https://redsails.org/transgender-liberation/

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By the time the Industrial Revolution in Europe had forged plowshares into weapons and machinery, prejudice against transgendered women and men was woven deep into the tapestry of exploitation.

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But mercantile trade and early industrial capitalism created opportunities for anonymity that seldom existed under feudalism, where the large serf families and their neighbors lived and worked on the land.

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Capitalism unchained the peasants from the land — but chained them to machinery as wage slaves, or sent them off in armies and armadas to conquer new land, labor and resources.

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Not only transgendered women but men now had the opportunity to pass. The oppression of women under capitalism forced many thousands of women who weren’t transgendered to pass as men in order to escape the economic and social inequities of their oppression.

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The consequences for passing were harsh. At the close of the 17th century the penalty in England was to be placed in the stocks and dragged through the streets in an open cart. In France as late as 1760 transvestites were burned to death. Despite the criminal penalties, women passed as men throughout Europe — most notably in the Netherlands, England and Germany. Passing was so widespread during the 17th and 18th centuries that it was the theme of novels, fictionalized biographies and memoirs, art, plays, operas and popular songs. One of the most famous passing women of the 17th century was Mary Frith — known as “Moll Cutpurse.” This bodacious character fought and drank with the men in the underworld districts of 17th century London. They never realized she was a woman. She supported herself by reading fortunes, fencing stolen items and relieving passersby of their purses and wallets. After her exposure as a woman, Moll Cutpurse published her diary and was twice portrayed on the stage before her death at the age of 74.

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Capitalism unchained the peasants from the land — but chained them to machinery as wage slaves, or sent them off in armies and armadas to conquer new land, labor and resources.