Parkhurst has been variously interpreted as either a woman using a persona to be able to work and have freedoms that were not allowed for women during that time, or a transgender man or other figure in trans history. If Parkhurst was a woman and did vote in 1868, the stagecoach driver may have been the first female to vote in a presidential election in California. Local legend and Parkhurst's gravestone claims that Parkhurst was "the first woman to vote in the U.S." and the fire station in Soquel, California, has a plaque reading: