Adventurer, saint, celebrity: the Chevalière Deon's transgender selves
Adventurer, saint, celebrity: the Chevalière Deon's transgender selves
No other trans individual has left us as large a corpus of autobiographical writings as the French diplomat, spy and author the Chevalière Deon (1728-1810), who narrated her transition using a variety of genres: confession, sermon, epistolary exchange, dialogue and memoir. Unfortunately these writings have only recently begun to be studied by historians, and the vast majority remain unpublished. This essay explores how Deon has been represented by clinicians and historians, before exploring her presentation as adventurer, saint, and celebrity. It argues that rather than sifting Deon's archive for a single, enduring, ‘authentic self’, Deon can help us approach trans lives in less restrictive ways.
Celebrity, adventurer, hagiography, life writing, trans biography, transgender
Conlin, Jonathan
3ab58a7d-d74b-48d9-99db-1ba2f3aada40
25 August 2025
Conlin, Jonathan
3ab58a7d-d74b-48d9-99db-1ba2f3aada40
Conlin, Jonathan
(2025)
Adventurer, saint, celebrity: the Chevalière Deon's transgender selves.
Australian Feminist Studies, 41 (124).
(doi:10.1080/08164649.2025.2549702).
Abstract
No other trans individual has left us as large a corpus of autobiographical writings as the French diplomat, spy and author the Chevalière Deon (1728-1810), who narrated her transition using a variety of genres: confession, sermon, epistolary exchange, dialogue and memoir. Unfortunately these writings have only recently begun to be studied by historians, and the vast majority remain unpublished. This essay explores how Deon has been represented by clinicians and historians, before exploring her presentation as adventurer, saint, and celebrity. It argues that rather than sifting Deon's archive for a single, enduring, ‘authentic self’, Deon can help us approach trans lives in less restrictive ways.
Text
Adventurer Saint Celebrity The Chevali re Deon s Transgender Selves
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Accepted/In Press date: 14 August 2025
Published date: 25 August 2025
Keywords:
Celebrity, adventurer, hagiography, life writing, trans biography, transgender
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 505564
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/505564
ISSN: 0816-4649
PURE UUID: b7453313-d50f-4a7f-830b-b68a674ddbf0
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Date deposited: 14 Oct 2025 16:32
Last modified: 15 Oct 2025 01:42
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