The women’s rights movement took off in the United States in the 1850s. Sparked by educational advances, evangelical reform, and radical abolition, women wrote manifestos, organized conventions, and traveled the country garnering support for their causes. Campaigns for legal rights in marriage, dress reform, better wages, suffrage, and greater educational opportunities anchored the mainstream movement while radical activists integrated racial justice with feminism, working for peace, Indian rights, the abolition of slavery, and expanded rights for free black women and men. Debates about the similarities and differences between the sexes were an important part of public discourse. Feminists had wide-ranging views themselves on the subject, though most agreed that transing gender undermined their cause. Even the bloomers caused a stir that made many uncomfortable. Critics of women’s political advocacy, autonomy, and equality used the language of gender to undermine their efforts by calling them “masculine,” “manly,” or at the very least, not “womanly.” Such rhetoric was rooted in older arguments that women who were too well read might develop masculine minds. But this critique gained renewed potency as more women rejected conventional expectations by wearing bloomers, refusing marriage, and standing as political critics of slavery, war, and violence.