At that time women were not allowed on stage so women characters were portrayed by men.
Any famous person who never married is automatically considered by the fags to be one of “them”, even when they were not.
Not talking about that. As written, the protagonists of “As You Like It” and “Twelfth Night” were females who decided to dress as men to conceal their identity.
Even if the actors in those cases were men, the characters were women dressing as men.