Gender Rebels : 50 Influential Cross-Dressers, Impersonators, Name-Changers, and Game-Changers

Meet the unsung sheroes of history: the diverse, defiant and daring (wo)men who changed the rules, and their identities, to get sh*t done. You'll encounter Kit Cavanagh, the swaggering Irish dragoon who was the first woman to be buried in London with full military honours; marauding eighteenth-century pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny, who collided on the high seas after swapping their petticoats for pantaloons; Ellen Craft, an escaped slave who masqueraded as a white master to spirit her husband-to-be to freedom; and Dorothy 'Billy' Tipton, the swinging jazz musician who lived as a man until their death in 1989, taking five wives along the way.

Then there are the women who still have to dress like men to live their best lives, like the inspirational soccer-loving Zahra Khoshnavaz in Iran, who risks everything to take her place in the stands. A call to action for the modern world, this book celebrates the #GenderRebels who paved the way for women everywhere to be soldiers and spies; kings and queens; firefighters, doctors, pilots; and a Swiss Army knife's-worth more. These superbly spirited (wo)men all had one thing in common: they defied the rules to progress in a man's world.