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Speaker 1: We can see it all so clearly, thanks to decades

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Speaker 1: of Hollywood films, our image of the wild West is

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Speaker 1: pretty defined. Chisel jawed cowboys riding high on horseback, maybe

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Speaker 1: a rugged teddy Roosevelt trudging across the Yellowstone Valley, guns

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Speaker 1: and leather and sweaty horses. You get the idea. But

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Speaker 1: it's not that accurate. In our American mythology, the West

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Speaker 1: was a rugged place filled with rugged people. It was

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Speaker 1: a place for tough guys and saucy ladies. But those

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Speaker 1: weren't the only kinds of folks who lived there. Of course,

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Speaker 1: during the pre contact days of Native America, boundaries blurred

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Speaker 1: and possibilities loomed. When it came to gender. Many Native

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Speaker 1: cultures had expansive views on what it meant to inhabit

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Speaker 1: a body, and over one hundred and thirty tribes across

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Speaker 1: North America showcased some type of gender nonconformity in their community.

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Speaker 1: They were known as two spirit people, and for many

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Speaker 1: Indigites groups, they were viewed as sacred. They often served

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Speaker 1: as healers and medicine folks. They had places of reverence

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Speaker 1: in society, but not all people were so accepting European colonizers,

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Speaker 1: who came from a very different culture, sought to eradicate

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Speaker 1: those who didn't conform to their rigid understanding of what

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Speaker 1: it meant to be male and female and how one

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Speaker 1: should be playing out those roles. In fifteen thirteen, for example,

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Speaker 1: the Spanish conquistador Vasco Nunez de Balboa sentenced around forty

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Speaker 1: gender non conforming indigenous people to death, and as the

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Speaker 1: late seventeenth century arrived, French colonizers further denounced and stigmatized

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Speaker 1: those practices, casting an oppressive paul over those who defied

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Speaker 1: their rigid norms. The dawn of the twentieth century saw

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Speaker 1: Western scientists and their creation of the taxonomic system. People

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Speaker 1: became obsessed with categories and classifications and figuring out how

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Speaker 1: to place animals, vegetables, and minerals in little, tiny boxes.

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Speaker 1: This led to a lot of people assuming that there

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Speaker 1: were right ways to be and wrong ways to be,

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Speaker 1: with little room for anything else. Like I said before,

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Speaker 1: we can see the wild West so clearly we have

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Speaker 1: specific assumptions, specific images that try to capture how the

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Speaker 1: people in that place and time might have looked and

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Speaker 1: dressed and carried themselves. But when it came to the

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Speaker 1: Wild Frontier, gender was a lot more complicated than any

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Speaker 1: of us could imagine. I'm Aaron Manke, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the Wild West. In the vast expanse of the frontier

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Speaker 1: that is now west central New Mexico, there once lived

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Speaker 1: the Zuni tribe. Men and women were assigned distinct responsibilities,

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Speaker 1: and yet both enjoyed equal prestige and status. The Zuni

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Speaker 1: first encountered European colonizers in fifteen forty when Spanish explorers arrived,

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Speaker 1: and those Spaniards didn't care much for the tribes traditions,

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Speaker 1: especially regarding gender roles. In fact, they were pretty confused.

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Speaker 1: You see, while European society was firmly rooted in the patriarchy,

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Speaker 1: the Zuni followed matriarchal tradition. Men often knitted clothing or

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Speaker 1: may jewelry, while the women owned property and were seen

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Speaker 1: as the head of the household. But within all of

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Speaker 1: this was another important role in the Zuni culture, that

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Speaker 1: of a third, more ambiguous gender. Awana Walona, the Zuni

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Speaker 1: supreme being and creator of all life, was considered to

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Speaker 1: be both male and female. In fact, their foundational beliefs

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Speaker 1: celebrated blurred lines the in between, and then in eighteen

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Speaker 1: forty nine, a special child was born, we Wa. Wewa

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Speaker 1: would become the most renowned Zuni lamana, a person in

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Speaker 1: Zuni society who was assigned male at birth but would

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Speaker 1: grow up to take on both male and female roles

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Speaker 1: and dress for the Zuni people who held those liminal

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Speaker 1: in between spaces in such high regard, it was seen

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Speaker 1: as a great honor to welcome a lamana into their community.

