Charley Parkhurst was a brave 19th-century stagecoach driver who worked hard to be respected, as we learn from this bouncy, rhyming tale. After his death, however, people discovered that he had been assigned female at birth. Author Verla Kay clearly thinks he lived as he did because of the limited options open to women, not because he identified as a man, writing: “Hold your horses / Huge surprise . . . / He’s a woman in disguise.” Additionally, the final line uses female pronouns for Charley: “Charley did though–/As she would./Drove and voted,/Cause ‘he’ could.” While we may never know how Charley himself thought about his gender, this retelling of his life would have been better if it left the possibilities open. (I use male pronouns for him here, since they are what he used.)
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