My paper today focuses on reenacting portrayals of men by people who were assumed female at birth (AFAB), including cis women, nonbinary people, and trans men, and what their experiences say about the gendered significance of the Revolution in the present. I’ve done interviews with 22 AFAB reenactors so far, who I’ve identified through what’s called snowball sampling, or interviewing a few people who publicly identify and then asking them to refer others in their network who might also be interested in being interviewed.

Judith Kalaora portraying Deborah Sampson, Revolution on the Hudson event, October 22, 2023

The BAR is not the only Revolution reenacting group, and not all Revolutionary era groups belong to the BAR, but it remains one of the so-called Big 3 umbrella organizations. The other members of the Big 3—the Continental Line and the British Brigade—splintered from the BAR in 1975 and 1988 respectively, and the BAR was long regarded as setting standards in the hobby. Part of this standard-setting was the exclusion of “women in the ranks.” Women were never a large part of Civil War shooting clubs but they were present, and in the original version of the BAR’s bylaws for its incorporation as a non-profit, women were specifically welcomed at non-costumed shooting events but specifically excluded from costumed portrayals for reasons of historical authenticity. The BAR’s bylaws have undergone two major revisions, and as of 2023, this provision of the bylaws remains in force. The current BAR president intends to bring a change of this provision to a vote by membership later this year, but expressed concerns to me that the change may not pass. The fear isn’t unfounded; in 2023 the Acton Minutemen, a BAR member unit, voted against a bylaws change that would allow AFAB people to portray men in the unit. The Continental Line and the British Brigade, by contrast, neither explicitly welcome nor deny AFAB portrayals of men, and some British Brigade units are up to 40% AFAB people who portray men.

Officially, AFAB people are not barred from portraying men at most historic sites and museums. Since 1992, the National Parks Service has officially prohibited NPS sites from disallowing reenactors due to their race, sex, religion, or other federally protected status. Prior to 1992, NPS site policy was left to the discretion of individual site directors, many of whom unofficially barred AFAB people from portraying men. The policy changed stemmed from a 1989 incident in which a cis woman, Lauren Cook-Burgess, participated at a Civil War reenactment at Antietam National Battlefield with her husband and the rest of their unit, who were aware of her presence and gender. Antietam staff were not aware of her gender, and as Cook-Burgess said in one newspaper interview after the incident, staff only “clocked” her when they saw her leaving the women’s restroom. Cook-Burgess was told to leave the event on the grounds that her gender made her portrayal less authentic than the standards required by the NPS, and she brought a successful federal discrimination suit against the NPS in 1991. (Cook-Burgess has also since gone on to author four university press books about the service of women disguised as men during the Civil War, a response she’s discussed in interviews as a reaction to the arguments made about the historical inauthenticity of her portrayal).

Officially, all of the museums and historic sites I’ve spoken to follow the lead of the NPS in this regard for a combination of legal and ideological reasons. One site director I spoke to called allowing AFAB people to portray men “both ass-covering and evangelical”—that is, Cook-Burgess’s successful federal discrimination suit has made some institutions, including the BAR, concerned that explicitly barring participants on the basis of gender or sex will invite a lawsuit. However, many heritage sites also specifically fill paid costumed site staff positions both gender and race-neutral as part of an institutional mission to a maximally inclusive portrayal of the American Revolution.

Fort Ticonderoga is one of the largest and most visible historic sites with a gender- and race-neutral interpretive site staff and invited hobby reenactor policy. Among reenactors and other heritage institutions, Fort Ti is widely regarded as setting the standard for authenticity and interpretation, with their guidelines widely reproduced by both volunteer groups and other institutions. The vice president of public history, Stuart Lillie, who is in charge of inviting volunteer reenactor units and hiring costumed site staff, told me that he had pushed for active recruitment of both people of color and women in the ranks because it “viscerally offends” him to think that young people of color or young women “can’t imagine themselves as part of the past” when they don’t see themselves represented at living history museums the way that young white men can. He and many others in the hobby told me that meeting reenactors at museums and events as children sparked what became a professional interest in history; Lillie and some others I’ve spoken with explicitly linked efforts to increase the visible diversity of costumed interpreters with efforts to reach a broader range of the public.

Lillie and a former BAR boardmember also told me that their thinking about AFAB people portraying men had changed over the years as they met AFAB reenactors and became fathers. Lillie said he would “F up” anyone who told his daughter she couldn’t do anything she wanted to do, while the BAR board member said that he used to be “an authenticity shithead” until he met a woman in another unit who could outperform all the men he’d ever met, and he wanted his daughter to participate in his hobby as much as this woman did.

Many reenactors and site directors I’ve spoken with who are in favor of AFAB portrayals of men argue that AFAB portrayals can be much more authentic than cis men’s portrayals in ways that invoke concerns about disability and bodily fitness. They make these arguments not just about the material kit of a portrayal, but also about peoples’ very bodies. One of the major concerns in the hobby right now is the greying of the hobby as the majority of participants who joined during the bicentennial begin to age out, and part of the inherent silliness of reenacting is that most reenactors acknowledge that full authenticity is impossible—people are too old, too young, too heavy, have too straight of teeth, etc. Concerns about these facets of bodily authenticity often get expressed through bullying, sometimes as subtle jabs in person and sometimes as breathtakingly awful public shaming, as when this photo circulated online in 2017 with devastating comments about the weight and age of the people pictured.

An image widely circulated in 2017 on the FarbFest Facebook page and several youtube channels with mocking comments about the inauthenticity of individuals who are overweight, too old, or too young.

