A Blast From The Past… The Way, Way Past

One of the more famous trans person was from the Eighteenth Century, if you haven’t of her you should have.

(Note: Some of these article are old and from European sources and use words that are our of style now here in the U.S,) 

Meet a lost transgender icon: the Chevalier d’Éon
LGBTQ Nation
By Gwendolyn Smith
October 20, 2018

Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Éon de Beaumont — far better known as the Chevalier d’Éon — was a French diplomat, soldier, and spy active in the mid to late 1700s. They could also have been intersex or transgender.

In the 1750s, d’Éon was part of King Louis XV’s secret contingent of spies, and over the next 30 years ended up serving France in Russia and England, as well as leading soldiers in the Seven Years War.

Museum Hack had this to say about Chevalier d’Éon,

The Mystery Of Chevalier D’Eon
By Alex Johnson
March 8, 2018

Contradictions, eh?

Life is full of them, but it’s rare to find so many in one place, at one time, and in one person.

Le Chevalier d’Eon was both a diplomat and a soldier; born noble, yet later impoverished; an international celebrity, but also a clandestine spy.

And, throughout the course of her life, d’Eon lived as both a man and a woman—she was the first openly transgender person in European history. 1

By many accounts, d’Eon appears to have perpetuated much of the mystery herself, becoming the subject of great public fascination, particularly in London, where she spent much of her life.
[…]
On October 5, 1728, d’Eon was born Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Éon de Beaumont.

His life as a spy began when d’Eon was 28.

At some point early in his career—these things weren’t exactly done on the books, you see—d’Eon was recruited for King Louis XV’s secret network of spies. Le Secret du Roi—the King’s Secret—was relatively new, having been established in the 1740s. Unlike the Rhonda Byrne book, this Secret wasn’t about vision boards. It was about placing Louis XV’s cousin Prince de Conti on the Polish throne, effectively creating a French satellite state.

But the Seven Year War got in the way of his secret mission and was awarded the cross of St. Louis for his service as a dragoon captain; at the end of the war he resumed his secret missions. But he fell out of favor of the king and ending up blackmailing the King of France.

Amazingly, d’Eon’s gambit paid off: somehow, blackmailing France won him an annual pension from Louis XV, with purse strings attached, of course: d’Eon had to continue spying for Le Secret and hand over the remaining, unpublished French secrets that he had threatened to divulge—which, fine, that’s fair enough.

But King Louis, being very uncool about the whole thing, took the deal a step too far with a further demand: that d’Eon officially declare a gender before returning to France.

D’Eon made what was an unprecedented decision for the time, and declared herself a woman.

However, she faced the same bigotry as we face today.

France’s patriarchal society had little room for d’Eon in the capacity that she had previously enjoyed as a man. Forced into early retirement, she was repeatedly barred from re-entering military service (she had even requested to serve in the American War of Independence), and had lost her political clout.

She fled back to Britain where she died at the age of 81.

Art Market Monitor has an article about Chevalier d’Éon…

The 18th Century’s Transvestite Spy Rediscovered
By Marion Maneker
April 16, 2012

The earliest surviving formal portrait of a male transvestite has been discovered by Philip Mould in a New York saleroom.  On first glance the historic portrait featuring a rather masculine looking woman piqued the renowned art sleuth’s interest.   A gentle clean and further painstaking research uncovered a rich and colourful history.

“The 18th century portrait appeared to be of a somewhat manly middle-aged lady. Research before the sale suggested otherwise, and upon cleaning, the face revealed a distinctive 5 0’clock shadow. This fuelled further investigation that resulted in the astonishing discovery that the portrait is of the legendary spy, diplomat and transvestite, Chevalier D’Eon that has been lost since 1926.  The painting is now “under serious consideration” by the National Portrait Gallery, London.  Should it be purchased will represent the gallery’s first oil painting of a cross-dresser in guise.

“The story of D’Éon is one of the more remarkable biographies of the 18th century. The recent rediscovery of this lost and only oil portrait should dramatically reawaken his  historical significance,” adds Philip Mould.

Chevalier D’Eon gave rise to the early term for a trans person Eonism.

eonism
[ee-uh-niz-uh m]
noun Psychiatry.
the adoption of feminine mannerisms, clothing, etc., by a male.

Origin of eonism
1925–30; after the Chevalier d' Éon (died 1810), Frenchman who posed as a woman
Dictionary.com