Award:
Martin Stevens Award
Award Year:
2025
Winner: Rivkin, Nat. “‘Lely-wyte, clene with pure virginyté’: The N-Town 'Nativity', the Virgin Mary, and Trans Misogyny.” Early Theatre 27.2 (2024). DOI: 10.12745/et.27.2.5846.
The MRDS is pleased to award Nat Rivkin the 2025 Martin Stevens Award for their article “‘Lely-wyte, clene with pure virginyté’: the N-Town Nativity, the Virgin Mary, and Trans Misogyny” published in Early Theatre. Rivkin examines “trans misogyny” in the N-Town Nativity, engaging the play text with trans studies scholarship to reflect on how the play contests histories of women’s medicine and healthcare. Rivkin deftly depicts the historically specific iteration of trans misogyny—late medieval East Anglian—that the text portrays, positing that it is from this framework that Mary may be read as gender variant. Rivkin’s essay, too, makes one reflect on current debates concerning gender-affirming healthcare for trans people in light of the trans misogyny critiqued in their reading of the play. We were impressed with the timeliness of Rivkin’s argument; its intervention in and addition to the existing gender, queer, and trans studies in medieval and early modern literature; and the lucidity of Rivkin’s prose.
Committee: Mario Longtin, Kirsten Mendoza, and Jeff Stoyanoff (chair). Awards announcement and presentation took place during the annual MRDS business meeting in May 2025, at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan.