William Shakespeare’s Love of a Transfeminine Earl
Some will tell you that gender variance is a recent phenomenon. It is not. William Shakespeare, by many reckoned as he greatest playwright that has ever existed, lived in a time where men played the role of women on stage, so he was used to crossdressing (as in men playing the role of crossdressing women).
What is less well known is his love for Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton (1573-1624), who today could probably best be described as some shade of MTF transfeminine, trans or gender queer.
They were often referred to as Rose, and it is Rose we see in the portrait above (dated to 1590-3 based on the expensive lace collar on their dress.)
Shakespeare’s sonnet number 20 was most likely addressed to the Earl:
A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion:
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.
Sparknotes present the following modern language version of the poem:
Your face is as pretty as a woman’s, but you don’t even have to use makeup—you, the man (or should I say woman?) I love. Your heart is as gentle as a woman’s, but it isn’t cheating like theirs. Your eyes are prettier than women’s, but not as roving—you bless everything you look at. You’ve got the good looks of a handsome man, but you attract both women and men. When Mother Nature made you, she originally intended to make you a woman, but then she got carried away with her creation and screwed me by adding a certain thing that I have no use for. But since she gave you a prick to please women, I’ll keep your love, and they can enjoy your body.
Many have pointed out that this sonnet has feminine rhymes throughout.
To me it seems all of this indicates that Shakespeare was some shade of queer, although not necessarily in the way we understand that term today. Pansexual, maybe?
More about Henry Wriothesley and gender variance in Shakespeare’s poems here!
