas/ine’s gender was finally settled. They decided to punish Thomas/ine for pretending to be a woman.
Thomas/ine appeared before the Quarter Court of Virginia in 1629. They shared their life story, explaining to the court that they had lived as both a man and as a woman. There was no understanding of gender fluidity or intersex bodies in the colonial era, but something about Thomas/ine’s testimony convinced the court that they were being genuine. The governor decided on an extraordinary verdict. Thomas/ine was declared to be both a man and a woman. They would be required to wear the clothing of both genders: the breeches and shirt of a man, with the cap and apron of a woman. This was so “all the Inhabitants there may take notice” of Thomas/ine’s unusual status.
However, this did not clear up any questions about whether Thomas/ine had committed a crime, nor about what kind of work they might be permitted to do. This verdict merely meant that Thomas/ine would be forever marked as different in their chosen community.
And it's here that Thomas/ine's story comes to a rather dissatisfying end. They completely disappear from the official records, and we have no information about what they did after the verdict, where they went, how they lived their life, or how they died. It is most likely that they moved to another community in the colonies, where they took on a new name and lived a quiet, uneventful life as either a man or a woman. I like to think Thomas/ine would enjoy that ambiguity.
Tell our stories.
#PRIDE #TransHistory