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Speaker 1: Now let me pause here for a moment. The historical

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Speaker 1: records show both male and female pronouns have been assigned

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Speaker 1: to Weewa's story. In fact, go online and watch or

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Speaker 1: listen to modern Zuni historians talk about Weewa, and you'll

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Speaker 1: hear either of them used interchangeably. For our journey today,

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Speaker 1: though we'll be using the gender neutral singular they them,

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Speaker 1: which yes, is grammatically correct for anyone who might be

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Speaker 1: suddenly worried about the integrity of the English language. Orphaned

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Speaker 1: at a young age, Wewa and their brother lived with

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Speaker 1: a wealthy and influential aunt within the tribe. The siblings

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Speaker 1: received an education in Zuni traditions, gaining specialized ceremonial knowledge

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Speaker 1: and participating in revered cultural rituals. Over time, we Wa

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Speaker 1: became skilled in various crafts, excelled in Zuni pottery and weaving,

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Speaker 1: eventually bolstering native arts by selling that pottery in those textiles.

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Speaker 1: According to anthropologist Matilda Cox Stevenson, we WA's extensive knowledge

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Speaker 1: of Zuni history and culture are earned them recognition as

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Speaker 1: one of the most intelligent individuals in the Peblo. The

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Speaker 1: Zuni culture placed great importance on Kachina's, their ancestral spirit beings.

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Speaker 1: During Kachina ceremonies, we Wa embodied the spirit of ko Lamana,

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Speaker 1: symbolizing the harmonious combination of male and female traits and wisdom.

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Speaker 1: Of course, those traditions were foreign to a lot of

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Speaker 1: other people, especially the curious white anthropologists who came to

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Speaker 1: study them. Matilda Cox Stevenson and her husband James were

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Speaker 1: two of those people. Matilda and we Wa struck up

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Speaker 1: what was, depending on your perspective, an unlikely friendship or

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Speaker 1: a mutual sense that the other could be useful to them.

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Speaker 1: Matilda wanted to make a name for herself by documenting

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Speaker 1: Zuni culture and introducing Wewa to Washington, d c. Society

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Speaker 1: and Wewa wanted to secure protection for their shrinking tribal lands,

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Speaker 1: which is why together in eighteen eighty five, they embarked

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Speaker 1: on a trip to the nation's capital to see what

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Speaker 1: could be done in the name of tribal preservation. During

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Speaker 1: their stay, which extended into the summer of eighteen eighty six,

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Speaker 1: Wewa learned to speak English and lived under the Stevenson's roof,

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Speaker 1: But Washington society was unsure of what to think about

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Speaker 1: we Wa. Standing roughly six feet tall with long black

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Speaker 1: hair gathered into a thick braid and adorned with feathers,

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Speaker 1: paired with a traditional calico dress and a dark colored

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Speaker 1: woven blanket called a manta, Wewa didn't look like a

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Speaker 1: typical diplomat. In fact, many people mistook the Lamana for

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Speaker 1: a Zuni princess or a high priestess. On June twenty

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Speaker 1: third of eighteen eighty six, the delegation visited the White House,

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Speaker 1: and in doing so, Wewa became the first Lamana on

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Speaker 1: record to shake hands with an American president. President Cleveland

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Speaker 1: and his wife even presented them with a gift, and

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Speaker 1: despite the language barrier, they asked the President to help

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Speaker 1: protect the Zuni's interests from American and Mexican settlers who

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Speaker 1: were encroaching on their land, and President Cleveland agreed. In

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Speaker 1: the end, Wewa brought the Zuni culture into the public eye,

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Speaker 1: helping Americans to understand the importance of the tribe's heritage, history,

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Speaker 1: and way of life, making Wewa one of the most

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Speaker 1: well known Native Americans of the nineteenth century. Custer had

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Speaker 1: a secret. In eighteen seventy four, the military leader, then

