beatrice muchadoaboutnothing is a trans woman: a brief treatise
thematically, i think in a play about the social vulnerability of women, having a character be a trans woman just makes sense as a way to provide depth to that idea. specifically, i love the concept of beatrice's view of men being informed by her own experiences as a closeted trans woman (it's amazing what people will say in front of you when they think you're one of them) and as someone later facing sexism and transmisgoyny.
usually when someone does a trans reading of this play/character, they look at beatrice's famous speech about wishing she was a man and interpret her as a trans man, which is perfectly valid! but this idea started for me with the simple thought that i wanted an out and accepted trans character to play with rather than a closeted one who cannot transition, just as a matter of personal preference at that particular time and with this particular text. but then i kept thinking.
as above, the concept of beatrice reading men for filth in the context of having lived among them is great. the "oh god that i were a man" speech is extremely disparaging of men and what they claim to be vs how they actually wield their power. what she wishes is that she had the power that men have automatically in her society--felt all the more keenly because there was a time when she was able to wield that power and she gave it up to be happy, to be herself, to be free in a different way. (here is where i sometimes imagine beatrice regretting ever transitioning, believing that her own happiness and health is less important than having the power to protect hero's happiness and health, because i love angst.) but now that the worst has happened, she is reduced to begging a man for help and it's demeaning and infuriating and tragic.
i also love turning on its head the line "i cannot be a man with wishing, therefore i will die a woman with grieving." being a trans person, dealing with internalized transphobia, knowing that transitioning will put a target on your back, wishing you could just be the gender you're born as--but no amount of wishing will make her not a woman. i think she loves herself and her gender but the play is focusing on points of conflict so that's what i'm talking about here.
in a play about misogyny, the vulnerability of women, and the hypocrisy of men, a trans woman has a unique perspective on both masculinity and femininity both as genders and places in society. (in the ideal version, i think john would be a trans man to mirror this experience, but that would require him to be rewritten to have actual depth and personality and all that is a different essay). there is also just a particular kind of strength that comes from having to carve out and defend your identity in that way which i think fits her very well.
lastly, a couple of other miscellaneous things from the text that can tie in:
beatrice recounting "a double heart for his single one" meaning both "i loved him twice as much as he loved me" and "i loved him as two people: [birthname] and beatrice"
benedick insisting he wouldn't marry her even if "she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed." Adam, not Eve. in MY illustrious opinion, this is benedick saying "i don't care HOW big her dick is i'm NOT gonna marry her."
finally updating this with some more thoughts, mainly prompted by this post from @butchhamlet! (And there are some other great thoughts about trans readings of this play here!)
[Beatrice is] an unmarried woman dependent upon the hospitality of her uncle. This is the same position that Rosalind in As You Like It occupies at the court of her uncle, Duke Frederick, but there marriage is not the constant topic of conversation—and, of course, Rosalind manages to make her escape, together with her cousin Celia. In Much Ado About Nothing Beatrice and Hero are the young women of the household, and it is expected that they will marry. [...] Beatrice is not an heiress [...and] her position is more precarious than Hero's. [...This] will return, more vividly and painfully, after the humiliation of Hero, when Beatrice longs to revenge her cousin and must instead enlist Benedick's aid to fight with Claudio: "O God that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market place" (4.1.303-304). It is worth noting that in other Shakespearean comedies of this period the heroine does become a man, at least for a little while. Portia, Rosalind, and Viola all cross-dress, assuming male costumes and names in order to perform some act of rescue, release, or revenge. But Beatrice has this option only in the wishful form of a condition contrary to fact. Much Ado About Nothing is a play that engages topics like male bonding and female disempowerment, for all the powerful figures in Messina are men.
—Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All
This is such a great point because women disguising themselves as men is such a hallmark of Shakespeare's comedies! And this is a play about, in many ways, the various masks we wear--and yet Beatrice's desire to hold the position of a man (power) is the subject of a tragic and impassioned speech rather than a lark of crossdressing. In Much Ado, that gender boundary is utterly impassible; which sets us up in a very interesting way for a trans reading.
Because in this reading, Beatrice DID transcend that divide, which is exactly why she can't do it again. The pressure for her to perform femininity is all the higher because she has to "prove" and "earn" her place as a woman. She doesn't get to masquerade as a man and have a funny little adventure. Her being brash and outspoken is already pushing it.
Or, to look at it from the other direction: Beatrice already spent half her life dressed up as a man, pretending to be one. The play is now set in a time where, narratively, that opportunity has passed. That plot arc has already happened. That trick won't work a second time.
I think there is a parallel to Lady Macbeth here--another woman begging a man to do violence for her. But in Macbeth that desire is largely selfish, while in Much Ado it is to serve the protection of another woman. So often in Shakespeare, it is the women who get shit done, who take things into their own hands (sometimes, but not always, via crossdressing) so when a woman can't do that it feels significant and intentional. Beatrice is such a strong character and yet still helpless in the face of gendered power dynamics.
Masculinity in Much Ado is also very linked to credibility, which is another reason the ol' crossdress maneuver wouldn't work. It's not just about gendered power dynamics, but also class. Who outranks who? Who has had favor conferred upon them by a prince? Who has their masculinity revoked for being too young or too old or too dumb?
We see this perhaps most keenly in Act 5 scene 1. First, a confrontation between Leonato and Antonio vs Pedro and Claudio. Antonio is enraged and questions their masculinity, calling them cowards and pale imitations of men for their actions against Hero; when they leave and Benedick arrives, Claudio jokes about how "two old men without teeth" tried to fight them.
And then Benedick rebuffs their attempts at joking around and issues his challenge to Claudio. Immediately they seek to undermine his masculinity. Claudio is like "isn't it wild how he's questioning my masculinity lol" and Pedro launches into a made-up story about Beatrice talking shit about him, including innuendo about her saying Bene has a small dick. Knowing that Benedick is in love with her, they tease him about getting cucked (which, in fairness, he talked about at length earlier in the play). Benedick's parting words refer to Claudio as "lord lackbeard" which is definitely a reference to his youth and probably also implying he's too young to be a "real" man. At no point do Claudio and Pedro take this seriously; this confrontation becomes less about Hero and more about dick-measuring. Indeed, the reason Claudio is so incensed to begin with is that Hero cucking him is an insult to his (extremely fragile) masculinity. By punishing her so spectacularly, he is re-establishing his credibility as a man.
(This is also why I tend to read John as trans--despite his rank, he is an outsider and his masculinity doesn't "count" the same way everyone else's seems to.)
There's definitely more here, but I'm still chewing on it.
