A growing number of people assigned female at birth rejected the constraints of womanhood near the end of the nineteenth century. There were more ways to do this than ever before. Some embraced a male identity and were known by neighbors as men while others were known to be women. Gender expressions proliferated and varied. Female husband – once a clear category that signaled a particular life experience and gender expression – suddenly meant other things. In the late nineteenth century, the category was used in an expansive way to describe a variety of people. Broadway star Annie Hindle was thought of as a woman who dressed in men’s clothing for their work on stage and sometimes off-stage as well. At the same time, homosocial environments in schools and workplaces nurtured same-sex friendships and intimacies, enabling more women to reject conventional heterosexual marriages. Many forces contributed to these shifts, including industrialization, urbanization, feminism, and progressive social movements.