This theoretically informed study analyzes the many ways in which the 'Lieutenant Nun' has been constructed, interpreted, marketed, and consumed by both the dominant and divergent cultures in Europe, Latin America, and the United States from the seventeenth century to the present. Bullough.The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire, and Catalina de ErausoĬatalina de Erauso (1592–1650) was a Basque noblewoman who, just before taking final vows to become a nun, escaped from the convent at San Sebastián, dressed as a man, and, in her own words, 'went hither and thither, embarked, went into port, took to roving, slew, wounded, embezzled, and roamed about.' Her long service fighting for the Spanish empire in Peru and Chile won her a soldier's pension and a papal dispensation to continue dressing in men's clothing. My paper compares and analyzes the performance of transvestism in the live of Catalina de Erauso, the Queen of Sweden(Cristina), and Elena de Céspedes who was a hermaphrodite, taking in consideration the critical works of Sherry Velasco, Veronica Buckley, Raúl Carrillo Esper and Vern L. They were discriminated, endured lashes and/or locked in a hospital were it was mandatory to dress as women. However, there were other women that dressed as men during the Spanish Golden Age whose experience were different to that of Catalina´s. Catalina also received a military pension for her military service. He allowed her to continue dressing as a man.

Towards the end of her life, she confessed to the pope her real sexual identity. Living as Francisco de Loyola, Alonso Díaz Ramírez de Guzmán or Antonio de Erauso he worked as a court servant, a sailor, a merchant and a soldier. Her only option to not getting married was to dress as a man and to continuously change her male identity.

In this essay, I will analyze the live of one of the most famous transvestites in the Early Modern Transatlantic World, Catalina de Erauso (1592-1650), commonly known as ¨the Lieutenant Nun.¨ In her autobiography, she recalls how at the age of fifteen, she escaped from a convent leaving behind her social status. During the 17th century, cross-dressing for women was one of the few options to escape from the patriarchal system. Transvestism has long been a topic of controversy and disagreement.

The lieutenant nun