190:: "hee is a man and a woeman". Before Hall's time, any individual determined by court to be "man and woman" was forced to adopt either a permanent male or female identity, based on their predominant genitalia. Due to the intense ambiguity of Hall's body and lifestyle, the court could not determine if they were more male or female and required them to dress in clothing that symbolized this confusion. Hall was forced to "goe clothed in man's apparell, only his head to bee attired in a coyfe and crosscloth with an apron before him". While removing Hall's autonomy regarding their appearance was certainly a punishment, it seems that the community was more focused on preventing Hall from having sexual relations with people who were confused by their ambiguity. The primary concern of the court at the time appears to have been the possibility of same-sex intercourse, despite the confusion surrounding what Hall's sex might actually be.
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village, who claimed experience with interpreting the female body. Three women – Alice Long, Dorothy Rodes, and
Barbara Hall – decided to examine Hall's anatomy. More than once, they entered Hall's home while Hall slept and observed Hall's genitalia. They decided that Hall lacked a "readable set of female genitalia" and persuaded Hall's plantation master, John Atkins, to confirm their determination. Atkins had previously claimed that Hall was female but, after inspecting Hall during sleep, agreed that Hall was male, having seen "a small piece of flesh protruding from body". Hall apparently claimed also to have female anatomy, described as "a peece of an hole", but Atkins, Long, Rodes, and Barbara Hall said that they could find no evidence of this.
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because they did not have enough heat to develop external genitalia. They believed that strenuous physical activity or even "mannish behavior" could cause testicles to exit from inside the vagina, explained as "evidence of Nature's unerring tendency toward a state of greater perfection". This left the work of defining the sexes to other societal institutions, which relied on "performing" gender through consistent dress, names, occupations, and sexual relationships. Hall, defying these practices by using the clothes and names of both, has been cited as an early example of "a gender nonconforming individual in colonial
America".
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small penis". Hall said that it was only an inch (2.5 cm) long and was not functional. Male incompetence was considered sufficient to determine female sex during the early modern colonial period, and Bass decided that Hall was not properly a man. This meant that Hall could not be prosecuted for debauching Besse.
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impermissible at that time." She states that making Hall a public spectacle would have been devastating and limiting of Hall's personhood, and this radical act contradicts not only earlier legal accounts, but also later legal and medical responses to the state of being intersex (formerly called "hermaphroditism").
161:. Hall's biological sex was thus an issue of criminal responsibility; as a male, Hall could be prosecuted for sexual misconduct with a servant. Hall accused a woman called Alice Long of spreading the rumor, but Long said that the story originated with a servant of the Tyoses, Hall's previous employers.
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Hall was not strict about presenting consistently as male in this new environment. Hall occasionally wore female clothing, which confused neighbors, masters, and captains of plantations. When queried about wearing feminine clothes, Hall replied: "I goe in womans apparel to get a bitt for my Catt". It
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In early 1628, Hall appears to have been arrested on a charge of receiving stolen goods, though there is a slight doubt about whether this is the same Thomas Hall. Hall was living with a John and Jane Tyos. It was claimed that Hall and the Tyoses had encouraged a neighbor to commit theft and sell the
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in
England. Hall was raised as a female and performed traditional women's crafts, such as needlework. At the age of twelve, Hall was sent to London to live with an aunt, and lived there for ten years and observed the popularity among the aristocracy of crossover male and female fashion. These trends
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Atkins ordered Hall to wear exclusively male clothing and urged the most prominent tobacco planter in the village, Captain
Nathanial Bass, to punish Hall for "abuse". Bass confronted Hall and bluntly asked if Hall was a man or a woman. Hall claimed to be both, "although he had what appeared to be a
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As a young adult in the early 1620s, Hall decided to adopt a man's hairstyle and "changed into the fashion of a man" in order to follow a brother into the all-male military service. Hall then served in the military in
England and France. Hall returned to Plymouth, and earned a living for a time by
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Reis states that the novel solution required by the court was a deliberate form of unjust punishment, "not to endorse uncertainty, but to preclude future acts of deception, to mark the offender, and to warn others against similar abomination. Dual-sexed Hall embodied an category of sex considered
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The villagers decided to take the case to the
Quarter Court of Jamestown, just as Christians in Europe did in similar situations. As described by Reis, a "solution consistent with scripture-based laws as interpreted by Talmudic commentaries and consonant with early modern European customs" was to
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Residents of
Warrosquyoacke claimed that Hall's changes of dress and sexual relations with members of both sexes were causing disorder. Lacking a local court or church to determine biological sex, the authority of the distinction fell to the laypersons, more specifically the married women of the
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Kathleen M. Brown states that, in the early modern period, medical theorists and scientists worked under a framework that posited that the sexes were potentially mutable; women were not a separate sex but "an imperfect variant of men". They believed that male organs were tucked inside of women
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Further court records have not survived. The goods of a recently deceased Thomas Hall are recorded as being disposed of in early 1633. Another Thomas Hall appears to have been living in the vicinity in the 1640s. There is no way of knowing whether either of them are the Hall recorded in this
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is unclear what Hall meant by this; scholars have suggested either that Hall dressed as a woman in order to seduce women, or in order to have sex with men. Sometimes, even when presenting as
Thomasine, Hall was rumored to be having sexual relations with women.
