00:04:38.760I'm going to talk about American history from the context of not an American.
00:04:43.580And I think a lot of Americans, without realizing, so many things are written by and for Americans.
00:04:50.220But I'm approaching this as a person who's never studied this.
00:04:53.680You'll hear me in the course of this episode come to the realization that the American Revolution was not a thing that happened for one day in 1776.
00:05:01.120but in fact happened over multiple years. A fact I did not know until, until I had this
00:05:06.520conversation. So I'm going to talk about America, Americans, get ready. We're talking about your
00:05:11.800history. And also if you are, well, anyone, but especially new listeners who saw the show art,
00:05:17.380maybe you heard one of the ads talking about, Oh, a Marie Antoinette season. I love that. I love
00:05:20.960Versailles and I love let them eat cake. And I love the wigs and the big skirts and stuff.
00:05:27.000rest assured this is still a season a series called how do you solve a problem like Marie
00:05:33.300Antoinette but this is part one and part one I'm sort of laying the ground of this revolutionary
00:05:39.440era in which Marie Antoinette was born in which she lived in which she was executed
00:05:44.760to sort of Marie Antoinette was executed as a part of the French revolution the French
00:05:50.140revolution was inspired and directly connected to the American revolution so talking with the
00:05:56.020American Revolution. It all connects. And at the very end of this episode, perhaps you will be
00:06:00.220surprised or curious about how I'm going to connect this person, Deborah Sampson slash
00:06:05.360Robert Shurtleff to Marie Antoinette. Guess what? I am because everything ties back to her in this
00:06:10.800season. Anyway, so get ready for some American history here on Vulgar History with special guest
00:06:33.240Yeah, and we're here to talk about a person who, can you explain what you just explained to me before we started recording, what name and pronouns we're using for this person, please?
00:06:43.620So, the person we're talking about today is, I'm going to use two names for them, but those names together.
00:06:50.000So Deborah Sampson, Robert Shurtleff, and I'll often refer to them as Sampson Shurtleff
00:06:54.720by the two last names that they used during their life.
00:06:58.120And I'll use also they-them pronouns for them because they lived as both a man and a woman
00:07:16.980So we'll just say Sampson Shurtleff and they-them.
00:07:19.320Yeah, yeah. So it's, I really wanted to establish that right off the bat, because this person, I keep saying this person, so I'm just like, Oh, what do I say? Samson Shurtleff. Samson Shurtleff is often written about as Deborah Samson, a woman who disguised themselves as a man, which is one reading of their life.
00:07:39.360And then there's, I think, more recent scholarship is talking about Deborah or Robert Shurtleff, a trans man who lived their truth, which is another reading of their life. And I've what I've read of your writing, you're kind of like, we don't know.
00:07:53.560yeah and i think i mean i really think that the we don't know is really important not because i'm
00:07:58.260trying to deny any of their sort of trans experience and i do think i mean to live as a man
00:08:03.500in the world and to join the military as a man in the late 18th century it was incredibly risky
00:08:10.000um the penalties for it could be quite intense um there was a strong association of quote unquote
00:08:15.900women or anyone assigned female at birth who traveled with the military as um as uh associated
00:08:21.060with sex work, which was in turn, of course, criminalized, um, as it remains today in most0.96
00:08:25.020places. Um, so like, you know, the penalties for doing that were quite intense and Samson
00:08:30.220shortlifted it anyway. And so to me, that feels like strong evidence that on some level they
00:08:35.260were comfortable with their life as a man. And we also know that they continued to live as a man
00:08:39.300for a while and sometimes traveled under their brother's name, um, for like after their discharge
00:08:44.560from the military. So I'm not, I'm not, I'm not comfortable calling them, um, calling them a
00:08:49.480woman. But at the same time, after they left the military and after they stopped living under their0.90
00:08:55.020brother's name, for example, they resumed living as a woman. And I say resumed because they had
00:09:00.520lived as a woman in a period prior to that, married a man, had a bunch of kids, but then
00:09:04.700also went on the speaking tour and resumed their personas as Robert Sherliffe and did military
00:09:11.240drills to raise money to get veterans pay from the U.S. government. So I just think it's important
00:09:17.480to leave the question of their sort of gender experience open, not only because they have this
00:09:22.400really wonderful and rich history of living in different roles, but also because the way that
00:09:28.660people thought about gender in the moment that they lived in was really, really different than
00:09:31.780how we think about it today. Yeah, I've done a couple of episodes of this podcast before where
00:09:37.160I'm still learning about how to talk about trans history and things like that. When a story doesn't
00:09:42.800fit exactly into the narrative that most people know about like a person who transitions and lives
00:09:48.340their truth then it's kind of like oh so yeah so it's just like the umbrella of trans history
00:09:52.860comprises lots of people living with lots of different gender presentations and we don't
00:09:58.120know what the context was in their time but for us today we're talking about this in the context of
00:10:02.440they them pronouns we don't know yeah i mean i like leaving it open i think if we leave it open
00:10:09.520we can kind of, we can see different facets of what gender meant in that period. And I think
00:10:15.300being able to see those facets allows us to understand in what ways Samson Shurtleff really
00:10:20.140departed from gender conventions of their moment, and in what ways their life kind of really walked
00:10:25.160in alignment with it, with those, with those conventions. And then the other side of this
00:10:30.060conversation as well, because I'm in Canada. And so when I started researching this in the
00:10:33.880American Revolution and stuff, I reached out to my listeners who are Americans, because I just
00:10:37.800wanted to learn better how this is taught in schools and what people think and one person who
00:10:42.120I was in touch with the listener about Samson Shurtleff who is a woman who serves in the
00:10:46.760military and she was saying like she finds this finds Deborah Samson so inspiring and I think a
00:10:52.500lot of military women do so I also don't want to be out here like discounting people who admire
00:10:57.200Deborah Samson as a woman who joined the military because Deborah Samson slash Robert Shurtleff like0.62
00:11:02.860is an admirable heroic person whatever their gender so I don't want to take that away from
00:11:07.660people either yeah and I mean the thing I am maybe willing to take away from people is um is like you
00:11:14.780know they're in there they they lived a really interesting life and and they lived very bravely
00:11:19.580in a lot of ways um but you know they were also like part of a military endeavor and you know
00:11:25.860like part of the thing one of the things I write about about Samson like one of the things that
00:11:29.800they did during their time in the military that that game that that sort of garnered them such
00:11:34.080acclaim is they did like sort of like surveys on like what was then and now at times from the
00:11:40.560the um north american frontier and like you know settled it um while you know uh while
00:11:47.560perpetrating like some pretty intense violence against native people so like you know it's like
00:11:51.720all these things are true at the same time no exactly exactly and so that's i'm really happy
00:11:56.780you're here to bring these nuances to this person who you've clearly um and listeners like written
00:12:02.780about um you've obviously thought about a lot you've studied a lot so just bring these nuances
00:12:07.480that even for me reading like your writing and some other writings like i'm still coming from
00:12:11.580a context of canada and not fully appreciating the the cultural significance of the american
00:12:19.960revolution and kind of what that meant the lord yeah yeah but also that's the thing like even
00:12:26.300even in canada the names that i had heard of about the american revolution are like the literal
00:12:31.580founding fathers who are all like wealthy white men who were able to read a lot read widely become