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Speaker 1: a lieutenant colonel, returned from South Dakota's Black Hills, and

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Speaker 1: he carried with him some news that would ignite a frenzy,

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Speaker 1: the discovery of gold on Native American land. The territory

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Speaker 1: where the gold had been found was protected by the

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Speaker 1: Treaty of Fort Laramie, an agreement made six years earlier

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Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty eight between the Lakota Sioux and the

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Speaker 1: US government. Some tribal leaders, though, like Sitting Bull and

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Speaker 1: Crazy Horse, didn't agree with the treaty. It asked the

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Speaker 1: tribes to give up their nomadic lifestyle and instead depend

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Speaker 1: on government aid. As you can imagine, this led to

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Speaker 1: conflicts between Settle and people from those tribes. The US

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Speaker 1: government had been pressing the Lakota Sioux to sell their

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Speaker 1: sacred land to them, but the native peoples had refused,

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Speaker 1: so in late eighteen seventy five, the government basically just

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Speaker 1: demanded that all Lakota report to reservations, with a deadline

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Speaker 1: of January thirty first of eighteen seventy six. If they refused,

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Speaker 1: they risked being labeled as hostiles. And still the Lakota

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Speaker 1: remained defiant, which is why Custer led his troops into

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Speaker 1: the Black Hills in eighteen seventy six. He was there

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Speaker 1: to force the Sioux onto reservations and claim the gold

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Speaker 1: rich land for the United States, and as we all know,

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Speaker 1: Custer's last stand was a victory for the Native American

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Speaker 1: people and is still remembered today as the US Army's

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Speaker 1: most devastating defeat in the Plains Indian War. There was

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Speaker 1: a survivor, though, a guy named Sergeant John Noonan. He'd

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Speaker 1: been left behind at the Yellowstone Depot, ordered to tend

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Speaker 1: the cattle there while Custer led the rest of the battle.

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Speaker 1: Noonan had joined the cavalry in eighteen seventy Tioo, and

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Speaker 1: his dedication and efficiency helped him rise through the ranks.

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Speaker 1: But he also had something else going for him, his

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Speaker 1: good looks. General Custer's wife, Elizabeth, praised the man's appearance,

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Speaker 1: describing him as the most handsome soldier in his company.

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Speaker 1: With his deep blue eyes, dark hair, and fair complexion,

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Speaker 1: he caught the attention of everyone who met him. Following

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Speaker 1: the Battle of Little Bighorn, Noonan returned to Fort Abraham

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Speaker 1: Lincoln in the Dakota Territory, where he was reunited with

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Speaker 1: his wife. Now, if you dig through the records, you'll

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Speaker 1: only see the name missus Nash. Were not clear on

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Speaker 1: a lot of her background, but historians think that she

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Speaker 1: had been married twice before, so perhaps the last name

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Speaker 1: came from one of those previous husbands. Now, by all accounts,

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Speaker 1: Missus Nash kept an immaculate home. Specifically, her talents with

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Speaker 1: laundry earned immense respect with other officers wives, all viying

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Speaker 1: for her expertise in cleaning delicate materials. On top of that,

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Speaker 1: her culinary skills were celebrated and her presence became required

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Speaker 1: at social gathering. And if that weren't enough, missus Nash

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Speaker 1: was also a skilled midwife. Her meticulous care and tenderness

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Speaker 1: with newborns endeared her to the community. Between her husband

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Speaker 1: John's dashing good looks and her tall, thin frame with

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Speaker 1: dark skin and black hair from her Mexican heritage, they

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Speaker 1: seemed quite happy to everyone who knew them. The perfect couple,

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Speaker 1: if ever there was one, But tragedy struck. When John

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Speaker 1: was away on an extended campaign, his wife fell ill

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Speaker 1: and passed away on the morning of October thirtieth of

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight. We've talked about it before. Of course,

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Speaker 1: medicine was more of an art than a science back then,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes illness just broke in and stole people from you.

