[Illustration: The Author Ready to Set Out on Life’s Journey.]




                             AUTOBIOGRAPHY
                                 OF AN
                               ANDROGYNE


              BY EARL LIND (“RALPH WERTHER”—“JENNIE JUNE”)

                       EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION
                 BY ALFRED W. HERZOG, Ph.B., A.M., M.D.
             Member of the New York and the New Jersey Bar
                  Editor of the _Medico-Legal Journal_


                                NEW YORK
                        THE MEDICO-LEGAL JOURNAL
                                  1918




                            COPYRIGHT, 1919
                          BY ALFRED W. HERZOG


First edition, 1,000 copies. Sold only, by mail order, to physicians,
lawyers, legislators, psychologists, and sociologists; by Medico-Legal
Journal, 123 West 83d Street, New York City.

                  This is copy Number .... and is sold

                  to .................................




          Inscribed to NATURE’S STEP-CHILDREN—the sexually
          abnormal by birth—in the hope that their lives may
          be rendered more tolerable through the publication
          of this Autobiography.


          “But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they
          are all of them snared in holes, and they are
          hid in prison houses; they are for a prey, and
          none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith,
          Restore.

          “Who among you will give ear to this? Who will
          hearken and hear for the time to come?”—Isaiah XLII,
          v. 22, 23.




                                CONTENTS


 Introduction, by Dr. Alfred W. Herzog                                 i
 Author’s Preface                                                      1
 Autobiography                                                         5
 Appendix I. Impressions of the Author, by a Business Associate      246
 Appendix II. The Case of Oscar Wilde, by Author of this
   Autobiography                                                     251
 Appendix III. Questionnaire on Homosexuality                        259
 Index                                                               260




                             ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                              Opposite—
 The Author Ready to Set Out on Life’s Journey                Title page
 The Author—a Modern Living Replica of the Ancient Greek
   Statue of “Hermaphroditos”                                 Page   5
 Ancient Greek Statue of an Androgyne, called
   “Hermaphroditos,” now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence,
   Italy                                                      Page   6
 The Author at Thirty-four                                    Page 235
 The Author at Forty-four                                     Page 242




                              INTRODUCTION


I offer no apology for bringing the AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ANDROGYNE before
the members of the learned professions, to whom the sale of this book is
restricted.

Were, in my opinion, an apology needed, this volume would not make its
appearance through my instrumentality.

The reason for its appearance is missionary, and therefore I consider it
right and proper that I should explain what I hope to accomplish
thereby.

I am sorry not to be able to say that the appearance of this volume will
fill a long felt want.

For, although I hope to fill with the AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ANDROGYNE a
void; yet, had this void been recognized, were the want felt to have
this void filled, my task would be easier of accomplishment.

The void whereof I speak is the colossal ignorance of the reasons for
homosexual practices on one side, and the pharisaical pulchritude on the
other side, which, although knowing that homosexuality has been
practiced uninterruptedly from biblical times up to the present, refuses
to study its causes or its devotees; and while not endeavoring to make
this world a better place to live in through its own abandoning
unwholesome practices, vices and other actions which, although approved,
condoned or ignored by the multitude—because these actions are
popular—are condemned by philosophers and thinkers, yet will crucify
those whose vices are much less harmful, because they are vices for
which this pharisaical pulchritude has no taste, which therefore it
cannot understand, and not understanding them, cannot condone.

This is to be no brief in defense of homosexuality, although, were I to
try to find redeeming features for homosexual practices in certain cases
and under certain circumstances, I would not have to cudgel my brain
overly to do so.

This is not intended as a defense of all those who indulge in homosexual
practices.

Such a defense might be attempted and successfully carried out, were it
possible to bring this question before a jury of unbiased, open-minded
and independent thinkers, who would decide the question upon the
platform of equal justice to all, weighing the relative harmfulness of
all sexual crimes and excesses, and who would not punish those indulging
in homosexual practices, if they refuse to punish those indulging in
sexual crimes and excesses vastly more injurious to the human race and
to society.

This book is published in an endeavor to obtain justice and humane
treatment for the Androgynes, that class of homosexualists in whom
homosexuality is not an acquired vice but in whom it is congenital.

In pleading a case in Court, even before the highest tribunals, it is
good practice not to take it for granted that the judge knows the law,
or even facts, which might appear to the pleader to be matters of common
knowledge; and so I may be excused if I state to the reader matters
which to him may be already familiar.

Let us then first consider what Homosexuality is.

Homosexuality means sexual love for one of the same sex.

Thus, if a male feels sexual desire for another male, or a female for
another female, they are called sexually inverted or homosexual.

Freud claims that there is in every one an original bisexual tendency,
which is also established anatomically.

Normal development leads from bisexuality to the primacy of the
heterosexual instinct.

Thus inversion corresponds to a disturbance of development.

Whether one agrees with Freud, that homosexuality or inversion
originates in every instance in early childhood, or whether one
disagrees with him and takes the stand which I take, that some cases of
homosexuality are congenital, that others are acquired in early
childhood, while others again are the result of vice or sexual
necessity, as among soldiers, sailors, or in schools; we must come to
the conclusion, that laws which do not differentiate in the punishment
of crimes against nature between those who are born inverts or whose
inversion dates from early childhood and those whose homosexuality is
due to vice or association and who amphogenously inverted or
occasionally inverted use a sexual object belonging either to the same
or the opposite sex, are inadequate, antiquated, not keeping step with
the progress which has been made as to the subject, and should be
changed.

The subject has been discussed not for tens, or hundreds, but for
thousands of years.

Martial, in his epigrams, treats of homosexuality; Socrates and
Alcibiades were said to have been lovers; this is the reason why
pæderasty is also called Socratic love.

Homosexuality in women is called tribadism, euphemism, Lesbian or
Sapphic love; this because Sappho, after having lost Faon, is said to
have turned from men to homosexual love.

This should be sufficient to show that homosexuality was discussed among
the Romans and Greeks, and it is well known that the Bible is not quiet
about it.

Thus then one should expect that a subject which has been so much
discussed should be well enough understood to have its devotees treated
fairly.

Let us see what the law has to say about it?

While in some countries homosexuality is not punishable, in the United
States the law on homosexuality is all comprised in the statutes under
the term of Sodomy.

This comprises not only homosexuality, but also bestiality.

The Penal Code of the State of New York, par. 303, says:

Crimes against Nature.

A person who carnally knows in any manner any animal or bird; or
carnally knows any male or female person by the anus or by or with the
mouth; or voluntarily submits to such carnal knowledge; or attempts
sexual intercourse with a dead body is guilty of sodomy and is
punishable with imprisonment for not more than twenty years.

Par. 304:

Penetration sufficient.

Any sexual penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the
crime specified in the last section.


Our discussion has nothing to do with bestiality or sexual violation of
the dead or unnatural practices between persons of different sex.

And here I wish to state that homosexuality between females, or
so-called Lesbian or Sapphic love, has, to my knowledge, never been
punished in the United States, although the statute seems broad enough
to cover certain sexual practices, as for example cunnilingus, between
females, while tribadism, in which there is no penetration, and whose
devotees according to Yanez, are called in Spain vulgarly “tortilleras,”
according to the New York Code can not be punished, as there is no
penetration. Yanez, in his _Medicina Legal_, published in Madrid in
1884, gives an excellent description of homosexuality and describes also
the general appearance of those male homosexualists whose ways and
manners resemble those of the female sex, and who in common parlance in
the United States are called “Fairies.”

Tidy, in his _Legal Medicine_, not only refers, in discussing
homosexuality, to Romans, I, 26, but gives some historical references,
and cites a number of English cases.

In speaking of “sodomites,” he says: “Sodomites are persons of all ages,
but they usually present a somewhat feminine appearance, or strive to
appear like women. To this end they commonly conceal or destroy, as far
as practicable, such virile appendages as beard, whiskers, or moustache,
wearing a profusion of jewelry, paint and padding. So far, indeed, may
this liking go, that in one case a male to the death is said to have
passed himself off as a female, being employed evidently as a passive
agent.

“And yet, curious to say, sodomites generally affect the society of
their own sex, and avoid that of the opposite sex.

“To them natural sexual intercourse is frequently a matter of absolute
distaste.... All this suggests the curious question, whether such
aberration of sexual desires may not be the result of an incipient
hermaphrodism. Casper’s account of a brotherhood of sodomites and of
their mutual powers of recognition, further suggests to the medical
jurist (dangerous as the very idea may be accounted) how far the
criminality of these people is not beyond their control. But on the
other hand, undoubted sodomites are to be found with none of the
characteristics just described and free from all hereditary taint.”

I have quoted from Tidy at such length, to show that Tidy recognized the
fact that in certain homosexualists a hereditary taint is the cause and
because I wish to emphasize the fact that while the condition has been
recognized by Tidy and others, yet it has not been clearly understood.

This can be deduced from the words above quoted, that “curious to say,
sodomites generally affect the society of their own sex.”

It must be understood, that the congenital homosexualist is really a
human being, born with the body of a male, with perhaps some female
characteristics, but with the soul of a female. The congenital
homosexualist always feels himself as a female, and therefore is always
attracted towards men and would rather be in their society than in the
society of females, who are sexually repulsive to him. This Tidy
evidently failed to clearly understand.

This then is my contention, that homosexuality is either an acquired
vice, that is to say a habit, or an acquired mental aberration, that is
to say, insanity, or congenital; and then it is that a human being is
born with a body with sexual organs all those of the male, yet most
likely with a body which shows certain earmarks of the female, and with
a soul nearly all female, but certainly entirely female in regard to the
sex question. Such a person is a homosexualist, because he feels like a
woman and to him all male persons belong to the opposite sex. He is not
a roué, who has developed homosexuality as a vice, but he is born an
androgyne, whom we can recognize in his manners and mannerisms; a male
person with female ways.

If then the Bible already speaks of homosexual practices and warns
against the idolatrous homosexual practices devoted to Moloch and Bal
Phegor; if already Juvenal and Martial and Cornelius Nepos describe
homosexuality, were it not about time that something were done to change
the existing laws?

Hofman, in his _Lehrbuch der gerichtlichen Medizin_, published in 1884,
draws attention to the fact that passive pæderasts are generally of
remarkable femininity, and quotes Brouardel as also remarking that this
female appearance, these female actions and these female habits, likes
and dislikes are generally congenital.

Tidy also, in his work on _Legal Medicine_, published in 1883, states:
“Nor must the hereditary nature of such crimes be overlooked.”

To quote from Beranger:

                   “Son teint, reluisant de pomade,
                   Par le carmin est embelli.
                   On le devine, quand il passe,
                   Autour de lui l’air est ambré.
                   Ses cheveux bouclent avec grace,
                   Son habit presse un dos cambré.
                   Comme une coquette un peu grasse,
                   Dans un corset il est serré.”

Mantegazza, in his _Hygiene of Love_, published in 1877, mentions the
subject and states that these cases generally are not due to congenital
aberration, thus admitting that some of them are. I think that it was in
1877 when Krafft-Ebing first drew attention to the psycho-pathology of
certain forms of homosexuality; since that time forty years have passed,
and still the laws fail to differentiate between the vicious pæderasts
and the unfortunate passive pæderasts. The distinction between those in
whom homosexual practices are a vice and in whom they are a misfortune,
is, it seems to me, generally very easily made. The vicious
homosexualist acts the part of a male. The unfortunate, insane or
congenital homosexualist acts the part of a female. The one is active,
the other passive.

That the passive homosexualist is a victim of nature, an unfortunate who
is generally despised and hounded, seems however not to be enough, for
he is also considered legitimate prey of the underworld, who blackmail
these unfortunates systematically. This form of blackmail is known under
the term of “chantage,” and practiced in every large city of the
European and American continents. The laws against homosexuality, as at
present in force, similar to the Mann White Slave Act, seem to only
serve blackmailing crooks, so as to give them an easy living.

It is true that homosexuality at present is not punished as severely as
it was in olden times. It was not so long ago when in Europe it was
punished by burning, later by burying alive; only a few years ago in the
United States it was punishable by hanging; now the punishment is much
milder, but, if it be admitted that homosexuality in certain easily
recognizable persons is congenital and incurable, and if it be also
admitted that it surely is a great deal less harmful than ordinary
prostitution, why punish it at all, or why not at least exempt from
punishment those homosexualists whom Krafft-Ebing so rightly calls “true
stepchildren of nature”?


The author of the AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ANDROGYNE called on me some time
ago with his manuscript, imploring me to read it and to publish it.

He told me that he had written most of it years ago and that he had
spent a great deal of time trying to find a publisher, but
unsuccessfully.

He stated that he had written his autobiography in an endeavor to bring
his misfortune vividly before the medical and legal fraternities, for
the purpose of lightening the heavy load which rested so unjustly, as he
said, upon the unfortunates of his class.

While proving to me through letters which were in his possession and
which were addressed to him under various pseudonyms, that he had
submitted his work to different men of learning, all of whom commented
upon it favorably, still the fact that he had unsuccessfully tried to
find a publisher among the various publishers of medical works, was not
a very good introduction of his manuscript to me; yet the open statement
of this fact spoke for his honesty, and although very busy at the time,
I promised him that I would read it.

Now a word about the author: While, according to his own statement, he
is in the fifth decade, he would pass as considerably younger. I have
seen him during the preparation of the work a score of times and have
had some slight chance of observing him.

His language was always very carefully chosen and showed considerable
polish.

His manner was always very gentlemanly and inoffensive.

In figure he is short, stout and has a very arched back.

His voice is rather hoarse, trembling and has, perhaps, a certain female
timbre.

His manner seemed generally timid and embarrassed, and he blushes very
easily.

From his appearance and manners he can, by the gnoscenti, be easily
recognized as an Androgyne.

His avowed purpose in writing and desiring the publication of his
Autobiography, is, as I stated before, by describing his martyrdom, to
lighten the burdens which other Androgynes have to bear; yet my study of
him makes me think that the underlying and perhaps to him unknown reason
for the creation of this Autobiography is vanity.

The author is extremely vain.

My impression of him is, that while he really suffered the agonies he
describes; while he really in the beginning of his career underwent the
soul struggles he tells about; yet he is at present extremely proud of
the, to him undisputable fact, that he is all of a woman’s soul in a
body which he believes to be one-third female and thus only two-thirds
male.

There is no doubt but that his body shows some female characteristics;
especially so his breasts.

He glories in it.

To him, this at least is my impression, to be all woman would be
heavenly.

Some years ago he underwent the operation of castration.

He says, and perhaps he believes, that the reason why he underwent the
operation was, that he suffered from spermatorrhea.

My belief is, that, feeling as a woman, desiring to be a woman and
wishing to seem as much as possible like a woman to his male paramours,
he hated above all the testicles, those insignia of manhood, and had
them removed to be more alike to that which he wished to be.

I read through his AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ANDROGYNE.

I cannot say that I enjoyed it.

I neither liked the style in which it was written, nor the manner in
which, to me, unimportant details were given a great deal of space, nor
the manner in which vital questions were entirely overlooked.

I did not see any scientific value in the conversations related nor any
poetical value in the verses recited.

The subject matter was all well known to me and nauseating.

I was to edit this “Autobiography” and stood aghast at the task that I
thought was before me.

I saw the author and told him what I have just stated and that in my
opinion the book had neither literary nor scientific value in the way in
which he thought it had.

I found that the author was severely hurt. This Autobiography was his
joy—a work which this epoch had been waiting for and which futurity will
crown as a classic.

He fought with all his might against any of his verses being omitted.
Every single word that I wanted to change or expunge was of vital
importance to him.

And then I saw a light.

The AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ANDROGYNE would serve its mission best unedited,
and so it practically remains.

The author, in writing this book, has written into it his own soul, for
him to read who can see further than the printed word.

He has lighted a torch to show in his own way the baser sex feelings of
a sexual invert.

He has shown some of the suffering which he has undergone at the
beginning of his career.

He has shown the contempt in which the Androgyne is held by reason of a
psychical aberration not of his own making.

He has shown how the homosexualist who does not do because he wills but
who does because he must, is exploited by the criminal classes.

In thus lighting the torch and holding it up for us to see what he
desires us to see, he also unconsciously lights up himself in all his
womanly vanity, showing his pride in the fact that he is different from
others; showing his pride in his many conquests; in fact, if I may use
the word in a perhaps not quite exact way, giving a _psychoanalysis_ of
himself without attempting to do so.

Thus then, while the author offers the AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ANDROGYNE as
a plain chronological statement of facts slightly covered to hide his
identity, I offer it at the same time as a psychological study, well
worthy of a careful analysis.

Whether this volume is read from the author’s viewpoint or from mine,
only one conclusion can be reached:

Such as he are not to be punished.

                                                       ALFRED W. HERZOG.

 October, 1918.




                            AUTHOR’S PREFACE


From childhood I have been unusually introspective. I began to keep a
diary at the age of fourteen, and have continued it up to past the age
of forty almost without intermission. Even my earliest diaries dealt
with the phenomena of my sexual life, so that in general I have had to
keep them under lock and key.

The third physician from whom I sought a cure for my sexual abnormality
gave me to understand as early as 1892 that my case was a remarkable
one. This pronouncement incited me still further to keep a record of
what life brought me with a view to writing an autobiography some day.

In 1899, at the age of twenty-five, I wrote the accompanying account of
my life down to that age, and subsequently added accounts of significant
events as they occurred. I also from time to time edited and made
inserts in what I had already written. As a result, parts of some pages
were written in different years. The book has been fated to wait
eighteen years for publication, primarily because American medical
publishers—on the basis of the attitude of the profession—have had an
antipathy against books dealing with abnormal sexual phenomena.

I wish to impress upon the reader that I have not let the sexual
appetite possess first place in my life. It had to have its place, but
the appetite itself, exclusive of its effects, occupied only a small
place. From this autobiography a hasty reader might obtain the
impression that I was completely absorbed in the line of life and
thought here presented, that it was all I lived for. But it is to be
remembered that the object of the book is to delineate the phenomena of
androgynism, passive sexual inversion, and psychical infantilism as they
manifested themselves in the life of its writer, and to give only such
part of his life as was out of the ordinary. My nonsexual life has been
along the same lines as that of all other intellectual workers, and is
barely touched upon in this autobiography, that is, only where it has a
bearing on the phenomena to be delineated. Taking my adulthood as a
whole, the sexual side of life has probably occupied my attention only
to the same extent as in the case of the average virile man, although
much more than in the case of the average woman.

I am uncertain whether the writing out of my experiences has tended to
mitigate my sexual instincts. If it has had any influence in this
direction, nearly a score of years has been requisite to make
perceptible its curative quality.

My own is not an isolated case. Among most races and in all ages of the
world, one individual out of about every three hundred physical males—on
a conservative estimate—is by birth predominantly female psychically. I
merely furnish an extreme case of passive inversion, and my life
experience has simply been unusually varied and noteworthy.

The author trusts that every medical man, every lawyer, and every other
friend of science who reads this autobiography will thereby be moved to
say a kind word for any of the despised and oppressed stepchildren of
Nature—the sexually abnormal by birth—who may happen to be within his
field of activity.

                                                              THE AUTHOR

 April, 1918.

[Illustration: The Author—A Modern Living Replica of the Ancient Greek
Statue of “Hermaphroditos.”]




                             AUTOBIOGRAPHY

                                 OF AN

                               ANDROGYNE




                           _Hermaphroditos._


The fusion in one human being of the distinctive physical and mental
characteristics of the two sexes has from antiquity proved to be a
phenomenon interesting to mankind. In some of the great museums of the
world can still be seen examples of the classical statue of
_Hermaphroditos_, with complete primary male sexual determinants and no
trace of female, but with female secondary determinants. The work now in
the hands of the reader portrays the inner history and the life
experience of such a specimen of the _genus homo_.

[Sidenote: _“Androgyne” Defined._]

An “hermaphrodite,” according to the original Greek signification of
this term, was not an individual—in the modern sense—having both the
male and the female organs of reproduction in whole or in part, or a
curious fusion of the two, but only those of the male. In other
respects, however, the bodily form was that of a female. The
hermaphrodite was thus, according to the Greeks, a female with male
genitals. Because modern usage has diverted the term “hermaphrodite” to
a different signification, the word “androgyne” has come into use to
denote an individual with male genitals, but whose physical structure
otherwise, whose psychical constitution, and _vita sexualis_ approach
the female type.

Androgynes have of course existed in all ages of history and among all
races. In Greek and Latin authors there are many references to them, but
these references are not always understood except by the few scholars
who are themselves androgynes or at least passive sexual inverts. About
the middle of the 16th century, the celebrated theologian Beza more
clearly wrote: “What shall I say of these vile and stinking
_androgynes_, that is to say, these men-women, with their curled locks,
their crisped and frizzled hair?”[1] As is evident in this passage,
these men-women, because misunderstood, have been held in great
abomination both in the middle ages and in modern times, but the
prejudice against them was not so extreme in antiquity, and a cultured
citizen having this nature did not then lose caste on this account.

Footnote 1:

  Harmar’s translation of Beza, page 173.

But until Krafft-Ebing published his epoch-making work, _Psychopathia
Sexualis_, in the last decade of the 19th century, European and American
medical science was either practically ignorant of or else ignored the
existence of androgynism. But that author treated principally of other
unusual sexual phenomena. Very little of androgynism came under his
observation. I quote from page 389 of the English translation of the
12th edition of his work: “There is yet wanting a sufficient record of
cases belonging to this interesting group of women in masculine attire
with masculine genitals.”

[Illustration: Ancient Greek Statue of an Androgyne, Called
“Hermaphroditos,” Now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.]

[Sidenote: _“Fairie” Defined._]

The present work discloses not only the life of an androgyne _per se_,
but that of a “fairie” or “petit-jesus,” the life of which rare human
“sport” (in the biological sense) your author was apparently also
predestined to live out in a way immeasurably more varied than falls to
the lot of the ordinary fairie, having had a limited experience in this
vocation in Berlin and Paris and other great European cities, in
addition to his extensive experience in New York.

The “fairie” is a youthful androgyne or other passive invert (for they
are perhaps not all members of the extreme class of androgynes) whom
natural predestination or other circumstances led to adopt the
profession of the fille de joie. The term “fairie” is widely used in the
United States by those who are in touch with the underworld. It probably
originated on sailing vessels of olden times when voyages often lasted
for months. While the crew was either actually or prospectively
suffering acutely from the absence of the female of the species, one of
their number would unexpectedly betray an inclination to supply her
place. Looked upon as a fairy gift or godsend, such individual would be
referred to as “the fairy.” As the author is one of the first users of
the printed word in this derived sense, he has elected to adopt a
distinctive spelling.

It is hardly necessary to explain that the sacrilegious term,
“petit-jesus,” commonly used in France, means “a little Jesus.” This
term would naturally be applied to youthful pathics by the irreverent
because being psychically female, they are likely to be “saintly” or
“goody-goodies,” as were both your author as a youth, and practically
all the youthful pathics he has known.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Types of Hermaphrodism._]

Contrary to the ordinary view, there exists, in the human race, no sharp
dividing line between the sexes, just as there exists none between the
vegetable and the animal kingdoms. The two sexes gradually merge into
each other. Between the complete physical and psychical man and the
similarly complete woman, there are innumerable stages of transitional
individuals. As there are organisms which the novice would be puzzled to
classify as animal or vegetable, so there are human beings who have a
just claim to be classed with the sex other than that with which they
are commonly classed. Some examples of these transitional individuals
are the psychical hermaphrodite, the pseudo-hermaphrodite, the mujerado
of the Mexican Indians, the man-woman of East India, and the virago or
amazon, as well as the fairie, already mentioned.

Besides the fact of the existence of the decidedly hermaphroditic or
androgynous types named, there exists a continuous scale of mental
sexuality along which all human beings might be arranged, the poles of
which are thorough masculinity and thorough femininity, respectively. At
the masculine pole stand the warrior, the blue-jacket, the pugilist,
etc., and it was only such, the tremendously virile, who possess no
gentle or feminine traits at all, to whom your author was ordinarily
attracted. Further down the male side of the scale, after the man of
adventure and sport, come, successively, the stevedore and his like, the
manual laborer, and the merchant, and still lower, the scholar, which
class possesses in general only a comparatively low degree of
masculinity and virility. Partaking largely of the feminine type of mind
are the male dress-maker and milliner, and the dilettante.

[Sidenote: _Scalæ Sexuales._]

Those at the extremity of the male side of the scale, as the volunteer
soldier and sailor, are the most strongly inclined to venery, as a
general rule. This is your author’s conclusion after intimate experience
with 800 young men, of whom at least one-half belonged to the
occupations just designated. He concludes further from his experience
that nearly all who associate with a fairie belong to this “tremendously
virile” class. It is also probably true that congenital active pederasts
belong chiefly to this class. The individuals near the lower end of the
male side of the scale, as the college professor, are as a rule
continent by birth, and fathers of few children, while those at the
lower end, as the male milliner and the dilettante, are likely to be
sexual inverts. Your author happens to be a pronounced specimen of the
dilettante.

At the beginning of the feminine side of the scale, and likely also to
be inverts, stand the woman soldier (surreptitious), the woman marksman,
and the woman gymnast. Lower down stands the ordinary _mater familias_,
entirely normal sexually and completely satisfied with monandry. The
_fille de joie_ stands still lower, and is as a rule more intensely
feminine and childlike than the _mater familias_. Many are also
naturally polyandrous. At the feminine pole we find the helpless
cry-baby species of woman. The author aspired to be of this type, and
always, when impersonating a woman, acted out this type.

[Sidenote: _Author’s Feminine Characteristics._]

As already indicated, the participation of the transitional individuals
in the characters of the two sexes varies in all degrees. There may be
simply a union of the perfect body of one sex with the susceptibility to
such sexual charms as ordinarily attract the other sex alone, or with
the mental traits of the other sex. Or the individual may possess the
male genitals, but be beardless, or else possess mammary glands, broad
pelvis, and sacral dimples; or possessing the female genitals, have a
rudimentary moustache, or else meagrely developed breasts, narrow
pelvis, etc. Instances have been known of human beings with an ovary on
one side of the body and a testicle on the other, and of males who were
able to suckle infants.

As to my own feminine characteristics, I have been told by intimate
associates from boyhood down to my middle forties—when this book goes to
press—that I markedly resemble a female physically, besides having
instinctive gestures, poses, and habits that are characteristically
feminine. My schoolmates said that I would make a good-looking girl and
that kissing me was “as good as kissing a girl.” When I was fourteen,
one of them remarked that my calves were “as shapely as those of a
girl.” My associates in college have remarked how much I was like a
woman in form and manners, though they never showed evidence of a
suspicion that I might be an invert. They were probably ignorant of the
existence of this human sport. “He blushes like a woman,” was said of
me. Later, in my fairie days, my associates would remark that my hands
felt like a woman’s, and that my skin in general was as soft as a
woman’s. They said that my voice, especially when singing, had a
feminine timbre. The voice is one of the chief criteria by which to
determine abnormal sexuality. I fancy that I can diagnose a man sexually
simply by hearing him sing. For example, a male invert, as well as the
closely related “eunuch by birth” or anaphrodite, is likely to sing a
tenor which is hardly distinguishable from an alto.

[Sidenote: _Femininity Betrayed in Voice._]

I have been told that my speaking voice is a very uncommon one, having
the “fulness of a woman’s voice,” and that it often “breaks and changes,
sometimes in the middle of a sentence; from being masculine, it suddenly
changes timbre and becomes decidedly feminine.” I have myself observed
sometimes when in conversation with a young man with whom I was in love
that my voice would involuntarily change from a bass to a treble. My
voice has also been described as “soothing, sentimental-sounding,
gushing, bland, and caressing.” I have been told that when I talk,
involuntary—and to myself unconscious—movements of the lips take place
not necessary for articulation, and that the same movements take place
occasionally even when I am not talking.

Barbers have remarked that my hair is “literally as fine as silk,” that
they had “never seen it so fine in any other man.” I believe this to be
a general peculiarity of androgynes, who also have a predilection for
wearing the hair rather long because they think it contributes to their
own good looks, while abhorring long hair in a normal male.

[Sidenote: _Femininity—Physical and Psychical._]

I have the feminine slope of shoulders and the feminine angle of arm.
Pelvis is broad and limbs loosely hung, as in a woman, and fingers and
hands rather feminine in their general fineness of texture, comparative
absence of hair, absence of prominent bones and veins, and the softness
and pleasing tint of skin.

Features are small like a woman’s, but nose, lips, and ears large in
proportion, indicating sensuality. I possess mammary glands and sacral
dimples. While my breasts are as large as in some women, the nipples are
small, even for a man. I am small-boned, of delicate build, and my
muscular system is soft. An anatomist of national reputation who gave me
a physical examination at the age of thirty-three, pronounced
approximately one-third the exterior lines of my body those of the
female, and remarked that any one viewing my naked form from the rear
and not knowing my sex, would pronounce me a female.

I was said not to “reason like a man, that is, logically”; to be “fussy
and inclined to peevishness”; and to have “great patience for minute
details.”

I was said to throw a ball, drive a nail, etc., “just like a girl.” A
lead pencil sharpened by me looks as if I had chewed it off with my
teeth. I have always had the feminine instinct of screaming at slight
provocation. When coasting as a child, I always sat upright after the
manner of girls. In snowball fights, in which the girls packed the
snowballs behind the barrier and the boys exposed themselves in
throwing, I instinctively took my place with the girls, the eternal lack
of fitness never dawning upon me.

[Sidenote: _General Physical Traits._]

I might mention here some further characteristics which are not
peculiarly feminine. I am below the average stature for a man, and
unusually light for my volume, weighing only 110 pounds stripped from
the age of nineteen to twenty-five, after I had attained my maximum
height of five feet five inches. My back is much arched. Penis is below
the average size, but entirely normal. Testicles were pronounced of
normal appearance by the surgeon who castrated me at the age of
twenty-eight.

I am of the brunette type. At the age of eighteen, the growth of hair on
my body and limbs became more luxuriant than on the average male, but
after the first shaving off of all this hair in my early fairie days, I
continued to be far less hairy than the average man even after I ceased
the practice of body-shaving.

My lips are a deep red, and my complexion gives the appearance of good
health. My eyes are bistre-brown. I have been told that I look like a
woman around the eyes, and when youthful have been complimented on their
beauty, and my general appearance pronounced not unprepossessing. I have
been pursued by women, and have received three proposals of marriage. In
general the women who have seemed to be attracted toward me have been a
few years older than myself. Havelock Ellis has said (“Sexual
Inversion,” page 140) that “women seem with special frequency to fall in
love with disguised persons of their own sex.” Your author is really a
woman whom Nature disguised as a man.

[Sidenote: _Childlikeness._]

As late as my middle forties my “childlike face” has been commented
upon, and even more my “decidedly childlike manner.” I have been told
that my “face wears expressions not ordinarily seen on persons of [my]
age,” that in the office my childishness is a constant source of mirth
with my business associates, even those who have not had the faintest
idea that I am sexually abnormal and even addicted to fellatio, and that
they watch me while I am working because of my childlike way of doing
things and my childlike expression. According to one of my
business-associate informants, I still had in my middle thirties “the
real childlike naiveté.” The term “grown-up child” has also been
affectionately applied to me by my office associates down to my middle
forties, and they have said that teasing me was “just like teasing a
child.” All through my life, even down to my middle forties, when this
book goes to press, my male school or business associates—most of whom
have not even suspected my inversion—have taken delight in teasing me as
older children a younger child, or as brothers tease their sisters, and
I generally liked to be thus teased.

My office associates in a “provincial” city in my middle thirties were
far more puritanical and unsophisticated than those in New York City of
my middle forties, and never gave any evidence that they even knew of
the existence of fairies. But those of the later period showed such
knowledge, and several times made remarks to me indicating their
suspicions about myself, but I always sought to counteract them. The
knowledge of unusual sexual phenomena is apparently far more widespread
in a great cosmopolitan center like New York than in a “provincial”
city.

[Sidenote: _Infantilism._]

Further, all my life down to my early thirties, my decidedly virile
associates in school and business have babied me. Indeed in some
respects I have never ceased to be a baby mentally. I have wept and
sobbed a great deal all my life. Up to my early thirties, I yearned to
be called “Baby” by decidedly virile males, and to have them treat me as
a baby and a weakling. All through my open career as a fairie, I
conducted myself with intimates in the same way as a baby of two years
towards its mother. Whenever I have seen an infant nursing, I have been
seized with a desire for fellatio cum viro of about my own age, and have
sometimes even experienced an attack of babyish actions, as panting or
cooing in satisfaction, or swayed the head or other parts of the body, a
sort of natural graceful dance of these parts. I seem to have retained
many of the instincts of the babe which are normally outgrown; only
these instincts—the feeling of dependence, the looking for protection,
the yearning to be held in the arms and fellatio (in its etymological
sense)—were, after the age of four, no longer directed to the mother,
but to stalwart males around my own age.

I have aged slowly, successfully passing for twenty-four as a fairie
after I had reached thirty-one, and for twenty-nine in my middle
forties. When I was thirty-two, a lady of forty who did not know my age
remarked of me: “Why he is only a boy!” When I was forty-two, a business
associate of rather long-standing and only twenty-six years of age
remarked that he had “never met any one else so abnormal as [myself] in
respect to the discrepancy between apparent and actual age.” I have
sometimes thought of myself as “the boy who never grew to be a man.”
Before reaching my fortieth year, it was my ambition to preserve my
youth indefinitely. In my middle forties business associates have asked
me for the recipe for perennial youth. Before reaching my fortieth year,
possibly no other male was so horrified as myself at the thought of
waning youth and approaching old age. But now (1918), in my middle
forties, I am reconciled to growing old.

[Sidenote: _Perennial Youth—Æstheticism._]

I am rather vain, and have been guilty of contemplating my reflection in
a mirror. Prior to my middle forties I was of a bashful disposition and
lacked self-confidence, except when following out my fairie instincts.
Down to my middle forties I have been unusually fond of small animals as
pets and have covered their coats with kisses. I likewise am unusually
fond of petting children.

I am devoid of practically all interest in sport. In place of this
interest, I happen to be an æsthete. My home is an art gallery, with
more art objects per cubic foot than I have heard to exist anywhere else
outside an art gallery or shop. Few are better endowed than myself in
respect to the capacity for deriving pleasure from beauty in art and
nature.

[Sidenote: _Polyglottism._]

Almost every department of human knowledge interests me. I like
psychology, sociology, economics, and history least of all, and
languages and philology most of all. Metaphysics and theology also stand
high in my regard, while the natural sciences occupy a middle position.

The common union of sexual inversion and the aptitude of the linguist
has been commented upon by medical writers. I turned out to be perhaps
the best linguist of my college class. From childhood I have had a craze
for the acquisition of foreign languages. I speak two with considerable
fluency, and when having frequent occasion to use them, can carry on a
conversation in two others. Besides these four, I have read quite
extensively in the original the literature of about a dozen foreign
tongues. For more than a decade, I devoted an average of at least ten
hours a week to reading in these numerous foreign languages.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Why am I a sexual invert? I have an explanation to offer, which is
perhaps more fanciful than scientific. Is there not a difference between
the “protoplasm” or cellular tissue of males and of females, which is
the ground of the difference in the physical and psychical development
of the sexes? Must there not be in the protoplasm of males a specific
male “germ” or characteristic, and in the protoplasm of females a
different germ, which are the ground of the opposite development of the
sexes? Just as we know by the taste that the protoplasm of the muscle of
an ox is differently constituted from that of a sheep, likewise must not
that of the male and female homo differ, although in less degree? If
through a surgical operation the breast from a male infant could be
grafted in the proper place on a female infant, and the breast from a
female infant on a male infant, the two individuals, as they became
adult, would develop physically along the lines of his or her own sex
except the grafted breast. That of the girl would remain flat, that of
the boy would develop a mammary gland and become elevated into a mons.
They each have on them a patch of the tissue of the opposite sex. In the
passive invert there may exist one or more such patches from birth.

[Sidenote: _Cause of Inversion._]

According to the author’s theory,—whether any individual shall be a male
or a female depends on the result of a battle in the embryo between the
female corpuscles or germs of the egg and the male of the spermatozoa.
From some cause, perhaps the relative state of vitality of the secretory
sexual glands at the time of the formation of the particular egg and
spermatozoon, either the female germs or the male germs happen to be the
more vigorous, and determine the sex of the unborn. If the fœtus
develops into a female, it is because the female germs have devoured the
male. For some reason, in exceptional cases, the more vigorous set of
cells have not succeeded in devouring the other set entirely, and both
kinds coexist in different parts of the same individual throughout his
existence. In a male there may be only a single patch of female
tissue—that is, tissue dominated in its development by the presence of
the female bacteria—about the cheeks and neck, rendering him beardless,
but with masculine habits of mind and the male sexual instinct. To
constitute a passive invert, the brain, the physical basis of the
psychical nature, must be composed of female tissue, must be a “female
brain.”

[Sidenote: _Female Brain in Male Body._]

Can it be denied that the brain of a male is fundamentally different
from that of a female, although in outward appearance they are
practically alike? The psychical nature of a female is radically
different from that of a male, consequently the fundamental nature of
certain brain cells of the female must be as different from that of
corresponding cells of the male as the psychical nature of a woman is
different from that of a man, and as the corpus of a woman is different
from that of a man. How can one explain why a six-year-old boy (the
author) should class himself as a girl, give himself a girl’s name,
fight against his parents’ course of bringing him up as a boy, and
grieve because he could not be brought up as a girl, except on the
assumption that the cells of his brain were identical with the cells of
a girl’s brain and fundamentally different from those of a normal boy?

If a surgeon could interchange the brains of a boy and of a girl, your
author believes that the boy would ever afterward feel himself to be a
girl, and the girl feel herself to be a boy. But it would be nearer the
truth to say that with the implanting of the brain of the opposite sex,
the male and female souls were also transposed. We would have an
instance of a male human being with a perfect female body except the
brain—an artificial amazon. Similarly, a female human being with a
perfect male body except the brain—an artificial androgyne. In the
natural androgyne, the female brain was formed in the male corpus before
birth. There are likely, as in the case of your author, to be other
patches of female tissue in other parts of the corpus.

[Sidenote: _Oscar Wilde’s Life Story._]

“Active inverts,” improperly so called, have been referred to as cases
of “a female mind in a male body,” as in the Introduction to Eekhoud’s
“Escal Vigor.” The subject of this novel, as well as Oscar Wilde, whose
case evidently forms the theme of the book, were not such instances.
Theirs were cases of innate and therefore irresponsible sexual
perversion rather than of inversion. They were “urnings.” “Escal Vigor”
is of value as portraying the development and inner life of the urning,
while this autobiography deals with the passive invert, or “the invert”
properly speaking. The urning or active pederast loves an adolescent as
a normal man loves a woman, and desires active pædicatio or else mutual
onanism. The passive invert loves the adolescent as a woman loves a man,
and desires fellatio, or occasionally the part of the pathic in
pædicatio.

While reading “Escal Vigor” many years ago, your author was convinced
that the book was primarily written by Oscar Wilde and based on his own
life experience. This suspicion is confirmed by the name of the book,
the two words having the same length as those of the name of the
individual; the second and third letters of the first name being the
same in both, as well as the second letter of the surname; while the
initial V is the French equivalent of the English W, the novel having
been first published in French. I have myself built a pseudonym on my
baptismal name in similar fashion. The suspicion is further confirmed by
the rumor of 1918 that Wilde is still alive.

[Sidenote: _Inversion Is Not Sodomy._]

There occur homosexual practices which are really due to moral depravity
or to the absence of the opposite sex. This is the true sodomy, an
entirely different phenomenon than is present in the case of the
congenital invert and urning. Knowledge of the history of the particular
individual will readily determine to which of the three categories he
belongs.

The author’s criticism of Havelock Ellis’s theory ‘that a condition of
diffused minor abnormality in physical structure, consisting in approach
to the feminine type, is the basis of congenital inversion; that
inversion is bound up with a modification of the secondary sexual
characters’ is that in my own case the attraction toward the male sex
was powerful as early as the age of three, when there is probably no
difference between the physical type of the normal and of the inverted
male. This indicates that there is no cause-and-effect relation between
the feminine secondary sexual characters and the love for the male sex,
but that they are twin effects of a common cause, namely, the presence
in the male body of the particular kind of governing corpuscles or germs
ordinarily found only in the protoplasm of females.

The girl-boy with diffused minor abnormality in physical structure,
consisting in approach to the feminine type, is rather a female who has,
along with some other male structures, developed testicles and penis in
place of the usual ovaries and cunnus. Here it is not so much a case of
a female brain in a male body, but of the female brain in a _female_
body with various abnormal developments along the line of male
structure. A girl-boy is sometimes even physically perhaps more a female
than a male, although the primary sexual determinants and some of the
secondary sexual characters are those of the male sex.

[Sidenote: _Sex Psychical Rather Than Physical._]

In a manner similar to that described by Kurella, the author believes
the invert is a transitional form between the complete male or the
complete female and the sexually undifferentiated homo seen in the early
fœtus.

Practically it is all right, but medico-legally it is wrong, to make the
genitals the universal criterion in the determination of sex.
Medico-legally, sex should be determined by the psychical constitution
rather than by the physical form. There are thousands of physical
females who feel themselves to be men and have the mental traits of men,
and there are thousands of physical males who feel themselves to be
women and have the mental traits of a woman. Should any blame be
attached to such individuals when they conduct themselves according to
their psychical sex? The writer, much against his will, was brought up
as a boy, and after becoming adult continued in every-day life to
identify himself with the male sex because of his beard and masculine
voice, and because of the advantages of passing as a male; but in spite
of himself he was occasionally compelled to go off on a
female-impersonation spree.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Men call the invert’s instincts vice. The invert has just as much reason
for calling the normal man’s instincts vice when they are not exercised
solely in order to create a new human being. It is only a case of the
pot calling the kettle black. In the eyes of the Supreme Being, with
whom innate and unreasoning disgust is not a factor, the instincts of
the normal man and of the invert are on a par morally and æsthetically.
There is no ground for the charge that the passive invert’s practices
are aimed at the very existence of the race. In the first place, Nature
made him psychically impotent from birth. In the second place, his
practices could not be spread by example. They are regarded by all
normally constituted males with such disgust and aversion that
practically no one would stoop to them except those born with the
peculiar cravings. And why place a heavy penalty on one particular
practice which might prevent a few births, and give large liberty to
other practices with a hundred and a thousand fold more power to
diminish the birth rate? The author was addicted to sensuality more than
the vast majority of inverts. Nevertheless, if he had never yielded to
instinct, there would not be today a single human being more in the
world than there are. None of his intimates were given to begetting
children, at least on the threshold of manhood, which was the age at
which they consorted with him.

[Sidenote: _Ethics of Inversion._]

The invert’s harmless instinctive sexual conduct (generally fellatio,
seldom pædicatio) is today regarded as a felony almost throughout
Christendom. France, Italy, and Holland are the only Christian nations
which have entirely repealed the laws enacted against these unfortunates
during the Dark Ages. Old English law provided that the guilty one be
burnt alive, while other statutes of the same law condemned him to be
buried alive. In the reign of Richard III, he was hanged. The death
penalty was not abolished until after the reign of George IV. At the
present time in England, the maximum penalty is penal servitude for
life, and the minimum, ten years imprisonment. In the United States the
penalty is from five to twenty years imprisonment. Is it not unjust to
keep on the statute books these laws against an unfortunate and harmless
class?

[Sidenote: _Legal Penalties._]

I am here reminded of two conferences with Mr. Anthony Comstock, because
part of his business while alive was that of hunting down inverts and
haling them off to prison. By the irony of fate, I was during my college
days nicknamed after this gentleman because on hearing an obscene remark
by a fellow student, my features involuntarily expressed shock and
disapproval, probably due to my having the mind of a woman. But in 1900,
as soon as I had this autobiography ready for publication, I submitted
it to Mr. Comstock in order to ascertain whether it could be circulated.
He was then a Post-Office Department inspector, with power to prosecute
for shipping “obscene” matter by common carrier. He read considerable of
the manuscript of this book, and stated on handing it back that he would
have “destroyed” it but for the fact that I impressed him “as a person
not having any evil intent.”

In words which I wrote down immediately after leaving his presence, he
declared: “These inverts are not fit to live with the rest of mankind.
They ought to have branded in their foreheads the word ‘Unclean,’ and as
the lepers of old, they ought to cry ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ as they go
about, and instead of the law making twenty years imprisonment the
penalty for their crime, it ought to be imprisonment for life. Are they
assaulted and blackmailed? They deserve to be. Krafft-Ebing and Havelock
Ellis know nothing about them if they say they are irresponsible. They
are wilfully bad, and glory and gloat in their perversion. Their habit
is acquired and not inborn. Why propose to have the law against them now
on the statute books repealed? If this happened, there would be no way
of getting at them. It would be wrong to make life more tolerable for
them. Their lives ought to be made so intolerable as to drive them to
abandon their vices.”

[Sidenote: _Prevalent Lay Opinion on Inverts._]

This attitude of mind is a proper one toward possible male filles de
joie who are fundamentally normal in their sexuality, but who through
cupidity, or with the purpose of blackmailing those who seek them, offer
themselves to take the passive rôle in pædicatio. Your author doubts
whether any such males ever lived. But the true invert belongs to a
different class, and should have the same standing before the law as the
normal individual. He even should be dealt with more leniently, because
his passion is often abnormally intense, and his mental eccentricities
sometimes lead him into unwise though little harmful, or not at all
harmful, acts.

                  *       *       *       *       *

In this autobiography, I may sometimes refer to myself as “Ralph
Werther.” At the beginning of my career as “Jennie June,” when asked for
my real name, I answered “Raphael Werther,” since I did not wish to
bring disgrace on my family name. I adopted the name “Raphael” because
of its euphony and glorious associations; the name “Werther,” because
like Goethe’s hero I was doomed to great sorrow through the passion of
love. During my first two years in college, when I often meditated
suicide, and was by far the unhappiest person in the college community,
Goethe’s “Sorrows of Werther,” the romance of suicide, had a peculiar
fascination for me. Later I substituted “Ralph” for “Raphael” since I
found the latter sounded too “stagey” to be believed.

[Sidenote: _Choosing Aliases._]

The author may be accused of copying the pen-name of Mrs. Croly in the
name that he gave himself when undertaking the role of a girl. But I was
not conscious of the existence of this pen-name until after I had
selected “Jennie June.” In early childhood I had called myself “Jennie,”
always my favorite girl’s name. It has always seemed to me the most
feminine of names. I adopted the name “June” because of the
alliteration, the beauty of the word, and its agreeable associations. It
was first suggested to me while reading one of Cooper’s novels, where it
appears as the name of a gentle, extremely feminine squaw. It was
suggested to me secondly by my seeing it appear as a surname on the sign
of a business house.

At the beginning of my career as a fairie, I debated for some time
whether the name of my feminine personality should be “Jennie June,”
“Baby,” “Pussie,” or the name of a particular one of the foremost prima
donnas of history. I enjoyed hugely being called “Baby” by young men. A
strange young ruffian one day passed me on the street, and addressed me
jocularly: “Hello Pussie!” I cannot express how much it pleased me, and
I longed to be called “Pussie” always. As to my impulse to copy the name
of the prima donna, I would have day dreams of being such a personage.
At the opera I would imagine myself as identified with the leading
soprano—that I was she. As is usual with professional fairies, I sought
to cultivate a soprano singing voice, though singing a baritone when in
my every-day circle.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Year 1874—Birth and Parentage._]

The fourth child of my mother’s eleven children, I was born and passed
my first sixteen years of life in the most refined section of a large
village within fifty miles of New York City. At the time of my birth,
each parent was about thirty years of age. My mother appears to have
married for money rather than for love. My parents, and indeed all
adults who had a molding influence over my early life, were eminently
respectable religious people.

I know the history of my stock for several generations back. No member
of any of the several families whose blood is mingled in my veins was
ever arrested. With the exception of several black sheep, the several
families have been composed of exceptionally pious people.

Both my paternal and maternal stock have been very prolific. No relative
has ever distinguished himself by reason of his intellect or otherwise,
the men having been exclusively farmers or retail merchants. I am
perhaps the most intellectual individual that has appeared in the
several families. My father was the shrewdest man and the most
successful at making money of any member of these several families.

[Sidenote: _Abnormal Relatives._]

The following are the only bad strains which I have been able to find in
my blood: A maternal great-great-great uncle was half-witted. A maternal
great-great uncle was a worthless character, but a good singer, going
around from tavern to tavern singing for his grog. Perhaps that is the
development a fairie took in his environment. A maternal great uncle,
though a good business man, became intoxicated occasionally. A paternal
great uncle was half-witted. A maternal second cousin was mildly insane
for at least several years. A paternal and also a maternal uncle,
besides being extreme dipsomaniacs, lacked the energy to earn their own
living, and also never married. The fact that the paternal uncle used to
fondle me excessively while I was a boy ten to twelve years of age and
hold me clasped in his embrace in such a way as would at the present
writing suggest to me that he entertained thoughts of pædicatio,
indicates that he was possibly an active pederast. The maternal uncle
was known, while in his early twenties, to have indulged in solitary
onanism before boys around the age of twelve, but all his adult life he
appeared to be unusually attracted toward girls aged from ten to twelve,
but I do not believe he ever corrupted any, as he was always popular in
his community.

A female first cousin is a psychical hermaphrodite, and while married to
a man, has always retained a woman sweetheart, who has evidently
occupied a place in my cousin’s affections much above the husband. From
my close observation of this case for over thirty years, I am convinced
that normal women succumb more readily to the advances of a gynander
than do normal men to those of an androgyne. The cousin is decidedly
masculine both physically and psychically. No offspring resulted from
her marriage.

[Sidenote: _Fellatio ex Instinctu Infantili._]

The question has been much discussed as to whether sexual inversion is
congenital or acquired. In my own case—as well as in that of my female
cousin—it is indubitably congenital. The full evidence, in addition to
my decidedly feminine anatomy and her decidedly masculine, may not be
presented here out of regard for others.

                  *       *       *       *       *

My very earliest memories are those of following out my strong baby’s
instinct for the nipple—immediately after I was weaned—by making use of
the best substitute that came in my way. Pueri, atque puellae, several
years older than myself, with whom I was intimately thrown every day,
furnished me with what nature craved. The infant’s nursing instinct
unfortunately did not die out in me as in the normal individual, but has
continued powerful all my life, though with transferred object. Once
after I had grown up—much to my shame—my mother remarked before a small
family gathering that until I was quite a large boy (perhaps nine years
of age) I would in my sleep go through imbibing motions, like an infant
at the nipple.

[Sidenote: _Infantile Sexual Precocity._]

My earliest memory of all of this perversion of the nursing instinct and
its transformation into a perverted sexual instinct is the following: A
large carpet hung over a line. Several girls around eleven years of age
sat down inside and exposuerunt pudenda. The conversation was about the
boys, who they wished might come in. I was hardly more than a baby and
was undoubtedly thought too young to understand or disclose their
conduct. I crept from one to another, os cunnis earum. I was too young
to know that it was the organ of micturition, or to distinguish between
it and the breast. My instinct was sugere when the latter was presented
to me, and I did the same to it. Possibly the girls told me to.

Only on one other occasion, at the age of six, did I have such relations
with a female. The girl, of my own age, begged it of me, much to my
disgust. But I had innumerable relations cum pueris. The earliest
remembered occurred when I was three-and-a-half years old. A boy of nine
had myself, a brother of five, and another of fifteen months sugere
penem erectum. For several years he sought me occasionally for the same
purpose. My two brothers complied only a few times, while I eagerly
grasped every opportunity. They developed into strong, virile, six-foot
men, husbands and fathers.

One other boy, a year older than myself, became an even greater
favorite. From my fifth to seventh year, our relations were almost as
intimate as those of a husband and wife. We used to play “husband and
wife,” although the fact of conjugal relations was the farthest from our
thoughts. When I reached the age of seven, our relations ceased, since
we were sent to different schools and he began to play with normal boys,
while I henceforth shared the pastimes of the little girls and had them
almost exclusively for my companions. In subsequent years of our
boyhood, he asked for fellatio several times, but I refused through
shame.

[Sidenote: _Age Four to Seven._]

My addiction was common knowledge among the boys, and others sought it.
While engaged in games with boys, sometimes fellatio would occur every
few minutes. Before reaching the age of seven, I had doubtless had more
than one thousand such experiences. I of course always took the more
humiliating part. Only once in my life, at the age of thirty-six, has
another taken that part with me, much to my disgust. Out of nearly 800
intimates during my life-time, only one ever sought to take that part.

I told these boy playmates to call me “Jennie,” and encouraged them to
use sexual argot to me. I instinctively hid all my sexual experiences
from everybody except my boy intimates, though some of them proclaimed
my addiction abroad in my hearing and much to my shame. Only once my
mother questioned me suspiciously as to why I entered an outhouse every
little while with my boy friend, but I counteracted her suspicion.

I was decidedly the greatest cry-baby of my mother’s eight children who
survived infancy, as well as the most weakly. I was the only child of
the neighborhood subject to convulsions, but these were not more than
half a dozen in number and occurred before the age of six. As early as
the age of three I suffered from occasional melancholia, and would bang
my head on the floor and express the wish that “I was dead.” A girl-boy
acquaintance committed suicide at the age of twelve by swallowing rat
poison.

[Sidenote: _Girl-boy Playmates._]

I was the only girl-boy of my immediate neighborhood, and from the
seventh to the twelfth year of my life, was looked upon by all the other
children as more girl than boy. When, after the age of seven, I made
acquaintances farther off than in my own block, I became acquainted with
three other girl-boys on three adjacent blocks, and a number of others
in the village. It was common knowledge among the boys of the school.
After they became adults, three became notorious among the sporting
adolescents of the village, as I learned through a brother who belonged
to that class.

The only one with whom I was intimate became, between the ages of
fifteen and twenty, a regular fille de joie. A coterie of particularly
virile adolescents who had no other means of satisfying their libido,
and who were disinclined to visit an evil resort, had recourse to him
regularly that he might take the humiliating role in fellatio. Young
inverts who do not repress their instincts have relations ordinarily
with their young male friends. I was an exception in this respect, as
well as in respect to conscientious scruples against following instinct.

My other two girl-boy playmates became, respectively, an organist and an
orchestra leader by profession when they became adult. During their late
teens and early twenties, they had many liaisons (fellatio) with
sport-loving young men—according to my brother—but having more money
than the invert just described, they played the wooer, being the seeker,
and choosing their intimates, instead of being sought out by the many.
They spent a considerable part of their earnings on their beaux. I know
nothing about the sexual conduct of any of these three inverts after
they passed the age of twenty-five. But the first mentioned developed
into a notorious dipsomaniac toward middle age, and the other two, when
past the age of forty, are healthy, prosperous, and I believe well
esteemed in their community. Most of their business associates have
never heard anything against them. Of course none of the three ever
married a _woman_.

[Sidenote: _Inversion Promotes Music._]

Of this group of passive inverts who grew up together, I alone had the
scholarly instinct and was unusually religious. Of the six who lived to
be adults, three—including the organist and the orchestra leader—had
extraordinary talent as musicians. No growth of beard ever showed itself
on the face of one of the three, and he looked remarkably like a woman.

My knowledge of these inverts leads me to remark at this point that in
general those who have relations with a passive invert are normal young
men who later marry a woman, but in whom the fire of lust has been
kindled by nature subsequent to puberty and for whom circumstances
prevent marriage between eighteen and twenty-five years of age.

Every large city block and almost every small village of the world has
its girl-boy, so far as my wide observation goes. After a life extending
over nearly half a century and spent in many countries of the world, it
is my own careful estimate that approximately _one physical male in
three hundred_ is born with this nature.

[Sidenote: _Frequency of Androgynism._]

Physicians possibly have not discovered inverts in such numbers: First,
because the majority of the medical profession have been in almost
entire ignorance of the existence of this variety of the _genus homo_,
and have therefore neglected to search around for them; and secondly,
because of the fact that through humanity’s misunderstanding and
persecution of them, these inverts hide their idiosyncrasies and secret
practices as no other class of mankind. They can be discovered only by
careful search, and recognized only by those having an intimate
knowledge of the invert’s character and habits. They are often
unsuspected even by their own families.

In a class of fifty boys in a school, there was one passive invert. In
another class of forty, there were two. In a club of thirty young men,
there were two. In an office staff of fourteen, there were two. In a
community of twelve hundred inhabitants, six were known to your author.
Havelock Ellis has stated that among the professional and most cultured
classes of England, the number of “homosexualists”—which term includes
active pederasts as well as passive inverts—may rise as high as one in
twenty. Moll has stated that he knew of from 850 to 1,050 in Berlin
alone, which would make the ratio one to every 1,666 inhabitants. Of
course Moll could know of only a small proportion of the total number in
Berlin.

[Sidenote: _Author’s Rather Diminutive Size._]

All inverts do not give way to their instincts, since the strength of
these instincts varies in different individuals, as does the degree of
effeminacy, just as there are corresponding differences in normal
individuals. Your author’s is an extreme case of passive inversion. His
case is also unusual because of the strange combination of appetencies
in one individual: the instincts of the fairie, the thirst for knowledge
of the savant, the yearning after God and holiness of life of the
zealot, and the impulse toward altruism of the missionary. My intention
from the age of fifteen to nineteen to pass my life as a foreign
missionary and preacher of the Gospel was relinquished because
inconsistent with the much stronger appetency of the fairie, which
finally carried all good resolutions before it.

                  *       *       *       *       *

I grew up slowly, and when adult was the shortest of my parents’ eight
children. Six-foot men are common among my near relatives, especially my
brothers, but I am five feet five inches. At six years of age I was
smaller than a brother of four. In college I was noticeably small and of
slight build, weighing only 110 pounds stripped when I graduated.

My first impression of the stern realities of life came at the age of
six when my parents insisted on putting me in breeches. I wanted to wear
skirts all my life. I shrunk from going out in distinctively male garb,
and dodged behind the trees when I discovered an acquaintance
approaching. The sensation was almost as painful as if I had been
compelled to walk the streets naked. Until I reached my early thirties,
I did not cease to regret being compelled to taboo feminine apparel, and
was constantly being criticised by members of my family for choosing
bright colors and as fancy apparel as a male can possibly wear.
Androgynes have a predilection for such apparel, just as gynanders
prefer the severely plain. Dress is one of the best signs by which to
judge whether any suspected individual is or is not an invert. From the
age of seven to twelve I occasionally masqueraded in a sister’s dress,
coquetting with my boy acquaintances the same as if I were physically a
girl.

[Sidenote: _Yearning for Feminine Apparel._]

After reaching the age of seven, I abstained from fellatio on account of
shame, as well as because I now habitually played with girls.
Nevertheless, as just indicated, I was more crazy after the boys than
any of my companions, and was a great flirt. When, promenading with a
party of girls, we would encounter boys of our acquaintance, I would
incite them to chase myself and the girls. With the girls I would
discuss the merits of the various boys and name my favorites. The girls
did not look upon me as a boy. Only one ever asked me to take the normal
boy’s part in coitus, and I answered naïvely and without embarrassment
that I did not know how. My family would ridicule me for playing with
the girls, but that did not stop it.

Up to the age of twelve I continued to tell my most intimate schoolmates
to call me “Jennie,” encouraged them to hug me, and right in the
school-room reclined in their bosoms because of amorousness. Several
would hug and kiss me right in school, and in private request fellatio,
but I always turned from the latter proposition in shame. To yield would
have been my highest earthly pleasure, but I could not bear the
disgrace. Mean-spirited boys would call me a girl in derision, and twit
me about my conduct of early childhood, thus awakening a violent desire
to commit suicide.

[Sidenote: _Bent for Feminine Activities._]

I was as fond of dolls as is a little girl. Two other characteristic
pastimes were playing preacher and playing school, generally all by
myself. I spent a large part of my time in the house singing, but have
never been able to learn to whistle. Inability to whistle is a general
characteristic of passive inverts. I learned to sew and crochet, and
naturally took to most other feminine lines of activity, so that my
mother has remarked that I was “the best daughter” she had. Indeed none
of the family looked upon me as a boy, all unconsciously. Nevertheless
there is little evidence that any of them ever suspected that I was
attracted toward the male sex.

As a child and youth I was rather odd even apart from my androgynism.
For example, from my eleventh to my thirteenth year, while sitting at my
desk or walking the streets alone, I would, without raising the head,
direct my eyes upward for about two seconds at intervals of from five to
ten minutes in order to breathe a short prayer for acquaintances or for
pitiable looking individuals whom I passed. It was probably a sort of
St. Vitus dance of the muscles about the eye. Another peculiar action,
and one which I have never seen in any other person, is the life-long
craze that I have to press the flesh bordering the finger nails against
some sharp hard corner, as that of a book-cover or a pillow-case, which
repeated action renders the skin horny along the edge of the nail, so
that I have often been able to peel it off.

[Sidenote: _School Life—1883 On._]

From the age of nine to sixteen, my parents sent me to a large boys’
private school. At first the experience was painful to me. I felt out of
place, and would have preferred attending a girl’s school, or at least a
co-educational one. Through my school life up to the age of fourteen, a
sense of shame kept me from going to the lavatory except when the need
was most urgent, and until the age named, I never sat down there. I
never lingered on the play-ground, and mingled with the boys only in the
class-room. I particularly avoided them when they were tossing a ball,
being very much afraid it might roll near me, and I would have to throw
it. The few times that this did happen, the boys laughed, because, they
said, I threw just like a girl.

Through all my school life, I hardly had a rival in respect to high
standing in all my studies. Near the close of my school career, I was
proclaimed before the whole school by the principal as the model
student, and the average of all my marks for the last four years of the
course was the highest ever attained by any student at that school up to
that time.

Between my eighth and my thirteenth year, I several times saw boys in
solitary onanism. It gave me a violent desire facere id iis, and also
for fellatio. But shame conquered, and I would not betray my desire to
my nearest boy friend. For years I slept with an intensely masculine
brother. Several times he requested fellatio, but even when in bed, I
turned away in shame. Because he was my brother, I had never felt drawn
until finally, about my thirteenth year, he committed solitary onanism
before my eyes. From this time on, no sleep would come to my relief
until I had followed out my instincts. After he fell asleep, I would
simply labra mea peni ejus for one second. I never disturbed him enough
to awaken him, or even to cause him to have an orgasm, except once, when
he asked me to proceed, but for shame I would not. On the other nights,
the mere contact for a second would induce a paroxysm. I immediately had
the most dreadful sensation imaginable, so that the thought held
complete possession of my being: “I’ll never do it again! I’ll never do
it again!” I closed and unclosed my hands convulsively. My memory is
that there was an emission, but not until two years later did I know the
nature of the discharge. Immediately after the paroxysm I always fell
asleep as if from exhaustion.

[Sidenote: _Renewal of Fellatio at Twelve._]

Thus my habit of early childhood was renewed after about five years
continence. Up until past the age of forty, I believed that the early
fellatio was without injurious effect on mind and body, but that that of
my thirteenth year was decidedly baneful to both. After passing the age
of forty, I am doubtful as to whether the indulgences at either period
were injurious.

But happily the period of these thefts lasted probably less than six
weeks. My parents possibly learned of it. Any way I was soon assigned a
room and a bed all to myself, which I have continued to have down to the
time when this autobiography goes to press. Subsequently, between my
thirteenth and seventeenth years, emergency destined me to sleep only
three times with a boy friend, when also instinct triumphed
surreptitiously.

[Sidenote: _Youthful Reveries._]

Beginning at the age of twelve and continuing two years, I could not
sleep for approximately two hours after retiring. My thoughts were
entirely of boys and of myself as a girl. I imagined all sorts of
flirtations and amours with every decidedly good-looking boy with whom I
went to school. I would sugere finger or plum or other similarly shaped
object, and imagine it was the membrum virile first of one acquaintance,
and then of another. I would imagine myself breaking into their houses
after they had gone to bed, and attaining my desire. I would imagine a
dozen of them standing behind a long screen, with erectis sticking
through apertures, and myself going from one to another, according to
instinct. I would imagine myself walking on a lonely road and meeting a
handsome youth, a stranger, who would force me to fellatio. I would
imagine boys keeping me a prisoner in a secluded place and compelling me
every day to fellatio. I would imagine myself a beautiful girl skating
in the rink, and having a bevy of boys frolicking with me—I falling down
and having several of them pile on top of me. In many of these reveries,
indeed, I imagined myself clad in feminine apparel. I also indulged in
this kind of revery while taking long walks alone through the country.
My present judgment on my entertaining such a current of thought is that
I was for the most part irresponsible, and that these reveries were due
to my being driven in a measure insane by the lack of any outlet for an
innate excessive amorousness.

[Sidenote: _Prayers for Feminization._]

These reveries in bed were accompanied by an orgasm, but I never had any
inclination toward solitary onanism. Though knowing the difference
between male and female pudenda, I did not until later, about my
fourteenth year as I remember, know their function, reproduction. As I
lay abed, I would wish and pray that my pudenda might be changed to
those of a girl, largely with the thought that I might be enabled to
receive boys. I knew what went on between some boys and girls, but I did
not know that anything ever resulted from the act. The fact that I was a
boy—or rather that my body was that of a boy, because in mind I was
thoroughly a girl—occasioned me an immense amount of regret and chagrin,
and continued to do so down to the age of forty, as I approached which
age, my sexual life was retreating more and more into the background, so
that I became rather indifferent as to my physical and psychical sex.

I have been doomed to be a girl who must pass her earthly existence in a
male body. How dreadful it is to a young woman to have a slight growth
of hair on lip or cheeks! Only one mark of the male! How much more
dreadful for a young woman to possess almost all the male anatomy as I
do! How I have bewailed my fate! During my early teens, being in a
frenzy sometimes over it, I would meditate taking my father’s razor and
castrating myself in order to bring my physical form more in accord with
that of the female sex to which I instinctively yearned to belong.

[Sidenote: _Early Opinions of Fellatio._]

Once during the wishes and prayers spoken of above, I reached my hand
down and momentarily believed I had been miraculously provided with a
cunnus. It is my present impression that my hand came in contact with
the scrotum, and that it was my first perception that I had such an
appendage. Possibly this indicates late descent of the testicles. As I
remember it, up to about my thirteenth year, I never knew there was a
scrotum on any male. All my intimates of early childhood had been fully
dressed, and thus this organ was concealed.

Up to about my fourteenth year, I regarded fellatio as a wicked shameful
habit which evil-minded children fell into, and the desire for which I
would outgrow as I became older. From my fourteenth to my seventeenth
year, I regarded it as the very worst kind of a habit, which must be
overcome by a hard struggle. I had no idea the desire was to continue
into and through my adult life.

Up to about my fourteenth year, I also thought normal coitus, which I
knew some boys and girls of my acquaintance were guilty of, was equally
heinous. When at about the age of thirteen I was told by boys that
babies thus came into being, I at first refused to believe it. When I
was finally convinced, it was with a realization that every member of
the human race was as vile as myself. Subsequently, down to my middle
twenties, I considered the subject of love between the sexes as one
which should never be mentioned in polite society, a subject which ought
to bring deep blushes to every cheek.

[Sidenote: _Fear of Pregnancy._]

After the age of twelve, I no longer masqueraded in feminine apparel or
openly flirted with boys because restrained by the sense of shame.
Because all the lexicographers wrongly insist on the _feigned_ character
of flirtations, I am moved to explain here once for all that my
flirtations, in every period of my life, were _sincere_, and prompted by
adoration for those flirted with. The same explanation applies to my use
of “coquet.”

But while no longer openly and energetically flirting with boys, I still
adored them, enjoyed their occasional petting attentions, and even
sometimes put myself in the way of receiving such consideration. For a
brief period during my fourteenth year, I used powder to make my cheeks
more rosy with a view to impressing my schoolmates, with several of whom
I was in love.

About the time of my learning the secret of reproduction, circumstances
brought me one night to sleep with a boy friend, and my instincts
prevailed while he slept. On this occasion the terrible paroxysm
accompanying fellatio two years earlier, as already described, and
putting an end to it almost before it had begun, was not experienced,
and the act continued for some minutes. I did not yet know of the
existence of semen, but believed the simple presence membrum virile in
membro femineo induced pregnancy. Even if I had had an emission myself
two years before, I knew absolutely nothing about its nature. For
several months after this night’s experience I was somewhat worried for
fear of pregnancy, thinking it might result from buccal coitus.

[Sidenote: _Early Teens._]

During my early teens also, a few schoolmates hinted at fellatio.
Because of shame I gave them no encouragement, although almost insane
for love of them. Moreover, about this time, several old and middle-aged
men would find occasion to clasp me, cum peni adversum fundamentum meum.
They evidently entertained thoughts of pædicatio, but on account of our
position in society, they did not go any farther. I abhorred their
conduct.

As a consequence of my comparatively solitary life, my association with
boys being confined to the school-room, I was very backward in acquiring
normal sexual knowledge, never used slang, and was in general a
“goody-goody.” Other boys called me an “innocent.” Adults regarded me as
exceptionally guileless and pure-minded. The reader will discover in
these pages what manner of person I was, but down to my middle thirties
my “childlike and bland smile” and my “frank and open countenance” have
been harped upon by my every-day associates. Down to the age named they
have described me as “mild-eyed,” “inoffensive,” “childlike,” and
“lamblike.”

I was probably more a prey to sensual imaginations than any other boy of
the community, and yet, without any attempt to deceive on my part, I was
judged to be the most pure-minded! Nevertheless, though naturally one of
the most sensual, I probably practiced the most self-denial. Later,
college associates remarked that they never met any one else with so
little of the animal in him, when actually I was then perhaps the most
given to venery of them all. I had in myself the germs of two as widely
opposed careers as it would be possible to name. I was a born religious
and philanthropic worker. On the other hand, no girl was ever more
clearly cut out for the life of a fille de joie than was I.