00:12:40.200educated debate philosophy and like that but it's like but the war itself it's people like
00:12:47.020samson shirtliff like poor people are who's actually fighting the battles it's not all like
00:12:52.180fancy generals yeah and you know one of the reasons one of the things i think is really
00:12:56.200interesting about samson shirtless own history is um they actually enlisted in the military twice
00:13:02.540so and so the first time we don't know we i don't think they actually um there's no evidence to say
00:13:08.820that they actually served but like well let me back up and say that um enlisting in the continental
00:13:14.120army and that at that time and place uh you would get an enlistment bonus basically you would get
00:13:19.300paid like a sort of one-time lump sum to to get paid to enlist and i mean which still exists in
00:13:24.820in some ways here, um, here in the United States today. And the thing about, the thing about
00:13:29.480Samson's enlistment is that like, you can't think about that out of the context of them being
00:13:34.100extremely poor. You know what I mean? Like, like Samson was, we were talking about this before
00:13:38.420the podcast started, but like to call some people will refer to Samson as working class. And that's
00:13:42.960a little bit historically inappropriate just because like, um, the divisions between class,
00:13:48.260like working class, middle class, you know, um, upper class slash wealthy, uh, those were not
00:13:52.920really salient distinctions for the 18th century, most people were very, very poor. And especially
00:13:57.440towards the beginning of the Revolutionary War, in part because of, like, colonial taxation
00:14:02.380procedures, people were really, really broke. Like, there was, you know, people in Western
00:14:06.920Massachusetts, like, were on the brink of starvation, you know what I mean? And so Samson, as a poor
00:14:11.360person, that would have been really, really salient for them, and that would have been a real
00:14:14.460live pressure. And so we don't know whether Samson enlisted in the military to sort of, you know,
00:14:20.980remove themselves from their sort of uh cultural community so they could go live their life as a
00:14:26.400man they may have also enlisted because they needed money you know what i mean and and i think
00:14:31.000i really want to honor that as also a uh a um origin story for a particular type of trans
00:14:37.380experience if samson identified uh samson shortlift identified as a woman but lived as a man in order
00:14:43.540to like get this enlistment bonus i actually think that is part of trans history do you know
00:14:47.480I mean and like poor people's history is trans history too and I just like we don't know what
00:14:53.420drove them to do that and it could have been a mixture of both of course oh and that's what's
00:14:57.420interesting to what everything is interesting about this to me but just in terms of like
00:15:02.360me trying to find writings about Samson Shurtleff and wading my way through the kind of like
00:15:09.640daughters of the revolution like look at this like not just like this was a woman who presented as a
00:15:15.020man, which maybe, but also the stuff where it's like, they were so driven by patriotism. They
00:15:21.640were such a patriot that they had to do this. They had to disguise themselves. And what you're
00:15:26.900saying is like, they needed money. They were poor. So let's talk about where they are from,
00:15:31.820which is Plimpton, Massachusetts, near Plymouth. So there are five children in this family. So
00:15:38.600just in terms of like poverty and stuff, like a lot, the more children you have, the more poor
00:15:43.000you are really yeah and remember this is an era with no birth control you know what i mean so
00:15:47.820like i mean maybe you have like you know rhythm method stuff but there's no real birth control
00:15:52.000to speak of and so um people who were you know gestational parents would sometimes you know like
00:15:57.920it was it was a real difficult um part of like the condition of someone with a uterus you know
00:16:02.980what i mean because if you were if you were in a situation especially if you were married
00:16:06.200you couldn't control your reproduction in a lot of ways well it seems like what controlled the
00:16:10.260production here was the fact that the father left them. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Abandoned the family and
00:16:17.760soon thereafter died in a shipwreck. And so the children were sent off to board with other people
00:16:23.380because the mother couldn't support them. Yes, yes. And I mean, and board, you know, maybe board,
00:16:29.640but also more likely is that they were indentured out. Do you know what I mean? So this is a really
00:16:33.060common, a really common sort of practice of servitude in this period. And, you know, remember
00:16:39.940there's no child labor laws at this point um people would start working children would start
00:16:43.680working as early as four or five years old and and then they would sort of stay and be raised in
00:16:48.580the family in which they worked um but they would still be workers within the context of the family
00:16:53.020and so that i mean it's this it's this sort of um complicated thing for samson because it's also
00:16:58.300how samson gets educated you know what i mean so she or or i'm saying she in this moment because
00:17:04.200this is when when they were they were a small child and they were like living as a woman but
00:17:08.640um or living as a girl you know because they weren't they weren't a woman um they were you
00:17:12.600know they weren't an adult so they were basically taught to read by the children in the family that
00:17:17.880they worked for and again like this is it's so interesting to have the narrative of a poor
00:17:24.100person living in america at this time which is there's exceptional things about about the story
00:17:30.780of samson shirtless but i think this would be so similar to so many other poor people you know like
00:17:35.080you're living in this too many kids not enough money then the father leaves and you have no
00:17:39.640breadwinner you have nothing so the kids are just sent off like i'm sure this happened all over the
00:17:43.040place to lots of people yeah and like i mean you know the father like i mean like if he died in a
00:17:48.620shipwreck like i mean like there's so much we we have very little of like an actual solid historical
00:17:53.820record i just want to say this because i'm i'm my moon is in capricorn i'm into details um and uh
00:17:59.840like like maybe he abandoned them maybe he went and worked as a sailor because if he died in a
00:18:05.640shipwreck he might have been working as a sailor and sometimes if you went if you went and like
00:18:09.640um signed yourself up for service as like on a ship you might be gone for five years you know
00:18:15.380what i mean like it was like shipping was like the way things got around the world in that moment
00:18:19.600as it really kind of still is today but like you would be gone and you wouldn't be heard from like
00:18:23.420there wasn't any mail there wasn't any gps there wasn't any wi-fi you know what i mean so yeah but
00:18:28.320like but yeah he was gone regardless well and i guess that's it's another good point to bring up
00:18:33.040the how do we know what we know about them and some of it is like regimental records and stuff
00:18:39.760exist but part of it is this biography that came out during their lifetime yeah yeah yeah well yeah
00:18:46.160and it's i mean and tricky like you know a biography is an interpretive document too right
00:18:50.220so herman man who was the i'm actually blanking on what relation he had to horse man i want to say
00:18:55.820was like horseman's uncle or something maybe cousin it wasn't like a direct relationship
00:19:00.240horseman is the father but people refer to horseman as the father of public education
00:19:04.400um in the united states um there's like a very fancy private school in new york which is like
00:19:08.980the opposite of public education called horseman but uh so so herman man wrote this biography of
00:19:14.960samson in order to help samson slash shirtless who was like living exclusively as samson at this
00:19:20.640point in their life to help them make a claim for what was then called an invalid's pension which
00:19:25.260is basically veterans pay from the u.s military and so the story i guess we'll get to that later
00:19:31.940but i just want to let everybody know that the biography itself is somewhat sounds i haven't
00:19:36.720read it but it sounds like it's a bit sensationalized and samson shirtlift later was
00:19:40.420like oh that part's not true yeah i mean like i mean we don't have a ton of like hermanman actually
