Christine de Pizan's husband, Étienne du Castel, died in 1389, leaving her to support her mother and her children as a court writer.

The narrator of the text explains how they became a man after the death of their husband to become a writer, an occupation considered masculine.

The narrator asserts their male identity, making the text an early account of transgender representation in French medieval literature:[7]Before addressing the subject of their transformation, the narrator cites two other cases of women being transformed into men: Tiresias and Yplis (the Roman poet Ovid's Iphis).

The narrator indicates that they were transformed into a man by Fortune after their husband died in a shipwreck when they were 25 years old and already a mother.

The narrator indicates that they were assigned female at birth: "fus nee fille, sanz fable".