[Sidenote: 1889_—I Become a Religious Prodigy._]

The genitals became pubescent as early as the completion of my fifteenth
year. Is this not unusually early for a male, but the proper age for a
female? Whether or no as a partial effect of this beginning of
pseudo-puberty, I simultaneously developed into a religious prodigy,
leading the congregation in church in extempore prayer at this early
age, and spending a full two hours daily in private religious exercises
for the next two years. At this time I definitely chose the Christian
ministry in a heathen land as my field of labor when I had finished my
education. This greatly increased interest in religion fortunately put a
stop to my morbid reveries. I now looked upon my yearning for fellatio
as my “besetting sin,” and until the age of nineteen fought against it
as few others have struggled to be freed from lustful desires. A popular
medical writer has described the girl-boy as “congenitally depraved,”
and “secretly vicious.” I would refute this and other slanderers of the
girl-boy, cursed by Nature and cursed by his fellow man. Lofty ethical
ideals, including self-abnegation, are as common among youthful inverts
as among those normally sexed.

From my fourteenth to my seventeenth year, I passed a rather sad and
lonely life. I was ashamed longer to mingle with girls as one of them,
and still shrunk from companionship with boys. My recreation consisted
of long solitary walks through the country during which I brooded over
the real and imagined ills of life. Being delicate, I hardly expected to
live to reach manhood.

[Sidenote: _My Gethsemane._]

Erotic dreams, with emissions, began at the age of fifteen, and in a few
months reached a frequency of twice a week. The fraudulent
advertisements in the newspapers held out to me the strong probability
of my soon becoming an idiot as a result of these losses, and occasioned
me much despondency. Only males have figured in these dreams. They
related only to fellatio, never to pædicatio.

It was during my seventeenth year that I first became fully conscious
that my unwilling craving for fellatio was deeply rooted, and not to be
outgrown; that my feeling for my schoolmates was the procreative
instinct, in me misdirected. The realization that I was differently
constituted from nearly all other males, and such an individual as
during the whole history of the human race—so far as I was then
acquainted with the history of the phenomenon—has been abhorred,
reviled, and regarded as the lowest of the low, a monster of wickedness,
and an outcast, was accompanied by the bitterest sorrow, causing me
about once a week to go forth at night to a lonely quasi-abandoned
graveyard, throw myself on the grass-covered graves, writhe in an agony
of tears and moans, and beseech my Creator by a miracle then and there
to take away my perverted instinct and make a virile man of me. These
seasons of anguish would exhaust me mentally and physically for
twenty-four hours afterward. This was the beginning of three such
melancholy years as few are called to pass through, and I meditated
suicide repeatedly.

[Sidenote: _Family Physician Prescribes._]

For several months I bore my sorrow alone, shame preventing my making my
spiritual adviser my confidant. I was at last driven to him for
consolation, and on his advice, with the greatest shame and in broken
language, made my secret known to my family physician. The latter
advised me to enter into courtship with some girl acquaintance, and said
that this would render me normal. Like most physicians in 1890, he did
not understand the deepseated character of my perversion. Although it
was counter to my inclinations, I cultivated the society of a girl
friend. But after months of effort, feminine beauty proved powerless to
attract me in the least, while male beauty was constantly increasing its
sway over me.

                  *       *       *       *       *

In September of 1891 I entered a university in the City of New York,
which was only an hour by train from my home. During the first two years
I was regularly engaged in mission work in the slums as an avocation. I
preached about twelve times from the pulpit, besides being the leader of
about a hundred secondary church services.

Life in a great city soon made its impress on my constitutional
femininity, which, for several years practically suppressed as a matter
of conscience, was now calling louder and louder for expression.
Moreover, in a great city, the temptation to a double life is
exceptional. One can so easily hide a disgraceful act. It was especially
unfortunate that I saw so much of the loose morals of the slums. The
adolescents there attracted me powerfully, and suggestions came into my
mind repeatedly to accost them with an indecent purpose.

[Sidenote: _Year 1891—Freshman in University._]

I was also constantly in love with athletic classmates. In the lecture
rooms I found it advisable to take a front seat since the sight of an
athlete would hypnotize me, making me stare at his form and disregard
the lecturer. If one seated himself beside me, shameful thoughts would
come into my mind at once. While seated in the lecture room, some of
them have put their arms around me and said “Child.” They have taken my
hand in theirs and said it was just like a girl’s hand. When my sleeves
were rolled up they have said that my arms were just like a girl’s arms.
Their laying their hands on me was ineffably sweet, and always
occasioned an orgasm, but modesty forbade betraying my feminine
feelings. None ever even hinted at anything further than what I have
just narrated.

On my visits home during this first year in college, I was
supersensitive to my family’s criticism of me for lack of manliness. I
sometimes felt like never visiting home again because of my shame at
being an effeminate man. I shunned all social gatherings because I
detested the idea of courting a female and putting myself forward as a
man. I would nevertheless weep at seeing other young people enjoying the
ordinary legitimate pleasures of love without my ever—as I then
thought—being privileged to have a share in them, since love and
courtship in my case must be with one of my own physical sex. I often
wished I might get away from the world and live as a monk or, better in
my own case, a hermit. Then I would be in a way unsexed, and would be so
regarded by the world. As to be a monk one must be a Roman Catholic, I
contemplated going over to that religious body.

[Sidenote: _Religion Unavailing._]

One day I happened to be left alone in the room of an athletic
classmate. I spent the whole time in passionately kissing his pillow and
articles of clothing. Especially did corduroy braccas feel most
exquisite labris as I osculated partem prope locum membri virilis. If he
had not been fair to look upon and decidedly virile, it would have been
nauseating even to _think_ of doing what I did.

Afterward, repentant, I wrote in my journal: “Religion, reputation, life
itself, ready to put all at stake for a few moments enjoyment! I never
felt so much like a wretch as I do now! If only I had thought more of
the love of Christ to me, I might not have so far yielded! For a month
nearly all my reading has been of a religious character; I have for a
month been in close communion with God; yet in a moment I can so fall
away! O to understand more fully salvation from sin through Christ, and
to experience more of it in my own life!... I feel this morning that I
can never enter the ministry. I feel that I must give up all my plans,
and that maybe I shall come to a miserable end.”

All my life corduroy trousers and rubber boots have attracted me
sexually more than any other articles of civilian dress. I have always
considered both articles too masculine for me to wear. It would have
filled me with shame to be seen wearing boots. At the age of ten I would
go secretly to the closet where a brother’s corduroy braccas hung and do
as described above. On other occasions prior to my fifteenth year I have
arisen at night and similarly osculated braccas puerorum who were our
guests, creeping stealthily into their rooms in a highly excited state
and trembling violently. On only two occasions I approached their bed
and touched them, but did not dare go further for fear they would awake.
I have no doubt now that I was irresponsible, and any girl-boys ever
found guilty of similar conduct should be dealt with compassionately.

[Sidenote: _Fetishes._]

Speaking of fetishes,—from boyhood the military uniform has been a
magnet. During my twenties the sight of it would bring on a sort of
babyish and effeminate dance of various members of the body and a sort
of pouting. It would rivet my gaze, I would halt and turn around as the
soldier passed, and mark his every movement until he disappeared. I
would consider his gait and his every sway and swagger as marvellously
manly and in every way wonderful.

Of those under thirty years of age, nineteen out of twenty soldiers or
sailors in uniform have captivated me, but hardly one out of twenty
civilians. But I generally had to get used to the uniform. When the
olive drab was first adopted for American soldiers, I had only disgust
for it and its wearer, while fascinated by the older blue uniform. But
after the olive drab had been worn for two years, it appealed to me far
more strongly than what I now regarded as the “old-fashioned” blue,
though the latter was still often worn by soldiers.

                  *       *       *       *       *

The following was written in my diary about the middle of my freshman
year:

[Sidenote: _Dawning Sense of Irresponsibility._]

“I sometimes think I am an irresponsible being. De Quincey is exonerated
from censure for his opium habit. May God not also pardon my cherishing
amorous thoughts of the kind peculiar to me—abnormal for others, yet for
me normal? I am by nature very amorous, and have been all my life, even
in infancy, when I could not distinguish between good and evil. Further,
all my life I have been thrown in with what is to me the opposite
sex—compelled to mingle and live with them. I had nothing to do with the
bringing about of this peculiar nature and environment of mine. Has it
been my fault that my amorous desires have run into the channel they
have, the channel opened to them when I was in the state of innocence
and ignorance of a three-year-old child? I am really a woman, and a very
amorous one at that, although regarded as a man because the majority of
my physical traits are those of the male sex. Did society ever compel
any other woman, except those like me, to live, eat, sleep, frequent the
same comfort-rooms and baths, lie sometimes in the same bed, with men,
and sometimes to listen to the unclean talk of men? I am driven wild by
instinctive cravings more than any other human being ever was....

“I wish I was not of an amorous nature. It makes my life miserable. If I
had my choice, it would be a life entirely free from all sexual
phenomena—complete sexual indifference. How gladly would I be free from
all passion, so that I could make a name for myself in the world! My
highest ideal is to be a Christian philosopher, and to preach the Gospel
to those who are living in sin and sorrow. An amorous person can hardly
be a philosopher, a scholar, and a preacher....”

[Sidenote: _Dawning Doubts as to Sinfulness._]

Shortly afterward, in a letter to my family physician, I wrote as
follows:

“I would like to know if you think there is any possibility of my ever
following my instincts without sin? It is right for the normal
individual to appease natural craving in wedlock. Is it not also right
for me to do the same if the opportunity should offer? For instance, I
will suppose an almost impossible case. If I should ever come across a
young man whom I loved and who would marry me, would it be right for me
to live with him as his wife? This supposition is probably highly
repulsive to you, but absolutely, looking at it philosophically, it is
no more unseemly and monstrous for me to be joined in wedlock with the
man I would love above everything else in the world, than for a normal
individual to enter into the state of matrimony.

“I long to be made the pet of my classmates. Would it be unbecoming to
show my girlishness to them occasionally, and welcome and encourage
their caresses which I sometimes receive? I still often pray God to
deaden these desires to receive tokens of a reciprocated passion on the
part of those whom I sexually worship, but I am beginning to add, ‘If it
be Thy will;’ because maybe it is for my highest good and happiness to
have these feelings toward my associates.

“I desire to know the mysteries of my peculiar life. It seems to me I
have a right to know. I spent several days recently in ransacking the
college library for the information I desire, but found almost nothing.
If the science of medicine knows anything about my peculiarity, I demand
of you to know it.

[Sidenote: _First Knowledge of Other Adult Inverts._]

“Lately from a conversation of some students that I heard, I chanced to
learn more about my peculiar affliction than I ever knew before. I heard
brief accounts of four persons cursed as I am, ‘With their procreative
instincts centered in their heads instead of in the usual organs,’ as
one of the students expressed it. These four victims were all
intellectual men; one, a young clergyman; one, an elderly judge; and
two, principals of schools. They were found out by their communities.
The clergyman committed suicide, and the others had to flee from the
stern hand of the law....

“You thus see that I may some day have to flee from the wrath of men by
suicide, or by self-imposed exile in a distant land, where I doubt if I
could stand the misery I would suffer, forever removed from all my dear
ones, and worse than dead to them. No one would have any mercy on me,
and my name would be held up as that of a consummate hypocrite and the
most degraded of men. But more than anything I would suffer, I would
bring my parents in sorrow to the grave.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

About this time I read the eminent theologian Lange’s comments on St.
Paul’s teaching about marriage, and through these, as well as through my
own deep reflections, I was becoming more than ever persuaded that since
it was God who had planted these instincts in me at birth, they could
not be so horribly sinful as I had been led to believe. Nevertheless I
was not finally convinced. A month later I stayed up all of one night in
order to reconsider the question, desiring and purposing to convince
myself of the sinfulness of an invert’s harboring the suggestions of
instinct to the slightest degree. I weighed carefully all the passages
of sacred scripture bearing on the case, and finally determined to fight
harder than ever to annihilate in myself all the movings of the sexual
nature. In the following weeks, I occasionally did not leave my room all
day, fasting, praying, and studying the scriptures.

[Sidenote: _Paroxysms of Melancholia._]

During this winter of ’91–’92, paroxysms of melancholia occasionally
came upon me at night. When I felt their approach, I could not stand it
to remain in my room, where I must be noiseless, but went out to a
deserted spot in a large park near which I lived, where I would shriek
repeatedly. All my muscles seemed to be rigid, and my fists were
clinched. I would dig my finger nails into my palms, and wave my arms
wildly. Within a few minutes, my strength would be completely gone. I
looked upon these paroxysms as fits of insanity, and feared I would
become permanently and violently insane. I now attribute these attacks
largely to unsatisfied, involuntary yearnings for the mate which Nature
had designed me to have. If society had permitted me one, and I had been
taught that it was right for me to have one, I would have been saved an
enormous amount of suffering, as well as perhaps my subsequent career as
a fairie.

                  *       *       *       *       *

About the middle of April came a characteristic experience of an
invert’s life. Shortly before my usual hour of retiring, an old
schoolmate, a stalwart and handsome youth, who had spent the day in the
city, called and asked to remain over night. I experienced a shock,
knowing the temptation such an arrangement would be to me. For several
weeks I had been living a life almost free from amorous thoughts, due to
the lengthened seasons of religious exercises spoken of above.

[Sidenote: _Typical Temptation of Inverts._]

Out of considerations of hospitality, I could not but grant my friend’s
request. How could I bring myself to explain to him that I was
essentially a girl, and so our spending a night in the same room was not
to be thought of? I inquired if there was not a vacant room in the
house, but that night there was none. Of course I could have given up my
room and gone to a hotel, but I had to be saving, and such a course
would humiliate my friend. So I arranged for him to occupy my bed, and
for myself to sleep on the floor. Sleeping alone on the floor, I felt
strong enough to resist, as I had done before when forced to sleep in
the same room with a youth to whom I was attracted, and I would have
probably resisted on the present occasion if it had not been for an
unusual and unforeseen incident which inflamed me as never before.

My guest was moderately addicted to sensuality. As we were about to
retire, he handed me, without evil intentions, a libidinous rhyme to
read, the first I had ever seen. I became intoxicated, and my companion
happening to absent himself from the room for a few moments, I
passionately osculated the paper the rhyme was written upon. My fleshly
nature immediately determined to have its desire that night, but my
spiritual nature counselled otherwise. It was to be a struggle of hours.
“Self-praise goes but little ways,” but I believe that there are
comparatively few of the human race who, with a nature peculiarly
susceptible to sensuality, as mine was, would have resisted as long as I
did the force of so many evil suggestions.

[Sidenote: _The Spiritual versus the Carnal._]

After retiring, the young man soon slept. But I was unable to sleep, no
matter how hard I tried. My mind was unusually active. I continually
prayed that sleep might come and save me from yielding, because I felt
that my own poor will could not resist the long pent-up force of
passion. Notwithstanding all my prayers, nothing was further from me
that night than sleep.

It was a night following a Sabbath spent in communion with God, and with
a strong determination to live a life of self-abnegation for the sake of
others. But through the long hours of wakefulness, the influence of the
sexual nature grew stronger and stronger. For hours I vacillated between
cherishing the suggestions of the spiritual nature and those of the
flesh. My chief defence against the latter was the thought that if I
yielded this once, I must from now on give up all idea of ever becoming
a preacher of the Gospel.

Moreover, the young man knew I was engaged in religious work, and
expected to enter the ministry, and what would he henceforth think of
the genuineness and utility of religion? If it had not been for my
occupying an active position in religious work and my looking forward to
entering the Christian ministry, I would have yielded much sooner on the
present occasion, as well as indulged my instincts much earlier in my
career.

[Sidenote: _First Full Knowledge._]

As I grew more and more weary mentally and physically, I naturally grew
weaker and weaker in will power. The seducer of souls finally conquered.
I suddenly found myself lying on the foot of my guest’s bed. The
transition seemed to have taken place in a moment of unconsciousness.
Being exhausted, I had probably dozed off for a moment, walked there in
my sleep, and again fully waked up as I laid myself on the bed. As the
Ruth of the scriptures—but I wish to emphasize it, without premeditation
and unconsciously—I had come softly, uncovered the young man’s feet, and
lain down. Before long he awoke, and heartily acquiesced in my desires.
For fellatio, I at the moment felt ready to forsake all plans for
leading a useful and respected life—for I thought it meant that.

The next morning I was ashamed to look my guest in the face, and
stammered forth an apology. I was really irresponsible for my conduct,
but at the time believed I had wilfully sinned, and when the time of
temptation was past, sincerely repented. In my diary I wrote:

“What harm may I not have brought on Christ’s cause by my recent action!
I may have endangered the eternal welfare of my friend. I suppose he
thinks I am a nice one to be thinking of becoming a minister of the
Gospel. I feel ashamed to make any further profession of religion before
him. O to be holy and pure! I think I am holy enough to be a clergyman
if it were not for my sins arising from my abnormal passion....

[Sidenote: _Utmost Recourse to Religion._]

“Miserable wretch, miserable wretch, miserable wretch, that’s all I am!
I am ashamed to look any one in the face any more. I feel very much like
putting an end to my life, or else going off to some place where none of
my friends will know I am. I wish this morning to die speedily, to be
killed in an accident on the street. I would like just now to lay down
my life for others. I have nothing to live for. I am one of the
unhappiest of mortals. I may be disgraced, disgrace my family, bring
reproach upon the cause of Christ, be compelled to flee, be disowned by
my parents, be cursed and be despised throughout the land. I will flog
myself and starve myself, to see if I cannot conquer my body.

“Because of my many failures to follow Christ perfectly in the past, and
because something out of the ordinary is necessary to root out my
procreative instincts, I now vow before God to imitate the example of
Christ, who spent much time alone in meditation and prayer, and to spend
hereafter one hour every morning and one hour every evening in the study
of God’s word, in meditation, and in prayer.”

For some weeks I fulfilled this vow. But my seasons of devotion
gradually became less and less edifying, and at last I reached the point
where the spirit of prayer—that is, of conversation and communion with
the Great Omnipresent Spirit—left me entirely, and the words of sacred
scripture, formerly falling upon my eyes and mind with a strange power
and revealing to me, and enabling me to live, the larger, heavenly,
eternal life, where sensuality has disappeared, were now read
mechanically and failed to impress me except as being tedious.

[Sidenote: _Haunted by Sensual Images._]

Sensual thoughts now began to creep into my mind more and more. Interest
in my studies was declining. In the class-room I was absent-minded, and
when called upon, would be confused, and hardly able to reply to the
professor’s questions. Even here I would be thinking of the soft
satin-smooth cutis in inguine of my late guest which I had found
gratissima tactioni, praesertim labiali et linguali, and would regret
that it was always to be denied to me to touch again on viro this
marvellously fine integument. I pined for the repetition of other
similar pleasures which I had for the first time tasted in their fulness
only a few weeks before, such as pillowing caput super abdomene aut
femure nudo adolescentis, the fascinating sight membri virilis ejus
erecti, and the extremely smooth surface glandis, gratissima tactioni et
digitorum et oris.

While walking the street, my gaze would be riveted on stalwart
adolescents, and I would halt to look back at the handsomest that
passed. If a street-car conductor happened to be youthful and
good-looking, I became almost irrational. With a look of despair I would
gaze insolently and imploringly into the face of the blue-clad youth as
if I would compel him to read my thoughts, since I did not dare give
them expression. When in a crowded car he brushed against me in passing,
a tremor would pass over my body. Youthful policemen also at this time
particularly fascinated me. Blue clothing and brass buttons have always
made a young man appear to me as at his best.

[Sidenote: _Nymphomania._]

After retiring at night, my unwilling desire to be in amplexu
adolescentis did not permit me to sleep. Through long hours of
wakefulness I writhed on my bed and repeatedly groaned in despair. “Am I
being tried by fire?” I would ask myself. “‘For every one will be salted
with fire,’ says the scripture. Are others so tried by fire as I have
been through a large part of my life? Maybe this is what God is doing to
me in implanting the strongest of desires and then forbidding my
gratifying them.”

Even in the midst of almost continuous prayer, my delirious imagination
brought before me obscene images, which I repeatedly tried in vain to
expel from my mind. Several times during the struggle I would rise and
walk up and down the room for a few moments. After retiring for perhaps
the third or fourth time, I would rise once more, go raving about the
room like an insane person, and if it had not been for the lateness of
the hour, about midnight, I would have gone out in search of fellatio,
which could alone pacify me. I was at last able to fall asleep only by
making the resolution to undertake the search on the following evening.
But on several evenings I postponed it because of the overwhelming dread
of setting out, as well as because the desire was not so insistent until
it became time to go to bed.

During these terrible days, I felt that a crisis in my life was at hand.
I felt that I stood at the dividing of the ways, one leading to honor
and self-approbation the other to ignominy and the blasting of all my
legitimate ambitions. As each month of my first year in the university
went by, the struggle against sensuality had been growing harder and
harder.

[Sidenote: _First Nocturnal Ramble._]

Finally, on an evening in early June, I arose from my studies and
prepared for my first nocturnal ramble. I put on a cast-off suit which I
kept for wear only in my room, placed some coin in a pocket and several
bills in a shoe, stuffed a few matches in one pocket and in another a
wet sponge, wrapped in paper so as not to dry out, and then carefully
went through my clothing a second time to make sure that I had not by
oversight left on me some clue to my identity.

On account of my shabby clothing, precaution was necessary to leave my
place of residence—a high-class boarding-house—without being seen. I
crept stealthily out of my room, closing the door softly so as not to
attract attention. After listening to make sure that no one was about to
ascend the outside steps leading to the street, I opened the outer door
and glided out bare-headed, a cast-off soft cap crumpled up in my hand
because I was ashamed to be seen wearing it by any one who knew me.
Hurriedly crossing to the opposite side of the street, I put on the cap,
pulling the tip down over my eyes. Walking a few blocks to a park, I
took my house key from my pocket and hid it in the grass, so that it
could not be stolen and I thereby rendered unable to let myself in on my
return.

[Sidenote: _“Jennie June” Is Introduced._]

The reader now beholds me for the first time transformed into a sort of
secondary personality inhabiting the same corpus as my proper self, to
which personality I soon gave the name of “Jennie June,” and which
personality was to become far more widely known in the immediately
following dozen years than the other side of my dual nature, the
unremitting student and scholar, was ever to be known. The feminine side
of my dual nature, for many years, as a matter of conscience, repressed,
was now to find full expression in “Jennie June.” For it was not alone
fellatio that I craved, but also to be looked upon and treated as a
member of the gentler sex. Nothing would have pleased me more than to
adopt feminine attire on this and my multitudinous subsequent
female-impersonation sprees, as some other ordinarily respectable
androgynes are in the habit of doing when going out on similar
promenades, but my position in the social organism was much higher than
theirs, and the adoption of female apparel would in my case have been
attended with too great risk. The mere wearing of it on the street by an
adult male would render him liable to imprisonment.

I made my way to the quarter of the city bordering the Hudson River that
is given over largely to factories and freight yards and is known as
“Hell’s Kitchen” because of the many steam vents. In this lonely and at
night little frequented neighborhood, perhaps the most advantageous in
the city for highway robbery, where nothing else than burning passion
could have induced me to go at night, I ran across a stalwart adolescent
of about my own age seated alone on a beer keg in front of a bar-room.
By a great effort of the will I accosted him. My voice trembled and my
whole body shook as if I had the ague.

[Sidenote: _Ruffians’ Attitude Toward Inverts._]

I had anticipated little difficulty in securing a companion, but events
showed it to be otherwise. For years subsequently I associated
intimately with hundreds of unmarried toughs of the slums from seventeen
to twenty-four years of age, and so I know their nature. Approximately
one-third have a distaste for coitus with an invert. The other
two-thirds would accommodate him provided their sexual needs were not
fully met by normal intercourse—which is generally the case. Moreover,
there is a difference between their attitude toward a perfect stranger
who accosts them, and an invert with whom they have become somewhat
acquainted. The impulse to rob a perfect stranger tends to drown out all
the movings of carnality. In addition, the feeling that he is a stranger
and an outlaw—the latter fact being almost universally known—prompts
them to assault him.

Along with an outline of what happened on this my first nocturnal
ramble, I describe below my general method of approaching strangers in
the poor quarters of the city. Of course I cannot recall the exact
dialogue in a particular case, but all the sample conversations given in
this autobiography are woven from _actual_ remarks passed at different
times. I have taken part in hundreds of dialogues of the kind sampled
here and there in this book, and the reader can be assured of obtaining
a truthful impression of the words exchanged by me—an androgyne—with my
youthful virile associates. On the present occasion, after a few
commonplace remarks, the conversation was of the following character:

“What big, big strong hands you have! I bet you are a good fighter.” My
aim was to talk rather babyishly so as gradually to betray my nature.

[Sidenote: _Method of Leading Up._]

“There’s a few as kin lick me but not many.”

“I love fighters. If you and I had a fight, who do you think would win?”

“I could lick a dozen like yer together.”

“I know you could. I am only a baby.”

“Hah hah! A baby!”

“Say, you have a handsome face.”

“Me hansome! Stop your kiddin.”

“Really you are handsome. I am going to tell you a secret. I am a
woman-hater. I am really a girl in a fellow’s clothes. I would like to
get some fellow to marry me. You look beautiful to me. Would you be
willing to?”

“How much does it cost yer to git married? Give me a V [meaning five
dollars] and I’ll be yourn, or else git out of here.”

My statement that I had not that amount with me brought the threat of a
pummeling. I was beginning to wish I was far away, but concealed my
uneasiness as best I could. After a few minutes more of conversation,
several pals happened to come along. He called out, “I’ve got a fairie
here!” and clutching my shoulder with one hand, he clinched his other
fist, shook it threateningly in my face, and demanded: “Hand out your
money! Hand out your money!”

[Sidenote: _First Robbery and Assault._]

Frightened to death, I handed him all the coin I had, amounting to a
little more than a dollar. I protested I had no more, and after they had
searched my pockets and felt my clothing all over for concealed bills,
one of them gave me a blow in the face. With that wonderful agility
which supposedly grave danger to one’s life can arouse, I sprinted away,
one of the ruffians pursuing a few steps and giving me several blows in
the back. But I was so terrified that I did not halt until I had run
several blocks. Panting and exhausted, I seated myself on a door-step
and felt that I was forever cured of seeking a paramour. I called to
mind the biblical text, “The way of the transgressor is hard,” and I
felt glad that it was hard so as to help me never to transgress again.

But after I had rested, my intense desire for fellatio induced me to
make an endeavor in another poor neighborhood. I passed many groups of
ruffians congregated in front of bar-rooms, but must find some solitary
adolescent. At last I ran across one standing in front of a factory,
evidently, as I later concluded, its watchman. I walked past him several
times, unable to pluck up courage to speak. But he called out angrily:
“Who are you looking at?”

“Pardon me for my rudeness, but I was wishing I could get acquainted
with you. I am a baby, and I want a big, strong, brave fellow like you
to pet me. I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll pet me for a few minutes,
and let me sit on your lap.”

Much to my surprise and disappointment, he sent me away with a curse.
Twice repulsed, I decided to try again in a part of the city where the
immigrant element predominates. Both the neighborhoods tried were
quasi-American. I strolled down the Bowery, staring longingly and
beseechingly into the eyes of the adolescents I passed, but too timid to
accost any. Those who had known me all my life, had they met me now,
would have wondered what could have brought into the then theatre and
red-light district of the foreign laboring classes of the city, at an
hour approaching midnight, a timid youth, hitherto called an “innocent,”
naturally pious, and generally esteemed for his intellectual tastes. My
friends would never have dreamed that I would frequent that red-light
district near midnight, and would never have believed it if any one told
them that I was there for no good purpose.

[Sidenote: _The “Innocent” in Red-light District._]

Arrived at the southern end of the Bowery, I turned into New Bowery,
because it looked dark and crime-inviting. I roamed for another half
hour in the dark, deserted streets of this quarter, accosting one or two
young dockrats who were still abroad, but they simply ransacked my
pockets, gave me a parting blow, and went on their way. Moistening my
handkerchief at a drinking fountain, I washed my bloodstained face.
Finally, after midnight, thoroughly sobered by my disappointments and
physical smarting, I boarded a car. Securing my key from its hiding
place, I let myself into my lodgings without any one ever learning of my
nocturnal ramble.

How shall such conduct on the part of one of the members of an
intellectual and decent community be judged? Let not the reader in
pharisaical self-complacency—an attitude of mind all too common in
dealing with the victims of congenital defects of mind or brain—begin to
set his own virtue over against the apparent depravity of such as I. If
he has not fallen as low as I, it is not necessarily because he is
morally good, and I morally bad, but because in him there has been no
overpowering impulse to do what mankind regards as unspeakably low. As
to yielding to the sexual instinct, many have comparatively weak
impulses in that direction, and could remain celibate all their lives
without experiencing any kind or degree of suffering. Others would be
rendered semi-mad by such abstinence, as was the case with me. The Rev.
Robert Collyer has stated the matter well. It is like two young men to
each of whom is given a field to cultivate. That of the one is fertile,
free from stones, thicket, and weeds; that of the other a dense marshy
jungle. Can the two contestants be expected in the same time to produce
equally good crops of grain from their widely different pieces of land?
Some men are born with much in their mental make-up that disposes them
to evil, while others find it no effort to live virtuous lives.

[Sidenote: _Judgment on My Slumming._]

While I have thus in my more mature judgment considered myself
practically irresponsible for the conduct just described, in that early
stage of my career, I was not so sure, and during the day following this
first nocturnal ramble, was overwhelmed with a sense of shame and guilt.
When night came on, I made my way to a solitary spot in a large park,
where I threw myself on the ground to weep and shriek and pray. The
burden of my prayer was that God would change my nature that very moment
and give me the mind and powers of a man. I soon heard footsteps
approaching, arose instantly, and walked from the spot. The men said
they were looking for an owl which they had heard hooting. It was
probably only my peculiar insane, half-suppressed shrieks they had
heard.

[Sidenote: _Faith-cure Tried._]

At this time I entered the following in my diary: “I am experiencing the
enslaving power of sin. I now know how to sympathize with poor sinners,
drunkards and harlots.... Do such perverse passions spring from idolatry
and forgetting God, as St. Paul says? But for several years I have lived
in communion with God. Several different times in my life I have passed
a month without conscious sin. How can this accord with the fact that I
have repeatedly in childhood and several times in youth committed the
act [fellatio] recognized by men as the most heinous of crimes?”

I soon went to my village home for the summer, where I found the
struggle against sensuality much less severe. For the first month there
I lived without conscious sin. Through occupying my mind diligently with
the high ethical ideals presented in the New Testament, and living
continually in the spirit of prayer, I was able to bar completely from
my life all the movings of the sensual nature, and all regard for self.
Indeed I lived in this state of “entire sanctification” almost
throughout the summer vacation, spending several hours a day in
religious exercises. I came into intimate relations with a Christian
faith-curist, and felt it to be my religious duty to be anointed by him
for the removal of my perverted nature and for the reception of the
normal instincts of a man. For over a month after the anointing, I
persisted in the confident belief that God had miraculously brought
about the change desired, and that I was now in full possession of the
powers of a man. But gradually I had to admit the truth that no change
had taken place.

[Sidenote: _Mourning Over Fate._]

My return to college in the fall of 1892 was followed by a decline from
the high spiritual level attained during the summer vacation, this
decline being especially marked by periods of depression, during which I
would lament to myself that I was practically, by birth, an outcast from
society, with a deformed nature, and despicable in the eyes of all
people. I felt that I was a soft effeminate man who was wanted nowhere.
At the sight of other young men rejoicing in their manly vigor, I would
exclaim, “I want to die! I want to die!”

Moreover, possible ways of gratifying my sensual desires began to haunt
me. Occasionally while walking the streets, I was powerfully constrained
to embrace every young ruffian I met. I felt that I would gladly give up
everything else in order to pass the rest of my days in the worst slums
of the city in the company of the most vicious and degraded of mankind.
At the same time I often had to sob violently while walking the streets
when I would have a mental vision of myself given up to a life of shame
in the slums, after having abandoned all my family ties in order to give
free rein to my carnal desires. Sometimes I raved and wept like a mad
man, and again I feared I might become completely insane.

About this time I came across two articles in a journal of anthropology
which treated of eunuchs. I read that there is a class of abnormal human
beings in India who are called “eunuchs by birth.” The description given
of their natures suited mine exactly. Though male in body—as stated in
the article—they are feminine in manners and tastes, always wear women’s
clothes, let their hair grow long, and keep themselves clean-shaven.
They are filles de joie, and are happy in their lot. I now recalled that
Bayard Taylor and other travellers in the east vaguely refer to them in
their books. Not until now did I know the meaning of these references.

[Sidenote: _First Reading About Abnormality._]

I now read also that males with such non-masculine and non-virile
natures are found among the tribes of American Indians, by
whom—according to the author I read—they are called “squaw-men.” At a
certain age, all the young males are called upon to choose between the
weapons of the warrior and the staff of the squaw. These non-masculine
males always choose the latter and are thenceforth looked upon as
squaws, adopting the dress and occupations of the squaw, and becoming
married to a brave. The hair that grows on their faces is plucked out as
soon as long enough to get hold of.

I read further that such a class of males were found among the ancient
Greeks, and recognized in their true character as not belonging to the
warrior and ruling sex. I now recalled that my Greek professor had
recently remarked that Phaedo had been a slave “devoted to unmentionable
uses.”

The immediate effect of this greatly increased self-knowledge was one of
my most violent fits of weeping. I felt that there was nothing which
could henceforth give me interest in life. I felt so mortified at
thinking that I was a “man-woman,” as such people are called in India.
At this time I wrote in my diary: “People see that I am an effeminate
man! an effeminate man! And one of my sisters remarked the last time I
was home that she did not like effeminate men! Who can like them? Oh it
looks as if there were no God in the world!”

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Second Nocturnal Ramble._]

If the reader had been on Mulberry Street between Grand and Broome on an
evening in November of 1892, he would have seen meandering slowly along
from one side of the street to the other with a mincing gait, a haggard,
tired-looking, short and slender youth between eighteen and nineteen,
clad in shabby clothes, and with a skull cap on his head. As he walks
along, whenever he meets any robust, well-built young man of about his
own age, who is alone, he is seen to stop and address to him a few
words. If we had been able to follow this queer-acting individual for
the previous hour before he passed us on Mulberry street, we would have
seen him roaming about through all the streets of the then dark and
criminal 4th Ward, occasionally halting near the groups of ruffians
congregated in front of the bar-rooms, and then failing of courage to
speak, pass along.

Finally on the corner of Broome and Mulberry Streets, he addresses a
tall, muscular, splendid specimen of the adolescent [subsequently a
member of the New York police force] who continues in conversation with
him, and walks along by his side. The little adolescent takes the arm of
the big one into his own, and presses as closely as possible against
him. The spirits of the little one are visibly heightened, he appears
more lively and animated, and walks along with a quicker but extremely
nervous step. He is soon seized with a sort of ague—due to sexual
excitement—which causes his whole body to shake, and hardly permits him
to speak. If we watched closely whenever the pair passed under a shadow,
we would have seen the little one throw his arms rapturously around the
neck of his big companion, and kiss him passionately. They finally pass
out of sight down one of the dark covered alleys leading to tenements in
the rear.

