'Acts of Extravagance and Folly’: the conception and control of transgressive masculinity in a Victorian cause célèbre

TL;DRAbstract

Based on the prosecution of Ernest Boulton and William Park in 1870, the cross-dressing cause célèbre of the Victorian period, this Thesis explores the complex interplay of gendered nineteenth century narratives that emerged in both public and institutional discourse as a result of the arrest and prosecution for conspiracy to commit sodomy of the male cross-dressers and their acquaintances. Within the current historiography of the nineteenth century the regulation of male cross-dressers has been associated with the reflexive homophobia that has come to dominate modern interpretations of Victorian conceptions of male gender deviance. Whilst accepting that the case of Boulton and Park has rightly found its place within the established narrative histories of male sexuality this Thesis argues that the case, and indeed the image of the male cross-dresser in general, illuminates much more than nascent Victorian conceptions of homosexuality.
\nThe effeminacy of the cross-dresser, although

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