MORE BUTCH HEROES

Living as themselves—and often punished for it.

In the late 18th century, Gregoria Piedra was sentenced to prison for eight years for being a “dissolute” and “perverted” woman. Piedra’s supposed crime? During the Eucharist at a Mexico City church, Piedra removed the communion wafer from their mouth and left the church laughing—while dressed in men’s clothing. Piedra is one of 15 people who are honored, posthumously, in this gem of a book. It’s a follow-up to Butch Heroes (2018), in which Brodell also paid tribute to figures who went against society’s gender conventions—and often paid a price for doing so. It’s an inspired project: Brodell, an artist who grew up Catholic, did a lot of research to find these heroes; the author not only tells their stories in brief biographies, but dignifies them in paintings done in the style of saints on holy cards that Brodell knew as a child, cards that are shared at funerals to memorialize the departed. “Even though I am no longer Catholic,” Brodell writes, “I still have a collection of holy cards that belonged to my late aunt.…They are beautiful, intimate objects. They are delicately rendered with bold colors, and often include gold borders or ornate banners.” Brodell’s 11-by-7-inch cards are similarly captivating. For example, the artist depicts Piedra—“known by the nickname ‘la Macho’ because of their masculine physical appearance and demeanor”—holding up a radiant wafer, a faint smile of self-assurance meeting the viewer’s gaze. The subjects in the collection go back as far as the 16th century and lived around the world, from Ecuador to South Africa, underscoring the universality of people, as the author writes, “who were strong or brave in the way they lived their lives and challenged their societies’ strict gender roles.” Some are unnamed, including a Black woman arrested in 1870s North Carolina for wearing men’s clothing. “They had a three-month-old child with them,” Brodell writes, “and upon arrest they were sent to the poorhouse.”

A creative resurrection of people around the world who broke gender norms.