[Sidenote: _The First Catch._]

When after an interval the pair again emerge, the smaller is clinging
tighter than ever to his big companion, as if afraid he might escape.
They walk a block together, and then the big fellow tries to get rid of
the little one, much against the latter’s wishes. He tells the little
fellow to go on his way, but adds, “Come round again, do yer hear?”

“I don’t know whether I shall or not. I am afraid we shall never meet
again. How it pains me to part from you!”

“What do yer call yourself, and where do yer hang out?”

“I call myself Jennie, and I work in a restaurant up on Third Avenue.
What’s your name, and where could I find you again?”

“You kin find me round on this block any time. Just ask any one fur Red
Mike.”

“Well, good-by. The Lord bless you. I never expect to see you again,
although I love you with all my heart, and would like to live with you
and be your slave.”

The two start off in opposite directions. The little fellow walks
rapidly, turns the first corner, sprints, turns another corner and
sprints, and repeats this maneuver several times, as if bent on giving
the slip to any possible follower. He finally reaches the Bowery and
takes a train uptown from the Grand Street station.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Recourse to Medical Professors._]

For several days following I suffered from shame and remorse. In order,
if possible, to be cured of my abnormality, I now resolved to consult a
specialist in venereal diseases, because at that time I believed my
ailment came under that head. I was led to go to Dr. Prince A. Morrow,
then the leading specialist in that line in New York City, who declared
that either castration or marriage would be a sure cure for my abnormal
passion! How many inverts have followed such advice of a physician, and
seeking a cure in marriage, have been plunged into insanity or suicide,
either on the eve of marriage, or soon after! Individuals like myself
are women mentally. How is one woman to marry another, unless indeed one
of the pair be a gynander, when marriage _de facto_ often takes place. I
could never think of tying myself to a wife until I felt myself to be a
man.

Not satisfied, I immediately consulted another medical-college
professor, this time an alienist, Dr. Robert S. Newton. Both drugs and
electrical stimulation of the brain and spinal cord were tried.
Hypnotism was attempted unsuccessfully. During the first month of
treatment, I excluded from my mind all thoughts of sexual admiration.
Then, though I continued to struggle against them, they would
occasionally be present in the stream of thought for a few days, when
with a fresh dedication of myself to God and to a life of
self-renunciation, I would again completely banish them for another
half-month.

[Sidenote: _Early Appeal for Castration._]

After several months treatment, I was rendered almost a physical and
nervous wreck by the powerful drugs administered, but my amorous desires
showed no change. I now repeatedly appealed for castration. I argued
that Nature had designed me to be a fille de joie—the worst fate
possible as I then believed—and that castration alone could save me from
it. But the answer was that I might in later years regret such a
measure. I had recently read in a medical journal of a man similarly but
not identically afflicted who was placed in possession of the normal
procreative instinct through castration. During these months I had made
diligent search at the library of the New York Academy of Medicine for
light on my abnormality, and discovered a number of articles in American
and foreign journals bearing on it.

During this course of treatment occurred one of the crises of my life. I
had been appointed a delegate to a student’s missionary convention in
another city, and was assigned to a room with a rather athletic student
from another college. The first night, after he had fallen asleep, I
left the bed and lay on the floor, but was driven back by the cold. All
possible alternatives were out of the question. Previous to that day, I
had not known how I would have to pass the night. The chances were good
that I would be assigned to a room alone, or else have an unattractive
bed-fellow inasmuch as nine out of ten religious and studious
adolescents were sexually repulsive, although highly esteemed as
friends. Possibly I was cold to them because I myself am of a religious
and studious disposition, as well as deficient in physical stamina, as
they also are inclined to be.

[Sidenote: _Usual Treatment of Inverts._]

I lay awake the whole night, but during the last half was in a sort of
delirium. I partially yielded. The next morning, before several other
students, my bed-fellow spoke sarcastically of me, evidently intending
to visit on me what he considered to be deserved punishment. I was
crushed by reason of shame, and they never saw me again, as I left by
the next train. At the time I wrote in my diary:

“What have I ever done that God should make me suffer so? I feel that my
abnormality bars me out of the ministry, the profession of my choice,
and most likely out of all other professions. I feel that this passion
is going to wreck my life, and never permit me to make any return to my
parents for all they have done for me. I have no hope for the future. In
the convention, while I would be singing, I was in thought hacking my
body to pieces with a sword, or piercing my breast with a dagger. My
continuous prayer was:

                  ‘Father, Father, hear my humble cry,
                  While on others thou art smiling,
                    Do not pass me by!’

“The convention, to me, was a lesson in resignation. The other young men
were divinely brought there to be inspired with the Holy Spirit, to be
instructed in regard to missionary fields and methods, to be called to
preach the Gospel among those who sit in darkness; but I was brought
there to learn the lesson of resignation in affliction, to experience
the crushing to the earth by the mighty hand of God, to be tried like
Isaac to see whether I am willing to be morally slain in my youth in a
way which seems inexplicable. I have been preparing myself to become a
foreign missionary, having had this career in mind from childhood; but
God and Nature have undoubtedly destined me to be a [fille de joie].
When a child of nine or ten years, although I had not learned that there
were in the world such persons as fallen women, I often aspired to be a
young woman, and to be a fallen one at that. I have resisted my fate
with all the powers of my will and of my religious nature, but you
cannot dam Niagara.”

[Sidenote: _Rejected by Providence from Ministry._]

Not long afterwards I wrote: “Two ways open before me: one of sensual
gratification, unrighteousness, falsehood, hypocrisy, dishonor; the
other of blessing to the poor and the afflicted, a life which is holy
and worthy of the good name given to it, a life which promises to my
dear ones, on my account, more of health, happiness, and honor.”

Shortly after writing the above, I brought the course of medical
treatment to an abrupt termination. I would have continued longer if I
had shown any improvement. I had lost all faith in the physician’s
ability to benefit me. Seeing that the science of medicine held out no
hope, I felt more than ever that I was irresponsible for my abnormal
sexual nature.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Over five months after my previous visit, I again found myself on
Mulberry Street, corner of Grand. I have always suspected that I was
incited to this particular quest by an aphrodisiac. On or about that
day, my physician administered a new drug. He probably hoped it would
incite me to seek normal relations, but it acted along the line of my
peculiar instincts.

[Sidenote: _Year 1893—Fairie Apprenticeship Begins._]

Walking northward on the west side of the street, I encountered a mixed
group of Italian and Irish “sports” of foreign parentage between sixteen
and twenty-one years of age seated or standing around the portal of a
warehouse. I timidly addressed them: “I am looking for a friend named
Red Mike. Do any of you know him?”

One of them replied that he had just seen him up the street. Proceeding
in that direction, I stopped occasionally to make the same inquiry of
other adolescents. After walking several blocks in vain, I returned to
the “gang” at the warehouse’s portal, and asked: “Do you mind if I sit
down to rest here? I am tired and lonesome. I have not been in the city
long and don’t know any one.”

“Where did yez come from?”

“Philadelphia. I couldn’t get any work there, so I came here.”

It was not long before Red Mike happened to stroll by and recognized me
even before I did him. An hour now passed, while they smoked and drank,
hiding the beer-pail whenever a policeman went by. I had no desire to
join in the drinking and smoking, and indeed up to my middle forties,
when this autobiography goes to press, have never had any desire to
learn to smoke, although having a few times put the lighted cigarette of
a paramour in my mouth. I have always considered myself too feminine to
smoke. Moreover, all my life I have been practically a total abstainer
from alcoholic beverages.

[Sidenote: _An Evening with a “Gang.”_]

But I reclined in the arms of one after another, covering face, neck,
hands, arms, and clothing with kisses, while they caressed me and called
me pet-names. I was supremely happy. For the first time in my life I
learned about the fairie inmates of the lowest dives. They proposed to
install me in one. I told them the story of my own life, only with such
variations from the truth as were necessary for my own protection. We
sang plantation songs, “Old Black Joe,” “Uncle Ned,” etc. These they had
learned from Bixby’s “Home Songs,” published in that very neighborhood
by the well-known shoe-blacking firm as an advertisement. I sang with
them in the mock soprano or falsetto that fairies employ, trying to
imitate the voice of a woman. Singing in this voice was not a novelty to
me, as I had previously at times aped the warbling of a woman
instinctively.

At the end of an hour, we adjourned down an alley, where the drinking
and love-making continued even more intensely. After I had refused their
repeated solicitations, one of them grasped my throat tightly to prevent
any outcry and threw me down, while another removed part of my clothing,
appropriating whatever of value he found in my pockets. With my face in
the dust, and half-suffocated by the one ruffian’s tight grip on my
throat, I moaned and struggled with all my might, because of the
excruciating pain. But in their single thought to experience an animal
pleasure, they did not heed my moans and broken entreaties to spare me
the suffering they were inflicting. For two months afterward I suffered
pain at every step because of fissures and lacerations about the anus.

[Sidenote: _At Age of Nineteen._]

When finally released, terror-stricken and with only half my clothing, I
rushed out through the alley and down Mulberry Street, and did not halt
until I reached what I considered a safe refuge on brightly lighted
Grand Street. Breathless and exhausted, I seated myself on the curb. “I
am cured of my slumming,” I said to myself. “God’s will be done. It is
His hand which has brought this about, in order to drive me back to the
path of virtue. Truly the Lord ruleth in all things.”

Because of my exhausted condition, I remained seated for several
minutes. In the meantime, two of my assailants had followed me up, and
expressed their regret that one of their number had stolen my cap and
coat, promising to get them back, and assuring me of their friendly
feelings. “You are only a baby,” they said, “and so we will fight for
you and protect you.”

I was so touched by their gallantry, so enamoured of them, and so sure
that the assault was not committed through malevolence, that I
accompanied them back to our first meeting place on the warehouse steps.
I still had great fear of violence at their hands—rape, not a
beating—but I was powerfully drawn toward them. Fellatio was welcome;
pædicatio, horrible to my moral sense, and physically, accompanied by
excruciating pain. The “gang” received me kindly, petted and soothed me
as one would a peevish baby, which I resembled in my actions, fretting
and sobbing in happiness as I rested my head against their bodies. To
lie in the bosom of these sturdy young manual laborers, all of whom were
good-looking and approximately my own age, was the highest earthly
happiness I had yet tasted. With all my money gone, and cap and coat
stolen besides, I finally had to walk home, a distance of several miles.
Obtaining my keys in their hiding place, I succeeded in reaching my room
without attracting attention.

[Sidenote: _Psychical Infantilism._]

The next day I wrote in my journal: “What a strange thing is life!
Mephistopheles last night carried me through one of the experiences
through which he carried Faust.... My carnal nature was aroused as never
before. I groaned in despair. Never before in all my experience have I
seen such a conflict between the flesh and the spirit.... How like an
animal is man! Thus God has seen fit to make him.”

A few days later I again wrote: “My present psychical state is most
strange. I cannot yet repent of my conduct last Friday night, yet on the
Sunday following I had one of the happiest experiences of nearness to
God that I ever had. That afternoon I presented the Gospel in love for
my Savior and for perishing souls. I have in my heart an intense desire
to save from their lives of sin those in whose company I was Friday
night, especially my Bill, so young, and yet so deep in sin. I want to
rescue him, and make of him a strong educated champion for Christ. My
heart yearns to carry blessings and peace to all those who are suffering
in the slums of New York.”

In a letter received shortly afterward from a venerable doctor of
divinity and former pastor, whom for years I made my confidant, he
expressed his judgment of my conduct as follows: “I believe God will
overlook in you what He would not in others.”

[Sidenote: _Verdicts of Pastor and Alienist._]

The judgment of the alienist, to whom also I confided the occurrences,
was approximately as follows: “It was a physical impossibility for you
to have withstood longer. The only thing for you to do is to follow out
your instincts in moderation. If you do not, you will continue to be a
nervous wreck, and may even become insane. The majority of men can live
celibate lives without suffering in mind or body, but you are
extraordinarily amorous, and celibacy with you is out of the question.
Only don’t go into the slums any more. Confide in some stalwart young
man of your own class. You run great risk of being killed, or at least
contracting disease, in running around after strangers in the slums.”

On now making my decision henceforth to follow Nature’s behests, I gave
up the city mission work I was engaged in, and also finally gave up my
purpose of entering the Christian ministry. The presentation of
religious truths spoken of above, on the Sunday following my third
nocturnal ramble, was unavoidable, unless I wished to disappoint others
by failing to keep an engagement. I gave up religious work, not because
of lack of religious faith, but because I felt myself unworthy and unfit
by reason of my recent change in habits, and because I might bring
reproach on the Church.

I could not bring myself to follow the physician’s advice to confide in
a stalwart young man of my own class. I felt too much ashamed of my
abnormality. So I formed the habit of visiting my Mulberry Street
friends once a week, the visits continuing altogether for about a year.
I preferred the society of these adolescent roughs to that of all other
human beings, and woe to the friend of my ordinary circle who should
hinder or delay me on the evenings on which I had planned a visit to
Mulberry Street! If necessary to get rid of him, I would even insult any
friend who happened to call at this inopportune time. At first
exceedingly nervous for fear something would interfere with my setting
out, I became, when safe from interruption after I had boarded the
elevated train, blissfully intoxicated at the thought of meeting my
beaux again.

[Sidenote: _Obedience to Nature a Panacea._]

During this period of living one evening a week according to the
dictates of my peculiar instincts, I was happier than I had ever been
before, notwithstanding my suffering for the first two months from a
continuously painful sphincter ani. Recognizing the horror I had for
pædicatio, and not wishing to drive me away from their “gang,”
particularly as my visits made them on those evenings what they regarded
as flush with money, none ever again subjected me to it. But the
lacerations of the first night required two months for healing.
Moreover, I was never again robbed of my clothing.

The contrast in my own life between total abstinence and indulgence one
evening a week was that the latter made me sing continually on the
proper occasions, whereas with abstinence, I had been as continually
weeping and moaning. I felt that I had come into possession of the
earthly _summum bonum_, hitherto denied me. I had arrived at the
conviction that while the voice of the world would cry “Shame!” I was
acting according to the dictates of reason and conscience, and not
sinning against the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless this conviction was
occasionally shaken and I would be plunged into short spells of
melancholia due to remorse over my sensual practices.

[Sidenote: _Cementing an Androgyne’s Marriage Bond._]

My favorite was an American-born Irish lad of nineteen, since he was
both the handsomest and the most athletic. Because he soon became my
“husband” _par excellence_, I foolishly thought I did wrong to deceive
him as to my identity, as I did those who were not so closely related to
me. But before I revealed the facts, I submitted the following
declaration to be sworn to on a Bible:

“Do you solemnly swear that you will always keep inviolably secret my
name, residence, our relations, and all that I confide to you, not
revealing any of these things to your friends and pals without my
permission?”

Although strongly urged, he refused to be sworn. He did not intend to
keep what he was about to promise, and so was willing to give his word,
but too superstitious to give his oath. He said that any way it was a
Protestant Bible, and he would be sworn only on a Catholic Bible! Seeing
that it was hopeless to get him to take his oath, I reluctantly accepted
his word alone, and then told him nearly all the truth about myself. I
now look upon it as almost an insane procedure. Fortunately, nothing
ever resulted from my disclosures. Strangely, although it soon became
known to all my associates of Mulberry Street that I was a college
student and came from the best quarter of the city, no one ever
attempted to follow me home or to blackmail me. These young men had
never heard of this kind of blackmail.

[Sidenote: _An Inner Circle of Associates._]

After revealing who I was, I solemnly put the following questions, to
all of which he answered in the affirmative, although never meaning to
keep his word:

“Will you place me higher in your regard than any of your pals, seeing I
am to you as a wife?

“Do you realize that you and I are united by a closer bond than that
which unites you to your most intimate chums and pals?

“Will you then confide to me your secrets as to no one else in the
world, and also share all my secrets?

“Will you regard our association as not merely for sensuous enjoyment,
but also for close friendship, and for mutual help in the trials of
life?”

Thus was cemented an androgyne’s marriage bond. My purpose was to draw
him away from his environment, and bring him up to my own social level,
but my efforts met with complete failure.

Though having had in my career as a fairie about eight hundred
intimates, I have had less than a score who formed an inner circle and
whom I regarded as “husbands” _par excellence_. I only had one of them
at a time, and our relations were long-continued. In the case of nearly
every one of them, if it had been a matter dependent on my will, he
would have been my life partner. But circumstances beyond my control
brought a change on an average once a year. As a fairie, however, I was
not satisfied with monandry. I sometimes applied the term “husband”
playfully to my ordinary intimates.

[Sidenote: _A Night on Mulberry Street._]

These nights on Mulberry Street or vicinity had a great fascination for
me, and in subsequent years continued to have a fascination. For a
decade I occasionally yearned to be back there with the companions of
these days of my fairie apprenticeship. With half a score of adolescents
and two or three young women, an evening would be spent in some humble
two-room apartment. Everybody was exceedingly happy, and I perhaps the
happiest of all, sitting now in one young man’s lap, and now in that of
another. And how we all did sing! The young men petted and babied me
more than they did any of the girls, and even right before the eyes of
the girls. The latter were not jealous of me, especially because I was
the one who financed these parties. In my actions I was far more
feminine and babyish than any of the girls, and also far more amorous
and skilled in coquetry. The girls thought nothing strange of me, as the
nature of fairies was well known to them. I wish it understood, however,
that these gatherings were no more indecent than a children’s party in
the best social stratum. Even these knights of Mulberry Street had their
sense of decency. At these home parties, extreme intimacies were allowed
only in private. The only refreshment was beer, the three-quart pail
passing around the room from mouth to mouth, and being repeatedly sent
out to be refilled. I alone did not partake, having, as already
indicated, been brought up a total abstainer.

                  *       *       *       *       *

I have always been indifferent to the vast majority of men. I could
sleep with them without becoming in the least excited. It was necessary
to be under thirty, athletic, physically brave, smooth-shaven, and in no
way deformed. On the other hand, throughout my open career of twelve
years as a fairie, the proportion of men over thirty years old that
sought intimacy was hardly more than one per cent., while ninety-five
per cent. were between eighteen and twenty-five.

[Sidenote: _What Constituted Attractiveness._]

During my apprenticeship just described, however, I was attracted only
toward the ages sixteen to twenty-five, inclusive. Throughout this
autobiography, I use the term “adolescent” to denote men within these
age limits. Always has it seemed to me that men gradually grow less
masculine and less virile (in coitus) after passing twenty-five. They
have also appeared to me to lose their good looks soon after that age.
To me man appears to grow old and his beauty fade a decade earlier than
woman, which is just the opposite of the normal man’s impression. When I
was a boy of twelve, all males over sixteen appeared ugly, and I had
only sexual disgust for them. But in 1918, when I have arrived at my
middle forties, the age of male beauty in my eyes is confined between
eighteen and thirty years.

I have always preferred the brunette to the blonde type, although I
myself am of the former. For years after my fairie apprenticeship I
seemed to be especially drawn toward young men of Irish blood. The pure
Italian type of beauty, however, appears to me the highest. In my own
veins flows blood of five different nationalities of western Europe, but
no Irish or Italian. Perhaps my predilection for these two is due to the
fact that they constituted exclusively my associates during my
apprenticeship.

[Sidenote: _Sexual Preferences._]

Large frame counted for a great deal, as also large and well-developed
membra virilia. Variety exists as much in the latter respect as in
respect to frame. There is often an inverse proportion between the two.

I much preferred the rough to the gentleman, and the profane boozing
libertine to the morally upright. I have always been strongly attracted
by disregard for personal danger. When reading accounts of exploration
and adventure, I have sometimes fallen in love with the adventurer. For
example, I fell in love with a noted Arctic explorer while reading his
book, as well as with the kayak-men whose courageous deeds he describes.
To me tattooing has always been the mark of supreme masculinity. It was
a habit with me to seek for it on my beaux, and if found, I would rave
over it, osculate it, kneel before the young blood in adoration, and
call him all the glorious idealizing names I could think of. That one of
my eight hundred beaux with whom I would have chosen to live out my life
in daily comradeship was by far the most tattooed of all, and he did
actually live with me for several months when I was forty years of age,
besides being my “adopted son” for nine years. But it was not the
tattooing alone that attracted me. In practically every manly charm, he
stood supreme.

After an hour or so spent with a companion, it was painful to say
good-by, and I generally hoped for another meeting. But subsequently to
my apprenticeship just described, I generally had the same companion
only once, or at most several times, as it was a long time, if ever,
before we saw one another again. I usually felt for my companions a
non-sensual wifely love in addition to the mere sexual attraction, which
wifely love was transformed into a parental love after I had reached my
middle thirties and my associates were ten or more years younger than
myself. Throughout my life as a fairie, I always longed to have a young
man live with me as my husband. If this had been practicable, monandry
would possibly have been sufficient, as it proved to be in my early
forties. But until long after the close of my open career, I was
reluctant to reveal my identity, and was also deterred by the fear of
blackmail.

[Sidenote: _Polyandry Versus Monandry._]

At my middle forties, however, I am of the opinion that in the case of
inverts, promiscuity is preferable to monandry for the welfare of the
human race, the invert’s associates individually, and the naturally
polyandrous invert himself. Promiscuity does not affect the increase of
the race, whereas monandry might by interfering with the young man’s
ultimately marrying a woman. Practically all the invert’s intimates do
this ultimately, and raise a family. It appears to be the natural
function of the invert to minister to the ultra-virile until they reach
marriageable age according to present-day standards. These relations
merely supplant solitary onanism on the part of the virile, or else
extra-marital relations with a young member of the gentle sex.

In my extensive experience, I have come across nothing to support the _a
priori_ view of some medical men that the adolescent tends to become a
pervert, losing his normal instinct in whole or in part. My intimates of
early childhood grew up to be fathers. None of my beaux of my
apprenticeship just described—the only period of my adult career when I
went repeatedly with the same ones—ever gave evidence of any growing
coldness toward the gentle sex. Dozens of experiences that they
individually had were without any such effect. Why should fellatio have
such a tendency any more than occasional solitary onanism, to which
practically all ultra-virile adolescents are subject? That this tendency
is at most only a very remote possibility is indicated by the fact that
the young man who was my “adopted son” for nine years was as much of a
Don Juan at the end as at the beginning.

[Sidenote: _Fellatio Efficiendi._]

Secondly, invert promiscuity is to the interest of the young man because
it would be cruel and unnatural to ask any one to remain permanently in
the relation, and the promiscuity in question would obviate practically
all risk of his ever becoming a pervert, if there be such risk.

Associates have told me that in coitus I was the most violently excited
of any one they ever saw, and manifested the intensest feeling (_i.e._,
mental). A few have said that they preferred fellatio with me to the
normal with a physical girl, while many have said whether the latter or
a fairie was indifferent. Up to my early thirties, they always regarded
me as a girl and used the feminine pronoun.

My original and fundamental method was active fellatio, the identical
act of an infant ad matrem, quoad fuit emissio in comite, who would lie
absolutely inactive. Time from a second to over an hour. Average time,
about five minutes. In a very few, there was no result. If it had not
been for the extreme weakening effect I would have been glad to lie
inactive for an hour preceding and for another hour following, merely
cum membro virili in ore. Generally cruria involvebant corpus meum, and
I desired that premeret me cum iis aliquando. I would occasionally emit
infantile vocables; for example, half-sobbing, or the natural language
expressive of satisfaction and contentment. At other times I would
express my admiration in a rather babyish manner: “Big, big, fierce
fighter! Big, big desperado!” He would stroke my hair or face or pat me
on the back, and say, “Poor baby!” “My cry-baby!” “Pet!” etc.

[Sidenote: _Fellatio Patiendi._]

All other methods were taught me, for example, passive fellatio, which
occurred at least as often as active because my companion preferred it,
while I preferred the active. In the passive, I was completely so, and
would often lie flat on my back. He would conduct himself the same as in
normal coitus, often cum manibus conjunctis post caput meum, quoad
habuit emissionem. During this action on the part of the majority, I
suffered the greatest physical discomfort and saepe strangulatus sum.
Dorsum oris has been often rendered sore, and the uvula was elongated,
necessitating truncation because the elongation caused a chronic cough.
I know of another invert who had to undergo the same operation. But I
counted it happiness to suffer thus and endure pain when inflicted by a
strong, brave, and rough young blood.

I say to readers who judge me to be horribly depraved for submitting to
such usage: Nature created me puellam sine vagina, and then drew me
toward the sturdy sex as few of the gentle sex are drawn. In such a
case, what is more natural than to use the next best foramen?
Furthermore, instinct pointed out the makeshift. It came just as natural
for me utor ore as for physical women to use what Nature has provided
them. In general, all through my life, whenever I have encountered virum
who appeared to me as exceptionally beautiful, a strong desire has
immediately arisen membrum virile in ore recipere. There are inverts
guilty of such practices who in all other respects are exemplars of the
highest morality. They even sometimes occupy the highest social station.
They are blameless, and simply to be pitied.

[Sidenote: _Nature of the Satisfaction._]

Sometimes there was an alternation between the two methods, or both were
adopted simultaneously. In the active, I did not have a fixed purpose
inducendi ejaculationem in comite, neque desideravi semen. It was the
mere act sugere that was my objective, and that gave me a sense of
restful satisfaction. Nevertheless I practically semper devorabam. For
days afterward it was a pleasure to reflect that what had once been the
substance amatissimi was now my substance, and that the particles of
matter that were once carried along in his veins, now floated in mine.
In many cases I yearned to become the mother of his child, and often
playfully spoke with an associate as if I had. Sometimes on meeting a
young mother with her infant in her arms, I have wished to be in her
place.

While lying cum membro virili in ore, I often feigned sleep,
experiencing a sort of blissful dreaming, realizing that I was for a
short season physically united to my mental and physical complement and
opposite from whom fate and necessity separated me most of the time.

[Sidenote: _Fellatio Not Rare._]

Even before castration, rarely expertus sum ejaculationem. During my
fairie apprenticeship, however, it occurred about once in ten
fellationes. But it was accompanied by such horrible feelings and
thoughts that I used my will power to prevent it. This probably made it
become less and less common during coitus, although from the age of
sixteen until I was castrated at the age of twenty-eight, it averaged
twice a week during sleep. When it occurred during coitus, I wanted
everything to stop immediately, and felt like never again indulging
therein. From the age of nineteen on, however, it was not quite so
terrible as in my early teens. Pædicatio nunquam induxit ejaculationem
in me, and under force, not even an orgasm.

Fellatio appears to be deeply rooted in the constitution of man and of
the mammals in general, although usually coming to the surface only in
exceptional individuals or under exceptional circumstances. It has been
witnessed between dogs on the street and between monkeys in zoos. Guinea
sows, when the boar is disinclined to coitus, repeatedly resort to a
sort of fellatio, which appears to give the boar pleasure. Fellatio is
common in the underworld between the two sexes. In a 1915 issue of the
_Alienist and Neurologist_, a writer maintained that fellatio is common
among ordinary respectable married pairs.

My peculiar instinct was the occasion recipiendi in stomachum in tantum
novem portiones liquoris vitæ in one evening. There was never any tonic
or other beneficial effect. The apparent effect is an immediate
disagreeable stimulation, followed the next day by a serious mental and
physical collapse. This depression was, however, not specially serious
during my first two or three years of promiscuity. Possibly later my
constitution had become somewhat undermined and coitus therefore became
more fatiguing. The collapse was particularly severe after I was
castrated at the age of twenty-eight. Cultured inverts of strong
passions realize the detriment to their health from coitus, yet they
feel that it is the _summum bonum_ for which everything else should be
sacrificed. My own fascination for the rough and wild-natured was so
great that for a decade I could not let slip a single opportunity.

[Sidenote: _Liquor Vitæ as Medicament._]

Sometimes for several days following fellatio, I would suffer from a
slight fever and all my organs and muscles would seem to be used up, as
if I was just about to expire from exhaustion. I would be very
irritable, and nothing seemed to go as it should. My brain was
particularly affected, and during the latter half of my open career as a
fairie, I would be incapable of doing good mental work for two or three
days following an indulgence. My judgment and critical faculties were
clouded, and I could do only such work as was mechanical in its nature.
Providence endowed me with powers of mind such as are met with in
approximately one alone out of two score university graduates. In life I
have achieved about the average success of a university graduate. I have
every reason to believe that if it had not been for my suffering for
twelve years from acute spermatorrhea, and if I had been able to abstain
wholly from coitus, I would have reached the front rank among university
men. I therefore exhort young intellectual inverts to be continent as
far as possible. For every indulgence, a heavy penalty must be paid in
diminished efficiency. For each minute of bodily contact with a
counterpart that I have enjoyed, I have had to pay one hour of resultant
serious suffering, physical or mental.

[Sidenote: Author’s Chronic Hyperæsthesia.]

My mind and body have, however, always been hypersensitive to all
stimuli and impressions. A few swallows of tea or coffee after one P. M.
would make me lie awake half the night. A slightly tainted article of
food which would have no effect on most people would prostrate me
mentally and physically for hours afterward. A business worry would
cause me to lie awake for hours. When spending the night in bed with one
to whom I was attracted, I generally lay awake the whole night, and for
this reason, I usually sought a separate place to sleep in.

But all these bad effects following fellatio I have sometimes fancied
might be due rather to the mere presence of membri virilis in ore and in
juxtaposition to the brain. The debilitating effects of coitus inter
femora or of pædicatio were not one-quarter as marked as those of
fellatio. Moreover, perhaps the ill effects of departures from the
entirely normal form of coitus are roughly proportional to the extent of
departure. Fellatio is further removed from normal coitus than inter
femora or pædicatio. On a few occasions, as an experiment, exspui semen,
but it seemed to make no difference in the aftereffects. Quite probably
the bad effects were due to a relapse after intense nervous excitement,
which in my case always accompanied fellatio, but not pædicatio, which
latter I never sought. Or it might have been largely due to my habitual
inhibition of the ejaculatory center. I now believe that I made a
mistake in respect to this inhibition, and that it is more healthful to
experience the ejaculation than to check it by force of will.

[Sidenote: _Alleviating Ill Effects—Inter Femora._]

Not until I reached the age of thirty-nine did I, by chance, discover a
means to alleviate decidedly the exhausting effects of fellatio. I had
used potassium iodide extensively in tablet form dissolved in water for
syphilis. I discovered it to be for me an excellent sedative and
soporific, and occasionally used it to secure this effect alone. I
further discovered that fifteen to twenty grains taken at night after
fellatio almost entirely forestalled the exhaustion otherwise
supervening on the following days. Experience further taught me at about
the age of thirty-nine that the supervening exhaustion was in large
measure forestalled by eating a light lunch several minutes before
fellatio, and a hearty meal as soon afterwards as possible. Fellatio
occurring just before rising in the morning was found to induce far less
fatigue than when occurring in the evening, or at night just before
going to sleep.

On rare occasions—about one hundred out of sixteen hundred—we adopted
the normal position, cum peni ejus inter femora mea. I was entirely
passive. It was necessary for me ponere femur unum transversum altero in
order to form a foramen strictum. Sometimes I requested this pose, and
sometimes my companion. This was the nearest to normal coitus. I was
curious to see how my companion would conduct himself with a genuine
fille.

[Sidenote: _Pædicatio._]

Only when I could not avoid it, either because of force or because of
insistent entreaty on the part of a kind companion, pædicatio took
place. I would sometimes be beaten into submission, and knives would be
drawn on me by the most desperate ruffians of the slums. Anus evidenter
attrahit a very small percentage of men, just as the pudenda does the
normal individual. Tangebant atque dicebant, “Anus pulcher.” My intense
moral horror of pædicatio experienced at the beginning of my fairie days
gradually declined. I later enjoyed it somewhat only because I enjoyed
witnessing all kinds of amorous conduct on the part of ultra-virile
young men. I had a craze to see them sexually excited, and to see the
means they instinctively took to appease their ardor. The pain to me was
generally excruciating—ad magnitudinem priapi—and has sometimes rendered
walking painful for months together. It also occasionally brought on
hemorrhoids of brief duration, but so painful as to render walking
almost impossible. It is attended with much risk to the pathic. I know
of two who were compelled to undergo serious operations as a result of
repeatedly permitting it, one of whom in his early forties was invalided
for the rest of his life. In my own case, pædicatio occurred only about
fifty times out of sixteen hundred instances of coitus.

Up to the age of thirty, two years after castration, I was seemingly
never satisfied. I have expressed to a group of companions the wish to
die through them as did the Levite’s concubine at Gibeah, as related in
the Book of Judges. In the subsequent physical and mental collapse, I
received comfort from the consciousness that it was the result of
devotion to adored beings.

[Sidenote: _Manustupration—Nature of Satisfaction._]

When spasmus in my companion was impossible otherwise, I would resort to
manustupration. My companions preferred me to do this rather than do it
themselves. Only twice in all my career did my companion do it to me,
much against my wishes. I have always had a horror of this experience,
including solitary onanism.

Except for these two instances, and one instance when a companion to my
disgust attempted fellatio, my pudenda never had any part in coitus, and
I always wished I was rid of them. No method ever brought me any kind of
local physical pleasure. That is, I am entirely devoid of any erogenous
center. Companions have remarked that sensus gratissimus suffunderet
corpus totum. I never experienced anything of the kind in the least
degree. With me the satisfaction was practically all mental. I found it
exclusively in the body of my associate, not at all in my own. I was
satisfied with the realization that I was instrumental in efficiendo ei
voluptatem acutam. I had my pleasure in seeing his vita sexualis
strongly aroused and in witnessing the manifestations of the procreative
instinct in him, e.g., his me cogendum, detrahendum mihi vestem, ejus
appetitionem propellendi, anhelandum, etc. I was happy in the thought
that I was being received tanquam uxorem by a handsome high-spirited
adolescent. He called me uxorem, and I called him maritum. There was
also a life-long satisfaction in the remembrance that I had possessed
him in amplexu sexuali. To mimic the baby and the woman in his presence
was a rare pleasure. Up to my early thirties, in all my conduct with
him, I was more feminine than any woman and as babyish as a three-year
old. Sexually I have never grown out of babyhood.

[Sidenote: _Sadism._]

I liked to be regarded as the slave. In the “Enslaving Ceremony,” I lay
prostrate on the floor, my companion towered above, placed his foot on
my head, and pronounced me his slave. I have always felt that a woman
should adore her husband so much as to delight in being treated as a
slave, and to suffer gladly any abuse by her lord.

In the “Ceremony of Adoration,” my companion stood upright, I prostrated
myself, clasped his legs, pressed my lips against his feet, recited all
the heroic qualities which enslaved me to him, and cried out over and
over again my love and adoration for him. Associates have said they only
hoped they would ultimately secure a wife who would adore them as I.

I sometimes found pleasure in my companion being vexed with me and
striking me. I would playfully slap him until he was provoked to give me
a blow meant seriously. With heartless associates who were bent merely
on the pleasure spasmi and would choke and otherwise maltreat me into
submission to pædicatio, I often enjoyed being thus forced. Occasionally
I even insisted that friendly ones rapere for the pleasure of struggling
to get away and feeling their conquering strength.

There was a great difference in respect to the extent to which they
responded. Some would not allow osculation above the waist and only
desired spasmum. From this coldness there were all grades up to the
associates who would kiss and hug me, and even let me protrudere linguam
in os ejus, atque vice versa.

