2013/11/14 by Michelle Liu Carriger · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes #Gothic Literature and Media Analysis #Literature: history, themes, analysis
paper · doi:10.1162/dram_a_00307
openalex publication_date 2013/11/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/16
The 1870–71 tabloid trial of cross-dressers Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park revealed Victorian society wrestling with the concept of “theatricality” in everyday life. The prosecution sought to expose that the traditionally unspeakable act of sodomy was (paradoxically) encoded in cross-dressing; while the defense employed the “theatre defense”—a systematic insistence that the defendants were just amateur actors. But within British society theatre was both part of the status quo and a haven for a disturbing doubleness—“conspiracies of meaning” that troubled Victorian obsessions with truth-telling and the “natural.”