Splintercat Writing

Joan of Arc chose to die rather than return to a gender performance that wasn't right for her. Yes she IS our LGBT+ icon and she is the martyr of every queer person put down, hurt, and killed by the church. The church's co-opting of the French peasant and folk heroine cannot stand above her reality. The story of Joan of Arc belongs to the people even more than it belongs to the church that killed her and then posthumously presents her in the garments she refused, even to the point of death.

As for nuns, there have been many lesbian nuns. Sor Juana Inez immediately comes to mind. More importantly, you don't control how the people your institutions have grievously harmed respond to that harm.

Also, claiming that the Catholic Church and not the English killed her is so wrong, even historically speaking, she was not killed because she was considered an eretic, she was killed because the English wanted to execute her at all cost!

1. It's an entirely modern convention to consider being trans an identity. From a theory standpoint, trans identity is created when someone transgresses gender norms. The words that Joan used for herself don't change the fact that she and I share the fundamental experience of transgressing gender boundaries. I have every right as a trans person to celebrate the people who lived the way I do, even with different language. No one who hates trans people hates us for our identity; they hate us for our behavior. Likewise, Joan was not executed for any unknowable "identity" but for her cross-gender behavior.

2. Joan's motivations for wearing men's clothing are unknown. She never spoke of her motivation herself (Hotchkiss). Although witnesses arrested that she endured guards attempting to assault her, there is no unified witness on why she returned to men's clothing or even if she did that herself or if guards forced her to. (Guards forcing her to wear men's clothing does not negate my point, I'll get there in a second.) The assertion that she wore men's clothes to protect against sexual assault is nonsensical, as scholars have pointed out that men's clothes don't afford a lot of protection when you're shackled in a jail cell (Hotchkiss, Schibanoff). Personally, I don't know what people who perpetuate this myth think men were wearing at the time that was assault-proof. She was in a tunic, doublet and breeches. Furthermore, if men's clothing made women so impervious to rape, why didn't ALL women crossdress in the middle ages? Analyses of Joan's crossdressing that treat it as a minor detail rather than central to who she was fail to deal with the fact that very few women crossdressed! Joan initially wore men's clothing to fight in battle. Why she wears men's clothing outside of battle she never comments on, except that it was her call. She only desisted under torture. Accepting women's clothes in order to go to mass after being tortured doesn't indicate that wearing men's clothes was not personally important to her but the exact opposite. After she returned to wearing men's clothes, which triggered her execution, she told the judge that she never intended to swear off men's clothing! (Warner). Joan herself never stated that it was to avoid assault; this is extrapolated from witnesses who described guards assaulting her. Only recent scholarship has dealt meaningfully with Joan's cross-gender behavior. The Catholic church, on the other hand, has a vested interest in myths like "she wore men's clothes to avoid rape." The Church must dismiss Joan's crossdressing as inconsequential in order to both canonize her and denigrate trans people simultaneously. But it is not a serious historical argument.

3. Historically, Joan was killed by the church, not by "the English king." Joan suffered a military defeat and was captured by Burgundians allied with the English. Charles VII of France did not attempt to ransom her, which is a significant betrayal, because the ransom of knights was so rote and standardized that there were set prices for it. The Burgundians sold her to Henry V, the English king, who did not kill her, but handed her over to Bishop Cauchon in France. She was then charged with heresy and tried in an ecclesiastical court in France, under the supervision of Cauchon, for heresy. 131 clergy members presided over her trial and execution. Five articles of accusation against her in the trial were related to cross-dressing. You're right that there was a political angle to Joan's death-- Charles VII had no more use for a peasant after he was crowned king, so he didn't ransom her, and everyone involved in her execution, although French, was pro-English. However, it was very much the church that killed her. Why do it through the church? If Henry V wanted to kill her "at all cost" why didn't he simply execute her as a prisoner of war, as he did to the prisoners of war at the Battle of Agincourt just 15 years earlier? (Hollinshed)

4 year old me: why must we do this

Fantastic old woman in the leopard print coat: "Why yes, my tooth IS real silver! Nobody ever asks me that. Do you like cats?"