[Sidenote: _Farewell to Mulberry Street._]

Although a girl only in mind, though to some extent in body, this
deficiency seemed not to detract from my success in the vocation of a
fille de joie. Few filles have had a clientele the equal of mine in
youthfulness, beauty, and virility. Providence compensated me for my
years of grief over being an invert by throwing in my way this
exceptional clientele. My enterprise in seeking conquests was that
usually found in the male, and rarely in the female.

Practically all my companions have remained permanently a part of me.
Now and then through life when the memory of a particular one arises, it
has been accompanied by regret at the thought of our eternal separation,
and by the consciousness that I was offering him an eternal worship of
which he could never know. From my late twenties on, I impressed it upon
my ever changing companions that I offered them an eternal worship, and
that down through life, when we must be forever separated, they should
think of me as still offering them my adoration.

                  *       *       *       *       *

I am now going to recount how I happened to abandon Mulberry Street as
my “stamping ground” when I had so many accommodating friends there. On
account of a nervous breakdown, due partly to overstudy, partly to
debauchery, but chiefly to emissions during sleep which had afflicted me
twice a week since the age of sixteen, I was unable to stay out my
junior year in college and left the city the middle of May. I was to
spend my last evening with my “husband” _par excellence_ at a theatre. I
was to meet him at seven o’clock on a Broadway corner several blocks
from his usual haunts. Since I did not expect to be with him where he
could help himself to my belongings, and also since I had to leave my
residence before dark, instead of putting on cast-off clothing as usual
on my visits to the foreign-born quarters, I clad myself in my best and
wore a gold ring and watch and chain.

[Sidenote: _Close of Junior Year._]

But he did not come, though I waited a half hour in anguish. It was only
five minutes’ walk from his usual haunts, but clad as I was, I was
afraid to seek him there. Finally two Italian bootblacks happened to
pass. Even the boys of that part of Mulberry Street knew me. I however
never had anything to do with them, not being attracted toward those
immature sexually. Even my companions would always drive away boys who
sought to stand around our group. The bootblacks now called out: “Hello
Jennie! Where yer goin’ all dressed up?”

I sent a message by them, and waited still another half hour. Of all
things in the world, I wanted at that moment a sight of my idol. Though
realizing the risk I was running, I decided that I must go nearer to his
usual haunts. I walked to the corner of Mulberry. I said to myself that
I would not venture any farther. I would wait on this corner until he
happened to pass, since it was on his route home. I considered myself
safe since the street was well lighted and there were numerous
pedestrians.

[Sidenote: _In the Slums in My Best._]

After waiting here also a half hour in vain, I became hysterical, wept,
wrung my hands, and gave utterance to suppressed shrieks. I finally
decided the only thing to do was to walk up Mulberry Street. About the
middle of the block, I happened to find him seated, as usual, in a group
of my beaux. They all made exclamations of surprise and pleasure when
they caught sight of me. It was my first and only appearance there
dressed up. My mate called out: “Hello pretty little girl!”

“Hello big, brave, bouncing boy!”

They immediately pulled me down to a seat among them and several hands
were stuck into my pockets. I had tucked my bills away in the waistband
of my trousers. The street was alive with recent Italian immigrants, and
I might have saved my coin by raising an alarm, but of course did not
choose to. On every visit here I had my pockets rifled, and did not mind
the loss of the coin.

My mate sought to be as captivating as possible, and put me in a state
of perfect happiness. Before long he asked me to sleep with him and a
pal that night. All this time, among this group of young bloods, there
was but one female, only sixteen years of age, whose home was on this
block. It was decided that we should spend the night in her rooms.
Accompanied by the two ruffians and the young woman, I thus finally
sauntered down a pitch-dark alley and descended some steps to the
basement of a ramshackle rear tenement, occupied entirely by illiterate
Italians recently immigrated. I revolted at what I saw and smelt, but on
this and other occasions was drawn by sexual attraction into
pestilential places where nothing else would have induced me to remain a
minute.

[Sidenote: _In the Lair of a Strumpet._]

When the lamp was lighted, I found myself in a suite of two dilapidated
rooms, scantily and poorly furnished. On a century-old bedstead rested a
dirty mattress filled with straw, and no pillows or bed-linen.
Benefiting by my money, my associates drank to excess as the evening
wore away, while I found my pleasure in the usual manner. Toward
midnight, after the two ruffians had become half-intoxicated, my mate
placed the muzzle of a revolver, which the young woman kept for
self-defence, against my head, saying he would blow my brains out if I
got him into any trouble. Because of the maudlin condition of the two
young men, and because I had something on me that they might consider
worth committing a grave crime for, I now half expected never to leave
the place alive, and repeatedly breathed a prayer that no serious harm
might be permitted to befall me. I now let them dispossess me of the
balance of my bills and my other valuables in dismay and without the
slightest protest, for fear of angering them.

Finally, in order to frighten me further from making complaint to the
police, one of the ruffians asked the other whether they should put a
bullet through my head or turn me over to the police because of my
peculiar addiction. Thoroughly frightened, I implored them to let me go
home. After some deliberation, designed to show how they had me in their
power, including the assurance that I had that night rendered myself
liable to a long term of imprisonment—ignorant men always thinking only
the androgyne is amenable to the law—they finally decided to let me go
if I ran away from the neighborhood as fast as my legs would carry me.
The three of them escorted me to the mouth of the alley, and the last
words I caught were: “Run faster! Run faster!”

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Yearning for Feminine Apparel._]

While in college I shrunk from the required gymnasium exercises. I felt
that they were proper for young men, but my feminine nature made me
exceedingly shy while in line in the drill. In the gymnasium
dressing-room I would enjoy seeing the naked forms, but concealed my
own. If military drill had been required, as is the case in some
universities in 1918, it would have caused me to omit a university
education.

Beginning about this time, my twenty-first year, and continuing down to
the date when this book goes to press, I have commonly worn in my home
an ornamental bathrobe, just like a woman’s dress. Clad in it, I have
gazed at my reflection in the mirror, imagining I was a woman. Walking
in it to and fro and up and down the stairs, I have taken pleasure in
hearing it rustle like a woman’s dress, in feeling it strike against my
legs, and in holding it up when ascending the stairs, as a woman her
skirts. In my college days, while home for week-ends, I would
occasionally, when alone, put on a sister’s hat and gaze at myself in
the mirror with rare pleasure, wishing that I might wear that style of
hat.

In this summer of 1894, when away from New York, where temptation was
less strong, I became for several weeks weaned away from my peculiar
habits. In my present rather puritanical circle, I felt like a wolf in
sheep’s clothing. Under the unusual religious influences, I even thought
I might never again seek the gratification of my peculiar cravings.

[Sidenote: _Sexual Starvation._]

Nevertheless, before many weeks, I began to suffer intensely from sexual
starvation and melancholia. Being then a nervous wreck, I saw before me
only insanity or suicide. I would walk deserted streets at night beating
my breast and waving my arms in anguish. Even in broad daylight and on
the main street, I several times wept openly while walking along, so
that people who knew me probably thought I was insane. In the privacy of
my room I would writhe on my bed in an agony of tears.

My sexual cravings began to render me sleepless after retiring, and
throw me into paroxysms. Driven by my importunate craving for fellatio,
I would occasionally rise from bed around midnight, and roam through the
poor quarters, looking for a thoroughly intoxicated man who would not be
able to recognize me, but I never found one. I now believe I was
irresponsible.

The only ray of hope I had was the possibility of securing a steady
mate. When in my imagination I could see the feasibility and certainty
of this, I was happy and hopeful. I felt that then a successful life
would be a certainty. Without a mate I feared for my virtue and my
reputation. With one I felt that I could live a virtuous life outside of
occasional fellatio with him. At the present time (1918), I am convinced
that I had a right view of the matter back there in 1894. Possession of
a mate would have been the panacea for all my ills.

[Sidenote: _Appeal to a Highminded Adolescent._]

My New York physician, to whom I confided my woes, wrote that the only
remedy to make me well and happy was the possession of a mate, and urged
me to apply immediately to some stalwart acquaintance. I decided to
appeal to a cousin, an adolescent fair to look upon, and possessed of
all the qualities of mind attractive to the female sex. Moreover, in my
early childhood, he had been one of my intimates. Too much ashamed to
speak, I handed him the following argument:

“... I am driven to make these disclosures to you, or else go insane or
commit suicide. I am madly in love with you. I say it before God—this
impulse of my being is entirely opposed to my will. I bewail the fact
that this animality is a part of my nature. I abhor sensual love and
sensual enjoyment, and if I had my choice, would never stoop to them.
Nevertheless, sometimes a person cannot do what he would but what he
must. My physician says my health demands that I do not resist this
overpowering impulse. Last night I went to bed drowsy and tired. But the
impossibility of my possessing the masculine counterpart which nature
ordained I should have, threw me for an hour into paroxysms which
threatened to take away all my strength. I had finally to leave my bed,
and spend two hours reading in order to save myself from insane raving.
The statement of the few specialists who have studied into the nature of
sexual inversion is that the craving of a person like myself for his
sexual counterpart is abnormally intense, and that it is, for the ends
of health, more necessary for his peculiar craving to be met than it is
necessary for the normal man or woman’s.

[Sidenote: _Abstinence Would Wreck Life._]

“Judging from the past, my life is likely to be a wreck if I deny this
instinctive craving. In leading a life of chastity, I have endured a
melancholy existence, and have often deliberated suicide. Recently I
have meditated it daily. All my privileges, which one would think must
make my life a happy one, have failed to make life to me worth living.
You may say it is my own fault, and that I just make my own life
miserable. But truly, it is a matter to me not dependent on my will
power, but on physiological and psychological laws, over which the will
has no more control than over the diphtheria.

“That I desire such indulgence does not spring from the fact that I have
become licentious or a debauchee, placing my own selfish sensual
enjoyment above everything else. I am as ardent as ever in my yearnings
to alleviate human misery and to deny myself for others. But in this
matter, the result of my denying myself would be almost as serious as to
resolve to give up eating for the sake of saving the money for the cause
of missions. There are some things which it would be fatal to us to give
up, even if we did it through motives of altruism. I assure you that I
have not abandoned my high aspirations and worthy aims of life.

“I assert before God that I am confident that I commit no sin in obeying
this instinct. During my moments of closest communion with God, I am
sensible of His smile on my conduct in this matter. In general the only
legitimate relations are between a legally married pair. The marriage
state is open to the normal man and he is duty bound to marry when
passion becomes too strong. This duty however is not binding on
urnings,[2] because they cannot get any one to marry them. I endeavored
to marry a young man in New York, but failed. Therefore it is in
consonance with the moral law for urnings to enjoy the company of those
they love without marrying.

Footnote 2:

  At that time I incorrectly described myself as an urning. Urnings are,
  at least usually, active pederasts, or else addicted to mutual
  onanism.

[Sidenote: _Androgyne’s Propensities Not Under Biblical Ban._]

“You may reply that such relations are prohibited in the Bible.
Relations between man and man, both of whom are normal, are prohibited.
But in the past year I have learned that I am seven-eighths a woman, and
only one-eighth man.[3] Were it not for certain masculine conformations
of the body, I ought to go about in dresses as a woman, and always
identify myself with the female sex. Therefore, I being more a woman
than a man, these prohibitions in the Bible do not apply to me.

Footnote 3:

  This early statement may be too strong. Psychically I am practically
  all woman, and physically at least one-third, although the organs of
  generation are completely male.

“I think I have satisfied you that I can without sin follow out my
desire in the way Nature prompts. But I would convince you that my
companion also acquiesces in my desire without sin. I would not wish to
allure any one into obliging me unless he could see that he was thereby
committing no sin. There is sin only in those things which rob God of
His glory, or which bring unhappiness and detriment to some sentient
being. In this case, if sin at all, it would be sin against self. But by
it you harm yourself in no way, as the physician told me.

[Sidenote: _Androgynes the Handiwork of God._]

“Then too, urnings, congenital as I, are the work of God, the divine
purpose in their creation being probably to check a too rapid increase
in the population; and God must therefore have meant that their
instinctive cravings for a sexual counterpart should be gratified,
especially since he has made these cravings doubly intense. But how
could they be gratified without the acquiescence of some normal
individual? Therefore the latter is also without sin.

“I am not now, as you may think, writing in a state of extreme
excitement, such as I might be in in the presence of the attractive
person, when I would not be my true self; but I am writing in a
comparatively calm, rational frame of mind. I am backed up in what I
write by an experienced physician, whose letter I can show you, and who
says that if I had the occasional satisfaction of this craving, I would
become healthy, get rid of my morbid thoughts, and have some vim for
work, and for distinguishing myself as a scholar. I am myself confident
that with this occasional gratification I would some day win the
admiration of the circles of religion and learning for my scholarly
attainments and for my work for humanity.

“All I ask is that you take a common-sense, rational view of the matter.
If there is still any doubt in your mind about your possible compliance
being compatible with honor and morality, please state your difficulty,
and I assure you I can remove it, since I have given much study to the
ethics of this question....”


[Sidenote: _The Androgyne Merits Forbearance._]

But he absolutely declined to grant the favor asked, giving as his only
reason that it would be “self-pollution.” In culture, education, and
broadness of mind, he stood much below me, but he had some religious
scruples, and also his tastes were naturally against compliance. I made
further oral solicitations, but he remained deaf to them. I was plunged
into despair at his refusal to listen to reason, and my head was
drooping in shame. With an intense impulse for self-destruction
possessing me, I turned my steps toward a stream about a mile away,
where I intended to blot out my miserable existence. But when I had
walked some distance, the beauties of nature gradually drew away my
thoughts from my chagrin.

Since this cousin was my only hope during the many weeks that I had
still to remain in the village, and since I was madly attracted to him,
I did not give up all endeavor. Later happenings are described in the
following letter to my New York physician:

“... I write to you in order to see if I can be saved from insanity.
Last night I again appealed to my cousin, with whom I am deeply in love.
I called at his house about nine o’clock, but he was not in. I told his
mother I would go up to his room and wait for him. Finally he appeared.
I was simply going to ask him to let me kiss him. If he had granted only
this, I would have gone home happy and contented. He could not see me,
as the room was in darkness, but as soon as he heard me, he said he
would shoot me if I did not clear out immediately, and he made a move to
get his revolver, which he always keeps loaded under his pillow. I
entreated him not to shoot, and to let me say merely a few words; but he
answered angrily, ‘If you do not leave the house immediately, I will put
a bullet through your head!’

[Sidenote: _Inhumanity Now Shown Androgynes._]

“I immediately left quite calmly, but after I got in my own bed, I began
to cry over my cousin’s treatment of me. All of a sudden, without any
conscious volition, I sat up in bed, threw my legs and arms about
wildly, and for a few seconds shrieked loudly and frightfully. This
paroxysm has left me in a state of complete exhaustion, and I now do not
know whether I am sane or insane.

“No one can sympathize with me. My cousin, an honorable and intelligent
young man, now knows much about my case, and how I have suffered for
years, and yet I received from him last night only harsh words,
emphasized by a revolver. Such treatment by one I dearly love drives me
crazy. If only he had denied my request in gentle words, I would have
gone home and merely wept tears of gratitude at his forbearance....”

I longed to be back in a great city, where alone life is possible for
such as me provided one wishes to preserve a good reputation. But I did
not have the means to go, nor anything I could give my parents as a
pretext. After the last terrible repulse, I left my cousin alone. But I
was still frequently driven late at night to wander about the village,
hoping to find some man in a thoroughly intoxicated condition, but many,
many weary hours were thus spent in a vain search.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _First Soldier Companion._]

I now learned that a detachment of light artillery, stationed at a fort
near New York City, who were out on a practice march, would camp in a
neighboring town. This news enchanted me, and I informed my parents that
I was going off for a trip afoot for a few days, of course not making
known my motive. Though a nervous wreck, I was at the time able to walk
twenty miles a day.

I reached the camp toward sunset. With other civilians, I lingered
around until late in the evening. I tried to enter into conversation
with the young soldiers, who fascinated me, but could not overcome my
bashfulness. Finally, after most of them had retired, I left the camp,
and started off to seek lodging for the night. But on the way I
unexpectedly met a tall soldier of imposing appearance, and by a great
effort of the will, I stepped up, walked along by his side, and entered
into conversation.

When from his words and manner I judged that he was kind-hearted and
would not take advantage of my own unfortunate position in society, I
threw off the role of a male, and gave full swing to the feminine side
of my nature. My long enforced abstinence had driven me wild, and I now
poured out hot protestations of love and adoration. Finding that they
were received sympathetically, I threw myself into his arms, clasped my
hands around his neck, and wept for happiness. The effect on me of the
soldier’s charms was beyond description. His face and head seemed to be
surrounded with a halo of glory. There was an air about him so careless,
so sensual, so brave, so manly, and yet so kind. I called him by all the
names which love can invent in order to deify its object. He however
soon had to retire to the camp, and left me heartsick.

[Sidenote: _First Arrest._]

I again started toward town, and soon met another soldier, who happened
to be in a maudlin condition. Because of this, I thought I had nothing
to fear, and accosted him in such a way as to disclose my nature
immediately without first sounding to see if he was of a compassionate
nature. Though not at all offended, but laughing at what he considered
an amusing experience, and expressing his willingness, he demanded five
dollars, and said that unless I handed it over, he would take me before
the captain of his company. This was said merely to frighten me, but in
my greenness, I fully believed he would do it. Thoroughly alarmed, I
started off on a run. The soldier staggered after, crying, “Catch him!
Catch him!” In a moment there were three other soldiers and a constable
in pursuit. I was caught, the constable took me in hand, and asked what
it was all about. Before any one else could reply, I addressed the five
supplicatingly:

“I am ashamed to tell it, but I am an urning.[4] I simply asked this
soldier to do me a favor, to which he certainly did not object, because
he only laughed. I have not done anything to him wrong or criminal. I
only proposed something, and then he said he would take me before his
captain unless I paid him five dollars. I became frightened and ran
away. I pray you, have mercy on me, and let me go. If you knew what a
sad life I have had, you would feel sorry for me. I have felt like
committing suicide a thousand times. I am not willingly what I am. It is
my misfortune and not my fault that I am an urning. If you are ever
capable of compassion, let my fate move you to pity. Please let me go
and don’t arrest me!”

Footnote 4:

  Term misapplied.

[Sidenote: _Reflections in Jail._]

The soldiers soon went on their way, and the constable conducted me in
the direction of the lockup. He acted toward me as if I was a low
criminal, while I continued to supplicate him to let me go. As we came
nearer the lockup, in my highly excited condition over the fear of
disgracing my family, who lived only four miles away, and the prospect
that if my secret was disclosed, I could never see any of my loved ones
again, I thoughtlessly declared I would not go any farther, which caused
him to rap my head with his club.

I was locked up for the night. Through nervous shock, I did not sleep a
wink. Only to the few is it given ever to taste such a night of misery
as I passed. “I, whom all think the purest and most pious of men, being
arrested!” I meditated. “I, the last one whom anybody would have
expected ever to be arrested! But God’s will be done.... Am I to be the
one to disgrace my family? Hitherto I have been the scholar, the
litterateur, the only collegian of my father’s family, and have by my
achievements in learning brought the most honor on my father’s house of
all his children. I shall also be the one to bring the deepest disgrace
upon it.”

[Sidenote: _Chronic Fear of Arrest._]

The following morning I was sentenced to three days in the lockup. As
the village of my incarceration was only four miles from my home, and I
was known at least by sight to some of its inhabitants, my father
evidently soon learned of my disgrace, notwithstanding that I had sought
to conceal my identity. Although he never mentioned the episode, he soon
began to treat me regularly with extreme bitterness, as if he wished I
had never been born. I was the only one of his children to whom he
manifested any such spirit, notwithstanding I was the brightest of them.

Throughout an entire decade subsequent to this episode, I had an
unreasonable nervousness about arrest and about policemen. Whenever any
one whose name was unfamiliar was announced as waiting to see me, my
first thought and fear were that a policeman had come to arrest me.
Whenever any one called me up on the telephone, I always feared that it
was in connection with my forthcoming arrest.

A few days after being restored to liberty, I informed my parents of my
intention to go off on another trip afoot, this time for a couple of
weeks. My secret object was to mingle with this detachment of troops,
whom I knew to be encamped for some weeks about two days’ easy journey
on foot from my home. That just described was my first experience with
soldiers, and I had become fascinated as never before. All my reveries
were now to relinquish the career of a scholar and become a sutler near
some fort in the wild west so that I could mingle daily with these
demigods, whom I most abjectly worshipped. I was in misery because my
lot in life separated me from these ferocious young men.

[Sidenote: _Soldiers Are Demigods._]

I look upon a youthful professional soldier as a most wonderful being,
different from all other human beings. There seems to be a sort of
enchantment about him. Merely the process of enlistment, the donning of
the uniform, and the acquiring of skill in handling the weapons of
warfare make a demigod out of the young man, as your author looks upon
it. When a newspaper item states that a trainload of _regular_ soldiers
passed through a certain town, I reflect with a thrill on what a
wonderful burden that train bore, and experience a sense of pain that I
could not be along and make known the adoration I feel. Ever since this
my first encounter with regular soldiers, I have wished for omnipresence
with the men of the regular army. Privates, corporals, and sergeants are
men after my own heart. I was never attracted toward commissioned
officers, and they have appeared to me as being less manly than the
classes named. Perhaps my predilection is due to the fact that the
commissioned officers are as a rule intellectual like myself.
Subsequently to my reaching the age of twenty-five, regular soldiers
have been practically the only young men to whom I have been strongly
attracted. After that age I found it easy to relinquish coquetry with
all other young men. Now (1918) when I have arrived at my middle
forties, I pine alone not to be able longer—on account of my age—to
mingle with regular soldiers as a mignon. As Ophelia with Othello, I
love them and adore them for the dangers they have passed through, as
well as those attached to their vocation. Furthermore, in man’s natural
state, fighting—next to procreating—is the pre-eminent function of the
male. For this reason the war-loving man is my sexual ideal.

[Sidenote: _Music Overwhelms._]

Arrived a short distance from the camp, I, for only the second time in
my life, caught the thrilling notes of the bugle-call. It took all the
strength out of my legs so that I felt as if I would fall to the ground.
Since I began to associate with soldiers, the notes of the bugle have
had an unearthly—I might say, an eternal, overwhelming—beauty.
Subsequently to 1905, when my open career as a soldiers’ mignon became a
thing of the past, the bugle-call has made me live that career over
again in a few moments. It brings up fond memories of the many evenings
spent in the long, long ago with the “mighty men of war.” It fills my
soul with adoration for these “mighty men of valor,” these “mighty men
of renown.” I have sometimes been seized with a babyish cooing or
gasping, and have ardently wished that I were youthful again and in the
arms of one of these wonderful beings.

The effect on me of secular music in general has been to arouse reveries
of my amours and paramours. I have been an unusual lover and patron of
grand opera, the soprano and alto solos having an overwhelming effect
particularly (because that is the manner in which I would have wished to
sing). I have often been raised into sublime heights of ecstasy,
generally with a sensual tinge.

Arrived at the camp, I strolled about and was soon recognized: “Hello
Pretty! Where did you come from?” Filled with bliss, and thrown into my
most babyish and effeminate mood, I responded: “You adorable
artilleryman, I was pining for you, and followed you here from X——.” He
told me to meet him outside the camp after retreat, when he appeared
with several comrades. I was in ecstasy on this first walk of my life on
a country road with a party of bewitching adolescent soldiers as
daylight was fast fading into darkness. In my years of subsequent
association with soldiers, I found that those over twenty-five years of
age were in general disinclined to talk with me. They appeared to have
been already satiated with flirtation, while numerous youngsters were
desirous of a frolic with me.

[Sidenote: _Milites Easiest of Conquests._]

Havelock Ellis says: “The homosexual tendency appears to have flourished
chiefly among warriors and warlike peoples.” In another place he says:
“I have been told by medical men in India that it is specially common
among the Sikhs, the finest soldier-race in India.” I have myself found
adolescent professional soldiers the easiest of conquests and the most
inclined of any class of men to take the virile part with me. I speak
from experience in flirtation with at least two thousand different
professional soldiers, only about four hundred of whom, however, went to
extremes. I saw not the least tendency toward homosexuality amongst
themselves, although I frequented to some extent their barracks and even
their bunks. They are only capable of taking the virile part with an
individual like your author. In general the common soldiers of the
regular army are particularly rough, coarse-grained, vigorous, and
sensual men, constituting physically the best blood of the race. As
already indicated, practically all civilians who were intimate with me
were of this same type, and there appears to be some connection between
tremendous virility and active homosexuality. Furthermore, along with
this ultra-virility of the professional common soldier, he is almost
entirely shut off from the gentle sex, whereas the young civilian of the
laboring classes has usually an acquaintance who gladly yields as his
mistress. Of course many of the nation’s fighters have a natural
distaste. As just indicated, only about one in five with whom I
coquetted went to extremes, while about fifty per cent. of those who
knew me by sight would never even speak to me. But the line of cleavage
did not at all correspond with that between the religious or
conscientious and the vicious. It was a matter as much outside the
province of ethics as is vegetarianism.

[Sidenote: _Actives Are Ultravirile._]

Moreover, soldiers lead comparatively idle lives, and also monotonous
lives, and these two conditions add to their susceptibility to the wiles
of a fairie. A bright and facile fairie is capable of furnishing them a
great deal of entertainment, aside from the opportunity of exercising
their fundamental impulse. With myself also, _coitus was a comparatively
small element_ in our mutual relations. Innocent coquetry, including
“taking off” the baby and the woman, occupied a far larger place.

[Sidenote: _Author’s Two-Sided Life._]

My relations with a coterie of beaux, and particularly with soldiers
around the camps and forts, reminded me sometimes of a play. I was, as
it were, acting a part. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that
another personality was in possession of me. I was conscious that I was
the same “I” who was one of the leaders in scholarship at the university
and who was there looked upon as a particularly innocent and pure-minded
youth. I was also conscious that in the society of my beaux I was not
acting as became the sensible, rational, respectable collegian of other
occasions. I felt that I had temporarily relinquished my mind and body
to the dictates of another spirit, that of a “baby girl”—a combination
of baby and girl. It was however a spirit not alien to me. It was a
spirit which had dwelt in my brain from infancy. It was a spirit that
had always been called up by the sight of beautiful stalwart males of
the proper age. For the work of life I realized that this spirit would
not do. If I was to make a name for myself in the world, I must dethrone
this baby-spirit in me. When in my study, I sought to forget this
baby-spirit. I even turned against it at times with a sort of
abhorrence, and asked myself how I could give way to it. Thus I lived a
sort of a two-sided life. Part of the time I was a sober-minded
intellectual worker. Part of the time, when under sexual excitement,
even to a slight degree, I displayed the mental traits of a baby. I knew
that these two states, babyhood and adult manhood, were incongruous, but
to have a contented mind and to be in a mood which would render a career
devoted to scholarly pursuits possible, it was necessary occasionally to
follow out my feminine and babyish instincts. It should be remembered,
however, that I have never developed into a full-fledged man either
physically or mentally. If my business associates tell the truth, I am
still in 1918 a child nearly half a century old. Childlikeness is a
common characteristic of androgynes.

[Sidenote: _Acting Out a Drama._]

I was not alone in acting a part when with a coterie of beaux, but they
also did in conducting themselves toward me as if I were a girl. While
strolling with soldiers through the fields and woods, I would demand
assistance over places of the slightest difficulty, and some of them
were marvellously solicitous under the circumstances. They instinctively
yearned to be the protector of some weak female, and being deprived of
practically all female company, they spent their instinctive gallantry
on me. This was to me a rare pleasure.

In our drama, it was bliss to me to be the star, the center of
attraction, the only representative of the gentle sex present, while
there might be around me half a score of large, powerful young bloods.
In my every-day sphere, I have been exceedingly shy, but as “Jennie
June” I have impersonated a baby girl before a hundred soldiers at a
time without being in the least embarrassed. I would fret after the
manner of a baby and sob just for the pleasure of having them soothe and
pet me. I would pretend to faint away just for the pleasure of being
caught in their arms and held there. When in the country, I sometimes
feigned unwillingness to go with them, and forced them to carry me, with
hands, arms, and whole body hanging limp. This was also a rare pleasure.
Sometimes they would scare me in fun in order to bring from me a shrill
feminine shriek—when I felt sure no officers or civilians were near.
Indeed while in their company, I exaggerated cowardice, babyishness, and
femininity in general.

[Sidenote: _Cast Out of a Camp._]

On this visit of 1894 with the soldiers, most of them treated me well.
Some even allowed me to call in their tents, and shared their meals with
me. But others, who had been brought up to believe that a fairie must be
a monster of wickedness, and were disinclined to learn through
association with me that I was a paragon of morality apart from coquetry
and venery, were bitterly opposed to my presence in the camp and sought
to injure me. But I was treated so well by so many that I made myself
too free. I was of course guilty of no immodesty or ultra-babyishness
within the boundaries of the camp.

The increasing opposition culminated one afternoon. I had asked an
acquaintance if I could take a nap in his bunk, and as a joke, he
installed me in the bunk of an enemy. As a result I was ordered off the
camp-ground. I had to traverse a lane lined with tents, in front of
which their occupants were eating supper. As I passed, with head bowed
in humiliation, the majority were laughing at me, while the malevolent
called out the appropriate vulgar epithet, and threw scraps of food and
cups of coffee into my face. I was wishing the earth might open and
swallow me up. This experience led me to leave for home immediately.

As only a few weeks now remained before my return to New York to begin
my senior year, I passed them without being tormented by unsatisfied
instincts. On my return, I had no intention to seek my Mulberry Street
friends, partly because of the events at our leave-taking in May, and
partly because of the cooling of my fascination after four months’
separation. I decided not to frequent the outlying fort where my soldier
friends had returned because of the inconvenience of going thither. I
believed I could find associates within a half hour’s journey from where
I myself resided. I had decided to try my luck in the 14th Street
theatre district, which was at that time a favorite promenade of
fairies.

[Sidenote: _Year 1894—I Become a High-Class Fairie._]

One evening I clad myself so as to present the most attractive
appearance possible: a blue suit, with box plaited, belted coat (Norfolk
style); dark red necktie; white gloves; and patent-leather shoes. As a
high-class fairie, I sought to dress in a distinctive manner, so as to
be more readily recognized by my prey. Therefore unusually large neck
bows and white gloves. Fairies are inclined to be loud in their dress.
The excessive wearing of gloves and the wearing of a red necktie are
almost universal with high-class fairies. Once a blackmailer to whom I
would not hand out the three dollars demanded made good his threat to
turn me over to a policeman, who took my red tie as conclusive evidence
that I was a fairie. Of a fairie who was arrested for accosting on the
street, I have heard it said: “He got thirty days for wearing a red
tie.”

On my first visit to the theatre district named, I promenaded up and
down for about an hour, afraid to accost any adolescent. Finally one
accosted me: “How’s business?”

“How do you know my business?” I replied with a smile.

“Oh, I know all right. Didn’t you get many tonight?”

“I was only looking for you. I cannot express how beautiful you appear
to me. Please excuse me for being so outspoken.”

[Sidenote: _The “Other Side” of a Senior’s Life._]

“Oh, there’s no harm done.”

“You are the most beautiful and best dressed fellow I have seen this
evening. Won’t you please, _please_, take me as your valet and slave? I
will serve you for nothing.”

He happened to be living in a furnished-room house in the neighborhood.
Arrived in his room, he treated me with marvellous gallantry, as if I
had been a queen. For several weeks, I spent an evening in his company.
He introduced me to his companions, they to theirs in turn, and before
long I numbered among my acquaintances scores of the habitues of the
gambling halls and other dens of vice of this quarter of the city, and
associated with them in these places, though fellatio and coquetry were
my own only departures from a most puritanical life. Such an environment
was it that fate had in store for the innocent stripling of a few years
ago who had chosen for himself the self-abnegating career of a foreign
missionary.

Outside of this one evening each week in which I gave free rein to my
“baby girl” proclivities, however, I continued to be a most industrious
collegian, even winning prizes because of my excelling all others in
some branches. My every-day circle had no suspicion of the double life I
was leading. Whenever returning home after an evening passed as a
fairie, I took the most extreme precautions that I should not be
followed, and of course concealed from all who knew me as “Jennie June”
that I was a person of more than a common-school education.

[Sidenote: _Depilation._]

All classes of sporting men—young actors, professional gamblers,
racetrack bookmakers, and adolescents of some means and without
occupation other than to sip continually of all the gross pleasures of
life—constituted the associates of “Jennie June” during the following
year and a half. I read in the newspaper several times that one of my
paramours held a world’s record in one branch of sport. I found that
very few of this moneyed, sporting class cared to go beyond joking with
me and teasing me, and none beyond the age of twenty-five ever went to
extremes. In this neighborhood at that time female filles de joie were
numerous, and the sporting men were more than satiated. The fairie’s
success is inversely proportional to unmarried adolescents’
opportunities with the gentle sex.

About the beginning of my 14th Street career as a high-class fairie, I
removed all the growth of hair on my body and limbs by means of a safety
razor so that they were as glabrous as statuary. I considered that I
thus beautified my body. The operation had to be repeated about once
every two months. I would let the hair on the face grow for a full week,
remaining in my room continuously the final two days, Saturday and
Sunday, because of my untidy appearance. I would then pull it all out by
the roots through the application of depilatory wax. For two or three
weeks subsequently my face would be as devoid of hair as any woman’s,
when the new growth would reach the surface of the skin. After another
week’s growth, it was necessary to repeat the operation. I had hoped
that the repeated violence to the hair-cells would destroy their
functioning and I would be permanently rid of facial hair, my most
detested mark of the male, but there was no appreciable effect. I also
feared the repeated operation might occasion a malignant growth, but I
was ready to take every risk.

[Sidenote: _Other High-Class Fairies._]

About the age of seventeen, I was horrified at the first appearance of
hair on my face. For several months I refused to shave, but pulled the
hairs out when they became long enough to grasp between the fleshy part
of the thumb and the blade of a dull knife. I was again horrified when
my father presented me with a safety razor. Fortunately for me, this
invention shortly preceded my arrival at puberty, my horror of it being
far less than of the old-fashioned kind.

During this period of my career, I learned that fairies are maintained
in some public houses of the better class, and met several of these
refined professionals, who resembled myself both physically and
psychically. They commonly have plates substituted for their front
teeth. Even I took this expedient under consideration. It was suggested
to me to become an inmate of such a house, but I could make the career
of a fille de joie only a side issue. I gave first place to the
intellectual and others of the highest aims of life. My sister
courtesans, both male and female, thought only of the sensual, and had
adopted their occupation as a gainful one, whereas I sought merely the
satisfaction of strong instincts, which unsatisfied would make
practically impossible the higher life I regularly lived.

[Sidenote: _Experience with Venereal Disease._]

During this period I knowingly encountered the first case of gonorrhea
in a companion. Until eleven years later, when I contracted syphilis, I
had an unreasonable horror of venereal disease because of what I had
heard in personal purity lectures to students. Nevertheless I was ready
to take every risk for the satisfaction of my craving. For my entire
open career of twelve years as a fairie—for I did not happen to contract
syphilis until its very close—I conceived that in buccal syphilis, the
buccal cavity is completely filled with burning, excruciatingly painful
ulcers, and no solid nourishment can be taken. A lay confidant almost at
the beginning of my fairie days had told me he had seen such a case in a
hospital—probably fabricating in order to scare me away from the
indulgence of my proclivities. When I finally did contract buccal
syphilis I found it not even one-thousandth as serious as it had been
represented to me. (See events of 1905.) I always rinsed the buccal
cavity as soon as possible subsequently to fellatio, and always kept my
system entirely free from alcohol and other narcotics. Throughout my
twelve years’ association with young men who drank habitually, I always
totally abstained from and abhorred alcoholic beverages. So far as I
know, I did not contract gonorrhea until 1917, after twenty-four years
of promiscuity with the exception of several periods of abstinence or of
monandry each of several months duration.

In the ninth year of promiscuity, several long slender venereal warts
grew downward from the inside of the upper lip, not visible on the
exterior, but troubling me somewhat in articulation. A surgeon excised
them and they never returned. In the twelfth year, a large wart appeared
just outside the sphincter anus and disappeared without any treatment
about twenty months later. I have here indicated all my personal
experience with venereal diseases.

[Sidenote: _Anatomical Peculiarities, Etc., Encountered._]

In my approximately sixteen hundred intimacies with about eight hundred
different companions, I found only about three cases of venereal warts,
and about the same number of cases of chancre. Only one confessed to
having gonorrhea, and I myself detected it by the discharge on only one
other. Young men suffering from syphilis or gonorrhea in membro virili
who have a conscience are not likely to permit fellatio. I have,
however, encountered the superstition that if a man afflicted with
venereal disease can secure fellatio, the malady is imbibed out of the
system.

I encountered only four or five monorchids, about five cases of
pronounced varicocele, and about five bad cases of phimosis. Slight
phimosis was often encountered. I would never have gone to extremes with
a monorchid or with one suffering from a bad phimosis if I could have
avoided disappointing him or hurting his feelings; and even regretted
being thrown with one with only slight phimosis. I was attracted only ad
glandem magnam atque de more nudatam. I never encountered a case of
hypospade, of epispade, or of noticeably short frenum. Only about four
were absolutely incapable of orgasm in my presence, while perhaps two
dozen out of the eight hundred found it dilatory or incomplete. With
myself orgasm was practically always prompt and complete, but was
disagreeable. About a dozen cum orgasmo perfecto non potuerunt
ejaculari. Alii duodecim habuerunt tres ejaculationes in semihora.

[Sidenote: _Manner of Life of a High-Class Fairie._]

Solum circiter triginta voluerunt duo aut tres eadem nocte, atque nemo
plus. In ninety-five per cent. of cases, incubuimus solum from twenty to
thirty minutes. I never took the initiative in parting, although I was
generally quite reconciled. Even in the less than five per cent. of
cases where we passed the night in the same house, I nearly
always—because of my inability to fall asleep otherwise—occupied a
separate bed except for one hour after retiring and another hour prior
to rising.

                  *       *       *       *       *

To return to the events of my Fourteenth Street days, I would sometimes,
in the public parlors of the houses of assignation in that vicinity, be
a member of a jolly party of adolescents and filles de joie. Everybody
would be exceedingly kind and courteous to me, and in general displayed
toward one another the most extreme politeness. I have never been in a
more charming circle, and would experience the highest earthly bliss.
The young men would hold me on their laps and fondle me before the eyes
of all, even of strange parties of patrons who were simultaneously
occupying the large parlors or drinking saloons. I feared some member of
these other parties might recognize me. Occasionally we repaired to a
private chamber. In my fairie apprenticeship and during my career around
the military posts, I was the financier. But during the present period,
that function fell entirely to my associates.

On other occasions, my associates were boisterous and outrageously
indecent in their conduct toward me in the public parlors. The following
are quotations from my journal: “I have to weep when I reflect that I, a
scholar, a litterateur, and a philosopher, am so often made the sport
and laughing-stock of the immoral and godless crowd which assembles in
the parlor of the X—— Hotel. To think of my acting like a simpleton, and
being looked upon as a simpleton by those greatly inferior to me in
mental ability!”

[Sidenote: _Conflict of My Two Lives._]

“I am satiated with sensual pleasure. It is the vanity of vanities. Good
deeds done our fellow men are the best investment in life. I pray God to
send forth laborers into His harvest, and to let me be one. When I see
the multitude of young people wandering astray, as sheep without a
shepherd, the words of scripture ring through my ears, ‘Comfort ye,
comfort ye, my people!’ Sometimes I seem to have a clairvoyant vision
into the future, and behold myself, finally saved from animality,
commissioned by the great I AM to be a proclaimer of the blessed Gospel
of peace and good will among men.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

One evening a strange adolescent accosted me on the street: “You are a
fairie, aren’t you?”

“What makes you think so?”

“No one but a fairie would stare at a fellow like you do. Don’t you want
to take a walk with me over to the East River?” [Where the streets were
entirely deserted at night.]

On the way he inquired my real name, occupation, residence, and all
about me, and feigned a friendly interest. I of course gave false
answers. Arrived in the deserted region, he allowed me to incriminate
myself for a single second. Then he seized me violently and exclaimed:
“I was just laying for fellows like you. You have been lying to me. You
don’t live down on the Bowery, and you are no tailor. I know you! I have
seen you uptown! Now I have evidence against you! That is all I was
after! I am a detective, and you are under arrest!”

[Sidenote: _Adventure with Reputed Detective._]

“What have I done to you that you should treat me like this? I did not
accost you! You accosted me! Have mercy on me, a poor unfortunate, and
let me go!”

As we walked along, I, unexpectedly to him, wrenched myself from his
grip and escaped. A kind Providence made me unusually fleet of foot, and
many times in my subsequent career, I outran a persecutor. The young man
may have been fabricating, but detectives have been actually sent out by
the authorities to entrap inverts. The author knows of a case where the
invert was induced by the detective to incriminate himself where he
could be photographed in the act, and as a result spent several years in
state’s prison.

On another warm evening, I was skylarking with several high-class
adolescents in the deserted region in question. A gang of youthful
dockrats surprised us, and we fled in a panic. I happened to be
captured. Having perceived that I was an invert, they at first conducted
themselves in what was to me the most pleasing manner and then robbed
me.

One of my associates on a summer evening conducted me to Stuyvesant
Square, a few blocks from my usual haunts, and introduced me to his
circle of friends, who in good weather spent part of nearly every
evening on the park benches. All these adolescents were members of a
young men’s club in the neighborhood, with about three score members of
which I soon became acquainted. Morally and religiously, these young men
stood higher than any other class that I ever associated with as “Jennie
June.” No virile young men in New York City stand higher than they,
being of the best “Y. M. C. A. type.” In summer, for about ten years
subsequently, I occasionally called on my many friends some of whom were
almost sure to be seated in this small park during part of a pleasant
evening. I saw some successively reach puberty, young manhood, marriage,
and fatherhood.

[Sidenote: _Debut in Stuyvesant Square._]

The majority of this superior class of young men treated me kindly, but
only about one in eight ever went to extremes, and these never more than
six times individually. A considerable proportion of those who knew me
to be a fairie, however, thought I must therefore be a monster of
wickedness, and of the many different sets of adolescents with whom I
associated as “Jennie June,” only one other inflicted on me as much
suffering as did this Stuyvesant Square group. An extenuating
circumstance is that I could not let them know that I was a person of
strong religious and moral convictions, and habitually led a respectable
life. I was always entirely inoffensive, merely coquetting with those to
whom I had been introduced. My influence on their lives was not at all
bad. I even encouraged them to live the higher Christian life, as about
one-half were church members, and practically all, regular attendants on
its services.

[Sidenote: _Persecution by High-Class Adolescents._]

Some of their number who looked upon a fairie as necessarily a monster
of wickedness—for why otherwise would the law place upon his sexual
conduct a penalty of ten years in state’s prison?—gave me several severe
thrashings, so that I always visited the Square in great fear, but took
the risk for the affection that I had for those who were glad to have me
talk and coquet with them.

The following was my extreme suffering at their hands: I happened to be
one evening seated alone on a park bench. Several of my enemies
discovered and surrounded me. Very much frightened I attempted to leave,
but they would not permit it. They stuck pins into me, inflicted slight
burns with lighted matches, and pinched me unmercifully, particularly
the penis. There were policemen within hailing distance, but I was told
I would be arrested if I called for help. I was entirely innocent, but
the police would have believed the false testimony against me of a
half-dozen accusers. When satisfied with wreaking their vengeance, they
turned me over to a policeman with charges, but he simply ordered me out
of the park. Seemingly the higher the standard of morality of
adolescents as at present trained, the greater the physical violence
that they inflict on fairies. One lecturer to students on personal
purity whom I heard counselled his adolescent hearers to give a blow in
the face to any associate who ever suggested homosexuality.

[Sidenote: _Anti-Invert Laws Worse Than Useless._]

I wish here to emphasize the fact that there would be no risk of the
spread of homosexual practices through the removal of the legal
penalties attached to them and the consequent removal, at least in large
part, of the practice of our best adolescents in beating up and
torturing androgynes because the latter are outlaws. Almost exclusively,
those addicted by birth to these relations—regarded by the normal males
as highly unaesthetic—and largely irresponsible for their conduct, can
alone occasion these so-called “crimes.” What is the use then of laws
against practices really harmless to society and to the adolescent—while
perhaps harmful to the invert to the same degree that marital relations
are harmful to a wife and mother—and occasioned alone by those who are
driven by an innate impulse, often uncontrollable? The law does not
imprison deaf-mutes for being born with abnormal inner ears, and why
should it imprison members of this other congenitally defective class?
The invert asks only for the same standing before the law accorded all
other men. But as law and custom always make special exemptions for the
congenitally defective, perhaps it would be right to show special mercy
to the invert.

                  *       *       *       *       *

One evening at the close of about eighteen months of my avocation as a
Fourteenth Street “street-walker,” I was promenading up and down. Now
and then some habitue of the district would recognize me, stop, and
flirt for a few minutes. Finally I encountered a party of six
adolescents. Four had never met me previously, yet all talked in a most
free and unrestrained, as well as indecent manner. After a while, one
proposed that I accompany him to his room.

“I am afraid those other fellows will follow us and hurt me.”

[Sidenote: _Farewell Night to Fourteenth Street._]

“They are all friends of yours.”

“I am not so sure about that. You know some fellows hate a fairie, and
some of those boys appear very heartless. You saw how rough they were to
me right on the street! If they should try to hurt me, would you fight
for me?”

“Of course.”

“How could you alone fight against five fellows?”

“Well, I would do the best I could, and depend on you to help me.”

“Don’t think of depending on me. You know a girl can’t fight. All a girl
can do when fellows fight is to look on.”

“You could at least scream, couldn’t you?”

“Yes, I could scream.”

“Well, you do the screaming, and I’ll do the fighting.”

A few minutes after we arrived in the young man’s quarters in a
furnished-room house, the other five burst in. They proved to be as
heartless a gang as I had ever met, although belonging to the prosperous
class of society. Micturiverunt super meis vestibus atque me coegerunt
facere rem mihi horribilissimam (balneum ani cum lingua, non aliter quam
meretrices faciunt). Me coegerunt recipere tres eodem tempore, fellatio,
pædicatio, atque manustupratio. Ultimum mihi imperatum cum adolescens
non potuit facere inter femora eodem tempore. Later one who had
difficulty in achieving the desired results me coegit ad fellationem
unam semihoram continuously, repeatedly punching me in the head and face
because I did not do better by him. Again for a half hour continuously
me coegerunt ut supinum cubem atque usi erunt ore meo sicuti cunno, sic
me strangulantes horribiliter. Cum priapus concurreret meas dentes, they
would punch me in the face, atque mandabant ut desisterem eos mordere.

[Sidenote: _One of the Worst Assaults._]

This was one of my three very worst experiences of sexual abuse. The
physical suffering and discomfort were extreme, but I was so fascinated
by the savagery and the beauty of my tormentors that I experienced a
species of mental satisfaction, being willing to suffer death if only I
could contribute to their pleasure. During my career I had numerous
experiences, but much less trying, along this same line. A fairie is
often thus treated by cruel, lecherous adolescents, since they know he
is an outlaw and can not bring them to justice.

Their lechery finally satiated, one of them stuck a handkerchief into my
mouth, and said: “Do you know you are worse than a hog? You d—— fairie,
going around to corrupt young fellows! We will teach you to keep away
from Fourteenth Street hereafter!” Another cried: “You’ve got to let me
have first whack at him!”

I was conducted to a dark, deserted street, where one of them rained
violent blows in my face, while I did nothing except to seek to protect
my features as much as possible with my hands. Finally it occurred to me
to feign unconsciousness—my first adoption of this ruse—when they all
hurried away.

Only through the special mercy of an overruling Providence I was saved
from permanent injury that night, and on several other subsequent nights
of my career as a fairie. During my Mulberry Street career I never
received the least blow, and during my years of association with
hundreds of soldiers of four forts, I never received a blow deserving of
mention. But I was seriously assaulted three times by soldiers of a
fifth fort, several times by Stuyvesant Square acquaintances, several
times by acquaintances of my Bowery period, and only the one time just
described, by Fourteenth Street acquaintances. A certain class of
adolescents, regarding the conduct of a fairie as the depth of
depravity, yearn to lay violent hands on him.

[Sidenote: _Serious Assaults._]

I was compelled immediately after the assault described to have my
wounds dressed by a physician. On subsequently arriving in my room, I
followed my universal custom after a return from a female-impersonation
spree: that is, the first thing I did was to fall on my knees and thank
the Omnipresent, All-pervading Spirit, that I had been permitted to see
home again and resume for a season the ordinary course of my life as a
scholar. But after retiring, I could not sleep, but tossed about all
night in a half-waking delirium. Every moment it seemed as if I would
become a raving maniac. I moaned repeatedly, and called upon God to show
mercy and deliver me from my mental agony.

Is it just that inoffensive inverts should be subjected to such
outrages, and have no redress? A confidant, with whom I discussed
proceedings against these conscienceless young men, gave it as his
opinion that the court would immediately turn around and make me—who, if
I must say it myself, have always been unusually conscientious
notwithstanding my sensuality—the defendant against the most serious
charges. (This practically happened in 1905.) What other class of men is
treated thus by the law and public opinion?

[Sidenote: _Incognito Adventures Practically Inevitable._]

The reader may reply: “If they don’t want to suffer in this way, let
them stay home and keep away from people who deal thus with them.” But
inverts often have to follow their own nature, although they have
striven hard to act according to the nature of the majority of men. With
the present organization of society, and the present extreme scorn
manifested toward victims of inversion, it is only natural, and almost
necessary, if inverts desire to preserve the respect of their every-day
circles, that they should visit incognito some section of a great city
remote from their own. Suppose in a war between two tribes of red men, a
brave is captured, consigned to adopt the dress and occupation of a
squaw, and is in every way treated as a squaw. Would this unnatural life
be to the brave’s tastes? Would he be blamed if he sought to escape
where he could live according to his masculine inclinations? No more is
the passive invert to be blamed for escaping occasionally where he can
live according to his quasi-feminine instincts.

The remedy lies in the dissemination of just and correct views of
inversion, the removal of the deepseated but ill founded prejudice
against individuals thus marked by Nature which is regnant in all
classes of society, and the repeal of the unjustified laws against
inverts, which more than anything else account for the unthinking man’s
persecution of these stepchildren of Nature. Then like the red-man
androgyne, his cultured counterpart can, without losing his economic and
social position, choose a mate from among his every-day circle. As long
as he is outwardly modest and chaste, he should receive only
commiseration and condonation for his homosexuality.

[Sidenote: _Period of Monandry._]

For a week following the assault described, my terribly disfigured face
confined me to my room. When somewhat healed, I was compelled to give my
every-day circle a false explanation. For several weeks I felt only
hatred for all adolescent libertines. At the end of that period I
chanced to witness a youthful artilleryman reeling around a ferry
waiting-room. Fascinated, I entered into conversation, told him I was an
invert, and requested quasi-permanent monandry. His exact words were:
“With all my heart.”

I began to frequent one evening a week the fort where he was stationed,
but we disclosed to no one that I was other than an ordinary young man.
I was, moreover, so fascinated with him that I did not seriously
consider flirtation with his comrades. We exchanged numerous passionate
love letters—my first essay in this field. I was also now inspired to
compose my first amatory ballads, which were in praise of my “Man behind
the guns,” and transmitted to him.

Our intimacy continued for several months, until, having become an
outcast and penniless, I was unable to make him presents, and he
consequently became negligent in keeping his appointments.

During this year 1896, I read Krafft-Ebing’s “Psychopathia Sexualis,”
besides a number of articles on inversion which had been published in
American and European journals. I availed myself of the library of the
New York Academy of Medicine. Some years later I read there Havelock
Ellis’s “Sexual Inversion.”

[Sidenote: _My Twenty-Third Year._]

This autobiography has now reached my twenty-third year. I had received
my baccalaureate degree with honors, and was in my second year of
graduate study. I had not really degenerated morally or religiously. For
the entire year ending at the date at which I had now arrived, the
aggregate time devoted to female-impersonation and coquetry was
approximately one hundred hours, as compared with about twenty-one
hundred devoted to my studies and two hundred and fifty to the worship
of my Creator and religious culture. Surely I was not to be tabooed as a
moral leper. While the average church member, through lack of
understanding of the conditions surrounding my life, would have branded
me as a hypocrite, I sincerely believed and lived up to the fundamental
truths of the Christian religion.

I still enjoyed an unblemished reputation. I associated with all my
beaux, including my soldier friend, incognito. Always on returning home
after an evening passed as “Jennie June,” I took precautions that I was
not followed.

The wreck of my happy and highly successful student-career was now
brought about by a physician whom I had consulted in hope of a cure for
my inversion, but not one of the two gentlemen already named. He
happened to number the president of the university among his friends,
and whispered to him that I ought not to be continued as a student. I
was immediately expelled.

[Sidenote: _Expelled from University._]

I earned my living in a minor capacity in the university, and expulsion
also meant that my income was cut off. The shock of expulsion rendered
me a mental wreck. But I did not have the courage to return to my
village home. Nor could I even apply to my father for money. Since soon
after my arrest two years prior to the present date, he had, as already
described, displayed a pronounced antipathy for me, rendering my visits
home almost intolerable. In addition, because of the double-life my
nature forced me to lead, I decided I must remain in New York.

I removed to a part of the city where I would not be likely to encounter
any of my college acquaintances, and began to look around for means of
support. I spent several hours every day in answering advertisements. I
would have been only too glad to accept such a position as shoveling
coal into a furnace, but at the end of a month, had found nothing. In
applying for positions, I was abashed in the consciousness that I was
ranked as a degenerate and an outcast from society. I could not name as
reference any member of the university or let it become known that I had
been a student there. After my expulsion I called on the two professors
with whom I was most intimate, and asked if I could refer to them. One
replied: “Knowing your nature, I could not recommend you for any
position, however menial. You cannot be trusted.” (And yet shortly
afterward I was for thirty months in the employ of a millionaire in the
most confidential capacity, and was surpassed in faithfulness by no
employee.) The other: “You must realize that you are an outcast from
society.”

[Sidenote: _An Outcast from Society._]

All hope for the future and all courage for battling with the world were
gone, and every day on my return from several hours’ fruitless search, I
would throw myself on the bed and give vent to my feelings in a violent
fit of weeping. While walking the street, I would weep aloud and be on
the borderline of hysterical screaming. I repeatedly entertained
thoughts of suicide.

In a few weeks I was penniless and a shelterless wanderer on the streets
in midwinter. I was driven for shelter to the Bowery, because there
alone lodging could be obtained for fifteen cents, and a big meal of
coarse and even disgusting food for ten cents. Thus I was compelled to
live for nine weeks before a way was opened to something better.

During the nine weeks I was of the opinion that I must pass the rest of
my days as an outcast from society, while of course living out the
“Jennie-June” life to which I was apparently predestined. I was grateful
to Providence that it was I and not one of my sisters who was
predetermined to the life of a fille de joie and an outcast. In
suffering such a fate, I believed that I was paying the penalty to God
for the sin of some progenitor. I believed myself appointed by the God
who visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to live out
the rest of my life in mourning and paroxysms of grief, such as then
visited me every day.

[Sidenote: _Year 1896—I Become a Low-Class Fairie._]

The manner of life of a high-class fairie has been described. I was
fated also to trace out the life of a low-class one. But even in my
present extreme poverty, I was decidedly averse to making a gainful
occupation out of the life. I wanted my freedom of action, and was
unalterably opposed to intimacy for pecuniary gain with any one whom I
did not adore. During the present nine weeks I accepted whatever was
voluntarily proffered, but otherwise left money entirely out of
consideration. I moreover did not resume my Fourteenth Street life,
which might have proved less impecunious, because it was comparatively
“poor pickings” there; because I was much more strongly attracted toward
the rough, burly adolescents of the foreign laborer quarters than toward
the young gentleman libertines of Fourteenth Street; and finally because
I had twice encountered on Fourteenth Street associates at the
university. Fortunately I happened to be alone both times and my actions
not suspicious, but I realized I was taking a great deal of risk there.
Moreover, I did not return regularly to my Mulberry Street friends
because I now found on my occasional visits there that it was a barren
“stamping ground.” The tradition was lodged there that I was well
furnished with money, which reputation is fatal to the success of a
penniless fairie.

Living as I was now compelled to live and necessarily mingling daily
with men of loose morals, the charm of masculine beauty proved more
powerful than ever before. Furthermore, it is not surprising that a
person, deprived of even what are regarded as the necessities of a
decent existence, should indulge immoderately in the single one of
life’s pleasures of which there was an abundant supply. In the
environment in which forces outside of my control placed me, there was
in me a practically irresistible impulse to adopt the manner of life I
did. I would never have made the profession of the fairie the main
business of life if it had not been for the peculiar concurrence of
circumstances, expulsion from college, inability to find respectable
employment, etc. That I now led the life I did was perhaps more the
fault of Christian society than my own. While the world condemned, I
have always believed that the Omniscient Judge pardoned because I was
the victim of circumstances and of innate psychical forces.

[Sidenote: _I Touch Bottom._]

The fact that I could now satisfy every day my instinctive yearnings to
pass for a female and spend six evenings a week in the company of
adolescent ruffians went far towards counterbalancing the many tears I
had to shed when there was nothing to divert my thoughts from my
condition of an outcast and an outlaw. I never coquetted on Sunday
evenings, which I devoted to worship of my Creator at some mission. I no
longer experienced any shame at displaying my feminine mentality
everywhere outside of the missions, as no one knew who I was. In many
neighborhoods I was hailed as “Jennie June.”

Besides the Bowery, the streets most frequented by me during these nine
weeks—as well as during the not immediately following two years when I
was compelled to go on a female-impersonation spree once in two
weeks—were the following: (1) In the foreign Hebrew quarter: Grand, from
Bowery eastward to Allen, and Allen and Christie, for several blocks on
both sides of Grand. (2) In the foreign Italian quarter, containing also
a large sprinkling of Irish immigrants: Grand, from Bowery westward to
Sullivan and Thompson; the whole lengths of the two latter streets;
Bleecker from Thompson to Carmine; and Mulberry south of Spring. (3) In
Chinatown: Doyers, Pell, and Mott streets. I did not seek the Chinese,
who were sexually repulsive, but the adolescent toughs and young
gentleman libertines who visited Chinatown evenings from all parts of
the city.

[Sidenote: _My Then “Stamping Ground.”_]

The present palatial Police Headquarters, built subsequently to my
frequenting these neighborhoods, is at the geographical center of my
field of those days. My fairie apprenticeship was in large part passed
within two hundred feet of the site of this edifice, then occupied by a
public market, and some of my fairie adventures occurred on the very
site.

With the exception of the soldiers and sailors, practically all my beaux
of these neighborhoods were of foreign parentage, but born in New York.
The Irish predominated, then came the Italians, and then the Hebrews.
Practically all belonged to one of these classes, as did nearly all the
inhabitants of the quarters frequented. But my experience as a fairie
elsewhere, particularly over a large part of Europe, proved that
religion and race make no difference in respect to the reception
accorded an invert.

Since I had lost my position in the social body, I was willing to take
greater risks of bodily harm. I would enter low “clubrooms” with several
wild heartless ruffians whom perhaps I had never seen before. Many a
midnight I was promenading the street arm in arm with a pair of
adolescent longshoremen cutthroats whom I had never seen before, or with
youthful soldiers or sailors. Even some youthful policemen went
skylarking with me on the back streets after all the inhabitants had
gone to bed. Most of the police on the Bowery knew me as a fairie, but
were always friendly. This street at that time was the wide-open
“red-light” district for the un-Americanized laborer and for the common
soldier or sailor.

[Sidenote: _Continuous Blackmail._]

When I felt feeble and fatigued—then my usual condition—flirtation
quickened the heart’s action and the flow of blood. I forgot my
weariness, and if shivering with the cold before, my body now glowed
with warmth.

Incorrigible thieves, who had only just learned that I was a fairie,
have immediately grasped me on a brightly lighted street thronged with
pedestrians, and ransacked my pockets, while clasping me to their breast
and crying out: “Oh how she loves me! Oh how she loves me!” Their
purpose was to create the impression on those who were hurrying by that
I was embracing them. Some adolescent ruffians demanded money every time
they ran across me, and helped themselves to all I had if I refused
them. If they found nothing, they would sometimes beat me in their
disappointment. Some would promise me a beating when we next met unless
I brought them a stipulated sum.

Occasionally boys hardly in their teens would demand blackmail. I was
entirely innocent of even carrying on conversation with them, but they
knew me through the adolescents of their neighborhood. The charges of
these mere boys, though entirely false, were feared much more than those
of adults, because it would have been a far more serious offence to have
had anything to do with those of tender years. Being no match for me in
size, these boys had to resort to various expedients to extort money.
They would sometimes attack me five or six together. Words cannot depict
my terror on being thus attacked. The boys had their parents near to
take their part, while I had not a soul to appeal to for help and to
establish my innocence. I feared that all the ignorant foreign
population would rise up against me, and in their wrath, kill me.

[Sidenote: _Chronic Overwhelming Fear._]

If a mere boy attacked me single-handed, he would suddenly leap upon my
back, hold himself there by throwing one arm tight around my neck so
that I could not dislodge him, and if I ran, had to carry him along; and
with the hand that was free, he would rain blows on me. To escape from
such a predicament, I was glad to give him a few nickels.

Naturally as timid as the cry-baby species of woman, I always promenaded
the dimly lighted side streets of these foreign quarters like a cat
crossing a road, ever alert, ever halting to reconnoitre, and
occasionally compelled to take to my heels on catching sight of the
burly form, a dozen yards away, of a ruffian who never cared for my
society, but who, because of innate loathing of a fairie—nourished by
the statutes’ making the latter an outlaw—beat and robbed me at every
opportunity. It was similar with young men not attractive to me, to whom
I had refused my company. Through being as swift of foot as a gazelle, I
escaped many blows. If flight were impossible, I would try entreaty. If
entreaty failed, I would resort to ruse. Knocked down by a sledge-hammer
blow, I would feign insensibility, and in all but one instance that
ended the beating.

[Sidenote: _Typical Night on Bowery._]

Is it any wonder that generally before starting out for a ramble on the
side streets, I felt as if I were going forth to meet death on the
scaffold? But I was fascinated by the adolescents who spent their
evenings on these streets, and who had previously given me their
company, and I was hoping to meet them again. I was also led on by the
craze for as many as possible every evening. Maximum erat octo; modus,
duo aut tres.

On the Bowery itself, soldiers and sailors were my special quest. As
already indicated, these two types were to me the _beau ideal_ of
masculine beauty. I outline one of my most successful nights.

                  *       *       *       *       *

I encounter four stalwart artillerymen of about my own age. I am
bewitched and must find some way to make their acquaintance immediately.
I would not take the risk of indecently accosting them as girls commonly
did on the Bowery at that time. I adopted the expedient of walking along
under their noses on the crowded sidewalk, swaying my shoulders
energetically and taking very short steps. In a few seconds they shouted
out, “Hello Pretty!” surrounded me, and overwhelmed me with terms of
endearment, while I begged them to take me to be their baby and slave. A
room is secured for an hour. When the time came to part, I was pained at
the thought. It was hard for a moment or an hour to possess the society
of a human demigod whom one would like to abide with and worship and
serve forever, and then to be abruptly, completely, and eternally
separated. Returned to the street, they repeatedly request me to leave
them. Arrived at their objective, a low dance-hall, they are compelled
to use threats of violence, and abandon me at the entrance.

[Sidenote: _Sample of Conversation._]

Two flashily dressed adolescents emerge. They halt in order to light
cigarettes but find they have no matches. I offer some, welcoming the
opportunity to enter into conversation. “You are handsome,
sporty-looking fellows. I cannot tell you how much I adore you.”

“What’s here? A fairie?”

“Yes, I’m a fairie, and I would like to be a slave to sports like you.
Don’t this fellow look every inch a slugger? How I worship sluggers!”

“You do, do you? Do you want to take a walk with us?”

“Delighted. I was just crying because some soldiers shook me, but making
your acquaintance brings me happiness again, because you are wild young
bloods.”

“What do you see in a fellow to love any way? I don’t see anything. What
good do you get out of loving a fellow?”

“Well, what do you see in a girl to love? I don’t see anything. Girls
are not brave. They are not rough. They are not strong. You are brave,
rough, and strong, and that is why I love you. I love fellows for the
same reason you love girls—because they are my opposites. The weak love
the strong and the strong, the weak. The brave love the timid and the
timid, the brave. The shy love the bold and the bold, the shy.

[Sidenote: _Sample of Numerous Robberies._]

                       I love a boy
                     Because I’m coy;
                       It would be wrong
                     Not to love the strong;
                       In the fierce and rough
                     I find the right stuff;
                       The gallant and brave
                     They make me rave;
                       While the reckless and bold
                       Are better than gold.”

I always sought by sprightly conversation to win the good will of chance
companions, but a small proportion were incorrigible. As soon as we
arrived on a dark deserted street, one of the young men said: “Do you
know I am a detective, and I arrest you for accosting us. But if you’ll
hand me a dollar, I will let you off this time.” (Impersonating a
detective is a common practice in robbing fairies.)

“I haven’t that much, and you wouldn’t take from a poor unfortunate the
few cents he has, would you?”

“Hand over all you’ve got! You’ll find you have run up against a hard
party!”

“You ought not to hit me like that, because I’m a girl. A fellow ought
to be ashamed to hit a girl.”

“You’re no girl, you!” adding the appropriate vulgar epithet.

“I am too. I can take you to a doctor and prove it by his word. I am a
girl incarnated in a boy’s body.”

For fear of a pummeling, I handed over all I had, less than a dollar.

[Sidenote: _Excessive Venery Very Harmful._]

“I am undecided what to do with you, lock you up, or give you a
thrashing, you d—— fairie!”

“Please let me go! I am very weak and can’t stand much. You want to
punish me for being a fairie, but I can’t help being what Nature made
me. Do you think any one would be a fairie from choice when they are the
most despised of mankind? Think how much better God has been to you than
to me. Have pity on me! I am one of the most unfortunate of human
beings! For your dear mother’s sake—whom every boy must love—I beg you
to show me mercy!”

An appeal to mother-love seldom failed. I return to the dance-hall and
enter. My soldier friends are nowhere to be seen, so I take a seat among
a group of blue-jackets of my own age, and am not slow in betraying my
character through expressions of my admiration. A room is hired.

It was after three A. M. when I sought rest. But my brain was so excited
that I tossed about for two hours, having alternately chills for five
minutes, and then fever. I felt that I was going to lose my mind any
moment, and besought the Omniscient to allay my excitement. I had gone
beyond my strength, and in addition the excessive venery was harmful to
the nervous system. After five o’clock, I repeatedly fell into a doze,
but immediately beginning to dream that my face and buccal cavity were
covered with the most loathsome syphilitic ulcers—such as a university
confidant had once told me he had seen in a hospital, _falsely_, in
order to scare me from fellatio with strangers—I would awake with a
start, horror-stricken. After suffering this nightmare a dozen times, I
finally fell into a restful sleep lasting until early afternoon.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Typical Night on Side Street._]

A typical night on the side streets: On Canal Street near Thompson was a
pool parlor where acquaintances of the highest type for this period of
my life—in large part adolescent drivers for the express
companies—passed their evenings. While I was received in pool parlors of
a lower grade, my presence would have been unwelcome here. One evening I
was loafing in front of the place, waiting for some acquaintance to
pass. Before long I was recognized, my presence announced to those
within, and all temporarily interrupted their games to crowd around me.
The majority had never seen me before, and were anxious to interview the
person who was then the talk of the young “sports” of that part of the
town, as well as of many other parts. Even in the foreign laborer
quarters of New York City, if is rare for a young man to run across a
professional fairie—as they constitute as near as I can _guess_ only one
out of every three thousand physical males—and furthermore, I have been
repeatedly told that I acted the part in such perfection as never seen
in any other.

Question after question was addressed to me: How did I ever get it into
my head that I was a girl? Why had I been born that way? Was it because
my parents had indulged shortly before I was born, so that membrum
virile concurreret meam faciem? Wasn’t it because God wished to visit
upon me some sin of my parents? (Practically all were more or less
devout Roman Catholics.) Were any of my brothers similarly affected? Had
I ever had relations with a woman? At what age did the peculiar desire
show itself? Etc. I gladly answered every question, and told them the
story of my life, only with such non-essential variations from the truth
as my protection demanded.

[Sidenote: _Occasionally Told Story of Life._]

All soon returned to their games except four, none of whom I had ever
met previously. I consented to take a walk with two, and insisted that
the others must leave us because of their age, only sixteen. We strolled
to the neighboring absolutely deserted shore of the Hudson River, and
took possession of one of the hundreds of covered trucks stalled there
for the night. I soon discovered the two that had been left behind
peeking into the van. Startled for fear of a plot, I leaped to the
ground in order to flee. But on their immediately starting in to caress
me, I fell at their feet in adoration. Both were clad in the blue
uniform of express-company employees, and therefore presented a
particularly pleasing appearance.

Some adolescents—as these four—went to extremes just for the novelty of
it, out of curiosity to observe my peculiar nature, or to derive
amusement through frolicking with me. In some cases, subsequently filled
with abhorrence that I would so lower myself—as they looked upon it—they
would be moved to inflict physical pain, or temporary disfigurement of
the face, which I shrunk from a thousand times more than from pain.

After an hour of such treatment as filled me with bliss, a change of
attitude began to manifest itself. Knowing by experience that I was
destined to suffer, I watched my chance, unexpectedly dashed away from
them, and with the extraordinary speed that I was capable of when
frightened, directed my course away from the absolutely deserted river
front. All four immediately started in pursuit. The zig-zag chase—for I
turned at every corner—extended more than a quarter of a mile. The
terrifying shouts, “Stop thief! Stop thief!” rang in my ears throughout
the course, and I as continuously prayed for the help of the Almighty to
enable me to escape. Their cries, however, failed to bring assistance
since the streets of this wholesale and warehouse section are at
midnight entirely deserted.

