4 thoughts on “TBT: Queen Christina

  1. The real-life Christina was the remarkable daughter of a remarkable father. Gustav Adolph was a major commander in the 30 Years War and established the first national standing army. He was also the period’s most careless dresser, leaving clothes scattered all over the war zone. He was KIA at the battle of Lutzen. Christina became queen and brokered the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the war. Later, she abdicated, converted to Catholicism, and entered a convent.

  2. I once read an interesting journal article, that theorised that before the 20th century, in Western culture gender was so strongly associated (read: women wear dresses, men don’t), that people who were cross dressing were far more likely to “pass”. People would look at the person, make a gender assumption based on their clothing, and not pay a great deal of attention to secondary sex characteristics such as body hair, Adams apples, torso:waist ratio etc.

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