[citation needed] Stories spread that Hall had sexual relations with the maid nicknamed "Great Besse", who worked for the former governor of Virginia, Richard Bennett.

[citation needed] Lacking a local court or church to determine biological sex, the authority of the distinction fell to the laypersons, more specifically the married women of the village, who claimed experience with interpreting the female body.

Male incompetence was considered sufficient to determine female sex during the early modern colonial period, and Bass decided that Hall was not properly a man.

[6][verification needed] As described by Reis, a "solution consistent with scripture-based laws as interpreted by Talmudic commentaries and consonant with early modern European customs" was to make an individual "choose" either "man" or "woman" as their gender.

In a departure from similar European cases,[1] the court ruled that Hall had a "dual nature" sex, or what modern society classifies as intersex: "hee is a man and a woeman".

Before Hall's time, any individual determined by court to be "man and woman" was forced to adopt either a permanent male or female identity, based on their predominant genitalia.

Due to the intense ambiguity of Hall's body and lifestyle, the court could not determine if they were more male or female and required them to dress in clothing that symbolized this confusion.

[2] They believed that strenuous physical activity or even "mannish behavior" could cause testicles to exit from inside the vagina, explained as "evidence of Nature's unerring tendency toward a state of greater perfection".

[2] This left the work of defining the sexes to other societal institutions, which relied on "performing" gender through consistent dress, names, occupations, and sexual relationships.

The 12th-century Decretum Gratiani states that "Whether an hermaphrodite may witness a testament, depends on which sex prevails",[10][verification needed] while Henry de Bracton's De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae ("On the Laws and Customs of England"), c. 1235,[11][verification needed] states that "A hermaphrodite is classed with male or female according to the predominance of the sexual organs.

"[12][verification needed] Reis states that the novel solution required by the court was a deliberate form of unjust punishment, "not to endorse uncertainty, but to preclude future acts of deception, to mark the offender, and to warn others against similar abomination.