[Sidenote: _A Typical Chase._]

I was at about the end of my endurance, and realized that unless
something unexpected happened, I must in a moment fall into their hands.
But a merciful Providence was about to intervene to save a persecuted
outcast from what promised to be a serious assault. I had just turned
the acute angle that Vestry Street makes with Canal, and the nearest of
my pursuers was only a hundred feet behind. Toward midnight the horse
cars on Canal Street ran only at fifteen minute intervals, but at that
very second one happened to be jogging along only twenty-five feet from
the apex of the acute angle. I leaped upon the platform and entered the
car. If this had happened in sight of my pursuers, they would
undoubtedly have followed my example and assaulted me inside the car, as
happened in another similar adventure.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _In Darkest New York._]

On another midnight, as I was sauntering down —— —— looking for company,
I became infatuated with a giant of a ruffian seated on a hydrant just
below —— Street. I began my prattle and we soon walked off together to
the neighboring —— Park. He appeared to be such a reckless character
that I was afraid to accompany him off a public place, and contented
myself with spooning on one of the park benches. We were soon joined by
two pals, who had followed to see what was up, because maybe there was a
chance for highway robbery. But they discovered that it was only a
low-class fairie. They were also splendid specimens of the youthful
ruffian. I was madly attracted toward all three, and now reclining in
the bosom of one, and now in that of another, I gave utterance to the
infant’s natural language expressive of contentment at being petted and
babied by these giants, whom I affectionately called my “Big Braves.” I
would lift their hands to my mouth and cover them with kisses, and roll
up their sleeves and cover their arms with kisses.

After some time, two of them said goodnight, leaving me alone with the
giant whose acquaintance I had first made. I finally agreed to accompany
him to his room. Whenever we sighted a policeman, he remarked: “Let’s go
over to the other side of the street. I don’t want that cop to see my
face.” After entering the side-door of a repulsive-looking “Saloon,” we
walked down a very long passage, divided into sections by several
heavily barricaded doors, each provided with a peep-hole and
door-tender, who opened only to the elect. Protection was thus secured
against surprises by the police. We finally arrived in a spacious room
filled with small tables, around which were seated a dozen flashily
dressed “sports,” about the same number of shabbily clad ruffians, three
or four girls costumed as for a fancy-dress ball, and five “sports” in
the biological sense of that word, that is, youths with no front teeth,
hair à la mode de Oscar Wilde (that is, hanging down in ringlets over
the ears and collar) and clad in bright colored wrappers. Their faces
were painted, and their bodies also were seen to be when later they
threw aside the loose wrappers.

[Sidenote: _Professional Fairies._]

The assemblage were sipping their favorite beverages. From time to time
decidedly obscene dances took place—in 1897 to be seen only in brothels,
but in 1917 gracing even university receptions. In the terpsichorean
art, our universities today stand only where our brothels stood twenty
years ago. One of the painted youths furnished the dance music. Another
from time to time rendered the latest songs in a treble voice.

When some came forward to make my acquaintance, my friend introduced me
as “Miss June.” I protested: “Not Miss June. That doesn’t sound pretty.
Jennie June. I am only a baby girl, not a grown-up female.”

Three of the fairies were introduced to me as Jersey Lily, Annie Laurie,
and Grace Darling. Two others had adopted the names of living star
actresses. The unreflecting and uneducated victims of innate
androgynism, and having passed their lives exclusively in the slums of
New York, they had always been perfectly satisfied with the lot Nature
had ordained for them. As already stated, in unenlightened lands, as
India, these human “sports,” clad in feminine apparel, appear in public
in the company of young bloods. Among the American Indians, they adopt
the dress and occupation of squaws, become married to a brave, and lead
a quiet virtuous life of toil. But Christendom has refused to
acknowledge that God has created this type of human being, the woman
with masculine genitals. It hunts them down, and drives them from one
section of our great cities to another by repeated raids on their
resorts. It attributes their fundamental peculiarities to moral
degradation, when they are due to Nature. Of course, in the case of
these fairies in the slums of New York, deep moral degradation had
supervened upon their innate androgynism.

[Sidenote: _Fairies in All Communities._]

Active pederasts, who frequent such resorts, and normal young men who
visit them just to see life, spoon with me. A charming smooth-spoken
young gallant holds me on his lap before the roomful of people, and
addresses me as “My dear boy,” to which I reply, “Please don’t call me
_boy_; call me _girl_.” I am bewitched by my wooer, who uses to me the
most indecent language I ever heard, and right in the hearing of all
those assembled. I do not act rational. I do not wish to act rational. I
wish to act like a baby girl. I am in high spirits, and the men visitors
are much amused at my conduct. The other fairies also impersonate the
woman and the baby, much to the amusement of their audience. Whoever has
visited such a performance must acknowledge that this type of human
being are born actors, or actresses, whichever term may be preferred.
They themselves prefer the latter.

                  *       *       *       *       *

On another midnight when I was promenading the Bowery, a band of young
desperadoes, who had been indulging freely in liquor, emerged from a
dance-hall. They were longshoremen, coal-heavers, etc. Their burly forms
and bacchanalian madness fascinated me, and I rushed into their midst
exclaiming: “Where did you get these pretty red badges? Won’t you give
me one?” They were all members of some political club which had given a
dance that night.

[Sidenote: _Close of Low-Class Fairie Period._]

The gang immediately recognized my character, and I became the recipient
of chivalrous and amorous attentions from them all. I accompanied them
on their way home, down the Bowery to Chatham Square, and then eastward
to the neighborhood of Water Street. They repeatedly urged me to enter
some low dive with them, but I would not think of it. They were too
reckless and vicious a lot, and I was satisfied with being wooed by them
on the public street in their delightfully wild and rough way. Finally
arrived at a groggery where some of them felt at home, they will no
longer listen to a refusal. They drag me inside and down into the
cellar.

Has the reader ever perused the account of the deeds of the sons of
Belial in Gibeah, performed 3,400 years ago to the detriment of a
certain Levite and his concubine, as recorded in the Book of Judges?
These modern sons of Belial, these lowest, most ignorant, most animal,
and most vicious of all the inhabitants of the modern Babylon, repeated
that night on their helpless victim the deeds of the men of ancient
Gibeah. I was then carried to the street and abandoned.

This assault proved to be the millstone that broke the camel’s back. I
was at last rendered unable to be on my feet owing to spinal trouble,
and to excruciating pain in the anus whenever I attempted to walk. I was
compelled to enter a hospital.

[Sidenote: _Year 1897—I Reform._]

For several years following, cleanliness required me gerere pannum
perpetuo intra subuculam causa incontinentiae defecationis. But it was
of little account, by no means rendering me what Beza would denominate
“a stinking androgyne.” The liquid excretion did not at all interfere
with my pursuits of the scholar or the female-impersonator. As I must
keep everything secret, I took upon myself the entire care of the cloths
in my room. After a few years, the sphincter again functioned
completely.

When able to leave the hospital, I felt satiated for life with coitus,
and exceedingly homesick. I yielded to the temptation to find shelter
under the parental roof. On my arrival home, which I had hardly expected
to see again, I could do nothing but weep for the first half hour, and
it was several hours before I could speak without bursting into tears.
My mother enfolded her “little innocent boy,” and my father had
softened. Of course I never gave a true account of our period of
estrangement.

I now believed that my career as a fairie was over. My early religious
enthusiasm was renewed, and I began to spend a large part of my time in
related studies. As already made known, I had had the career of a
foreign missionary in mind from childhood up to the age of nineteen, and
before many weeks I felt that now I was loosed from that terrible
obsession by the “procreative” side of human life, I could look forward
to laboring in the field of missions. After two months of activity in
church work in my native village, an opening presented itself in the
near-by metropolis.

[Sidenote: _A Self-Abnegating Religious Teacher._]

I thus passed an exceedingly satisfactory summer, and hoped and prayed
that this religious enthusiasm might continue indefinitely. What a
contrast between this life and that as Jennie June! While the phenomena
of the procreative side of life bring to man the highest earthly bliss,
they also occasion the intensest misery. The life as Jennie June had
been a bitter life apart from all the extraneous suffering. But in a
life given for others, seeking not its own, there was everything
satisfying, and nothing to regret. Truly there is a glorious salvation
from sin and unhappiness in announcing glad tidings to the poor, binding
up the broken-hearted, and opening the eyes of the spiritually blind.

But this salvation was not to be mine. It is in the power of the vast
majority of the human race to live what are called decent, moral lives;
but it is not in the power of all. My “sin” was a disease of the mind,
not wilful sin, especially at this and earlier periods of my career. I
was a born “nymphomaniac,” if this word may be used of one who has no
nymphae. In respect to the strength of the urge after coition, I am akin
to the male rather than the female sex. As few others have tried, I
tried to overcome the evil inherent in my nature, but in vain. The
manner in which this period of religious enthusiasm ended is shown in
the following extract from a letter written to my spiritual adviser.

[Sidenote: _God Hides His Face from Me._]

“... But the blessing of God suddenly left me, and I found myself
without a single thought on religion to give expression to. Previously I
had no loss for words. Every verse of scripture had been to me a
revelation of divine truth, bristling with suggestions for my talks; but
now all are to me empty words, without force. The scriptures appear to
me false. The story of Christ appears to me to be a myth. I agonize
before God, and beseech Him to restore unto me the joy of salvation, and
not to take the Holy Spirit from me. I cry out: ‘I do not believe it to
be a myth! These infidel thoughts which come upon me are not mine! I
believe, Lord, I believe, but my mind proves false to me! Help thou mine
unbelief!’

“But God makes himself known in no way. It is to me as if there were no
God. But I will persist in believing there is one. I read the Bible
chapter after chapter, praying for light, but all the time there is
nothing but darkness and doubt in my heart. Continually the thought
comes into my mind: ‘There is no personal God.’ I still read diligently
Row’s ‘Jesus of the Evangelists,’ which in former times had carried me
up into the third heaven of bliss in the conviction of the historic
character of the Gospels, and in adoration of the Christ; but the very
same book is now tedious and falls flat. I had been speaking as if fully
inspired by the Holy Ghost, and lost all consciousness of self. But the
last three times, I spoke simply because I had to, my own heart being
full of _emotions_ of unbelief. After three flat failures, I decided to
give up.

“My thorn in the flesh also now gives me no rest day nor night. It
drives peace from my mind every day, and sleep from my eyes every night.
Few have to endure such torture of unsatisfied longing. How I do bewail
the fact that I have this abnormal passion which cries out for
appeasement! It is not I who wish the gratification, I call God to
witness. I wish all passion annihilated in me, and to spend my days in
study and in doing good.... I have been celibate five months, and
expected to continue so forever, but I now suspect such a life to be
contrary to God’s will. All my hopes of leading an honorable life have
been dissipated. All the indications are that God does not call me to
preach the Gospel....”

[Sidenote: _Divine Ban on Celibacy._]

A few mornings later I happened to be reading in the 23d Street Y. M. C.
A. A poorly clad adolescent brushed lightly against me and I felt myself
electrified. Looking up furtively, I recognized a Bowery favorite of six
months before. To me his face appeared to be lighted up with an
unearthly radiance, and a halo of glory encircled his head. As my
identity was known at the Y. M. C. A., and as I was wearing my
valuables, I did not dare reveal myself. But I was acutely lovesick the
remainder of the day, pining to run across my friend again under
circumstances such that I could greet him.

It actually chanced the following morning that I again encountered him,
this time on the street several blocks distant from the Y. M. C. A.
Though clad as a prosperous citizen, I would have greeted him on the
street if he had not this time been accompanied by a malevolent-looking
pal. After we had passed without either giving any sign of recognition,
he came up behind, tapped me on the shoulder, and said: “Hello! Don’t
you remember me? Don’t you remember meeting me on Doyers Street?”

[Sidenote: _Conflicts of Double Life._]

I was thunderstruck. It was the only time I have ever been recognized by
a paramour of the slums in a quarter of the city distant from our place
of meeting. I now enumerate my encounters with acquaintances of the one
life while living out the other side of my double life.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Three where I was not recognized: I meet face to face a policeman on
Broadway who was my very first companion at the opening of my life as a
fairie (“Red Mike”). While secretary to a millionaire in the suburbs, I
rode twelve miles in the same car with two Mulberry Street companions
with whom I had passed many evenings. I would not allow them to see my
face. A soldier with whom I, as Jennie June, became acquainted at a
fort, came near, ten years previously, being a member of my Sunday
school class. (I wish to remind the reader that I engaged in no
religious work while yielding to the “procreative” instincts. I have
always considered such a combination scandalous. Inverts, while
committing no sin in following their instincts in moderation, should
leave church work absolutely alone unless they are able to crucify their
carnal desire.) I myself recognized the soldier only after learning his
name, and that he came from my own native village. I of course did not
let him know that we once attended the same church.

Two of my Stuyvesant Square friends once greeted me in a store, and
another on a street car. In a large city several hundred miles from New
York, I was greeted by an actor friend of my Fourteenth Street days.
Three different times in cities several hundred miles from New York I
was greeted by former soldiers with whom I had associated at forts in
the suburbs of that city. A number of times in the heart of New York I
ran across soldiers with whom I had associated at those forts. Once
while in a theatre, a soldier a few seats back called out, “Jennie
June,” but I pretended not to hear him. On another occasion, while
living in a small suburb, I was stopped near my home by a young man who
asked if I could tell him “where a fellow they call ‘Jennie June’
lives?” Evidently he thought he recognized myself as Jennie June, but I
boldly replied that I had never heard of such an individual. I feared a
disclosure of my double life, but nothing eventuated.

[Sidenote: _Recognized by Jennie June’s Associates._]

While visiting my native village in 1907, where I was now a stranger to
nearly all the inhabitants, one of a group of young men whom I passed
called out: “Hello Jennie June!... Hello Jennie June!... Why don’t you
say something?” My appearing as if I did not hear him probably led him
to conclude that he was mistaken. It is almost a miracle that the little
community in which I was reared did not learn of my double life, since
approximately four thousand young men knew me only as “Jennie June,”
about one-half of whom were at one time soldiers by profession, and
therefore wanderers over the face of the earth.

In 1914, in New York City, almost in front of the building where I was
employed, a Stuyvesant Square acquaintance of more than ten years before
thought he recognized me, called out “Jennie June,” and threw kisses. I
pretended not to notice anything, which probably made him conclude he
was mistaken.

[Sidenote: _J. J. Encounters Ralph Werther’s Associates._]

Encounters with associates of my scholarly self while I was living out
the life of “Jennie June” were almost equally numerous. While
promenading the Bowery as a low-class fairie, I once passed a schoolmate
from my native village, but he did not appear to recognize me. On two
occasions while promenading Fourteenth Street as a high-class fairie, I
passed university associates, but on only one occasion was there a sign
of recognition. At neither time did my conduct happen to be suspicious.

While on a train returning from a frolic with soldiers of a fort in the
suburbs, and somewhat disheveled, I rode in the same car with a
university acquaintance, but avoided him, so that he probably did not
recognize me. While entertaining at a shore resort a soldier to whom I
was incognito, I ran across a near friend, to whom I was compelled to
introduce the soldier. The friend was ever afterward cool and evidently
suspected the truth. While walking with a ruffian of the slums, I was
recognized by a chance travelling companion with whom I had sat at the
same table for a week on a steamer. I denied my identity.

One evening when dressed rather shabbily and on a car bound for the
slums, I was compelled to tip my hat to a lady friend who was also a
passenger. I was thankful that it did not happen to be a male friend.
When even in a more dilapidated condition, having spent the preceding
night in the slums, and on a car bound for the room where I was to
exchange my shabby clothes for my ordinary apparel, an intimate lady
friend boarded the car. Hiding my face as best I could, I alighted at
the next stop.

Once when my face had only just been battered up by violent blows, I
rode several miles in the same car with a male acquaintance who possibly
recognized me. While in bed in a hospital with my face all battered out
of shape, I was under the care of a former physician, to whom however I
never had had occasion to reveal that I was an invert. Though we had met
a score of times intimately, he failed to recognize me on account of my
extreme disfigurement, and I was ashamed to make myself known. I had of
course registered at the hospital under an assumed name.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _I Am Held Up on Broadway._]

To return to the chance meeting on Broadway—I was face to face with the
individual whom at the time I desired to meet above every one else in
the world, but through fear of blackmail or other undesirable
consequences, did not dare confess that I had ever seen. After a moment
of speechlessness, and with voice trembling through fright, I answered,
“You are mistaken in the person. I do not remember ever seeing you
before.”

“O you must remember me. You told me you were a waiter in a restaurant
on the Bowery. Ain’t you working there no more?”

“I never worked in a restaurant. You mistake me for some one else.”
Saying this I started to walk on.

“No, not just yet. I think I can convince you that we have met before.”
He mentions things that occurred at our former meetings. Although all
that he said was true, I continued to refuse to admit my identity.
Finally he lost patience: “Say, give me a dollar, will you? I haven’t
had anything to eat for two days. Hand it out, or I’ll make it so hot
for you right here that you’ll wish you had!”

[Sidenote: _Involuntary Muscle Dance._]

Expecting to be knocked into the gutter, or that something even worse
was about to transpire, I yielded to his demand. He pocketed the money
and went on his way. I saw slipping by perhaps the only opportunity of
my life to make an appointment with the particular individual with whom
at the time I was madly in love. I was also emboldened because I had
found out that he would be easy with me. I ran after him and exclaimed:
“I want to meet you again. Where do you hang out?”

“In Madison Square evenings.”

I immediately turned down a side street and hid in a doorway in order to
ascertain whether I was being followed. From that meeting I rejoiced in
the hope of future intimacy with one of my favorites of the Bowery
period, and on the three following evenings wearily promenaded Madison
Square for hours in search of him. On the third evening I with great joy
discovered him seated alone. Eagerly approaching, I aped, as usual on
such occasions, the voice and manners of a baby girl, while I began a
graceful dance with various muscles of my body, motions occasionally
aroused under sexual excitement. For the first time in nearly six months
I adopted the role of “Jennie June,” and it gave me great satisfaction.

“My beautiful, beautiful Jew boy, I feared I would never see you again.
Say, do you know you are beautiful? Do you know you are beautiful?”

“What do you do now since you don’t work in a restaurant?”

[Sidenote: _Glimpse Into Hell’s Kitchen at Night._]

“I ... I,” I stammered, caught unawares, and seeking to invent something
in order to hide my true station in life. “I now work in a shoe-store
over on 3rd Avenue.”

“I suppose you intend doing the right thing by me tonight. I am in hard
luck. I just had three dollars stolen off me.”

After a few minutes’ conversation, we proceeded westward along 26th
Street, bound for the dark and at night deserted quarter known as Hell’s
Kitchen, along the margin of the Hudson River. It is perhaps the most
dangerous part of New York at night, but here we could be absolutely
alone. Most of the district is covered with lumber yards, freight
terminals, etc., and the very few persons who frequent those streets at
night are likely to be ruffians and dockrats of the most vicious
character.

Arrived within half a block of the Hudson River, we seated ourselves on
the platform of a storehouse, and I began to kiss passionately my
companion’s face, hair, and hands, and even covered his clothing with
kisses. While thus engaged, only one person passed, a man, apparently
intoxicated, staggering along in the direction of the river and on the
opposite side of the street. He did not appear to notice us and was soon
lost in the darkness toward the river, whereupon my uneasiness in large
part passed away. On such occasions as this—on the public street—I
always had a mortal fear of being surprised and beaten to death,
prejudice against androgynes being so great.

After the “intoxicated” man had passed out of sight, we were undisturbed
for five minutes. During this interval, my companion gave a low whistle
several times, which made me nervous and suspicious, and I delayed
incriminating myself. Always, too, I liked to spoon a long time with my
companion as a preliminary. If I had been with any one else, such
whistling would have made me take to my heels, but my present companion
was not a perfect stranger, and on our previous meetings had done me no
harm. As I feared, the young Jew’s whistling turned out to be his means
of communication with a confederate, the man who had passed feigning
intoxication. When I had met the young Jew in the Square, a confederate
was watching a short distance away, and he had followed us into Hell’s
Kitchen. As I had been the victim of assault and robbery so many times,
usually when walking off to a lonely place with a companion, I took care
that we were not followed by any of his pals. But as my present
companion seemed like an old acquaintance, I did not take my usual
precautions.

[Sidenote: _Surprised by an Eavesdropper._]

As eavesdropper, it was desirable to approach from the west, since a
high fence prevented a good view from the east, and an approach from
that direction would have immediately aroused my suspicions that he was
a confederate. He had therefore adopted the ruse of intoxication in
order to get to the west of us. While I was engaged in my adoration, the
form of a powerfully built man about twenty-eight years of age silently
and suddenly emerged out of the obscurity in the direction of the river.
Always alert on such occasions on the public street, I perceived him
sooner than he intended. He no doubt intended to surprise me in an
incriminating position. At the moment of my discovery, my companion
sought by main force to hold me in a humiliating position, but I
struggled and prevented it. On seeing that his original plan was
frustrated through my alertness, the eavesdropper came forward, passed
himself off as the watchman of the storehouse, and sternly demanded of
me what business we had there.

[Sidenote: _Adventure with Robbers._]

“Only sitting down and resting,” I replied all in a tremble.

“This is a queer place to sit down and rest in. Tell me what yous two
was doin’ here, or I’ll have you locked up.”

“We were only talking together.”

“Only talkin’ together? What did yous walk a mile from Madison Square
fur?” On hearing this question, I first realized that the man was a
confederate. I replied that we were just out for a walk.

“Do you ginerally take walks to a lonesome place as this where there’s
nothin’ to see?” Then he addressed my companion, “How long you known
this feller?”

“I met him tonight in Madison Square for the first.”

“People don’t ginerally take walks together to such places as this when
they just happen to meet in parks! Out wid it, what was this feller
doin’ wid you?”

On my companion accusing me of fellatio, the man feigned surprise and
abhorrence, and started to grab me. But I nimbly sprang away, and fairly
flew eastward, with them at my heels. After sprinting an eighth of a
mile, I felt my speed decreasing. It seemed as if I scarcely moved at
all. My legs trembled under me, my breath came and went in sonorous
gasps, and my heart beat audibly. I could hear the footfalls of my
pursuers, now gaining upon me. As I ran I constantly besought Providence
that they might stumble and fall, or give up the chase as hopeless.

[Sidenote: _A Race for Life._]

Arrived within a hundred feet of 10th Avenue, I felt all my powers
failing, and at every step expected to fall to the ground, perhaps dead,
as I had some valvular disease of the heart. If I fell westward of 10th
Avenue, where there would be no possibility of witnesses, I feared the
ruffians would beat me to death in their anger at my causing them this
hard chase. I hoped to hold out until I could throw myself on the mercy
of pedestrians whom I expected to encounter on 10th Avenue, a street
lined with a poor class of tenement houses. I reached that avenue and
ran north half a block until I overtook a company of four smartly
dressed young men. I now stopped running, walked along directly in front
of them, and believed my pursuers would withdraw. But the latter seized
me violently, and I appealed to the four spectators: “Won’t you please
keep these fellows from touching me? They are thieves, and were trying
to beat and rob me.”

“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”

“Wait till I kin git my breath and I’ll tell you.”

“They are thieves and I was running away from them. They are
blackmailers, that’s all they are. A few days ago on Broadway they got
some money out of me, and now are trying it again.”

“He is a c——. I found him down on 26th Street wid this young feller.”

“I didn’t do anything of the kind to him. They are just trying to
blackmail me.”

“All they want is money. Just hand out four or five dollars and they’ll
let you alone. It is worth that to you to get out of this scrape.”

[Sidenote: _Wishing to Be Arrested._]

“But I haven’t done anything why I should pay them money, and I haven’t
that much money with me.”

“You’ve admitted they are blackmailing you, so you must have done
something pretty bad. We will leave you in their hands to take you to
the police station. You ought to be locked up and have this cannibalism
of yourn taken out of you.”

“Please do me the favor not to leave me alone with them. They will kill
me on the way. Please go along to the police station.”

They all agreed to do so. But the more I saw of the character of the
four smartly dressed young men, who were between twenty and twenty-five
years of age, the more did I fear them, and I hoped we might encounter a
policeman, so that I might voluntarily surrender myself to the toils of
the law, as I expected to be killed by this party. But I have learned by
experience that a policeman can never be found when needed most. Some
civilian pedestrians were met, but I was afraid of the consequences of
appealing to them.

Arrived at 29th Street, they stated their purpose of leading me down
this particularly dark and deserted thoroughfare, probably in order to
assault and rob me, and this prospect made me more anxious than ever to
be delivered out of their hands. A chance of deliverance presented
itself. There are steam railroad tracks in the middle of 10th Avenue and
a long freight train happened to be passing slowly. Two horse-cars, each
containing several passengers, were waiting at the corner of 29th Street
until the train passed. The four drivers and conductors were all
outside. As my captors led me within three feet of one of the platforms,
I suddenly broke away and attempted to board the car. But they jerked me
away, struggling and crying out to the conductor, only an arm’s length
distant: “I want to board this car and they won’t let me! Won’t you
please make them leave me alone?”

[Sidenote: _One of the Worst Assaults._]

But he did not make a move or say a word, any more than if he had been a
statue. The other three drivers and conductors were likewise interested
spectators, but made no move to help me. When I saw their inaction, I
screamed “Help! Help!” hoping to alarm the passengers. Such a procedure
angered my captors to the exploding point, and they all pitched into me,
threw me to the ground, pounded me, kicked me, and stamped upon me. The
two conductors stood for a moment directly over my prostrate body, but
remained neutral. I screamed as I have never screamed on any other
occasion, but none of the passengers appeared to hear me.

In about a minute the train had passed and the two horse-cars started on
their way. As I saw them disappearing and leaving me alone with my
assailants, all hope of life departed. I found myself exceedingly calm
and resigned to my fate. My life and consciousness seemed to be
flickering, ready to be entirely extinguished. The next thing I knew, I
was vomiting violently, and then my senses began to come back. I found
myself all alone, and also found that my pockets had been ransacked.

[Sidenote: _Career of Fille de Joie in Paris Meditated._]

For several days my whole body was so sore as to make it painful to move
about. Moreover, for several days I experienced a season of mental
depression with impulses toward suicide. Few souls ever had such a
burden to bear. Yet the world has no sympathy for these unhappiest of
mortals, the refined sexual inverts. Thousands of them are driven to
suicide out of every generation, and yet the world is unmoved by their
sorrows. Every other human creature when in sorrow and trouble receives
comfort from his fellows, but mankind heaps sorrow on sorrow upon the
head of the already despairing invert. Even his own family turn their
backs on him and disown him.

About this time, thoughts came to me of going over to London or Paris,
far from my family, where they could never learn of my shame, and
passing the remainder of my youth wholly given up to the life of a fille
de joie. But I did not take this step, chiefly out of love for my
parents, to save them sorrow on my account.

                  *       *       *       *       *

I have now reached a period of my life lasting over two years during
which it was my luck to serve as private secretary to a millionaire
septuagenarian living in the suburbs of the metropolis. Though
surrounded with all the comforts of wealth, and having every opportunity
for intellectual growth and enjoyment, the “procreative” instinct
allowed me no rest. At times I would wish for a life of poverty in the
slums with a mate to living in my refined and elegant surroundings
without any opportunity for gratification of this instinct. I found it
absolutely necessary to spend one night out of fourteen in the city’s
slums. The curative value of a good environment is evident from the fact
that I was fully satisfied with that frequency.

[Sidenote: _The Why of a Double Life._]

The _Why_ of a double life has already been sufficiently
indicated—namely, at least in my own case, mental peculiarity, a
constitution different from the normal. Does the reader suppose the
author led a double life because he _wanted_ to? Not at all, but simply
because Nature and society forced it upon him. Many could remain
celibate all their days with no sense of a great void in their life, and
with no suffering to themselves; but the author, remaining celibate much
beyond a month, would ordinarily rave, as a drug-victim raves when
unable to obtain his anodyne. It is a confession that I shrink from
making, but I feel that medical science should know it. At this period
of my life I had to escape to the slums to find opportunity for fellatio
in order to save myself from fellatio cum cani magno. The involuntary
desire for fellatio was irresistible and I would have sacrificed
everything for it. I trust all my readers are broadminded enough to see
that I was irresponsible for this condition, and that it was entirely
counter to my own wishes.

Secondly, the author was not at all to be blamed for having recourse to
the slums. For me it was the only way then open to satisfy the most
exacting demands of Nature. To frequent the forts had not yet been
seriously considered. How easy it is, comparatively, for the normal man
to gratify the procreative instinct! The man of high moral ideals can in
most cases marry, and possess his beloved every day and night, not for
only a few hours each month, as was the case with me during nearly all
my career. The rake obtains all the companions he wishes with no risk of
suffering violence. But an androgyne, if having any regard for his
reputation, has often, as already seen, to run the gauntlet of assault,
robbery, imprisonment, and even death, when he seeks his counterpart. To
no respectable young man of my acquaintance did I dare make known my
dreadful secret, which I believed would alienate from me every
respectable member of society who should learn it. Because of society’s
misunderstanding and prejudging my peculiarity, I was compelled to run
the risks of the slums. Mankind would ostracize me for it, but instead
they should pity me as one with whom the Almighty has dealt very
bitterly.

[Sidenote: _Some Eminent Men Are Inverts._]

Some eminent men in all callings are numbered among the inverts. Their
terrible secret is hidden from the world. If it should become known,
they are irretrievably lost, and would be ostracized with the greatest
possible disgust and repugnance, although these emotions have no basis
in reason. These inverts, who were brought up in refinement and hold
honorable positions in society, deplore their lot in life. They greatly
regret that they have to resort to such shameful and lamentable means as
they do. By reason of the universal hatred of mankind for those of the
race who are built on a different plan from the vast majority, these
inverts, well educated, holding an honorable position in the world, and
possessing a good income, are necessarily driven to subterfuges,
artifices, and deceptions of which the world, which now holds them in
honor, would believe them incapable. But they suffer from a craving
which _must_ be satisfied, even at the risk of the loss of property,
reputation, life itself. This craving, which medical writers like
Krafft-Ebing, who have made a study of the phenomenon, say is, in its
intensity, often immeasurably beyond the normal procreative instinct in
man, drives these unfortunates to “pick up” a poor young man whom they
come across in a part of the city remote from where they are known. But
everywhere there are traps set for these unfortunates—truly
unfortunates, since their repulsive instincts are no fault of their own,
being congenital—and in their search for the mate which is necessary for
their contented existence, they sometimes come to grief. Not only does
the blackmailer spread his net for these stepchildren of nature. The
civil authorities have also their detectives out after them.

[Sidenote: _Melancholy as Spree Approached._]

The _How_ of a double life during this period of my career will now be
described. On the eve of one of my fortnightly female-impersonation
sprees, the reader probably supposes that I would be happy in
anticipation. On the contrary, a great weight of sorrow and anxiety
always oppressed me. There was of course an attraction which drew me to
the city, but it was more than counterbalanced by the realization of the
risks of my losing my then enviable position in life, and the dread of
the danger I had to put myself in, in order to obtain the satisfaction
of my instincts. A peculiar phenomenon was vivid images of violent blows
in the face, since I had been the victim of such a number of times. But
even apart from the dread of the real dangers, even if there were no
such dangers, an overwhelming feeling of sadness and anxiety always came
over me as the time to go forth on my peculiar quest approached. On the
eve of a female-impersonation spree during this period, I always felt
like a soldier on entering a great battle from which he realized he
might never come back alive, or like a murderer on the eve of his
electrocution. On such occasions I habitually sang to myself:

               “Why oh why should we be melancholy, boys,
                     Whose business ’tis to die?”

[Sidenote: _Preliminaries to Spree._]

Just before leaving my residence, I always knelt and prayed the Heavenly
Father to bring me back safe, and on my return likewise my first act was
to thank Him for it. Arrived in New York, my melancholy and dread would
almost entirely disappear, and in their place a sense of gladness would
spring up that in the great metropolis I was lost to all who knew me. I
was in the habit of putting up at a third-class hotel in a poor quarter
of the city, registering under an assumed name. About eight in the
evening, I would retire to my room, remove my outer clothing, conceal my
valuables, dress myself in a rather shabby suit, and saunter forth,
hurrying past hotel employees so that they would not observe my change
of apparel. Reaching the Bowery or some other street among those named
in the account of my “low-class fairie” period, I would experience a
feeling of exultation at finding myself again on Jennie June’s stamping
ground. I had left behind all my masculinity, such as it was. The
feminine in me, suppressed for two weeks, now held sway. My first care
was to hide a reserve fund in a small black box on a ledge of the old
market on the site of the present Police Headquarters on Centre Street.

[Sidenote: _Encounters with Police._]

I occasionally visited the scene of my fairie apprenticeship on Mulberry
Street. But a resident adolescent once remarked with much truth: “You
come around here looking like a tramp, but we have seen you up on Fifth
Avenue with fine clothes on. You look as though you didn’t have a cent,
but your shoes are full of money.” For success with this class, it is
almost necessary that an invert be looked upon as belonging to the same
social stratum.

On one occasion I was turned over to a policeman by a blackmailer, but
the former refused to arrest me, although he believed the accusations.
On another evening when I had not come to the city for a
female-impersonation spree, but nevertheless took a walk on the Bowery,
I scraped acquaintance with a high-class adolescent from the country who
was stranded in the city. We walked down a side street until we came to
a deserted block, and entered the pitch-dark portal of a closed factory.
But a huckster on the nearest corner happened to notice us skulk into
the portal, and supposing we were thieves, notified the first policeman
who passed, who sought another policeman that they might together
investigate. The two suddenly confronted us. I was horror-struck, as it
was the worst possible time for me to be arrested since I had on me
marks of my identity. They searched us and then made a correct guess.
One said with reference to me: “This fellow is a ——. We won’t touch him
because he can’t help it, but we’ll give this other fellow a good
clubbing.” They made us depart in opposite directions, clubbing my
companion a little.

[Sidenote: _Adventures with Thugs._]

On another evening I had been robbed of all my money. When we reached
the street I demanded back part of it. But my companion shouted “Police!
Police!” in order to frighten me away, saying he was going to have me
arrested because I was an invert. To a couple of young men he cried out:
“This fellow is a ——. Call a cop for me, will you? I want to have him
arrested.” But those addressed were too busy to interfere. A horse-car
then happened along, on which he jumped. I ran behind for a hundred
feet, crying to the conductor on the rear platform: “Put him off! He’s a
thief! He has robbed me!” But neither the conductor nor the men
passengers on the platform cared to interfere.

I occupied a room with a young ruffian at a third-class hotel other than
that where I had left my ordinary clothing and valuables. Before
retiring I withdrew to the toilet-room and placed the bulk of my money,
a five-dollar bill, in the toe of a sock. As I undressed, I was careful
to throw it far under the bed. After half an hour, we closed our eyes.
But I intended to remain awake until he had fallen asleep in order to
hide the door key lest he leave with my money and clothing while I
slept. He intended to remain awake until I slept, and then depart as
described. He tried to soothe me to sleep, exactly like a mother her
infant, but finally losing all hope, said: “Do you know how much you can
get for this? Twenty years in state’s prison!”