00:19:46.140like rewrote the biography like i think three times um the last one wasn't published we like
00:19:51.220expanded it and expanded it and expanded it which was a really common way of doing that work at that
00:19:56.180time and place so like yeah i mean samson wanted the cash you know i mean like they wanted they
00:20:03.100wanted um to be able to make this claim again because they remain kind of poor throughout
00:20:07.220their life you know it wasn't that they like all of a sudden like got rich um so they really wanted
00:20:12.060their veterans pension and so they were kind of willing to do what they needed to do for it they
00:20:15.860also went on the speaking tour where they like redonned their military uniform and did military
00:20:20.420drills for like crowds of people to make money that way so like i mean we don't i like as someone
00:20:26.800who works on colonial america or like you know early national united states i'm always a little
00:20:31.220bit like reception history sometimes we really know what happened and sometimes we really don't
00:20:36.020so i'm always like a little bit on the fence about the the um i don't know the the the verifiability
00:20:41.880of some of these things yeah so oh and just like the fact like the detail like the i assume we got
00:20:47.500from the biography like that their father abandoned them and died in a shipwreck where it's like maybe
00:20:51.980that's what samson shirtlift thought but is that what happened yeah or i mean there's also a lot
00:20:57.000of historical interpretation like historians will take especially in earlier moments will take real
00:21:01.760liberties like i don't know if you've read like alfred young's biography of samson which is a
00:21:06.420most a more recent book it's called masquerade i think um but like there's this like q a section
00:21:11.080in the back where he's like was samson a feminist he's like no was samson a lesbian like no like
00:21:16.420people just feel very comfortable offering interpretations, like very definitive yes
00:21:21.160or no's about experiences of people from like 250 years ago. I do not feel that kind of comfort.
00:21:27.180Can I just ask you a question? I have done a couple episodes about Catalina de Arraso.
00:21:32.740Are you familiar with that story? A little bit. Yes. I think a friend of
00:21:35.720mine wrote something about them. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a story where, again,
00:21:39.980most of what we know is based on their autobiography, which almost 100% was written
00:21:45.520by a ghostwriter and not by them and so there's like stuff you know happened and then there's
00:21:49.900stuff that's like well that's probably just exaggerating and then there's just like oh
00:21:52.880lesbianism like there's just this stuff thrown in where it's like this is just to sell books
00:21:57.000like yes like like with herman minn for example so there's like a lot of scholarship actually
00:22:01.740on like the sort of um like like sapphic craze at the end of the 18th century so like um
00:22:08.220uh katherine binhamer wrote this piece called oh gosh i'm trying to remember oh i'm actually
00:22:14.340blanking on the article but it's on the 1790s there's actually a lot of work on interest in
00:22:18.840lesbianism at the end of the 18th century so in the 1790s like there's a book called these fiery
00:22:23.660franchified dames about philadelphia and so like people knew that that would get readers do you
00:22:29.040mean so like like is it is like can we even trust herman man no i mean we can trust it the way we
00:22:35.680could trust any biography but any biography is a sort of active interpretation yeah and for me
00:22:41.060it's almost like I prefer when the biography is so salacious, I'm able to sort of be skeptical
00:22:49.960about it the way that everybody should be skeptical about everything. It's easier to
00:22:54.540be skeptical when you're like, okay, that's a bit much. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So I have a
00:23:00.840question for you as well as an American person who studies colonial history. Yeah. So Samson
00:23:06.700shirtlift is just like, you know, indentured servitude, like work on farms and whatever.
00:23:11.800So 1782 is the first time that they tried to enlist in the army. And I was like, wait,
00:23:18.140but wasn't the American Revolution famously 1776? It went on for several years.
00:23:23.360Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Long time. Long time. Yeah. Long time. Yeah.
00:23:26.680Didn't know that. OK. Well, and it's also like 1776. I mean, I honestly, I might mess up this
00:23:31.540history right now, but I believe 1776 was the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration
00:23:36.400of independence is like the thing that kind of starts the process but like it's a multi-year war
00:23:40.660like some people argue that the revolutionary period goes up into the early 19th century
00:23:44.860you know what i mean i i like i'm not a military historian i actually truly do not care about the
00:23:50.040revolutionary war as like somebody who works on american cultural history um other aspects of
00:23:54.780american cultural history are much more interesting to me but obviously it's a very important event or
00:23:59.000series of events okay no and honestly like that's just interesting to me because revolutions take
00:24:05.820a long time yeah yeah so it's interesting that you know if we're going with the narrative of
00:24:11.600like the super patriot it's like well why did it take them until 1782 to join up indeed indeed and
00:24:16.720the other thing is that like you know um the revolutionary war this is kind of something that
00:24:20.800i do think is interesting wasn't a super popular effort like most people did not support it you
00:24:26.000know what i mean like um people were crabby about england for sure there's a lot of anti-colonial
00:24:30.540sentiment but the actual uh revolution itself like you know people people were threatened to
00:24:36.540join the effort they were like people who were loyalists you know their their homes were burned
00:24:41.560down their um their their families were killed like it was a pretty it was a pretty brutal time
00:24:47.180and um i'm not trying to like defend loyalism or defend the revolutionaries like whatever
00:24:51.940like the thing happened and i'm not i'm not like you know it's not it's not interesting to sort of
00:24:56.780litigate whether it was right or not because it happened but it was it was a it was a pretty rough
00:25:00.500time and a lot of people did not support the revolution that's really interesting too because
00:25:05.160the cultural way that it's understood now is just kind of like everybody was like get out of here
00:25:11.340england and they all joined up as one to no okay okay so and which also ties into the motivation
00:25:19.320of potentially just wanting to join up for money so yes what happens is so 1782 also from what i've
00:25:27.520read um samson shortlift in terms of passing as a man was like tall and broad and so just physically
00:25:35.020was maybe more able to do that than somebody who was built differently yeah i mean i do think of
00:25:42.140this like this is something that i feel like we talk about as like trans and gender non-conforming
00:25:46.700people today like some people's bodies code socially um toward one gender or another and
00:25:53.260that that is real for trans people for cis men and women like you know it's it's real like because
00:25:59.160like gender is a series of social cues and so yeah like they were supposedly a tall person
00:26:04.520and that that definitely would have helped them like i'm a tall person and i feel like i get i
00:26:08.740get red i get red like i get served more often as a result short hair tall man you know well and
00:26:15.300also i think especially if we're talking about 1782 like culturally it's like men's clothes and
00:26:20.140women's clothes were so different so if you see a person dress and we've talked about this in the
00:26:23.540podcast before like there's societies where it's like if you're dressed like that why wouldn't i0.99
00:26:27.640assume that's a man like yeah yeah and same i mean same to this day like um i mean like this
00:26:33.740is a silly example but i i went to um i went to like quote unquote a women's college um and i i
00:26:39.160put this in quotes because not everyone who attends quote unquote women's colleges are uh
00:26:43.460for undergraduate institutions are actually women um but like it they're like like total hotbeds of
00:26:49.520like uh queerness lesbianism gender non-conformity they're like like delightful places in many ways
00:26:55.480um even as they themselves also have these like really complex histories but like after graduating
