Silence is not a Transgendered Person

Since it's inevitable that the topic of gender with come up in "Silence", I want to say that I don't think the poem can relate to contemporary theories of transgenderism or queerness. "Silence" might seem conducive to such topics, but the text does not lend itself to such a reading. It is clear that Silence is being raised as a boy due to King Evan's law which states only sons may inherit. A lengthy passage assures us that Nature spared nothing to make Silence the most beautiful girl possible. Her biological gender is never in dispute - no ambiguous genitalia or hermaphroditic characteristics. She is without a doubt female. The fact that her parents take so many precautions to hide her from society attests to this. Silence is also well aware that she is a girl and understands why she must act and appear as a boy. It is not as though she fells like a boy trapped in a girl's body and wants her physical gender to match her emotional/psychological gender. Neither is her situation permanent. She only need perform as a boy until she comes into her inheritance or until her parents have a son. This all stands in contrast to the modern conceptions of transgenderism, where a person seeks to identify with or become another gender. Silence is a tale more similar to several Shakespeare plays where a character must perform as the opposite sex to achieve an end, but steps out of that role once the end is achieved. This is also similar to the plot of "Mrs. Doubtfire", where Robin Williams' character must act like an woman to be with his children. He does not surgically want to be transformed into a woman anymore than Silence wants to be. Both are disguising themselves for a purpose, and once that purpose is accomplished, the disguise is removed. They are not transgendered people, they are actors trying to survive.