So, I have been really into the idea of making a genderbend AU for major figures of the American Civil War, with a focus on Ulysses S Grant and his staff.
I am worried this may be confused with "Yes, Madam President!" by @joydoesathing's beautiful genderbends of Grant and Lincoln, in particular. However, my art style and focus on worldbuilding rather than interaction/being fun and awesome are very different, I am curious as to whether Joy and the public are comfortable with this concept; thus, this is an open letter of love to this beautiful project of historical character design, which has inspired me to make my own, albeit of a very different style and tone, and likely of lesser merit, lesser staying power, and a much narrower demographic of interest.
This focuses on events before the end of the American Civil War, and thus will likely include very little, if anything, regarding Lincoln's brief second term, the Johnson administration, or the Grant administration and Reconstruction.
The society this work/setting inherently involves is one of a matriarchy, paralleling the real-world patriarchy. This is due to the benefits of the patriarchy being inextricable from the experiences and character, for better or for worse, of the figures of this time period. If not benefiting from a similar system of inequality, the character, experiences, and achievements of these figures would be unrecognizable, if not altogether impossible.
The background worldbuilding/experience of an inverted societal gender power structure is similar to that detailed in the comedic videos of Clare Brown, though excluding the inverted ethnocentric power dynamics, and taken further back in history.
The principal character of this work would be Urania Grant Dent, birth name Henrietta Urania Grant, pre-marriage alias Urania S Grant. Ulyssa/Ulyssia are real names and may have been used at the time, but they are exceedingly uncommon to the point of not being recognized as proper nouns by any spelling check. These variations of Ulysses feel clunky as well, and just make the flow of her name feel wrong/unnatural. The conventions of giving baby boys the middle name of a mythological/literary figure to be emulated were not typically paralleled in the female naming conventions of the time. Urania has a similar cultural/folkloric origin from the same region, but matches the historical pattern of naming better, and does not impede the natural spoken flow of the name in birth order or chosen order. The use of the military nickname "Uncle Sam" is still fitting, as military nicknames can often be de-gendering in a degrading or observational manner.
My primary object of interest in creating such a setting is the ease with which the degree of practicality vs style in the clothing of officers in the American Civil War translates to a paradigm of femininity vs practicality. Long beards or extravagant facial hair, the impracticality of which may be somewhat lost on a modern/civilian audience, become looser/longer/more intricate, less practical hairstyles. Fancier and less practical, or more flamboyant (and thus creating a target) uniform styling becomes more apparent to a modern audience when translated to impractical, increasing degrees of femininity. This is due to how impractical historic uniforms as a whole look to those accustomed to more modern military wear, which, when translated to a more visible or more universally understandable continuum of gender presentation, is more readily understood.
I also have a strong personal fascination with character design, historical fashion, sociology (particularly the sociology of gender), and women (particularly of unconventional beauty, gender nonconformity, positions of power of one sort or another, and/or middle or older age).
Finally, I have an intense personal affection for Ulysses S Grant and those in his circle and personal life, particularly his lovely, spoiled Southern socialite of a wife! The idea of Julius Dent as a beautiful, fat man, and a Southern dandy at that, makes my heart flutter, as does the image of Urania Grant Dent as a masculine, plain, and practical older woman! General and Mrs Grant give me what the kids call "bi panic", as would this hypothetical General and Mr Dent!