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Speaker 1: It was sudden and tragic now, as the story goes,

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Speaker 1: Before her death, missus Nash requested that she be buried

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Speaker 1: in the clothes she was wearing, but her friends couldn't

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Speaker 1: imagine laying her to rest forever in the ratty clothes

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Speaker 1: she'd been wearing on her deathbed, so they broke their promise.

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Speaker 1: And that's when something unusual happened. You see, during the

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Speaker 1: preparation of her body, it was discovered that missus Nash

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Speaker 1: was not a woman at all. When John returned the

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Speaker 1: following month, he was naturally devastated by the news of

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Speaker 1: his wife's death, but he was also unprepared for the

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Speaker 1: rumors regarding his wife's sex. The men at the fort

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Speaker 1: ridiculed and mocked him about it the moment he arrived. Now,

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Speaker 1: John insisted that his wife had been a woman, but

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Speaker 1: no matter what he said, the rumors persisted, and it

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Speaker 1: wasn't long before someone reportedly disturbed his wife's grave in

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Speaker 1: search of answers, and a short time later a few

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Speaker 1: newspapers wrote that they believed John's story. But for John

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Speaker 1: it was too late. Tormented by the relentless and cruel

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Speaker 1: harassment from the men of the fort, and unable to

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Speaker 1: find peace in the community that he once called home,

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Speaker 1: he withdrew from society and eventually fell ill. And then,

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Speaker 1: one day, not long after, John walked into a blacksmith

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Speaker 1: shop at Fort Lincoln, where many of his fellow soldiers

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Speaker 1: were already present. As expected, they resumed their usual verbal abuse,

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Speaker 1: Unable or unwilling to see the damne and the pain

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Speaker 1: that they were causing him. Without warning, he pulled out

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Speaker 1: his gun and shot himself in the heart. Sadly, it

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Speaker 1: took John Noonan's death by suicide for those men to

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Speaker 1: see what they had done to see the power that

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Speaker 1: their words and cruelty had over the well being of

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Speaker 1: a member of their community. But in the end, any

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Speaker 1: remorse they finally summoned had arrived too late. Tragedy roamed

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Speaker 1: free across the wild West. But thankfully there are happier

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Speaker 1: stories too. In the late eighteen hundreds, for example, one

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Speaker 1: particular logger led a fascinating life filled with courage, generosity,

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Speaker 1: and a well guarded secret. Sammy Williams worked in the

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Speaker 1: logging industry in Montana for almost twenty years, and over

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Speaker 1: those years, as the logging frontier expanded westward, rough camps

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Speaker 1: were set up to accommodate the needs of the lumberjacks

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Speaker 1: who made it all happen. Now. Initially, Sammy served as

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Speaker 1: both a lumberjack and a cook. As you'd imagine, feeding

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Speaker 1: the crew was important, which is why it was a

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Speaker 1: role seen as only second place to the superintendent of

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Speaker 1: the entire camp. The reputation of any camp often hinged

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Speaker 1: on the quality of the food they provided, and as

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Speaker 1: it turns out, Sammy's popularity among the lumberjacks attested to

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Speaker 1: his culinary talents. Life was good during his time in

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Speaker 1: the logging industry. Sammy accumulated significant wealth and property, but

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Speaker 1: his affluence wasn't self serving. He generously cared for the

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Speaker 1: sick and the destitute. In fact, many of the loggers

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Speaker 1: were called discovering that Sammy had silently placed unexpected sums

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Speaker 1: of money in their pockets during times of need. A

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Speaker 1: hard worker, an excellent cook, and a generous spirit. But

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Speaker 1: there's more. Sammy's linguistic talents were nothing short of outstanding.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't enough for him to be fluent in English, Norwegian,

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Speaker 1: and German, so he also learned the languages of the

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Speaker 1: Native American communities in the area. But Sammy also had

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Speaker 1: a secret that only came to lights after he passed

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Speaker 1: away on December tenth of nineteen oh eight from what

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Speaker 1: some believed to be a stroke. The following day, undertaker

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Speaker 1: George R. Safley discovered that the beloved lumberjack was female.

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Speaker 1: Newspapers quickly spread the news of Sammy's death and the

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Speaker 1: discovery of his secret. Some attributed his choice to live

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Speaker 1: as a man to a failed love affair and a

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Speaker 1: desire to start a new life away from societal expectations.

