Also Known As: La Monja Alférez (The Nun Lieutenant), Catalina de Erauso (Deadname), Alonso Díaz, Pedro de Orive, Francisco de Loyola 
Born: 1585 or 1592, San Sebastián, Gipuzkoa, Spain 
Died: 1650, Cotaxtla or Orizaba, New Spain (modern-day Mexico) 
Gender Identity: Transgender man 
Sexuality: Attracted to women; relationships and engagements suggest a lesbian or queer orientation within a transgender identity 
Nationality: Spanish 
Occupation: Soldier, explorer, memoirist 
Notable For: Escaping convent life to live and fight as a man across the Spanish Americas in the early 17th century; publicly recognized by the Spanish Crown and Catholic Church under a male identity 

Early Life 

Antonio de Erauso, born Catalina de Erauso, was born in San Sebastián, Spain to a noble Basque family. His father, Captain Miguel de Erauso, had served under King Philip III and was well-connected, while his cousin held the position of prioress at the Dominican convent where Antonio was raised from early childhood alongside two of his sisters. From a young age, Antonio was rebellious, known for clashing with authority figures and chafing against the expected path toward becoming a nun. 

At approximately age 15, just before taking religious vows, he cut his hair short, fashioned masculine clothing, and fled the convent under the assumed name Francisco de Loyola. This escape marked the beginning of his lifelong self-identification and presentation as male. He began working as a page for noble households in cities like Valladolid and Bilbao and went on to adopt other names such as Pedro de Orive and Alonso Díaz as he forged a life of independence and travel. 

Travels Across Spain 

During his travels across Spain, Antonio de Erauso worked as a page and errand boy for several noblemen, often changing names and cities to avoid recognition or legal trouble. Under the identity of Francisco de Loyola, he found work in Valladolid with the secretary to King Philip III, where he unexpectedly encountered his own father, who failed to recognize him. This was a pivotal moment that underscored his full transition into life as a man. 

In Bilbao and other parts of northern Spain, Erauso often found himself entangled in street fights and brawls, leading to periods of imprisonment and forced relocation. He adopted aliases like Pedro de Orive and Alonso Díaz to obscure his past and continue traveling undetected. These experiences shaped his ability to improvise, deceive, and survive in an increasingly dangerous world. Despite the challenges, his firm masculine presentation and quick wits allowed him to blend into military and lower-class male society, setting the stage for his later adventures in the Americas. 

Life in the Americas 

Seeking further adventure, Erauso sailed to the New World as a cabin boy and arrived in Panama. He later made his way to Peru and Chile, enlisting in the Spanish army under the name Alonso Díaz Ramírez de Guzmán. His military career spanned several regions of colonial Latin America, including Panama, Venezuela, Peru, and Chile. He quickly gained a reputation for bravery and ferocity, rising through the ranks to become a second lieutenant and later a captain. 

Erauso participated in the brutal campaigns against Indigenous peoples, including the Mapuche of southern Chile. His violent actions were not limited to the battlefield. He was known for frequent brawls, deadly duels, and volatile relationships with women. He accumulated debts from gambling and was often pursued by the authorities for crimes such as murder and desertion. 

At one point, while gravely wounded in a duel and believed to be dying, he revealed his assigned sex at birth to a local religious official. This confession led to his temporary placement in a convent for recovery. Attempts to escape from the convent resulted in his being brought before Bishop Agustín de Carvajal in Huamanga in 1623, where he formally confessed his life story. He was examined by midwives, who attested that he was a virgin. This medical testimony played a crucial role in his release and subsequent journey back to Spain. 

Erauso’s exploits during this period, whether fleeing from authorities or navigating battlefield politics, highlighted his ability to leverage both performance and masculinity for survival in a deeply patriarchal and colonial world. 

Gender Revelation and Legal Recognition 

In 1623, following his injury and confession to a bishop in Huamanga, Antonio de Erauso’s assigned sex at birth became publicly known. After his confession, he was examined by a group of midwives who determined he was biologically female and had remained a virgin. This detail, emphasized by the Church, became instrumental in legitimizing his request for leniency and later recognition. 

Rather than being punished, Erauso’s life story intrigued powerful figures in both the colonial territories and Spain itself. Upon his return to Spain, he petitioned King Philip IV for a military pension. His appeal was successful. The Crown acknowledged his years of service as a soldier and granted him financial support. 

Erauso also traveled to Rome, where he secured an audience with Pope Urban VIII. The pope formally granted him permission to continue dressing and living as a man. This papal recognition was an extraordinary act for the era. It offered an institutional blessing for his male identity, based not only on his virginity but also on his loyalty to Catholicism and service to the Spanish Empire. 

While there was no concept of “transgender” identity in 17th-century language, Erauso’s life and legal status reflected a rare example of gender variance being both tolerated and officially sanctioned under patriarchal systems. His military valor, virginity, and Catholic devotion combined to carve out a space for living openly as a man within a legal and ecclesiastical framework. 

Authorship and Memoirs 

Antonio de Erauso’s story became widely known through a sensational autobiographical account commonly titled La Vida y sucesos de la Monja Alférez (The Life and Adventures of the Lieutenant Nun). The memoir was written or dictated around 1626 and quickly circulated throughout Europe. While the original manuscript has been lost, the surviving versions are transcriptions and adaptations believed to be based on his oral testimony, filtered through various editors and publishers. 

The text recounts his life with flair and bravado, including escapes, duels, romantic entanglements, and military exploits. It is a highly stylized narrative filled with contradictions, humorous exaggerations, and mythic elements, making it both a cultural artifact and a literary curiosity. Though there is debate about how much of the story reflects historical truth versus performance or embellishment, the memoir remains a foundational text for queer and trans historiography. 

The memoir was translated into multiple languages over the centuries and served as inspiration for plays, novels, and academic studies. Its tone is unapologetically self-congratulatory, emphasizing Antonio’s masculinity, combat prowess, and clever manipulation of social norms. Despite doubts about authorship and embellishments, the work has long fascinated readers as an example of gender nonconformity, adventure literature, and colonial identity. 

Modern editions have reexamined the memoir through feminist, queer, and decolonial lenses. Scholars like Sherry Velasco and Dan Harvey Pedrick have provided annotated translations that contextualize the autobiography within early modern Spanish society, Catholic morality, and the structures of empire and conquest. Whether viewed as propaganda, confession, performance, or survival strategy, the memoir endures as a singular document of life lived outside the bounds of traditional gender and national roles. 

Final Years and Death 

After receiving recognition from both the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church, Antonio de Erauso returned to the Americas. He lived the remainder of his life in New Spain, where he worked as a mule driver and merchant, particularly in the region that is now modern-day Mexico. 

While no longer engaged in military campaigns, he continued to live as a man, retaining the name Antonio de Erauso and the social freedom it provided. His final years were spent quietly compared to his earlier tumultuous life. Some sources suggest he died in the town of Cotaxtla in 1650, while others mention Orizaba. The exact details of his death remain unclear, and no known grave has been definitively identified. 

Despite the uncertainties surrounding the final chapter of his life, Antonio de Erauso’s legacy endured through the spread of his memoir and continued scholarly debate. His story occupies a singular place in early modern history as a figure of gender variance, colonial violence, and transgressive identity navigating the complex structures of empire, religion, and patriarchy. 

Legacy 

Antonio de Erauso has remained a figure of fascination for scholars, artists, and activists alike. In recent years, his legacy has been reinterpreted through trans, queer, and decolonial lenses. Once portrayed as a curious anomaly, he is now recognized as one of the earliest documented cases of someone living long-term under a gender identity different from the one assigned at birth with institutional validation. 

In 2022, the exhibition Una voz para Erauso. Epílogo para un tiempo trans opened in Bilbao at the Azkuna Zentroa cultural center. Commissioned by trans philosopher Paul B. Preciado and created by the artist collective Cabello/Carceller, the show centered on a video work that staged a dialogue between modern questions of gender, race, empire, and religion and a 17th-century portrait believed to depict Erauso. The portrait by Juan van der Hamen, painted around 1625, may be the oldest known portrait of a transgender person. The artists emphasized how the painter presented Erauso not as a nun or woman, but as a scarred soldier, leaning into the identity Erauso himself claimed. 

Erauso has been the subject of plays, operas, novels, and academic papers. His story challenges rigid binaries of gender, sexuality, and colonial power, even while he participated in and benefited from structures of conquest and religious authority. For some, he is a problematic icon, simultaneously a violent colonizer and a resilient gender nonconformist. For others, he is a survivor and improviser, carving out a life in systems not made to recognize or support people like him. 

Today, Erauso is increasingly viewed as part of the broader history of transgender lives, existing centuries before the term itself. His life invites reflection on how societies past and present define gender, morality, and legitimacy. The contradictions in his story are part of what keep it relevant: a Catholic soldier, an outlaw, a memoirist, and a gender outlaw all in one. 

Sources

1. Archivo General de Indias
2. Catalina de Erauso, Lieutenant Nun (trans. Michele Stepto)
3. Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures
4. Euskomedia Archives
5. Eva Mendieta, In Search of Catalina de Erauso: The National and Sexual Identity of the Lieutenant Nun (2022)
6. Kris Lane, Potosí: The Silver City that Changed the World (2019)
7. Linda Rapp, GLBTQ Archive profile
8. Matthew Goldmark, “Reading Habits: Catalina de Erauso and Gender in Colonial Spain”
9. Real Academia de la Historia
10. Sherry Velasco, The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire, and Catalina de Erauso (2009)
11. Sonia Pérez-Villanueva, The Life of Catalina de Erauso (2014)
12. The Lieutenant Nun (New Interdisciplinary Approaches to Early Modern Culture) 1st Edition by Edward McLean Test &  Marta Albalá Pelegrín (2025)
13. Gale Researcher Guide for: Beyond Binaries: Gender in the Life and Writings of Catalina/Antonio de Erauso by Eva Mendieta