Anne Fine
1989
I was recently shelving and culling books on the children's porch at the Book Barn. Yes, I work there; I'm pretty sure we don't allow customers to just start rearranging stuff of their own volition.
Anyway, this copy of Bill's New Frock was past it's cull date, so I gave it a good home. My first reaction, as a card-carrying trans woman, was to start quoting Terence Stamp. "That's just what this country needs: a cock in a frock on a rock." Then I realized I was still on the clock, so I returned to organizing the stock.
BNF is a terrific reminder that gender is a social construct. When young Bill Simpson awakens, the world seems to have changed. He's the same, but his mum puts him in a "a pretty pink frock with fiddly shell buttons." She treats him as a girl. So do his teachers, and the kids at recess. Reassured that no one sees him as a boy in a dress, but still distressed by his new life, Bill experiences life as a girl.
He doesn't think about genitalia. He doesn't think about dating or sex. But he realizes both adults and peers have different expectations of him now. He's unwelcome on the football pitch. He questions why Rapunzel needs a prince to rescue her. He learns about how and why girls are deferential. Art class is different; friendships are different; belonging is different. Society has fit him with an entirely new identity, just because he's presumed female.
I put the book on my queer lit bookshelf, which, yes, is alphabetized. In doing so, I realized that I had another book by Anne Fine: Alias Madame Doubtfire, the book which was the basis of the Robin Williams movie. Doubtfire, you'll recall, is also a comic examination of the arbitrary restrictions and freedoms of gender performance. Daniel Hilliard learns to be a better father by transgressing the borders of gender.
Doubtfire is part of a long history of "forced" cross-dressing which results in cultural insights: Tootsie, Bosom Buddies, Some Like It Hot, and the endless film and television clones. These characters aren't trans. They aren't experiencing gender dysphoria. But the stories have value as cultural artifacts because they point to the inherent misogyny that underpins society's accepted notions of gender. Plus, Robin Williams with frosting on his face is damn funny.
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