President Biden has expunged the legality of biological women in an executive order that re-defines the legal category of “woman” to include whoever presents themselves to the world as a woman. At least the British pop singer Harry Styles, when he wore a dress designed by Gucci for a Vogue photo shoot, knew he was a man having a little fun. But when the question is, who wore it better? – the answer is Shakespeare.

It’s not only women who cross-dress in Shakespeare; there are at least two instances of men who dress as women, one of them when the great comic character Falstaff, made famous in the Henry IV and Henry V plays, stages an encore in the light comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. Falstaff is a knight of great substance in his wit – and his flesh – but of no substance at all in wealth or morals, and in this play he attempts to seduce two housewives in order to fill his purse. The cross-dressing occurs when things go awry, and he must escape Mrs. Ford’s house dressed as the “Old Lady of Brentford” when Mr. Ford comes home unexpectedly.

Here’s Mrs. Page setting up the scene by falsely assuring Mrs. Ford (in a manner designed to be overheard by Falstaff) that Mr. Ford has learned of Falstaff’s dalliance with his wife, and believes that the seduction was successful:

Mistress Page. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again:
he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails
against all married mankind; so curses all Eve’s
daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets
himself on the forehead, crying, ‘Peer out, peer
out!’ that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but
tameness, civility and patience, to this his
distemper he is in now: I am glad the fat knight is not here.

Mistress Ford. Why, does he talk of him?

Mistress Page. Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the
last time he searched for him, in a basket; protests
to my husband he is now here, and hath drawn him and
the rest of their company from their sport, to make
another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad2000
the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.

Mistress Ford. How near is he, Mistress Page?

Mistress Page. Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon.

Mistress Ford. I am undone! The knight is here.

Mistress Page. Why then you are utterly shamed, and he’s but a dead
man. What a woman are you!—Away with him, away
with him! better shame than murder.

Mistress Ford. Which way should be go? how should I bestow him?
Shall I put him into the basket again?

The two wives offer to sneak Falstaff out the same way he came in, inside a massive hamper of dirty laundry, but even in these extreme circumstances, he refuses:

Re-enter Falstaff

Falstaff. No, I’ll come no more i’ the basket. May I not go
out ere he come?

Mistress Page. Alas, three of Master Ford’s brothers watch the door
with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise
you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?

Falstaff. What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the chimney.

Mistress Ford. There they always use to discharge their
birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole.

Falstaff. Where is it?

Mistress Ford. He will seek there, on my word…there is no hiding you
in the house.

Falstaff. I’ll go out then.

Mistress Page. If you go out in your own semblance, you die,
Sir John. Unless you go out disguised—

Mistress Ford. How might we disguise him?

Mistress Page. Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman’s gown
big enough for him, otherwise he might put on a hat,
a muffler and a kerchief, and so escape.

Falstaff. Good hearts, devise something…

Mistress Ford. My maid’s aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a
gown above.

We’ll pause here to note that the Elizabethan audience would have been howling with laughter at this moment, because the “woman of Brentford” was a figure from English folklore was was famous for leaving twenty farts to her relatives in her will.

Mistress Page. On my word, it will serve him; she’s as big as he
is: and there’s her thrummed hat and her muffler
too. Run up, Sir John.

Mistress Ford. Go, go, sweet Sir John…

Mistress Page. Quick, quick! we’ll come dress you straight: put
on the gown the while.

This is a light and delightful bedroom farce. By contrast, President Biden has now imposed a legal obligation to treat the cross-dressed Falstaff as an actual women, entitled to use women’s public bathrooms, shower in women’s locker rooms, and compete in the women’s sports in high school and college, wiping out the joy of women’s sports for an entire half of our population. Whether or not Falstaff would take advantage of some of these opportunities, the legitimate perverts of our time certainly will.

P.S. I wanted to let you all know that my recasting of Hamlet as the 2020 election is now up for sale as an e-book and paperback through this link.

‘Hamlet’s 2020 Vision; A recasting of Hamlet as the tragedy of the 2020 election,’ reimagines Hamlet as the 2020 election by substituting the main players on our national stage for the play’s original cast of characters. I think the result is highly entertaining, but it also provides surprising insights into our current predicament, and it gives readers a chance to enjoy Shakespeare’s great tragedy from an entirely new angle.