00:27:00.600you know like so many people i was around for so long were like you know genderqueer people and
00:27:06.480people who sort of presented in like a mask fashion um and like i'd see you know young like0.93
00:27:12.860teenage cis boys on the street and i'd be like oh a dyke a dyke you know what i mean it's like0.97
00:27:16.820it's like what you're used to sort of reading yeah no exactly so i think there's a benefit and0.54
00:27:22.120this is actually i'll just let you know as well um so a few weeks ago i did an episode about women
00:27:27.740in mexico who fought during the mexican revolution who dressed as men um and there was some of the
00:27:35.000descriptions it's like well this person had like a unibrow and like a goiter on their neck which
00:27:39.760could maybe hide an atom's apple so there's like there's certain physical traits that maybe
00:27:43.820people would explain it's like and this is why because that was another context where
00:27:47.620actually i'll ask you about this in a second but in the context of the mexican revolution it was
00:27:51.700some of these um groups um were very much just like no women allowed no one can join so the
00:27:58.100women had to pass as men but unlike samson shirtlift there was a point two notable examples
00:28:04.060who partway through these illustrious military careers being really successful with rebels were
00:28:09.280like surprise i'm actually a woman and then they were kicked out yeah and that's where i'm more
00:28:14.100comfortable with those stories being like yep that's a woman in disguise because they had this
00:28:17.840like surprise but then there is at least one example of of what in the podcast we talked about
00:28:23.820like as a trans man like a person who after the revolution ended continued living as a man would
00:28:28.900like shoot anybody who called them a woman like yeah yeah so there's just these different experiences
00:28:34.100but it was just making me think about the fact that physical characteristics made it easier for0.97
00:28:39.420some people to do this than some others. Yeah. And I think, you know, I just, I do want to just
00:28:43.520bracket one thing, and this is just like my particular vibe about this stuff, which is just
00:28:48.200that like, you know, I like, I think a lot belongs to the category of trans history, including
00:28:55.500sometimes people who would not have themselves by the metrics of our day identified as, identified
00:29:01.360as trans and i do think that like people like people who identify as women but who live as men
00:29:07.160for a period of time to like join the military or do whatever they need to do um i do think that's
00:29:12.080part of trans history and i'm not sure like like there's a way that people are like oh well samson
00:29:16.340wasn't trans samson sugar wasn't trans because they didn't live as a man like they went back
00:29:20.940and became like a wife and a mother and blah blah blah and i'm like i mean what is it's so
00:29:24.940difficult even now to um in a lot of places to live as a trans person you know like threats of
00:29:32.200violence lack of access to work lack of access to support um it's so difficult now like like why
00:29:38.080would we take that away from stamps and shirtlift um in their own moment where it was even like
00:29:43.000where gender roles were uh maybe much more rigid for like white working people if that makes sense
00:29:49.200no and that's where what i'm like continue to learn and that's why i'm so happy you're on the
00:29:53.380podcast like every time I have a trans history I try to have a guest on because I'm just like I
00:29:57.300need I need help explaining this and understanding this but that's where what I'm coming to understand
00:30:02.540is the difference between like trans history and like a trans person and you can't you can't speak
00:30:07.440about a person's experience but we can say well this is part of trans history yes yeah yeah because
00:30:12.060I think like I think broadly people who flout like gender norms and gendered expectations like to my
00:30:18.280mind do belong in trans history because of because of that like way of living it doesn't really matter
00:30:23.360Or, like, right now, our understanding of transness and gender nonconformity is very tied to, like, self-identification, but that has not always been the case, you know?
00:30:30.920And I want to just, like, shout out to, like, colleagues in Black Studies who work at the intersections of Black Studies and Trans Studies, because I think, like, people like Riley Snorton, for example, or Natasha Tinsley really, like, actually, like, looked at the way that, for example, because of the way that Black people and Black, like, Black femininity in particular, Black womanhood in particular,
00:30:50.560has sort of been because of like the way that white supremacy shapes gender like gender norms
00:30:56.340that like black women have like even cisgender black women have been sort of like exiled to
00:31:01.480the margins of gender normativity even as they like even as many many people have like been
00:31:06.900themselves defined like imagine themselves a gender normative and so i think that's those
00:31:11.780those people are part of trans history too i think you know what i mean so that's just that's
00:31:15.860just my my shout out here no and thank you for that as well because yeah like we're going to get
00:31:20.460to with Samson Shurtleff and like there it runs with indigenous people but yeah this is also very
00:31:25.780much and a story that I think is similar to that of other poor white people in America at the time
00:31:31.720there was lots of poor not white people in America at the time who would have different life
00:31:36.160experiences but it sounds like so the first time they tried to sign up for the army somebody
00:31:41.540recognized so like oh Deborah and yeah somebody knew them um and what this says is I don't know
00:31:48.960what you think about this um but it says like because simpson shirtliff had an awkward way
00:31:53.520of holding a quill because one a part of one of their fingers was missing like something very
00:31:58.300distinctive that was like oh deborah oh that's interesting you're missing that forefinger just
00:32:02.340like deborah wait a minute that is deborah like i don't know it's safe as having like a distinctive
00:32:07.660birthmark or something anyway so whatever happened they were not accepted at this point yeah we know
00:32:13.360that like i mean that's interesting i actually haven't heard that story where is this coming
00:32:17.040from out of curiosity this is coming from um it's the women in world history essay okay okay
00:32:22.940yeah i mean i don't know that story but like we definitely know that they did try to sign up for
00:32:27.840the military at least once before i will just say like this essay in women in world history it's
00:32:33.540kind of it's a it's a very expensive thing and the essay is very in quality but they're always
00:32:38.420just a good rundown so that's kind of what i have in front of me oh yeah yeah and it's got a real
00:32:41.880like deborah samson a brave heroine of the american revolution i'm like delete these paragraphs
00:32:46.280and get to the actual stuff anyway yeah this is kind of going through so the second time or I
00:32:54.140don't know how many times they tried but they successfully enlisted as Robert Shurtleff which
00:32:58.780is the name of her her brother was called Robert I don't know where Shurtleff came from yeah sure
00:33:04.180well it's interesting you know I had um a graduate student whose name I'm blanking on right now
00:33:08.560actually told me he works on a period a little bit later than me said that um in in England
00:33:14.160like another word for a molly so a molly was like a word for like an effeminate man um so like or
00:33:21.040like or like a gay person do you know i mean some molly houses were like uh like sort of how like0.93
00:33:26.420body houses of like um of sort of like effeminate men and they were associated with sex work another0.88
00:33:31.840word for molly was a shirt lift like s-h-i-r-t-l-i-f-t and so i like i had i had never heard
00:33:39.300that this was way after like my book came out. And so I was like, Oh, that's so interesting that
00:33:43.960like, I mean, I love the idea that Simpson shortlift would have actually picked that name
00:33:49.000on purpose. But like, the likelihood of that, I think is actually low. But anyway, just a just a
00:33:53.780just a fact. It's what's interesting that I don't know anyone taking on if I love names,
00:33:59.140is a thing about me. And so I'm just like, wow, you know, I'm like, if I had to choose a fake
00:34:04.480name for myself, what would I choose? So like, I don't know how much thought went into the name.
