Given the scarcity of LGBTQ-inclusive children’s literature in Italy (Forni, Venzo, Biemmi), we propose examining established literary topoi that, when read through a queer, feminist, and intersectional lens, challenge traditional gender binaries. One of them is the assigned female at birth-to-male (AFAB-to-M) cross-dressing, a recurring motif in children’s fiction across cultural and historical contexts that “has … never been questioned or censured” but rather “simply been accepted” (Flanagan). Narratives displaying girls adopting male disguises hold subversive potential, complicating the gender order (Butler), and reimagining alternative modes of girlhood. This article seeks to explore how temporary metamorphoses through AFAB-to-M cross-dressing manifest in La bambina col falcone / The Little Girl with The Falcon (1982) by Bianca Pitzorno, interrogating whether this portrayal reinforces or dismantles binary constructs. We argue that while cross-dressing appears primarily functional, it nonetheless opens significant spaces for gender destabilization.
gender/sexuality/italy
gender/sexuality/italy is an online annual, peer-reviewed journal that publishes research on gendered identities and the ways they intersect with and produce Italian politics, culture, and society.