Unmasked by the Marquess by Cat Sebastian

I’m a non-binary, trans masculine person attracted to masculine people. So imagine my excitement when I found a historical romance novel with a main character just like me. Some parts were excellent representations of what this life with this identity can be like and other parts left me a bit anxious and underwhelmed.

Summary

We readers are introduced to our non-binary main character as Robert Selby. Robert has come to London with his sister Louisa for the season to find her a suitable husband. However, the Selbys do not have enough funds or connections to make this happen on their own. Robert visits Alistair, the Marquess of Pembroke, to beg a favour and ask for his help.

Alistair has spent years rebuilding his family’s reputation and fortune after his late father indulged in affairs and excessive gambling. Alistair decides to help Robert and the two start spending quite a lot of time together. Over many glasses of brandy they fall in love — or at least in lust.

Before Louisa can find her match, Alistair learns Robert’s true identity. Robert is actually a woman named Charity, a housemaid. Several years ago she started dressing as and using the name of her former employer, the real Robert Selby.

For simplicity from this point on I will refer to Robert/Charity by the name she eventually chooses to use for herself, Robin. I will also use she/her pronouns and refer to her as non-binary, as explained in the author’s note.

Just some light trans panic

When Robin tells Alistair that she is a really woman, he does not take it well. Robin has told a lot of lies to look after Louisa and herself — and they all come to light at the same time as the “truth” about her gender.

Alistair is a very proper gentleman and he is worried about how being friends with Robin will damage his reputation. He starts calling her “the impostor” and fantasizes about having her transported to Canada. Robin privately worries that he will have her committed to a mental institution against her will.

“He was a marquess, a peer of the realm, and he could ruin her and Louisa with scarcely any effort.”

I honestly almost stopped reading here. This immediately made me think of trans panic, a modern day legal justification for being violent towards a romantic partner when you learn that they are trans. Alistair does not physically harm Robin, but he has the power to easily destroy her without needing to get his hands dirty.

This story line also associates dressing the “opposite” sex’s clothes with being an impostor and out for disturbing personal gain. This is often a justification used to keep trans women from using public bathrooms, saying that they are really men trying to spy on women.

Even at the start of the novel, Robin has an inkling that wearing men’s clothing is not a deception for her, but she is not yet confident in these feelings. It reminded me of so many trans people who worry about if they are trans enough, which is a feeling I can relate to.

This is all a bit heavier than I am looking for in some Regency era romantic escapism. But I trusted that this — like all romance novels — must end in the two falling in love and ending up happily ever after. So I carried on.

Robin growing confidence in her gender

“I’ve been dressing this way for so long it feels right. It always has.”

Robin and Alistair end up glimpsing each other at a very fancy ball, and lust draws them together. The two sneak off into the garden to talk. Robin tells Alistair that she feels sorry for lying to him about a number of things, but not about wearing men’s clothing. That is not a lie. Alistair doesn’t understand this. However, this does not stop our bisexual Marquess from being very hot for her and they hide in some bushes to make out.

Later in the novel when the pair finds themselves unexpectedly outside London for an extended time, Alistair’s understanding of Robin grows. Out of necessity, she borrows an ill-fitting borrowed dress. Without asking, he buys her high-quality, plain dresses that he thinks she might tolerate best. He also buys her men’s clothing, allowing her to choose what to wear when. Robin says she wants to burn the dresses when they are back in London, but he coyly asks her to at least pawn them instead.

Robin grows increasingly certain that she intends to wear men’s clothing for the rest of her life, even after she stops pretending to be Robert Selby. Nothing will stop her, not the promise of security, money or even her love for Alistair. Alistair can’t relate, but he stops trying to understand. Instead he just believes her and accepts her the ways she is. He uses his considerable power, wealth and influence to make the world a safer place for her and their relationship — rather than bend her to fit his life. This is one of the most romantic things I have read in a romance novel! This is a very non-binary version of a happily ever after.

Gender dysphoria free spicy scenes

Gender dysphoria is the distress some may feel when their gender does not match their sex assigned at birth. Not all trans or non-binary people feel this. We might imagine that Robin does at least sometimes — which inspires her to live and dress publicly as a man.

What surprises me is that her discomfort being perceived as a woman seems to go away when Alistair and her get into the bedroom. It’s common for people like Robin to feel uncomfortable with some parts of sex, especially related to being the receptive partner. (Here is some academic research on it and an article in Teen Vouge.)

The spicy scenes in this book read like anything you might find in a hetero romance novel. Which is honestly fine. There is no rule saying that non-binary people have to have sex in a particular way. Some non-binary people might find this liberating and exciting!

But for me, it was disappointing. I am a huge fan of Cat Sebastian and have read almost all of her books by now, which are all queer historical romances. I really love how she creatively uses intimacy scenes to develop the characters’ relationships. For example in The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes, Marian does not want to have PIV sex with her cis male partner. But they get up to all sorts of other fun. I wish that the the very combination of Robin’s gender and Alistair’s bisexuality led to something a bit more imaginative.

NOTE: When I subscribed to Cat Sebastian’s newsletter, I received a free digital collection of NSFW epilogues for many of her books. The first one I read was for this book, and it’s titled “Pegging, Finally.” So yea, that addresses some of what I mention here!

Recommendations

I love Cat Sebastian and I would recommend reading this book. If you are cisgender, it will be an accessible glimpse into what life as a non-binary person might have looked like in 1800s England. If you are trans or non-binary, you might want to save it for a moment for when you are ready to deal with the themes I’ve brought up.

And if you want some real life accounts of what life was like for gender non-conforming people throughout history, take a look at Before We Were Trans.