00:34:08.140i know well and i will say that like samson also lived i'm not sure like let me just say that like
00:34:13.380there's a lot of bad history about samson so they definitely also lived as um they they traveled
00:34:19.380under their brother's name um another maybe another brother so i don't this is all just to
00:34:23.940say i'm not i'm curious whether they actually had a brother named robert but they definitely
00:34:28.800had a brother named ephraim and they lived as ephraim for a minute too yeah well it's just
00:34:33.460it's it's interesting i don't know the names i haven't looked at the census of people living
00:34:37.880in colonial America. But if I was trying to go like super undercover as a man, I'd be like,
00:34:44.320my name is Joe Smith. Like I choose like the most basic name, but Robert Shurtleff is like already,
00:34:51.080it's like, how do you spell that? Like to me, I'd be like that. That's a bit attention getting
00:34:55.020anyway. So accepted this time. So I think is, I don't know. I picture people in this time,
00:35:01.560like the founding fathers, they have their hair back in the little ponytails. So I imagine just
00:35:05.060like pulled it not cut the hair off but maybe just pull the hair back yeah well remember that
00:35:09.260like cutting hair is like difficult and also like um marks of normative masculinity you wouldn't you
00:35:14.800wouldn't really cut your hair do you know what i mean so like like like for example beards i mean
00:35:19.940i think the thing that would have been weirdest about samson shirtlip it would have been the
00:35:23.920lack of a beard because like um adult men if unless you were a priest or an actor or like a
00:35:29.060like a like a preacher or an actor you were expected to have a beard that was like that was
00:35:33.180like a standard so maybe they were understood as young which is also something that i think like
00:35:37.580trans trans and gender non-conforming people today will really identify with like now that i'm 42 it
00:35:42.800happens less often but like as a sort of like you know mass presenting person until like maybe five
00:35:48.640years ago people would be like oh like are you in high school and i'd be like i have literally
00:35:53.320wrinkles all over my face like who do you like how old do you think i am you know yeah so well
00:35:58.880i'm just thinking of all these examples i'm like you know like barbara straysand and yentl it's
00:36:02.580just like oh you know a young man is how they were taken probably and so let's see so this says and
00:36:08.380again this is from this essay and correct me if you haven't come across this information so it
00:36:11.560says they sign up for um three years or the duration of the war yeah yeah which is really
00:36:17.460vague it's like it could go on for 25 years but like this is how you get your money so that's
00:36:21.280what they did oh yeah here you go so because because they look too young to shave other
00:36:25.740soldiers began calling them molly i mean see like i'm again i'm curious where people i haven't sorry
00:36:32.360I think you sent this to me and I didn't read it because my work has been my work has been
00:36:36.760bananas recently but um I'm like if we're being really honest and you don't have to put this in
00:36:41.580the podcast of course I have some like healthy skepticism about like these sources do you know
00:36:46.140what I mean like I would like to like I'm like where are they getting this like there's just a
00:36:50.460lot of a lot of historical fantasizing that happens around figures like Samson Shortliffe
00:36:55.700which is not to say that it's wrong and I'm actually here for the historical fantasizing
00:36:58.940but as someone who's also done a lot of work on them um i'm a little bit like i haven't heard any
00:37:03.380of this so i've got i've got some questions no no this is good and i will also mention i'm not
00:37:07.500sure when this is from this is like i the public library is where i get this and it's this kind of
00:37:11.640like multi-volume set and this is probably from like 1992 so um and i think a lot of the sources
00:37:16.700are like women of the revolution um our heroines and now for a quick advertising break welcome
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00:53:35.200Yeah, I think there were, I think there were there in there like a little bit less than two years. Yeah.
00:53:40.140And during that time, there is, again, like this is like, I'm so glad you're here because just to sort of go through what happened and what was just sort of like, this will sell books.
00:53:49.720But there was an incident, perhaps, where they were directly involved in killing some Indigenous person or people.
00:53:58.920yeah so this is i mean i i tried to like game out like the first time i the first time i like was
00:54:04.600writing about this i was really trying to like follow the story that man was giving about like
00:54:09.580where samson was like there's no indication of where they are in samson or in um uh in man's
00:54:15.360in man's biography of samson shirtless my guess is they were in ohio what is now ohio or claimed
00:54:22.500as ohio or possibly um western pennsylvania so like i was like oh maybe lenape maybe miami like
00:54:29.760i was trying to like make an educated guess about like what like what the sort of um political you
00:54:35.780know origin political and cultural origin of the native person they supposedly killed was
00:54:39.680but i also like i mean do i doubt that samson killed a native person absolutely not i don't
00:54:44.840doubt that at all but like in terms of the way that it's narrativized in the story do i think
00:54:48.740that like that it happened as that story said i'm not sure do you know what i mean it's really
00:54:52.500it's really sort of proffered in man's biography as a way of like solidifying the realness of
00:54:58.060samson's masculinity and i think it's really important to think about like um like settler
00:55:02.840whiteness and um and sort of gendered freedom as like as these sort of mutually constitutive uh
00:55:09.680like um like things you know what i mean like the way that um particular forms of gendered freedom
00:55:15.680in the united states have like really happened um at the sort of like have like sort of occurred on
00:55:22.420the backs of like you know racial and colonial violence yeah so just whether it's true in the
00:55:29.820specifics or not the fact that this book was like here's proof of the masculinity and it's by
00:55:34.800killing an indigenous man like the fact that that would convince readers like oh yeah that is
00:55:39.840masculine like that just speaks to what culturally no it's right and that's intense right to think
00:55:45.220to think about that like oh we take this seriously now because you know samson was was someone who0.95
00:55:50.240like worked in like the settler colonial project it's intense yeah well and that's like right at
00:55:54.820the very beginning you were talking about like this is the complex legacy where it's not just
00:55:58.020like yay trans history it's all heroes it's like yeah it's like also colonial history and it's also
00:56:05.180yeah and it's like and it's like one of those things where it's like um like i i this is this
00:56:10.780is gonna sound like counterintuitive but like i want a world where trans people can also be
00:56:15.980villains like i don't want um i mean i don't want trans villains i don't want any villains but like
00:56:20.020there's there's a flatness that happens in like trans historiography where people are just looking
00:56:24.780for heroes and they're just looking for like models of trans life that like sort of reflect
00:56:29.500our own values in our current moment and the thing is like trans people are people they're good they're0.98
00:56:34.360bad they're evil they're you know what i mean they're wonderful they're ambivalent they're0.87
00:56:38.100complex like like everybody else and i was thinking about like i think about trump's like
00:56:43.200military ban of like trans people you know like when he was still in power which will probably