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Speaker 1: Others wove of elaborate narratives drawing inspiration from popular dime

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Speaker 1: novels of the time, romanticizing his journey. Saffly, though, proposed

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Speaker 1: that Sammy had chosen to live as a man to

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Speaker 1: make a living more easily, taking on a male role

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Speaker 1: in a world that offered more opportunities to men, but

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Speaker 1: all of these theories failed to fully explain how at

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Speaker 1: ease he was living as a man. Some writers pointed

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Speaker 1: out Sammy's stereotypical masculine behavior, describing him as occasionally getting drunk, swearing,

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Speaker 1: chewing tobacco, and engaging in festive activities with the It

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Speaker 1: clearly wasn't just an act. Friends would later discovered letters

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Speaker 1: written to him over the years that revealed his life.

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Speaker 1: Before arriving in Montana, Sammy traveled quite a bit and

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Speaker 1: had lived in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the Minneapolis area, and Castleton,

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Speaker 1: North Dakota. An insurance policy from eighteen eighty five, still

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Speaker 1: bearing his chosen name and gender, further demonstrated his commitment

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Speaker 1: to his identity. After his passing, Sammy's co workers and

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Speaker 1: community paid for a headstone and mourned the loss of

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Speaker 1: their friend. Outside the community, his story inspired newspapers to

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Speaker 1: discuss gender roles, with some even suggesting that women could

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Speaker 1: become unsexed like Sammy, while others wondered why more women

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Speaker 1: didn't seek the same freedom by assuming masculine roles. And look,

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Speaker 1: there will probably always be confusion. How people have seen

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Speaker 1: gender as an identity throughout history has constantly shifted and changed,

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Speaker 1: which complicates our struggle to define it. It's right there

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Speaker 1: in the pages of history, though, and to ignore it

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Speaker 1: is to be myopic and closed minded. What's clear is

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Speaker 1: that Sammy Williams led the life he intended, and those

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Speaker 1: who reflected on that life recognized the things that truly mattered,

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Speaker 1: his resilience, his kindness, and his impact on the community.

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Speaker 1: The story wasn't uncommon in the rugged American West, where

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Speaker 1: dreams and realities often collided head on, the lives of

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Speaker 1: people like Sammy Williams remained hidden. Newspapers of the era

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Speaker 1: reported on hundreds of stories of women who lived as

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Speaker 1: men and men who lived as women, and it's likely

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Speaker 1: that it was just the visible tip of a much

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Speaker 1: larger iceberg. And these stories didn't just take place in

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Speaker 1: the West either, but rather all over the world and

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Speaker 1: all throughout history. But like I said at the beginning,

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Speaker 1: when most of us think of the Wild West, we

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Speaker 1: think of how Hollywood and books have presented that era

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Speaker 1: to us, full of hardcore outlaws and stets in wearing cowboys,

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Speaker 1: and with a few exceptions, the women in those stories

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Speaker 1: have always been stereotypically feminine and subservient. But maybe those

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Speaker 1: assumptions are a lot farther from the mark than we've

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Speaker 1: ever realized. Take, for example, the story of Milton Matson.

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Speaker 1: He found himself in the public eye in eighteen ninety

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Speaker 1: five when authorities in San Jose threw him in jail

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Speaker 1: his crime. He had supposedly tried to deceive others for

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Speaker 1: financial gain in the process, Though the jailers realized the

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Speaker 1: Matson had been born female. It wasn't until he became

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Speaker 1: a media sensation that Matson confessed to feeling more like

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Speaker 1: a man than a woman. And as you'd imagine, the

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Speaker 1: press relentlessly chased his story, eager for juicy details. They

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Speaker 1: even dug into his relationship with his fiance Helen Fairweather,

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Speaker 1: who staunchly defended her love for Matson. And then there's

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Speaker 1: the story of Charlie Parkhurst. During the eighteen fifties, he

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Speaker 1: was known throughout California for his legendary courage and skill

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Speaker 1: as a stagecoach, he had bravely faced down dangerous outlaws