Several—but, importantly, not all—of the people I’ve spoken to who are in favor of AFAB portrayals of men argue that an AFAB person who is not visibly overweight, who doesn’t have bad knees, and who can carry a pack on march is “more authentic” than a cis man who is overweight, has bad knees, or can’t march long distances. One cis woman I interviewed said that she “made a better 20 year old boy” than “a big fat guy with a beard,” and Stuart Lillie asked me during our interview: “Who looks better in the line: A woman who’s the right size, or an old guy with a beer gut?” Fort Ticonderoga’s authenticity standards underline this without stating it outright, by emphasizing that 18th century clothing fit and bodily carriage is more important than gender or material of clothing.

There’s a couple of things going on with these arguments about why AFAB people’s portrayals are more authentic than some cis men’s—first, on a personal level, reenactor men follow the same pattern as male politicians and voters who show more concern about women’s issues after having daughters. (Washington 2008; Conley and Rauscher 2013) Second, it also shows an institutional shift towards investing AFAB people with historical authority in interpreting the past outside of women’s history. Many reenactor groups and heritage institutions do incorporate women’s history in some way, but it’s often not the central focus.

Finally, the institutional support for including AFAB people in portrayals of men is often perceived as a demographic and existential necessity. In addition to the Cook-Burgess lawsuit, Lillie linked the Fort’s gender- and race-neutral recruitment of costumed site staff directly to attempts to increase visitor numbers and therefore ticket sales and revenue. The BAR organizationally feels itself to be facing an existential crisis as bicentennial era reenactors begin to age out of the hobby without the anticipated upswing in recruitment for the 250th. Several BAR members expressed concerns to me that without enough young men joining reenacting units, the BAR “might as well” recruit women as well. In the BAR’s recent 60th anniversary retrospective newsletter, several founding members reminisced about the early days of the organization when there weren’t enough men to field a unit, so they drafted their wives and daughters to portray men in order to meet contract commitments to events—a necessity that the founding members said happily came to an end once more cis men joined during the bicentennial era. AFAB portrayals of men are seen by some to be a necessity when sufficient numbers of cis men can’t be had because portrayals of military men are felt to be intrinsic to the very nature of the hobby.

For individual reenactors, the affective play of the imagined past can open up a space for gender exploration or affirmation. One of the AFAB nonbinary people I spoke with said that reenacting was the first place they encountered where they could try on non-femme gender expression without commitment, because they could temporarily inhabit a male role before deciding to socially transition “in real life.” One trans man said that reenacting allowed him to “escape the weirdness” of living and dressing as a woman, especially because he felt that 18th century gender performance was “dialed up to 11” compared to what he was able to wear in his daily life.

Several of the cis women I interviewed likewise said that they felt more comfortable portraying men because 18th century men’s clothing and gender roles were closer to what they were comfortable with in their daily lives. As a relatively femme cis woman, I have to say that this was also my feeling as well: while in my real life I have the option to wear jeans and a ratty flannel or a nice sundress whenever I want, reenacting felt almost like high-femme drag with the mandatory skirt, apron, stays, and cap. Sometimes that’s fun, but sometimes it felt like being reduced to a gender role that I don’t find fulfilling or in line with my image of myself.

Another trans man I spoke to said that reenacting helped him realize he wanted to transition, because the unit he was with at the time pressured him to explicitly portray a woman like Deborah Sampson who hid her gender and served temporarily as a man, and wanted him to talk with public about himself as a woman. The experience made him realize that he didn’t want to portray a woman disguised as a man—he was a man.

The emphasis on military portrayals complicates the spaces that people feel are open to this kind of gender exploration. One AFAB nonbinary person told me that reenacting let them “put on and take off a gender mask” as they processed their feelings about gender because they could rationalize that their unit needed more men. All of the trans men I spoke with have done both civilian and military portrayals and felt they were always treated as men by other reenactors in their civilian roles. Many of the cis women and AFAB nonbinary people I spoke with said that they only felt comfortable portraying men in military contexts. I only spoke with one lesbian cis woman who regularly portrayed a civilian man. She refuses to ever do a military portrayal for modern religious reasons as a member of the Society of Friends. Many of the other cis women said that when they wanted to do a civilian portrayal, they changed back into 18th century female clothing. One cis woman told me that she would prefer to only portray a civilian man, but that she didn’t think there was any place for her to do that.

The majority of the 22 AFAB people I spoke with said they had only positive experiences portraying men, but several had very negative experiences that point to the limited acceptance of AFAB people portraying men. These experiences ranged from social pressures to gender-based violence. One trans man said that he found it humiliating to reach out to new units to ask if he would be allowed to join, because he felt it would invite speculation about his body and gender, but also felt it necessary to socially transition in his reenacting hobby because he felt increasingly unsafe using women’s bathrooms as anti-trans sentiment has increased scrutiny of who uses what bathroom in the US.

Many of the cis women I interviewed who portray women said they would never “galtroop” because it’s inauthentic—galtroop is a derisive reenactor term for women who portray men, often with connotations of inauthenticity, manishness, sexual undesireability, or sexual promiscuity. Through both the absence of clearly inclusive policies and social pressure, hobby reenactors discourage AFAB portrayals of men by positioning them as inauthentic. During one group interview I conducted with people who identified as heterosexual cis women, I asked if any of them had reenacted other periods besides the Revolution. One woman responded that she sometimes portrayed a WW2 medic and was immediately met with nominally joking shouts of “Galtroop! Galtroop!” by her friends. The medic clarified that she only ever portrayed a female medic, not a male medic, and the group assured me that their group didn’t include any women who portrayed men because it was inauthentic and their standards for authenticity were too high for that.