00:56:48.020be reinstated if he's um if he's elected and do i want do i want that form of discrimination of
00:56:54.140like anti-trans discrimination to exist in the world no but do i also want like do i do i support
00:56:59.440u.s militarism also absolutely no like and i'm the i'm the grandchild of like career air force
00:57:05.580officers you're in queer air force people yeah and that that level of it's the same thing like
00:57:10.680overall this podcast the project is kind of like women's history is what i look at a lot of the
00:57:16.040time and it's a similar thing in that where it's just like the history of women there is a flatness
00:57:22.560to it was just like look at these amazing women who did great stuff and it's like queen elizabeth
00:57:27.460the first like fucked up the world like it's not just like what girl power like it's the same like
00:57:33.420I think everyone everyone in history I think it's just respectful to sort of interrogate them and0.59
00:57:39.520look at their legacy and treat them as people not just as like yeah exactly and like we can really
00:57:44.240take seriously the way that people flouted gender norms without saying like that all flouting of
00:57:49.180gender norms um results has good results you know what I mean yeah no exactly so and that's part of
00:57:54.820why this is such a complex story so they are discharged at honorable honorable discharge um
00:58:01.260and then went to so this is post army life and this is post army life where i'm gonna just quote
00:58:10.620this terrible essay just so you know unable to resist the urge to cross dress again she wore
00:58:15.920men's clothing but one could also how would you phrase like they just continued i mean i don't i
00:58:21.940don't use the phrase i don't use the following my my friend and colleague colby gordon i don't use
00:58:26.740the word cross-dress to talk about like anyone in history unless people who like like except for
00:58:31.580people who literally said that about themselves which doesn't really start happening until like
00:58:35.300the 20th century so um i'll just you know the like i'll say they they sort of like lived as a man
00:58:41.240they donned men's attire that you know what i mean so yeah i mean simpson but simpson did we know
00:58:46.560simpson did live as a man um simpson shirtless lived as a man um maybe under a different name
00:58:51.120than shirtless also at that point so this is the tricky thing about calling them simpson shirtless
00:58:54.720um for a little bit after the revolutionary war as well and there's some evidence that they went
00:59:00.200and sort of like used their brother's name and just sort of like worked like on local farm and
00:59:04.780basically did what like white working people did they sort of went from town to town looking for
00:59:08.220work and i think what i saw in this earlier was pre-war um during the indentured servitude era i
00:59:16.380think they did do farm work so that's like a skill set that they have yeah so it's just like okay i'll
00:59:20.220just like brush off these skills and like this is and again if they're like a tall you know a
00:59:25.060strong person it's like well this is appropriate work like this i'll get hired for this job
00:59:28.280yeah and like you know the gender division of labor among poor people it just wasn't like stark
00:59:34.560like among wealthier people yeah sure you know what i mean but like among poor people you were
00:59:39.160expected to be able to do most things you know yeah no fair and that that reminds me of other
00:59:44.440things i've talked about this podcast that i won't tell you about but um just do you know the story of
00:59:49.720mary toft okay mary toft was a woman in um england who her evil in-laws made her pretend to give
01:00:01.420birth to rabbit parts oh this is in like around the same era anyway but what i know it was a weird
01:00:07.400story and it's one of the most trigger warning heavy episodes of this podcast i've ever done
01:00:11.160but anyway out of curiosity was mary talked um was what was was she or they into like
01:00:17.120evangelical religion by any chance um no it was just her family wanted it was during the time
01:00:24.540when it's like weird freak show stuff would make you money and this is the thing this is where i
01:00:29.620like to this story where it's just like they were dirt poor people um and like she gave birth to
01:00:34.680actual babies and then it's like you had to go back work on the field like someone would cover
01:00:38.220for her for one day and then she'd be back working on the fields so i was just thinking of that in
01:00:41.740the context of like women working on farms i'm like oh yeah yeah no i've read about this before
01:00:45.460where it's just kind of like we just need the hands like what are you doing not being at work
01:00:49.960it's like well I gave birth this morning it's like you're fired like yeah but it wasn't like
01:00:55.860you weren't fired because it also wasn't like free it wasn't wage labor yeah yeah yeah you're
01:01:00.740like you're not fired you're just going to stay in something that's sort of akin to captivity here
01:01:05.100for the next like seven years yeah just for longer yeah um okay so they're working and on a farm and
01:01:11.380then what happens here because then they start living as a woman again and also become sort of
01:01:18.520a celebrity yeah so i'm not really sure this this that period between between like sort of you know
01:01:25.500traveling around and working living as living as a man who may or may not have been named robert
01:01:29.780shirtless at that point and between that period and and and marrying and having kids i truly don't
01:01:34.720know because like by the time they start doing their tour where they're trying to raise money
01:01:40.140um and also like uh raise awareness um for this campaign that um a bunch of like sort of high
01:01:46.180profile white men have signed on to to try to get them an invalid pension at this point they were
01:01:51.860already married they had kids so like clearly there's like several intervening years there
01:01:55.540do you know at least a few intervening years um and so i don't i truly don't know you know like
01:02:00.940i i think that's kind of there's there's a kind of like absence of the historical record there
01:02:04.840um but we do know at some point they um start living as a woman they marry a man they have a
01:02:11.020bunch of kids so they take the then that person becomes deborah samson gannett that's the name
01:02:15.400they're living under um and then they start this they start this tour so they get like herman man
01:02:20.920um this very famous or they may not be famous but like a sort of powerful political printer
01:02:26.440named philip pernod in new york starts like taking up their cause and like wrote like this sort of
01:02:31.320long poem about them i've got to like reddit congress so what this says is just some details0.98
01:02:36.580that you can let me know if they're true or not actually no first i'm going to tell you a stupid0.94
01:02:39.840thing it says it's like samson soon attracted a suitor um which is the dumbest way to phrase that0.66
01:02:47.360but anyway um so it says so samson straight left received no pay while in the army this was not
01:02:54.960unusual as most soldiers went unpaid from 1782 to 1783 the continental currency was worthless
01:03:01.400um what does that mean what's the continental currency um i'm not not actually sure exactly
01:03:07.660what the continental currency was but so there was a huge problem in early america around money
01:03:11.860so remember that you have a you have a prior to prior to um nationhood so like up until the 1780s
01:03:19.620uh you don't like everything was just it's just this concatenation of different colonies right
01:03:24.120so they're all british colonies so you have the colony of maryland the colony of connecticut the
01:03:27.420colony of pennsylvania or the well whatever all these different colonies um and everyone had their
01:03:32.960own currency and the tricky thing is like as yeah so like it was it was a huge there's so much
