Thomas Ine Hall Gender

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Thomas(ine) Hall, an English servant brought to trial for alternating between male and female clothing and mannerisms in 1629 caused much public controversy. During this time, gender is a strict binary in place to aid social order. A society accustomed to policing its people, the idea that men have sex with women and all other types of sex are sinful is heavily imposed. Therefore, without modern medicine to biologically determine one’s sex, markers such as clothing and mannerisms mattered to identify which gender category a person belonged to. Thus, when faced with a person who does not follow this binary it created a crisis as to whom this person has sex with, generating a sense of need to protect others from Thomas(ine)’s mysterious sex.