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Speaker 1: and saved lives. But after he died in eighteen seventy

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Speaker 1: nine and his friends prepared his body for burial, they

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Speaker 1: were shocked to learn that Charlie had been a female

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Speaker 1: at birth. And back in nineteen oh four, another story

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Speaker 1: caused quite a stir, grabbing headlines and the attention of

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Speaker 1: readers everywhere. Joe Monahan, a rancher from Idaho, had passed away. Now,

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Speaker 1: rumors had long circulated about Joe. The community had heard

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Speaker 1: curious things about him, but were never so bold as

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Speaker 1: to ask him to his face about the rumors. But

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Speaker 1: upon his death, it was confirmed Joe had been born female,

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Speaker 1: and the media, of course jumped on the story, creating

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Speaker 1: sensationalized tales about lost love and betrayal. In one theory,

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Speaker 1: they made Joe out to be a woman who had

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Speaker 1: once been wronged by a cruel lover. But these stories

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Speaker 1: were all heavily influenced by society's beliefs about what love

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Speaker 1: and tragedy should look like. The way most people saw

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Speaker 1: there were strict roles that everyone was supposed to fit

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Speaker 1: into and these folks simply refused to play along. They

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Speaker 1: just wanted to live their lives without having to share

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Speaker 1: every last detail with the rest of the world. And

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Speaker 1: I think the same can be said for all of us.

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Speaker 1: Like the television and film world that gave them life,

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Speaker 1: our perceptions of the wild West started out in black

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Speaker 1: and white, but time and research have added color and

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Speaker 1: depth to those flat assumptions. Don't worry if your favorite

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Speaker 1: Western characters are those half shaven cowboy law men and

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Speaker 1: powerful elegant ladies back at the saloon, you will never

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Speaker 1: run short on examples. But I hope today's journey has

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Speaker 1: helped you see that the stories never end there. There's

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Speaker 1: always nuance, always depth, and always variety, and that is

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Speaker 1: a good thing. But we're not done just yet. We've

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Speaker 1: saved one more tale to share with you, and if

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Speaker 1: you stick around through this brief sponsor break, my teammates

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Speaker 1: Ali Stead will tell you all about it.

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Speaker 2: Newspaper and media sensationalism aside, scholars also set out to

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Speaker 2: better understand the experiences of those who lived as a

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Speaker 2: gender different from the one they'd been assigned at birth.

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Speaker 2: Instead of writing headlines designed to sell papers, they took

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Speaker 2: a more scientific approach in an attempt to explain the

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Speaker 2: deviation from what was considered sexual norms. At the turn

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Speaker 2: of the twentieth century, the emerging field of sexology sought

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Speaker 2: to dissect and pathologize gender differences. If researchers could define

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Speaker 2: what normal looked like, they could better define what was deviate.

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Speaker 2: In one of those academic texts, we learn about the

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Speaker 2: life of an individual simply known as m uc M

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Speaker 2: was one of four case studies presented under pseudonyms in

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Speaker 2: an article titled Transvestism, A Contribution to the Study of

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Speaker 2: the Psychology of Sex, published in the New York Medical

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Speaker 2: Journal in nineteen fourteen. At the time, em was sixty

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Speaker 2: two years old. His age suggests that he had a

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Speaker 2: lifetime of experiences that shaped his understanding of his identity.

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Speaker 2: From an early age, m regarded himself as a man

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Speaker 2: who had a strong affinity for wearing women's clothing, which

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Speaker 2: was clear from a letter he wrote about his childhood memories.

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Speaker 2: He'd always known who he was. He wrote that his

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Speaker 2: playmates were always girls, and that his preferred toys were dolls, ribbons,

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Speaker 2: and miniature household items. He even possessed a talent for

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Speaker 2: making dolls and crafting clothes for his sisters and other girls,

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Speaker 2: and at the age of ten, he showed a remarkable

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Speaker 2: experience for cooking and meal preparation that far surpassed those

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Speaker 2: of older boys. He also had a protective side and

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Speaker 2: readily defended his girlfriends against teasing or harassment. Though his

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Speaker 2: behavior might have been less masculine than society thought was proper,

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Speaker 2: all was still well. It's n clear from his writings,

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Speaker 2: but Em might have been allowed to wear girl's clothing

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Speaker 2: at home, at least when his parents didn't have company.