01:03:38.400written on the sort of currency issues um uh and like and then there was huge inflation like some
01:03:44.840currency was worth more than others some people just didn't literally know what currency was
01:03:48.400that just seems so overly complicated yeah it was a real mess it was a huge mess so like like
01:03:53.580people if you i mean there are books and books and books and books and books written about this
01:03:57.680problem but yeah so and and a lot of currency was just worthless like apart from the problem that
01:04:02.480like you couldn't use like new jersey currency i think if i'm remembering right there's also like
01:04:07.820municipal currencies or like there were currencies that were like like there were multiple currencies
01:04:12.120within a particular colony too you know what i mean yeah so like um so like it was just like
01:04:17.580totally like total chaos and um and also there was huge inflation problems so like a lot of
01:04:23.260currency was worthless anyway you know what i mean is this we don't need to get into this
01:04:27.580but is this where alexander hamilton saves the day by making one currency is that what he did
01:04:32.200is that why he's famous honestly this is where like once we get into like i honestly don't work
01:04:37.040on the quote-unquote founding fathers at all i know like so hamilton was also instrumental in
01:04:42.480the creation of a national bank i do know that a national like yeah i'm like a national like i'm
01:04:46.980not sure if it's national reserve um i only know that frankly i'm gonna shout out to a like a law
01:04:52.660professor i had who my constitutional law professor um who who like played us the sort of
01:04:59.060um scene from the hamilton doc or the hamilton documentary the hamilton uh musical um where
01:05:04.660there's like a rap battle about this but yeah no and that's the full that's what i know what
01:05:10.320hamilton as well is from the musical but i'm just like money he did something with money this sounds
01:05:15.120like a problem perhaps he solved it okay i don't i don't know if it was the currency itself but
01:05:19.500honestly don't quote me on this because i'm not i am not a hamilton scholar i don't know
01:05:24.020well it just seems like okay so the money okay currency issues as you just described yeah
01:05:30.540eventually states issued veterans settlement certificates to be redeemed in the future
01:05:35.120like an iou or something yeah basically yeah which like kind of like a bond like a bond
01:05:41.160okay like you know you can wear you can buy like a government bond today yeah yeah um but
01:05:46.480samson short-lived had not been given one of these evidently they had lost their discharge
01:05:50.980papers yeah that's possible yeah so i mean the whole thing sounds like chaos like joining the
01:05:57.580army leaving the army like i feel like everyone's poor like of course like was paperwork issued like
01:06:03.700of course it wasn't like this just is yeah i mean well paperwork probably was issued but remember
01:06:08.140that like paper was itself a mess do you know what i mean like i work on a lot of i mean i do
01:06:13.300actually in archives um i work with a lot of 18th century documents and they are like it's a very
01:06:18.440different type of paper than the paper we have today and think about think about conditions like
01:06:22.920there were no trains there were no cars there were no buses like you were walking most like if
01:06:27.160you're a poor person you're walking you know you're getting from place to place by walking
01:06:30.400maybe if you have access to a horse but like horses were expensive you know so like and you're
01:06:35.500walking in all weather you're what you're sweating into the clothes you're wearing you're walking in
01:06:39.500the rain you're walking in the snow like that's not a great um and you don't have like there's no
01:06:44.340like um like like moisture wicking materials that like you know like people are wearing cotton you
01:06:50.000know or wool your stuff gets wet yeah it's you can't laminate it yeah so it probably just
01:06:55.700disintegrated yeah so then there's this uh lecture tour or no we're not the lecture tour yet at least
01:07:02.780in this document it says so at this point 1792 um samson short love sends a petition
01:07:08.340um to the massachusetts legislature and eight days later they were granted the sum of 34
01:07:14.300pounds which i don't who knows how much that meat is now i'm gonna i'm gonna see if i can
01:07:20.860ballpark it so like what year was that that was uh 1792 i want to say that in our currency that
01:07:28.160would be a few hundred dollars that feels like it like yeah yeah like about them right but there
01:07:33.780are historical currency converters you could just go online look that up oh for sure but it's not
01:07:37.420just like forty thousand dollars it's not like go buy a house no this is just no no no no yeah
01:07:42.720thank you so much for being the army go get a hot dog yeah exactly okay and then 1797 herman man
01:07:50.960published a biography of deborah samson robert shirtliff so this is where it says although he
01:07:56.920interviewed them at length the book contains much exaggeration and fiction yes yes um but this
01:08:03.520this book you said earlier was part of trying to get the pension was trying to share the story
01:08:10.580yeah yeah and remember that like so that like like seriously like three quarters of the book
01:08:16.520which i've read all the different manuscripts of it or the different versions of it
01:08:20.100three quarters of the book has nothing to do with their time in the military like at all like it's
01:08:24.600about their childhood there's a huge part of the female review the 1797 one that's about samson's
01:08:31.260kind of like unique genius like it's really focused on their educability and they're like
01:08:36.800their thirst for knowledge and they're like investment in like um observing and learning
01:08:42.260about the natural world and like you know like a lot of it and the and the cosmos like it's really
01:08:47.600it's like to me it almost reads like a treatise for public education do you know what i mean which
01:08:52.080would which would track given right relationship to education yeah yeah so there's kind of various
01:08:58.060goals of this of this work um it says here that man also prepared the speech for samson shirtlift
01:09:04.160which was delivered um which makes sense um to get someone to write that for you people still
01:09:10.240do that today get your speech yes absolutely yeah so and then yeah and so here's the lecture tour0.95
01:09:15.440so just delivering this speech at various places and part it says one of the first women to go on1.00
01:09:21.540a paid lecture circuit let me just say though that like what that like um that had a real precedent
01:09:29.160in british uh some british people doing it like hannah snell very similar there's a huge range
01:09:35.680of stories like kathy davidson writes writes about this of like people who joined the military
01:09:40.860people assigned female births who joined the military then come out and like who joined the
01:09:45.500military as men leave the military start living as a woman and then and then tell the story of it
01:09:51.820so hannah snell like i i think it's quite possible that man knew about hannah snell and actually like
01:09:57.780suggested that samson at that point samson gannett do what hannah snell did and go on this lecture
01:10:03.660tour which again go on this lecture lecture tour and perform military drills yeah yeah and so and
01:10:08.260that's what the lecture it was like here's the speech and i'm gonna put on the uniform and like
01:10:12.820do some military stuff and yes people pay tickets to see it because like again it's just hustling
01:10:18.020just like needing money yeah and it's like you know remember the lectures were like um lectures
01:10:22.360and these kinds of public presentations were like a major form of popular entertainment for more
01:10:26.160wealthy people so like you know it's like like we can go to the movies people at that point could
