Cross-dressed to Kill with Vivien Morgan at Kensington Central Library

Event details

'Cross-dressed to Kill - Women Who Went to War Disguised as Men' by Vivien Morgan answers the question of why young women dressed as men to fight as soldiers in the 17th to 20th centuries.

There were literally hundreds of known women cross-dressers in Britain, across Europe and in the Americas, yet they have been erased from both social and military history. This book spotlights these fascinating women cross-dressers and fighters. The bravery of these women masquerading as men and the risks they took were great. The penalty for cross-dressing in this period was harsh, including the death penalty because it was seen as an unnatural act that threatened society and offended social morality. That was the sin for which Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake.

They were young women for whom ‘patriotism has no sex’ held true and who were determined to fight for their country. So what happened to them in countless battles and wars around the world? Come along and find out.

Vivien Morgan is a former TV news journalist and documentary producer, who picked up a camera to become a TV video journalist pioneer. Travelling undercover she reported from the closed Communist countries, from Tibet and Myanmar and later from much of Sub-Saharan and West Africa, as well as the Middle East and Iran. Her fascination with these historic young women who cross-dressed in the 17th-20th centuries came from her own experience of what it meant to hide your identity to get your story. Fascination turned into research and ended up with this book to commemorate them.