“Amazing…what one has to do to get ahead in a man’s world” 
                                            (Sherlock Meta by Ivy Blossom)

“Amazing…what one has to do to get ahead in a man’s world” 

You know, though this scene in TAB, I understood that Molly had to be male in order to just do the work, I got that. And that’s clearly where story ended up going; what we see in Hooper is a woman pretending to be a man in order to do the work she loves. 

But on the first watch, I thought Molly might be trans, presenting as a man because he is a man, which makes John’s “oh but I know what you really are even if Sherlock doesn’t” speech pretty damn mean. And it seemed to me that John clearly wrong. Sherlock does know that Hooper wasn’t assigned male at birth. I thought he was respecting Hooper’s gender presentation and not being a dick about it. 

It struck me how often John is the dick in TAB instead of Sherlock. (”Not at all, dear! We’ll be hungry later!” etc.) Interestingly, Sherlock isn’t much of an example of Victorian masculinity and attitudes in TAB, while John certainly is. John is fighty, anti-feminist, and paranoid about everyone from socialists to the Scots. It’s tempting to speculate on what this means about Sherlock’s thoughts on John’s opinions and failings. Does he see John as traditional to a fault? 

But I don’t think that’s the point, exactly. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Victorian!John’s dickishness is about John qua John. Sherlock has immersed himself in late VIctorian London, so everyone has to be modulated to fit. Independent Mary is a suffragist, pathologist Molly is presenting as male, and John Watson, former soldier, doctor, and Victorian man, has average, run of the mill Victorian male opinions. He’s the equivalent of the Victorian Vitruvian man. 

Which makes sense: Sherlock is the one controlling the fantasy, when he is in control of it, which is most of the time; he’s the modern man with modern opinions in a Victorian environment. He’s the one putting on a costume, while the rest of them live there. He’s a man out of time.