Chaucer's Pardoner, some will remember, has long blonde hair and speaks in a high treble voice. Chaucer calls him "a gelding or a mare." A gelding is obviously a eunuch; what Chaucer means by mare is less clear — perhaps "female eunuch" — whatever that entails — or a gay male or possibly even a woman cross-dressed as a man. In any case, a person of ambiguous sexuality — "gender fluid" in modern idiom.
Update: the Naval Academy Nimitz library at Annapolis has purged from its shelves a book by Robert S. Sturges called "Chaucer's Pardoner: Gender Theory." Isn't it reassuring that our national security will no longer be endangered by a discussion of the Pardoner's identity.
The list of 381 censored books can be found at
Click to access 250404-LIST%20OF%20REMOVED%20BOOKS%20FROM%20NIMITZ%20LIBRARY.PDF
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