Kulturkampf

[benji]

Found this that Uncle would enjoy, I'm quoting from the article itself just for the background on the historical person:

Romaine identified as a prophetess and dressed as a woman once the uprising began, and may have been transgender or genderfluid.
...
Romaine met Marie Roze Adam, an enslaved creole (mulatta) woman, on the plantation of Rene Guindet, as Romaine repeatedly visited this plantation, possibly as a trading partner or employee.[17] Between 1772 and 1777, Adam bore them three children.
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Adam had at least one other daughter, Marie Louise, who was baptized a free woman in 1763 (at which time Adam had also been recorded as free), and who married a free black man in 1787, with Romaine listed as her stepfather.[2]
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Romaine prominently identified as a prophétesse (prophetess) rather than a prophète (male prophet),[5][6] and Rey connects Romaine to the transgender feminized religious figures of West Central Africa.[6][69] The religious leader spoke of being possessed by a female spirit, something comparable to vodou beliefs according to which a person can be possessed by divinities of another gender.[5][51] Romaine "transgressed conventional gender norms", being visibly feminine in demeanor and appearance, wearing ribbons and rosaries[70] and dressing like a woman.[71][72][73] At the same time as identifying as a prophetess, the insurgent leader also identified as either a godson or godchild of the Virgin Mary,[7][74][e] and Fick says one critic "claimed that his real intention [...] was to become king of Saint Domingue."[33] Romaine may have been transgender (though Rey argues applying that term could be anachronistic) or genderfluid.[75][71] Mary Grace Albanese and Hourya Bentouhami [fr] count Romaine-la-Prophétesse among the women who led the Haitian Revolution.[71][76]

This isn't really, except for that last thing, anything that would be grabbed my attention too much except that the article seems to avoid pronouns which reads weird, and the above "bore them three children" seemed a bit off, but especially this part with "themself":

On March 25, Saint-Léger decisively raided Trou Coffy with a battalion of 400 men led by Boyer and Singlar, destroying the site and capturing Romaine's wife and daughter, although Romaine themself escaped.[53]

So, of course, I looked at the talk page:

I avoided pronouns, as is done for several other historical figures where it's debated/unclear whether the person was cis or trans / what gender [identity] they had / what pronouns to use, like the surgeon James Barry or the Public Universal Friend.

Regarding Romaine's pronouns, I couldn't find any indication that Romaine ever asked people to use feminine pronouns or to not use pronouns or anything along those lines. If he did, I imagined it would be easy to find it in the sources, like how the feminine "prophetess" label is widely recorded. On top of that, sources seem to overwhelmingly refer to Romaine with he/him pronouns, including Professor Terry Rey's book The Priest and the Prophetess, which seems to be the most up-to-date in-depth source on Romaine (it was published in 2017).
With all that said, I couldn't find explicit confirmation that Romaine went by he/him pronouns, so I actually emailed Terry Rey about it. Here's his response (quoted with permission):
In earlier drafts of the book, I had used alternative pronouns and even employed in places the term "transgender", but then, in consultation with my editors, I came to the conclusion that such would have been anachronistic. So, in the end, I stuck to the contemporary pronouns used to refer to Romaine, which were without exception masculine. Even in letters that Romaine dictated in which he is spoken of in the third person, "he" "him" and "his" are used.

The Prophetesse title was, I believe, deeply spiritual and in keeping with the religious feminization of Africana spirit possession priests. "Romaine" is also a feminine name, incidentally, as the masculine version in French is "Romain."

Well, that clinched it, at least for me: if Romaine himself used he/him, and if sources, including a fairly recent source, use he/him, let's just use he/him. This seems to be a different situation than the Public Universal Friend article (which honors PUF's explicit wish not to be gendered) and the James Barry article (which currently takes a middle ground position between how Barry himself wished to be remembered and how sources often choose to refer to him.) WanderingWanda (talk) 01:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Ah, that's a good "find". I had avoided pronouns because I couldn't find any clear evidence like that of the person's own preference. (Self-ID as a "prophetess" suggested femininity, but supposed self-ID as a "godson" suggested masculinity, but also, it was less certain that the latter was a self-ID, and ditto the supposed intention of being a "king" which was posited by critics.) (Like you say, most of the references I saw use masculine pronouns/terms, apart from a couple recent less-in-depth ones, the irrelevant fictional zombie one, and one old edition of Hugo, which deviates from the French original and from other English editions by using feminine pronouns, apparently under the influence of the name and unfamiliarity with the person, heh.) -sche (talk) 18:27, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I feel like it'd be nice to include this page in a category relating to the gender expression/identity but I have no idea what would be one that would fit Dinosar199 (talk) 23:23, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Like not sure if they would belong in a category of LGBT people of the 18th century. Y'know what I'm just gonna add it and if it's wrong, anyone feel free to change it Dinosar199 (talk) 23:29, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

So now this dude with a wife who became mentally ill and thought he was a prophet including writing letters the Virgin Mary was supposedly writing him is listed as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:18th-century_LGBTQ_people

Why not add him to a list of intersex people after all:

In January 1792, during Romaine's occupation of the city, the mayor of Léogâne referred to the insurgent leader as "hermaphroditic"

Can we also talk about how this dude was an idiot, he lead a revolt and seized a whole bunch of towns. Come on, that's a ton of emotional labor, he should have just demanded some basic human decency from the French/whites. At least he was smart enough to participate in mutual aid:

Seeking an alliance with the forces of André Rigaud, whose free black soldiers esteemed the Trou Coffy insurgents, Romaine directed Léogâne to send food, clothes, and munitions to Rigaud's camp at Bizoton near Port-au-Prince.[49] The violent excesses committed by Romaine's troops, however, made Rigaud unwilling to ally with them.[49]