“The Man Who Thought Himself a Woman” and Other Queer Nineteenth-Century Short Stories constitutes half a very apt title and half an ostentatious title. It is debatable whether including in the title of this collection of various literary works by an assortment of 19th century writers the most incendiary individual title included is good for marketing. What is not debatable is that it may be a choice which sends the whole premise of the collection skittering off the runway before anyone has even boarded the plane.
“The Man Who Thought Himself a Woman” is just one of several different examples of what this book is actually about: short stories written in the1800’s that illuminate the different meaning and context of the concept of the word “queer.” With that likely-to-offend placed even before the actual subjective title of the book itself, it is simply too easy to assume that queer means homosexual and homosexual only. Thus, the leap is right to a misassumption: this is not loaded with queer fiction, but homosexual fiction. And that is simply not the case.
The collection includes a prime candidate for the single best short story ever written by an America. It takes at least at the very least a good three or four readings of “Dave’s Neckliss” by Charles Chesnutt to even begin approaching the layers within layer within layer within layers of its constructive genius. So complex and comprehensive is this story that it is absolutely inadvisable to reject out of hand that it contains any homosexual subtext. That said, one will be hard-pressed to come across any serious scholarship on this topic connected with the story or even, for that matter, any amateur analysis on blogs or essay sites. That it is not there cannot be affirmatively stated, but that it is not there in nearly enough volume to warrant inclusion in a collection of “homosexual fiction” is undeniable. Therefore, “Dave’s Neckliss” is obviously included in a collection of “queer fiction” to connect with “queer” in a different connotation than homosexuality.
For that matter, “The Man Who Thought Himself a Woman” would not be much more comfortable in a collection of homosexual fiction. It is a precursor of transgender fiction in which a suicide note ends with the words “I think I am woman.” The same prohibition against queer as equitable homosexuality goes for stories included in the book by such unexpected names as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and Herman Melville. The book sets up the reader with a title that direct connects expectations of “queer nineteenth-century stories” with preconceived assumptions about the connection of queer with male femininity and male femininity with homosexual.
Perhaps choosing the most obviously scandalous title from the stories within to be slapped across the book as a whole was made for reasons more complex than mere attention-grabbing. It could be a sneaky little trick to force the reader to confront their own initial assumptions toward the meaning of the word “queer” as they have come to apprehend it. Still, it is a gamble. One well worthy of paying off.
