Matthew H. Sommer is the Bowman Family Professor of History at Stanford University. He is the author of Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (2000) and Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China: Survival Strategies and Judicial Interventions (2015).

Matthew Sommer makes splendid use of contemporary transgender theory to shed light upon, and gain new insight into, late imperial Chinese society. Far from anachronistically imposing a presentist category on the radical difference of the past, Sommer examines a variety of individual cases in which manifold practices of gender-crossing allow previously underappreciated aspects of law, religion, literature, and social order to click into focus with startling clarity.

• AcknowledgmentsConventions in the TextIntroduction1. Transgender Paradigms in Late Imperial China2. The Paradigm of the Cross-Dressing Predator3. Clergy as Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing4. Creativity Inspired by Torment?5. The Fox Spirit Medium6. The Truth of the Body7. The HustlerEpilogueCharacter ListNotesReferencesIndex

Matthew H. Sommer is the Bowman Family Professor of History at Stanford University. He is the author of Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (2000) and Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China: Survival Strategies and Judicial Interventions (2015).

Matthew Sommer makes splendid use of contemporary transgender theory to shed light upon, and gain new insight into, late imperial Chinese society. Far from anachronistically imposing a presentist category on the radical difference of the past, Sommer examines a variety of individual cases in which manifold practices of gender-crossing allow previously underappreciated aspects of law, religion, literature, and social order to click into focus with startling clarity.

• AcknowledgmentsConventions in the TextIntroduction1. Transgender Paradigms in Late Imperial China2. The Paradigm of the Cross-Dressing Predator3. Clergy as Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing4. Creativity Inspired by Torment?5. The Fox Spirit Medium6. The Truth of the Body7. The HustlerEpilogueCharacter ListNotesReferencesIndex

Matthew H. Sommer is the Bowman Family Professor of History at Stanford University. He is the author of Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (2000) and Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China: Survival Strategies and Judicial Interventions (2015).

Matthew Sommer makes splendid use of contemporary transgender theory to shed light upon, and gain new insight into, late imperial Chinese society. Far from anachronistically imposing a presentist category on the radical difference of the past, Sommer examines a variety of individual cases in which manifold practices of gender-crossing allow previously underappreciated aspects of law, religion, literature, and social order to click into focus with startling clarity.

• AcknowledgmentsConventions in the TextIntroduction1. Transgender Paradigms in Late Imperial China2. The Paradigm of the Cross-Dressing Predator3. Clergy as Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing4. Creativity Inspired by Torment?5. The Fox Spirit Medium6. The Truth of the Body7. The HustlerEpilogueCharacter ListNotesReferencesIndex