ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways that sacred, physically impaired, and transgender embodiment(s) are all structured by reference to notions of wholeness, perfection, and cure. Focussing on the character of Blanchandin·e in the fourteenth-century French narrative, Tristan de Nanteuil, the analysis considers how disability, cure, and gender transformation are employed to modify a body according to the exigencies of the surrounding hagiographic narrative. Blanchandin·e’s physical form is repeatedly altered in response to the needs of their son, St Gilles. The chapter traces the shared effects and affects of the social formation – and disassembly – of trans-ness, sanctity, and physical impairment through the related, connected, and leaky bodies of Blanchandin·e and St Gilles.
