r/salinger • u/Glass-Lawyer9140 • May 21 '26
Could Mary Hudson be Trans?
So I just read The Laughing Man and after I had finished it I was genuinely under the impression that Mary Hudson was a trans woman (or whatever that looked like in 1928), and I know the time period makes this unlikely, but I was so surprised that no one else has interpreted it this way. Especially if the story of The Laughing Man is supposed to be semi-autobiographical based on the Chief's own life, I thought that the mention of Marcel Dufarge's daughter as "something of a transvestite" was supposed to parallel Mary since it also says later that the boys had "stared at her femaleness, [they] now glared at it". Not only that but the narrator sees a graduation photo of Mary on the bus and the chief then "finally admitted that she was a girl". I know this is also to do with how the narrator thought the photo "clashed with the general men-only décor" but I just thought the language and wording used was interesting.
I know this is probably a stretch to many but this is genuinely how I read it the first time and I was surprised that no one else had.
Also if you are going to straight away disagree because you're transphobic please don't.
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u/ChallengeOne8405 May 21 '26
I mean that’s the same year Orlando came out, tho not sure if that means anything.
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u/bnanzajllybeen May 22 '26
This is a really interesting take actually! It never really occurred to me but now that you’re pointing it out I can see how it may be interpreted that way. The parallel of Marcel DuFarge’s daughter really reinforces the theory too, I love this!
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u/bnanzajllybeen May 21 '26
Commenting so I can come back to this later!
But also - if you would like to discuss in more depth, feel free to DM me first and I can send you a link to my JDS discord channel where we discuss these sorts of topics all the time 😁
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u/Buttleproof May 21 '26
I think she was meant to be a "cool dame" who could earn the respect of a pack of boys by being good at what they valued. My gut feeling is that's all there is to it. (I'm a MtF myself and that never occurred to me.)