The Chevalière d'Eon, Transgender Autobiography and Identity.

The Chevalier/Chevalière d’Eon lived as a man until age forty-seven and thereafter as a woman until death at age eighty-two in 1810. Recent scholarship has emphasised this soldier-diplomat-spy’s manipulations and duplicity and even questions whether the chevalière should be considered transgender. The Great Historical Epistle by the Chevalière d’Eon, with all its fabrications, however, demonstrates how language and culture shape gender identities. This article compares the chevalière’s self-construction with the picture left by her contemporaries and later, by scholars. Viewed in context of current transgender self-writing, the Epistle offers insights into the nature of truth in autobiography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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