01:10:30.680go to like lectures and plays yeah so it's it's just interesting it's um it just reminds me of
01:10:36.440nowadays you know people everybody has a side hustle and various things it's like you know
01:10:40.860use promo code stamps and short lift for like that's the vibe just like trying to do whatever
01:10:46.980they can to to get money because like the well again like there's i think at least three children
01:10:53.200they're too because of the disability not able to work so it's all just what can you do yeah i mean
01:10:59.740the lecture tour was them working but yeah they just you know they they were disabled and they
01:11:03.860start like this is again go to don jane like don james mclaughlin's as saying if you want i can
01:11:09.080like i don't know if you link to link to stuff on your podcast but i can send it to you so you can
01:11:12.660say yeah yeah like listeners it'll be in the show notes yeah because that's a really interesting
01:11:16.660angle i hadn't thought about but then we get into some i was like oh um some little celebrity
01:11:22.920neighbor paul revere is friends of theirs and paul revere wrote on their behalf to try and get this
01:11:29.840yeah a lot of people they did have a lot of like kind of like i think through man herman man and
01:11:35.060other people they had a lot of like wealthy male um kind of uh supporters i just got i was like
01:11:42.140paul revere i know that name vaguely um famous one of my land two of by sea yeah yeah so there um
01:11:50.260this is just like where the the quest for the pension like kicks up a notch yet more um where
01:11:56.520like other people like paul revere are writing on their behalf and stuff yes and this is an ongoing
01:12:01.300thing so like 1804 applying for the disabled veterans pension 1805 uh congress placed them
01:12:10.160on a stipend of four dollars a month eight dollars a month anyway so like some money but like not
01:12:17.700a livable wage i would say well yeah i mean yeah i mean that's i'm trying to remember what people
01:12:22.820were making of that era i'd have to look it up like do you know i mean i don't remember on the
01:12:25.740top of my head but if you think about that first payment of 34 bucks that or 34 pounds that they
01:12:30.620bought i don't i don't know what the pound a dollar ratio was but like if you think of it as
01:12:35.520roughly about the same in that moment eight dollars a month what is that what you just said
01:12:39.960eight dollars a month yeah eight dollars a month like times 12 would what's eight times 12 it's
01:12:44.960like it's not 96 it's um no maybe it is 96 it's 48 times two yeah it's 96 good job yeah yeah no
01:12:52.540yeah but like i mean that's 96 dollars a year so that gives you a sense of what 34 34 pounds would
01:12:58.180have been do you know what i mean so not not not a year it would have been maybe like a three month
01:13:03.440salary for a poor person and then also again like a house and a farm and children so like it's it's
01:13:09.640not nothing but still it's not yeah which is just interesting like in the context of like the
01:13:15.960american revolution and like all these heroes and stuff it's like the veterans not treated
01:13:19.960well after the fact even though that's they were so instrumental in winning because you need troops
01:13:26.980and remains i mean that remains true to this day you know what i mean like veterans are not treated
01:13:31.660are not supported the way that they need to be by the u.s government like as much as i'm like
01:13:35.840anti-militarism i'm very pro-person you know what i mean again i am uh i am the grandchild of
01:13:41.720um a sort of career career military people and also career police people on the other side
01:13:46.200and again i'm i'm um anti-militarism and anti-policing but i'm also like i if the if
01:13:52.520the government is going to employ people to do its work, then it needs to support them after
01:13:57.660they leave, especially when they're injured, you know? Yeah. Well, especially when what they're
01:14:01.420doing is inherently dangerous, like with muskets and whatever. It's like, yeah, it's like, thank1.00
01:14:07.240you for your service. Like, that's not money. Yeah. Yeah. But so this is like, I've lost track
01:14:13.340of like how old they are at this point. But so 1827, they die age 66. Yes. So okay, so 66,
01:14:22.10027 oh god i can't do that math in my head right now but but basically they've been fighting for
01:14:28.660a pension for like 25 plus years yeah and it says several months before their death when asked the
01:14:34.140value of their possessions they replied all they had was 20 worth of clothing yeah so that's pretty
01:14:39.360standard for for a poor person pretty standard although i will say because i do especially right
01:14:45.820now i know that um a lot of the listeners on my podcast are american and i i i have not until
01:14:51.180recently done American history, but I like telling people when there's places they can go.
01:14:56.080And the grave is, um, there's a whole wing in Rockbridge Cemetery, um, in Sharon.
01:15:02.660Yeah. Sharon. Totally. It's central Massachusetts. Actually, my aunt lives quite
01:15:07.740close to there. Yeah. Okay. So a whole wing of Rockbridge Cemetery is dedicated as a memorial
01:15:12.580to Deborah Sampson Gannett. So people who live near there. I should go. I should go. Yeah.
01:15:16.640Well, I mean, if anyone's there, I'm usually like, so this tomb in like, you know, Romania, it's like, I don't know how many people are going to be in that neighborhood. But like here, perhaps people could go.
01:31:39.700I mean, I've done a bunch of different things.
01:31:40.820And I also edited a special issue of a journal called Trans Studies Quarterly with my friend
01:31:47.100Serena Bassey on and the the special issue is about is organized around trans exclusionary
01:31:52.440feminisms and the global new right so that's much more of a contemporary like a like sort of set of
01:31:58.380collection of pieces about um the politics of right-wing with the gender politics of right-wing
01:32:03.240movements right now and it's especially interested in the way that that like uh alt-right and far-right
01:32:08.360movements are kind of like organizing against um around transness as an experience so yeah so check
01:32:14.760it out if you want to. I'm sort of on Twitter, Greta LaFleur, G-R-U-T-A-L-A-F-L-U-R. I'm not0.92
01:32:20.560super active on social media, to be honest. Yeah. Good for you, honestly. Good. No one should be.
01:32:27.780But also just what you mentioned about that, the recent article, like that's part of why
01:32:32.620I really want to share these stories on my podcast, just to sort of like to continue to
01:32:38.720reinforce to people that it's not just like trans history was not just invented yes like there's
01:32:45.920always been people living outside of a gender binary comment you know like that this is not
01:32:52.620new this is it's just people like deborah sampson like the story has i think until very pretty
01:32:57.960recently been told is like a brave patriotic woman who had to disguise her had to cross dress
01:33:04.060but it's like but recontextualizing these stories in in the broader umbrella of trans history i
01:33:09.620think just kind of just that's what i feel i can do on this podcast is just just just just be low
01:33:15.120key constantly reminding people that like this is not new there's been people like yeah yeah like
01:33:19.680it's hatched up so it was like whatever 15 000 years ago like if if like if you're talking about
01:33:25.760historically it's like this has always been a thing like this is not new yeah yeah not anyway
01:33:31.040Thank you so much. Honestly, I could never have done this without you. All the American history nuances. I'm just like, oh, the American Revolution was more than one month. Oh, okay. Like, I'm so clueless.
01:33:41.700It sure was. Yeah. No problem at all. And thanks for having me on.
01:33:44.840Yeah, you're the perfect guest. And yeah, thank you so much.
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