141:, a village of likely fewer than 200 people (during the 1620s), founded on the site of an old Indian village along the James River, and home of two tobacco plantations. Tobacco planters in need of workers preferred hiring men.
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whose wearing of female attire and, on subsequent investigation, a liaison with a maid provoked public controversy in 1629. Hall was subjected to a physical inspection, and the case reached the
Quarter Court in
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presided and the court heard from several witnesses, as well as from Hall. In a departure from similar
European cases, the court ruled that Hall had a "dual nature" sex, or what modern society classifies as
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233:("On the Laws and Customs of England"), c. 1235, states that "A hermaphrodite is classed with male or female according to the predominance of the sexual organs."
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Brown, Kathleen (1995). "'Changed into the Fashion of a Man': The Politics of Sexual Difference in a Seventeenth Century Anglo-American Settlement".
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Norton, Mary Beth, "Communal Definitions of Gendered identity in Colonial America", Ronald Hoffman, Mechal Sobel, Fredrika J. Teute (eds)
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Stories spread that Hall had sexual relations with the maid nicknamed "Great Besse", who worked for the former governor of Virginia,
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Hall's given name is typically written as "Thomas(ine)" or "Thomas/ine" in scholarly literature on the case.
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as an indentured servant. Pursuing a different work opportunity, Hall relocated to the small settlement at
684:, edited by New-York Historical Society, 7 May 2020; a concise run-down of Thomas(ine) Hall's life story.
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Nothing further is known about Hall's life or about how long the dual-sexed clothing rule was applied.
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states that "Whether an hermaphrodite may witness a testament, depends on which sex prevails", while
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Reis, Elizabeth (September 2005). "Impossible Hermaphrodites: Intersex in America, 1620–1960".
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Meadow, Tea (2010). "'A Rose Is a Rose': On Producing Legal Gender Classifications".
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Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society
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making bone lace and other needlework, reverting to the lifestyle of Thomasine.
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According to Hall's own account, Hall was born and christened Thomasine Hall at
670:, April 28, 1996; a brief summary of the case in a review of Mary Beth Norton,
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Around 1627, Hall donned men's clothing again, left England, and settled in
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Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on Personal Identity in Early America
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make an individual "choose" either "man" or "woman" as their gender.
618:. (2009). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 17 March 2009, from
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Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community
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stolen goods to them. The property was found in the Tyoses' house.
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Hall's case reached the Quarter Court on April 8, 1629. Governor
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Women & The American Story. "Life Story: Thomas(ine) Hall"
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Historical figures with ambiguous or disputed gender identity
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Vaughan, Alden (1978). "The Sad Case of Thomas(ine) Hall".
217:") depended on the sex that predominates. The 12th-century
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may have influenced Hall to break away from social norms.
531:(2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 14–16.
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444:The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
640:. Vol. 2 (Thorne ed.). p. 32.
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595:"Decretum Gratiani (Kirchenrechtssammlung)"
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512:Bridenbaugh, Carl (1980).
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529:American Sexual Histories
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527:Reis, Elizabeth (2012).
483:10.1177/0891243210385918
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44:. The reason given is:
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655:"Seeing to the 'I'"
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692:Categories
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284:References
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211:canon law
183:John Pott
135:Jamestown
103:Jamestown
53:. Please
51:talk page
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241:See also
188:intersex
94:intersex
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276:case.
263:Notes
578:ISBN
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