Identity in "Lieutenant Nun"

In “Convent to Battlefield,” Mary Elizabeth Perry explains that while the Lieutenant Nun Erauso’s “brawling, gambling male persona most deeply impressed those whom she insulted at the gambling tables, her virginal female persona convinced the officers in authority that she should be treated as a woman deserving respect.” I find this idea of a single person’s various identities fitting different settings very interesting. Soldiers and policemen saw Erauso as a pugnacious fellow; meanwhile, religious authorities whom he told his secret saw her as a good, virginal woman. I feel that this conditional acceptance of his personas both validates and invalidates his chosen way of life, because while he was generally accepted for being the way he was (i.e., living as a man), different groups chose to view Erauso as embodying just one of these two identities, but not both or even the one as which he actively lived.

I am also intrigued by the fact that he won widespread acceptance at all. In the present day, it is not so easy for people who transgress gender roles to gain such quick, mainstream acceptance. Granted, Erauso was not accepted as just another person; he was regarded as a fascinating oddity and a cultural hero, and therefore considered "other." Nonetheless, he was still beloved, which is more than can be said for many other gender-nonconforming individuals.