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Speaker 2: He was fifteen when his uncle came to visit in

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Speaker 2: eighteen sixty seven. Again we're unsure of the specifics, but

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Speaker 2: it appears m might have worn boy's clothing during his

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Speaker 2: uncle's stay. But that wasn't enough to hide his secret.

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Speaker 2: It didn't take long for his uncle to find the

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Speaker 2: hidden stash of dresses, and to say the discovery made

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Speaker 2: him upset would be an understatement. His uncle took the

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Speaker 2: matter up with his brother, ranting on and on about

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Speaker 2: his nephew's sinful ways. The aftermath was a disaster. After

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Speaker 2: receiving a scathing scolding, EM's father demanded that every piece

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Speaker 2: of girl's clothing he owned be burned. He also issued

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Speaker 2: a dire warning any future sightings of his son wearing

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Speaker 2: or keeping female attire would be met with severe consequences.

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Speaker 2: If m he valued the ability to walk without crutches,

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Speaker 2: he'd do what he was told. From here on out,

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Speaker 2: he would become more masculine. Distraught at the ultimatum, M

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Speaker 2: made the decision to leave home and make his way westward.

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Speaker 2: By the spring of eighteen sixty seven, M's travels brought

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Speaker 2: him to Grand Isle, Nebraska, where he found a job

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Speaker 2: driving a team of horses while a railroad was being built.

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Speaker 2: As the fall arrived, he ventured out onto the Nebraska

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Speaker 2: prairie and took up buffalo hunting and staying true to himself,

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Speaker 2: he privately continued to dress in women's clothing. In his

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Speaker 2: own words, he said that when he dressed as a woman,

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Speaker 2: he experienced enhanced logical thinking, a liberated sense of being,

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Speaker 2: and an ability to solve complex problems that eluded him

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Speaker 2: under different circumstances. He'd run away west and found a

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Speaker 2: better life, but m still desperately wanted the freedom to

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Speaker 2: wear women's clothing Whenever he chose Unfortunately, he knew he'd

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Speaker 2: be ridiculed or worse. His adventures on the frontier came

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Speaker 2: in many forms and jobs. He was once a sheriff,

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Speaker 2: a newspaper publisher, a justice of the peace, and a

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Speaker 2: detective for the U. S. Marshal's Office. M proudly declared

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Speaker 2: his contribution to westward expansion. His legs carried the scars

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Speaker 2: of bullets, wounds he had covered with petticoats. Whenever the

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Speaker 2: opportunity arose, Despite the dangers presented, all his troubles seemed

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Speaker 2: to fade away when he dressed in the clothing he preferred.

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Speaker 2: Will likely never know M's true identity, but we do

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Speaker 2: know that even in the Wild West, where we've painted

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Speaker 2: a picture of the most square jawed and masculine men

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Speaker 2: in the vein of John Wayne, in real life there

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Speaker 2: were those who had to pretend to be someone they

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Speaker 2: were not, and a fortunate view were able to live

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Speaker 2: an authentic life, regardless of the secrets they felt compelled

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Speaker 2: to hide.

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Speaker 1: Grim and mild Presents The Wild West was executive produced

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Speaker 1: by me Aaron Mankey and hosted by Aaron Mankey and

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Speaker 1: Alexandra Steed. Writing for this season was provided by Michelle

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Speaker 1: Mudo with research by Alexandra Steed, Sam Alberty, Cassandra de

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Speaker 1: Alba and Harry Marx. Fact Checking was performed by Jamie Vargas,

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Speaker 1: with sensitivity reading by Stacy Parshall Jensen. Production assistance was

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Speaker 1: provided by Josh Stain, Jesse Funk, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.

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Speaker 1: To learn more about this and other shows from Grimm

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Speaker 1: and Mild and iHeartRadio, visit Grimandmild dot com