He dressed, ransacked my clothing, and then tied it in a bundle to carry
away, repeatedly warning me not to interfere under penalty of arrest. I
lay in consternation, meditating what steps to take. He finally demands:
“Where’s your other sock? I’m on to all the sly ways of you fairies!”

[Sidenote: _A Steamboat Flirtation._]

I now sprang out of bed, and started for the door, but he quickly
removed the key. Though expecting to be brained, I cried “Help! Help!”
“Stop your racket and you’ll get your things back!” But I kept pounding
and shrieking until the hall-boy opened the door. I remained standing
just outside until my companion left, watching that he took none of my
belongings. He said that he was going after a policeman in order to have
me arrested. The hall-boy appeared to be totally indifferent over the
accusation of my associate.

                  *       *       *       *       *

A steamboat flirtation: In my extensive globe-trotting, only two or
three times did I indulge in coquetry on a public conveyance, for fear
of disgrace or even robbery. But on the present occasion I was so
smitten that I took the risk. I had occasion to accompany my employer on
a trip to Boston. We went by the all-sea route around Cape Cod. During
the evening my employer preferred to remain inside, while I was out on
deck. I discovered a handsome adolescent seated alone, clad in a golf
suit, which always heightened to me a young man’s charms. I seated
myself near him, dying with desire to enter into conversation, but for a
while unable to surmount my bashfulness. But I soon began a conversation
which lasted a large part of the night. I drew from him the whole story
of his life. His last adventure had been a bicycle ride from Boston to
New York. The more I gazed at him, the more I heard about his life, and
the more I read his character from his countenance, his manners, and his
adventures, the more did I discover in him lovable qualities. His
ravishing beauty, his countenance ever beaming with smiles, his kindly
disposition toward me, his hot sensual nature, his fearlessness,
dare-deviltry, and thorough recklessness, and his intense masculinity in
general, attracted me so strongly that I became ready—as already
stated—to run the great risk of disclosing to my employer my perverted
nature, and thus losing the excellent position I held. We talked on
numerous subjects. After I had ascertained that he was a good-hearted
fellow who would not easily take offense, and a Don Juan, I began to
prepare to disclose my nature.

[Sidenote: _Method of Leading Up._]

“You have a beautiful golf suit on.”

“I shall never wear the rag again except to go skating in next winter.”

“You must not do that. It sets your form off beautifully. You are the
handsomest and the best dressed fellow on the boat.”

“Thank you. I’d give you a quarter for the compliment if I had the
change.”

“You appear to think I am flattering you, or making sport of you, but I
mean what I say. You have a beautiful build, and know how to dress in
good taste.”

“From my hips down I am well enough built, but higher up I am too
skinny.”

“Not a bit of it. You are just perfection all over. Your form is as
beautiful as that of Apollo.”

After a while, before I had been able to come to the point of distinctly
disclosing that I was an invert, he said he must go inside on account of
the chilliness of the air, and I plead with him not to go.

[Sidenote: _Year 1898._]

“I’ll see you later.”

“Be sure not to forget. I shall be in misery until you are again by my
side.”

He laughed, apparently not yet fully understanding my feeling for him,
and departed. A moment later I myself went inside, and took a seat
beside my employer. My new acquaintance happened to pass, and gave me
the sweetest, most loving smile I ever received. I was dying to follow
the smiler, but feared my employer would detect my attraction. After
several minutes, I followed in the direction in which he had
disappeared, and finding him seated alone a little distance off, I
whispered: “Come out on deck.”

We seated ourselves close together. It was dark and there were no others
sitting very near. I took one of his hands in mine, and asked if I might
kiss it. He replied: “You can do anything to me you want to.”

I now opened my heart to him fully. Though I loved him even to frenzy, I
found him hardly less drawn to me. He reciprocated my affection as no
lover ever before. We sat together for hours. Soon all the other
passengers had retired, and I reclined in my lord’s arms. Long after
midnight, my lord, desiring to get some sleep, repeatedly requested me
to leave him for the night, saying we could meet again in Boston. But I
knew that on account of my being in the company of my employer, I could
never meet the young man again, and could not yet tear myself away.
Several times he good-humoredly wrenched himself from my grip, saying he
must get some sleep. But each time, advancing toward the taff-rail, I
would call out: “I am going to jump into the sea if you leave me alone.”
With other intimates, I had used the ruse of suicide if they did not
yield to my entreaties, but they had only replied: “If you want to be
such a fool as to kill yourself, I won’t stop you.” But this noble
fellow ran after me and restrained me, and said he would sit up a little
longer.

[Sidenote: _A Measure of My Affection._]

Towards four A. M., the poor young man was in a predicament as to how to
get rid of me, who had lost my reason. He was of such a kindly
disposition that he did not wish to hurt or offend me, but my continuous
kisses and caresses finally became so annoying that in the hope of
bringing an end to them, not at all with malice, he clutched me by the
throat as if in anger. But I exclaimed: “Your cruelty only makes me love
you the more!” and again started in to cover him with kisses—hair, face,
hands, arms, and clothing, even his shoes.

“You must want to get into your mouth all the dust I picked up off the
road yesterday.”

“That’s just what I do. Its coming into contact with your dear body has
transformed it and etherialized it. Oh, I love you so much! So much! No
other girl ever worshipped her lord as I worship you. I know it is wrong
to hate, and I pray God to forgive me, but I now feel only hatred toward
everybody who stands in the way of our being one, and living out our
lives together.”

After some time, as a last resort, pretending to be very angry, he
kicked me, and ordered me to go down to the other end of the boat. Such
treatment humiliated and saddened me, because I thought it an evidence
that I was despised. I immediately became repentant for having so
imposed on his good nature, asked his pardon, and departed.

[Sidenote: _In My Twenty-Fifth Year._]

When I left, I expected never to set eyes on him again. The next morning
I purposely lay abed very late, in order that he might have taken his
departure before I should leave my state-room. I was afraid he might
encounter me with my employer, and in some way betray to the latter my
sexual peculiarity. But as it happened, he also did not leave the boat
until late, and caught sight of me seated at the breakfast table with my
employer. On seeing him approach, I was stricken with terror, fearing he
might denounce me. As he passed, I hardly dared look at him. He made a
sign for me to rise and follow him. For fear my employer might somehow
suspect something, and in order to discourage any farther approach, I
appeared not to notice his beckoning. Moreover, I did not dare follow
him immediately, though I would have given a fortune to have been at
full liberty to do so. I realized that I might be losing forever a
companion and mate for life whom I slavishly adored.

Five minutes afterward, as soon as I felt I could leave my employer’s
side without exciting his suspicion, I followed in the direction the
young man had taken, but saw nothing of him. Wringing my hands in
desperation, I rushed all over the vessel, peering into every nook and
corner. Then I went out on the wharf, and looked everywhere there. I
returned on board, and searched the whole boat from top to bottom three
times before giving up in despair. What a pang went through my heart
when I found he had gone and I not heard the message he had evidently
wished to give me! Never before in my life had I regretted anything as
much as not having inquired his name and address. As I was unwilling to
give my own, I did not like to ask for his. Furthermore, during our
evening together, I did not anticipate we could ever meet again, and so
thought it useless to ask. He, probably, as well as I, preferred that
his identity remain unknown.

[Sidenote: _Loss of My Best Chance._]

I had rarely felt more disconsolate, or more angry with the world, and I
experienced but little pleasure during my week in Boston. All the time,
the thought uppermost in my mind was to run across this young man again.
I spent as much time as possible in the most frequented localities,
peering into the face of every young man who passed to see if he were
not the one for whom I was pining. Several nights, after my employer had
retired, I stole out of my room, and seated myself on the steps of the
most frequented subway station until midnight, in the forlorn hope of
meeting by chance one particular individual out of the million in the
Boston metropolitan district.

He had informed me that he was an electrician. I spent many hours in
calling at shops where such workmen had their headquarters. Under some
pretext, I obtained permission to go through the works, and looked over
every young man employed there. I wrote letters to a number of his trade
whose names I found in the city directory, inquiring whether I had met
them on the steamer. On returning to New York, I engaged an electrical
apprentice to continue the search, but all my efforts proved fruitless.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Fairie Adventures in Europe._]

I now spent five months in Europe with my employer. I was generally free
evenings, and during our stay in the large cities, spent two or three a
week with beaux that I came across. I had considerable conversational
ability in four foreign languages. In Paris I generally spent my
evenings with the adolescent porters of the Gare St. Lazare, and in
Berlin with soldiers whom I met in the Tiergarten. Because of
indiscretions, I came near being arrested in Berlin and in Naples. In
only one instance in Europe was an attempt made to extort money from me,
and I yielded rather than get into trouble.

My flirtations in Europe were uneventful. I had to be far more cautious
there for fear of getting into trouble, and associate with my beaux clad
as a prosperous citizen. As they necessarily knew that I was a person of
attainments much higher than the average, I was restrained from going
far in impersonation of a young woman or a baby. I found that throughout
the large cities, fairies were as well known to the ultra-virile
adolescents as in New York, and the latter were equally susceptible to
the advances of the former.

In my unusually wide travels in America, I have never been accosted by a
pervert or an invert. But during my five months’ sojourn in Europe, I
was one evening accosted in one of the great capitals by a fairie
sixteen years of age, and in another I was accosted in a park by an
urning of twenty-six (that is, a man who craved mutual onanism). My
impression is that the inhabitants of the large cities of Europe are
more sex-mad than those of American cities of similar size. In one of
the great capitals (which I do not name out of charity) inversion and
perversion were frightful—incomparably more open, at least, than in New
York. It was my impression that there is more evanescent
homosexuality—due to lack of opportunities with the opposite sex—than in
America. Apparently the denser the population, the more widely extended
is homosexuality.

[Sidenote: _Sexual Impressions of Europe._]

In 1899 I was attracted by the German and the Dutch soldiers, but
incomparably less than by the American soldier. They did not appear to
be as powerfully built or as handsome, nor as wild and reckless. Their
uniforms impressed me as far less fascinating. I was not at all
attracted by the French soldiers, because I did not like their uniform,
particularly the red baggy trousers, and because facial hirsute
appendages are decidedly abhorrent to me. Likewise the British, Swiss,
and Italian uniforms impressed me as detracting from the masculinity of
the wearer instead of powerfully contributing to it, as the American
uniform. The German, Dutch, and particularly the American soldiers were
the only ones that came up to my idea of demigods.

On a sojourn in the Old World in 1911, I found myself admiring the
Moroccan, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian soldiers to about the same
degree as I have always admired the American. Indeed the Russians
impressed me as the most bewitching in the world, because they are the
most gigantic and the most savage-looking. I now came also to find the
British and the Italian uniforms rather attractive, but liked the French
and Swiss no better than before. In this later lengthy sojourn, I did
not once seek a beau, and had only feeble desires to do so, whereas
twelve years before I had a fierce, irresistible, obsession to be with
them as much as possible. But most of all, I was restrained by the
presence of my employer, who left me no good opportunity to seek other
company.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _First Half of Open Career Ends._]

After holding my position as private secretary during my middle twenties
for over two years, I was compelled to resign because a tradesman’s
driver who frequently delivered goods at the house of my employer
chanced to identify me while two ruffians were demanding blackmail on
the Bowery. I was denounced to the truck-driver as a ——. Several years
afterward I learned that knowledge of the incident probably never
reached my employer.

At this point in my life I wrote the present autobiography down to the
year arrived at (1899), having previously kept copious diaries.

The scene of the last six years of my open career as a fairie, still to
be described, lay in the neighborhood of—and in large part on—the
military reservations in the suburbs. Providence granted me the
fulfillment of a fond dream of years before—to be a soldiers’ mignon. I
now decided to devote exclusively to young Mars the remainder of my
youth—for with me the period of youth continued abnormally long, at
least until my early thirties. In 1899, at the age of twenty-five, I
successfully, as Jennie June, passed for twenty. At the close of my open
career, when I was thirty-one, I passed for twenty-four. As already
remarked, business associates who have not had the least suspicion of my
being an invert—chiefly because they did not know of the existence of
such people—have declared even down to my middle forties that I have not
ceased to be remarkably childlike both physically and psychically. If I
had had the physique and psychical constitution of the ordinary man, the
career I am outlining would have been impossible. But Nature has given
the fairie a physique and mentality _sui generis_.

[Sidenote: _Year 1899—I Become Deliciæ Militum._]

For a passive invert to make captives of ultra-virile adolescents,
he must be youthful, with facial hair eradicated or clean-shaven,
of somewhat feminine physique, looks, and manners, a good
female-impersonator, and an expert coquette. Many inverts lack
these qualities that are necessary to insure a successful career
as a fairie, and the vast majority have no desires along this
line. Some inverts, as well as some females, seem to be
predestined by Nature for the profession of fille de joie.

On the other hand, the professional fairie of the lowest class of public
house could not have had the long career around the forts that I had
because the soldiers would not have tolerated the presence there of such
a depraved being. The second half of my open career was possible because
while having the coquetry and craze for venery of the depraved fairie, I
had also the refinement, outward modesty, and general rectitude which
are to be expected in an androgyne brought up as a puritan and graduated
at a university. I repeat that throughout my career as a fairie—apart
from the coquetry and venery just named—I lived up to the highest
ethical standards, and never knowingly inflicted the least detriment on
a single soul.

[Sidenote: _Paragon of Morality Outside Sexual._]

More than once before the opening of this second half of my open career,
I had thought that my period of flirtation was at an end. Particularly
on account of my age, having now entered my twenty-sixth year, I had
thought no more romantic adventures could be mine. But it turned out
that these six years, even the last of them, when I was thirty-one, were
full of adventures as romantic as I had ever had.

When I dedicated myself to the career of a soldiers’ mignon, I was well
aware that these men are particularly subject to venereal disease—and I
ultimately contracted anal and buccal venereal warts, syphilis, and
gonorrhea from them, whereas during the first half of my career, I had
had close to 700 liaisons with civilian adolescents without contracting
any disease so far as I knew. But I gladly assumed this greatly
increased risk because of the ultra-virility and general terribleness of
the class in question. This terribleness is applicable only to the
professional common soldier when the nation is at peace.

I asked an unusually attractive artilleryman whom I met on the Bowery if
I might visit him at his barracks, and one evening made the journey. I
was conducted to his squad-room, but he was not in. I found myself in
what was to me a sensual paradise containing about a dozen youthful
soldiers busy at different things. I could not think of departing even
though my friend was out. I began to talk effeminately and babyishly. I
was immediately hailed as a fairie, and shown to a seat on a bunk,
having around me the arms of two soldiers, with several others sitting
or lying on the same bunk and caressing me. It was almost the same as if
a maiden had suddenly appeared in their midst. I out-womaned woman for
their entertainment and because I was fascinated.

[Sidenote: _Debut at Fort X._]

I was so enthusiastically received that I made the decision already
described, and for the period of a little more than two years visited
this military reservation one evening a week, devoting all the rest of
my time to scholarly pursuits.

For some weeks I enjoyed the rare pleasure of association with my idols
in a squad-room or in a non-commissioned officer’s private room, and had
the run of all the other rooms, since practically everybody looked upon
me the same as on an unoffending tabby-cat that might invade their
quarters. I was even put to bed in the barracks as tenderly as a mother
puts her babe in its cradle.

I have always shrunk with horror from handling the weapons of warfare
myself, but they had a wonderful fascination for me when in the hands of
soldiers, or when seen stacked in the squad-rooms.

A typical evening in a squad-room: On my entering, the soldiers shout
goodnaturedly: “Hello Jennie, old girl!”

“Hello all you big braves!”

The rumor soon spreads to other squad-rooms that “Jennie June” is making
a visit, and a score or more soon gather about me. I always came loaded
down with cigarettes and other things that soldiers are fond of, except
intoxicants. One youthful soldier after another rolls back his sleeves
and displays tattooed figures for me to rave over: “That proves you are
completely masculine, and I worship you for having it done.” Others
double back their right arms and let me feel of their biceps: “I call
you ‘Strength!’ I call you ‘Power!’ I call you a man of iron! Mighty man
of war! Mighty man of valor! Mighty man of renown!”

[Sidenote: _An Evening in a Squad-Room._]

Later one who meets me for the first time asks: “Do you call yourself a
girl? In all my life I never vidi puellam cum peni!”

“I know I am only part girl. I have a girl’s mind and breasts and my
body otherwise is much like a girl’s.”

“If you don’t believe Jennie is a girl, just feel of her breasts.”

Several stick their hands into my bosom. “He’s got a girl’s breasts all
right.”

They ask me to sing, listen attentively, and then remark: “That is a
high tenor. It has an effect on the voice all right.”

“Are you and I of the same sex?” I ask, taking pleasure in our physical
and psychical contrasts.

“No, Jennie, you are a baby, and we are the big, big braves.”

My presence would inspire them to an evening of innocent frolicking, and
they would play pranks on me, for example, dancing around the room
shrieking like wild Indians, brandishing their swords, and banging them
on the floor. I would respond to their pranks in the manner they were
looking for. They thought that I had only the mental capacity of a
girl-boy weakling, as I did not compose my own songs until after more
than two years of association with them.

[Sidenote: _Hecatontandry._]

In the barracks I was always outwardly modest and frowned on decidedly
improper advances, but my venery in private soon set a minority against
me so that entrance to the barracks was forbidden. I had a craze for
hecatontandry, and achieved it. In a letter I wrote: “You know by that
act [fellatio], you and I are bound together in a new and close relation
of friendship, in a sort of wedlock. We stand henceforth forever in the
relation of husband and wife, whether you will or not. Therefore please
always remember me as more nearly related to you, more completely a part
of your life and being, than your soldier comrades.”

In summer I would linger after retreat near the gate of the fort to
watch the soldiers start out to seek their evening’s recreation. A
hundred would pass, and nearly every one call out a pleasant greeting:
“Hello sweetheart!” “Hello little wife!” I would reply: “Hello you
dare-devil!” “Hello you dark-eyed beauty!” etc.

I was occasionally robbed or blackmailed by evil-minded ones, and was
several times handed over to the police by such as misunderstood me. But
the police always refused to place me under arrest, and even acted as a
bodyguard against the very few soldiers who loathed an effeminate male
and sought to inflict pain. My conduct in public was always above
reproach, although I have been forced at night on a public road by
half-intoxicated adolescents who happened to run across me. Discovery in
the bushes by pedestrians only thirty feet away would have placed me in
peril of long imprisonment. On one occasion the two soldiers had
threatened to cut my throat if I made a sound, and they themselves did
not stir from their positions (Simul fellatio atque pædicatio).

[Sidenote: _Ethics of My Conduct._]

As to the ethics of my conduct in the vicinity of the barracks, it was
not immoral. The ordinary woman has only one lord, to whom she is bound
“until death do part.” My lot was to have practically at one time a
hundred, who were not forcibly and permanently linked up with me. There
were not the reasons for monandry and for permanency that exist in the
former case. As to race-suicide, my associates were legally bound not to
rear families. From the standpoint of their health, relations with me
were safer than with the ordinary purveyors. Furthermore, they told me
that no exhaustion supervened the next day, as in my own case. I was not
bent primarily on coition, but on social intercourse tinged with
flirtation. I never solicited. It was not necessary, as every one knew
me.

Over two years now went by of an existence rendered very delectable by
reason of association with young Mars one evening a week, all the rest
of my time, as usual, being devoted to scholarly pursuits. I was then
called upon to say good-by—as I feared, forever—to my much coveted
position of pet of a fort, which I was in large measure. Spermatorrhea,
from which I had suffered acutely since the age of sixteen, had come to
a crisis. For the past two years, while looking to be in good health, I
had suffered intensely from mental and physical prostration, due almost
entirely to ejaculations during sleep but in small part to nervous shock
following fellatio.

[Sidenote: _Driven to a Stripling._]

Neurasthenia now confined me for six months to the village home of my
parents. The “procreative” instinct gave me no rest, just as a drug
fiend has none when denied his anodyne. Night after night I roamed the
streets in the factory section. On two occasions I was successful. On a
third I was crazed by enforced abstinence for over a month. I
encountered a youth just under puberty. I clandestinely ascertained that
he did not know me, did not attend the same church, and was employed in
a part of the village where he was not likely to run across me. I was a
shoemaker, just arrived in the village looking for work. I was lonely
and languishing for company. A burden was oppressing me and I needed a
confidant. Would he be my confidant? Would he promise to keep strictly
to himself what I was about to tell? Had he heard of hermaphrodites?[5]
I was one.

Footnote 5:

  As this term is commonly a part of the vocabulary of laboring men, I
  sometimes used it in reference to myself, as they would not have
  understood the proper term. I am of course not an hermaphrodite in the
  present signification of that term.

I found that to permit fellatio was decidedly against his tastes, and
plead earnestly that he would show me compassion, at the same time
offering money. His final answer was: “I was not brought up that way. I
would never permit it. I am a Christian.”

Fearing he would raise an alarm, and I would be arrested and my family
disgraced, I sprinted away. After a few seconds I looked back to see
whether I was followed. My terror produced the hallucination of a mob. I
sprinted around corner after corner and did not rest until some distance
outside the village, where I found a hiding place and moaned and
complained to my Creator over my lot.

[Sidenote: _Spermatorrhea._]

I was now afraid to show myself in the village, and unutterably downcast
at being the victim of an obsession which led me to commit what are
commonly regarded as revolting crimes. From this consideration, and also
because of the wrecking of my health through emissions during sleep, I
decided on immediate castration. Minor motives were that I would prefer
to possess one less mark of the male, and that I thought the facial hair
cells would cease to function and I thus be rid of my most detested and
most troublesome badge of masculinity.

From the age of seventeen to nineteen, on the day following an
ejaculation during sleep, I would be feeble, very forgetful, and would
stammer. From nineteen on, after I had begun to yield to instinct, the
ill effects were much less marked until during my twenty-eighth year—the
point of time at which this autobiography has arrived—when my eyes were
dim for one or two days following, my hearing was somewhat disarranged,
and my heart abnormal in its action. During this period of eleven years,
various remedies prescribed by physicians were without effect. I
happened to be a globe-trotter, and thereby discovered that travelling,
particularly sea voyages, much diminished the ejaculations. It is
necessary here to remind the reader that both solitary and mutual
onanism were always entirely unknown to me, and that in my sexual life,
my pudenda were practically non-existent.

[Sidenote: _Castrated at Twenty-Seven._]

Castration, by removing the exhausting effects of emissions, gave me a
new lease on life. I also believe it saved to me my sight and hearing.
But with the testicles I lost a very large part of my physical strength.
I was a semi-invalid for five years following. For example, the upper
limit of my afternoon walks declined from ten to three miles. But my
debility did not affect my looks or interfere seriously with the
practice of my profession. If, on days when I felt tolerably vigorous, I
stirred about uncommonly, I would be prostrated for from two to seven
days following. It appeared as if the muscular waste was not eliminated
from the blood as before castration, but remained in my system as a
poison, rendering me dazed, taking the edge off my intellect, and
enervating my body. I could spare my mental faculties for use in my
profession only by leading a very quiet life, slow and limited in
physical movement.

But beginning about five years after castration and continuing for ten
years, I was physically as vigorous as before. Apparently my system
found some other way of accomplishing the alteration in the blood
usually the work of the testicles. Simultaneously with this return of my
strength, the increase in adipose tissue following castration in large
part disappeared. For ten years I remained in this physical condition,
when suddenly, within about six weeks, adipose tissue rapidly increased
and has rendered my figure for two years, down to the date of writing
(1918), that “of a fat frau in the last stages of pregnancy,” to quote
the words of business associates. I simultaneously returned to the low
degree of physical strength obtaining immediately after castration.

[Sidenote: _Effects of Castration._]

The following is my weight, stripped, at various ages; 20–25, 110
pounds; at castration at 27, 128; 29–32, 143; 32–42, 133; two years
following (1916–1918), 160. After castration it required two years to
rise gradually from 128 to 143. My obesity is entirely due to
castration, as slenderness is universal in my family.

After castration, ejaculations during sleep gradually declined in
frequency, but continued, with the emission of a sticky fluid of the
appearance of semen, for about nine months. But dreams of
ejaculations—that is, a sort of pseudo-ejaculations—occurred about once
a fortnight for several years, and about once in three months as late as
fourteen years after castration. I would be dreaming of fellatio, and
seemed to feel the muscular contractions that take place during
ejaculation. Awakening in alarm, it seemed that I must find some fluid,
but did not.

Even up to more than three years after castration, I occasionally during
fellatio experienced the spasm, when I could distinctly feel the
contractions ductus ejaculatorii, as if to push along the semen,
although nothing would exude. At those times I would utter a spasmodic
groan.

Fourteen years after castration, when I had not experienced an emission
for six years, I was with a companion who held the palm for amativeness
among all that I had known. Amplexus ejus fervidi induxerunt in me
emissionem copiosam. I immediately dismissed him because of my extreme
exhaustion, and expected to be prostrated the following day, as before
castration, but found myself with vigor of mind and body unimpaired.

[Sidenote: _Craze for Fellatio Diminishes._]

Down to seventeen years after castration, there has been no effect on my
facial hair. Possibly it has thinned and made more tenuous the hair on
trunk and limbs. The consequent deposit of adipose tissue has increased
the prominence of my breasts, but before castration these were almost as
large as in some women. The operation greatly increased the deleterious
effect of fellatio on my health. One indulgence a week was more
detrimental than a score a week during my “low-class fairie” period. If
I had now been as intemperate as then, I believe I would have become
violently insane.

Not until two years after castration was there perceptible a diminution
in my craze for fellatio. It was probably the result of the operation,
but possibly due to satiety or to age (my thirtieth year). What probably
contributed most to my moderation after reaching the age of thirty was
the greatly increased deleterious effect of fellatio. I shrank from the
penalty of from two to five days of semi-prostration placed by Nature on
a half hour’s fellatio. On the other hand, amplexus sine fellatione had
no ill effects.

As to the effect of castration on my mental faculties, I am of the
opinion—seventeen years after the operation—that there has been no
effect either good or bad. I am convinced, however, that the congenital
unusually sharp edge of my intellect has been very much dulled
permanently by the years of excessive emissions during sleep. But I am
_not_ convinced that my career as a fairie has contributed. Subsequently
to the age of twenty-three I have been a very poor listener, unable to
focus my attention, particularly on conversation. Much goes into one ear
and out the other notwithstanding my best efforts at attention. It is a
species of mental deafness. I hear the words distinctly but cannot grasp
their significance. The only other considerable diminution of my
youthful keenness of mind is my slowness since passing the age of
twenty-five in unravelling a problem, and in arriving at a decision on
any matter. For example, as a student, I could see through a
mathematical problem almost as “quick as a flash.” More and more as I
have grown older I am very dense in mathematical reasoning.

[Sidenote: _Effect on Mental Faculties._]

To sum up seventeen years after castration—I have always been of the
opinion that it was the only thing to have done. But on account of even
the slight risk attached to the operation, and particularly the
resultant diminution of physical vigor, I would not advise that other
inverts be castrated unless they suffer seriously from spermatorrhea.

                  *       *       *       *       *

On my trip to New York in order to be castrated, I had my first
opportunity in five months to go on a female-impersonation spree. On the
Bowery I met two youthful artillerymen. On our parting they gave me
their names and invited me to call at their barracks, which, to obviate
notoriety, I will refer to as “Ft. Y.” I will likewise hereafter refer
to my first military stamping ground as “Ft. X.”

[Sidenote: _Sample Letter._]

Two months after castration I resumed my vocation and residence in New
York, and my first care was to dispatch the following:


 O my adored artilleryman,

I am very sad and lonely. My heart is at the point of bursting through
pining for you. I want to visit you at the barracks. I want to see where
the dear soldiers sleep and I want to eat in the mess-hall with them.
Could you not let me spend a few days with you in the barracks? You can
tell the fellows I am your cousin. I wish I could live with warriors all
the time. My highest earthly joy is to be in a squad-room and with
soldiers.... What do you see in a girl to love? In a fellow I see
strength, boldness, recklessness, pugnacity, a manly walk, and
fierceness of expression, which cause me to fall down before him in
adoration....

                                                         Your baby,
                                                             JENNIE JUNE


After receiving a satisfactory reply, I one afternoon, according to
appointment, arrived at the barracks’ railroad station. Two soldiers
were waiting, but not the two I had met. I inquired if they knew A. B.
One replied that he was A. B., and they tried to pass as the two I had
met. I declared he was not A. B., but he proved his identity by
displaying wearing apparel I had sent him and the letters I had written.
I had been corresponding with a total stranger. Nevertheless I
accompanied them and they entertained me royally.

[Sidenote: _Debut at Fort Y._]

They refused to take me to the barracks, as they did not wish to be seen
in my company by the other soldiers. They also refused to tell me the
names of my two Bowery acquaintances, but inadvertently referred to one
by a nickname. I went to the barracks and hunted for its owner until I
found him. He received me hospitably. As companionship with soldiers in
a squad-room was for me the best of earth’s paradises, I had the
intention at Ft. Y to conduct myself invariably on the military
reservation just like a normal young man, so that I would not be barred
from the squad-rooms, as had happened at Ft. X because I had acted the
fairie in these rooms.

Nevertheless the fact that I was a fairie spread rapidly, and all eyes
were fastened upon me wherever I moved. I learned later that my
love-letters had been handed around for every one to read. When my call
ended, a crowd of fifty soldiers gathered on the porch to see me off. In
addition every window was filled with soldiers calling out: “Hello
Jennie June!” “Hello sweetheart!” Under such an incentive, I yielded to
the impulses of a coquette and gave a female-impersonation, much to the
delight of my audience. I was overjoyed at receiving attentions
simultaneously from a hundred young Mars. I was never better dressed,
blue suit bound with braid—as ornamental as a man not in uniform could
possibly wear—and large red bow with ends hanging down below the
coat-collar, the bow constituting the badge of fairie-ism. The skin of
my face was as soft and smooth as that of a baby, I having only just
pulled out every hair by the roots.

[Sidenote: _Events of 1902._]

Possibly on account of its being just before retreat, only one soldier
followed when I took my departure, and one with whom I had never
exchanged a word. He scraped acquaintance and demonstrated himself to be
an ideal associate for an androgyne. But he was a born and bold robber,
ransacked my pockets, and even helped himself to some of my wearing
apparel. Nevertheless for the two years following, he was my special
partner at Ft. Y, always picking my pockets mercilessly and fearlessly
as soon as we met, but otherwise an ideal lord and master. I adored him
because he was marvellously handsome, strong, and brave, as well as
because he was one of the greatest desperadoes I ever met.

From this date on, in the summer of 1902, until the summer of 1905,
which saw the close of my open career as a fairie, I made it a practice
to spend an evening (in warm weather generally including the afternoon)
one week at Ft. Y, and the alternate week at Ft. X. Having the closest
of friendships at both forts, I had thus to divide my time between them.
Because of the demands on me in my ordinary scholarly career, I could
not give to the “Jennie June” side of existence any more time than that
mentioned, although I would have very much liked to be with my idols
continuously.

The time that I did spend with the soldiers was almost entirely devoted
to innocent frolicking. I was to a large extent the medium through which
they got joy out of life. For example, they have given me names of
comrades and even of commissioned officers as their own, with the
request for a love-letter. Until I learned of the deception, the letters
went. I was told that my love letters and songs were tacked to the fort
bulletin boards in order that every one might have the opportunity to
read them. Several times at the beginning of my visits to Ft. Y, I was
received in the squad-rooms. Soldiers danced with me there, making
believe I was their girl. I was otherwise their plaything, being paraded
about on their shoulders or lying in a stretcher, being tossed up in a
blanket, etc. I joined with them in base-ball and foot-ball, of course
not in regular games, as I was as awkward as the average girl in these
sports, being merely the buffoon of the game. Thus taking part in the
pastimes of the soldiers was to me one of the highest pleasures of life.

[Sidenote: _Frolicking with Soldiers._]

Of course they always regarded me as a girl-boy weakling. Policy
required that I always represent myself as a person of no talents except
those of the fairie, and as a person occupying a humble station in life.
Otherwise some of a vicious turn of mind would have followed me up with
the purpose of blackmail, as was done in 1905, when the thirst for money
suddenly put an end to my association with soldiers of one fort and
almost occasioned my murder. Some quizzed me from time to time in order
to ascertain whether I was worth following up, but I saved the situation
through subterfuge. While they were ignorant that I belonged habitually
to a high social stratum, I lost only trifling sums through robbery and
blackmail.

They looked upon me as a rather remarkable individual. One of them told
a policeman in my presence that I had been the talk of the fort for
months. In a parade in which my soldier friends took part, I as
spectator occupied a rather prominent position on the very edge of the
line, and from rank after rank as they passed, I distinguished the
words: “There’s Jennie June.” At an inter-fort ball game at which there
were 500 spectators, amid the continuous shouting, a score got together
on my arrival and several times in unison shouted “Jennie June!” I
achieved popularity at both forts, although a small percentage proved
irreconcilable.

[Sidenote: _Popularity and Fame Achieved._]

When soldiers of Forts X and Y met at athletic contests, they
interchanged stories about my adventures. At the army manoeuvres in
Virginia in 1905, in which soldiers from all the forts in states
bordering on the Atlantic took part, my peculiarities and adventures
were spread broadcast, as I learned through encountering on the Bowery a
soldier from a fort which I had never visited who had just returned from
the manoeuvres. Realizing that as “Jennie June” I was very widely known
among soldiers, I made it a practice of asking those whom I ran across
in New York if they had ever heard of “Jennie June.” A considerable
proportion, before I revealed my identity, were able to recount
adventures in which I had figured.

During this closing period of my open career as a fairie, I was indeed
very widely known personally. On the streets and on public conveyances
when amid New York’s crowds, I was a number of times accosted by young
men, some of whom I could not remember, but who had seen me somewhere
and knew me as Jennie June. Several times as many people knew me under
this name and character as under my real masculine name.

[Sidenote: _Adventures at the Forts._]

I overran the two military reservations as no other civilian would have
been allowed to. Soldiers on or off guard would escort me under or
behind the fortifications, beyond the “dead line” for all other
civilians. Sometimes at night when I had learned that one of my
intimates was on guard on a certain beat, I would seek him. Perhaps I
would run up against a stranger on guard, but one who knew me by sight
or reputation. A voice out of the darkness: “Halt! Who goes there?”
“Jennie June.” “Advance to be recognized!” On half such occasions I
received the most enthusiastic welcome, and always at least kindness and
permission to go on my way.

When I met an acquaintance on guard at night, I would kiss his rifle and
bayonet as being the emblems of the highest function of the mere animal
man. I would also kiss his gloves and his hat, and shower the rest of
his clothing with kisses.

Sometimes I was admitted for an hour or two in the guard-house, where
the soldiers waiting for their turn at guard would while away their time
in spooning with me, imagining that I was a complete physical puella. I
was even introduced near midnight into the prisoners’ quarters. To be
thus handed over to the youthful military prisoners—in general the
wildest and roughest of all humanity—was the attainment of the very
height of my ambition as a fairie.

On my departure for home, as high as a dozen have escorted me at night
along the deserted country roads and through the woods. Thoroughly
fatigued after an hour, and refusing to go on, I would have my wrists
twisted, and be slapped and pinched into obedience. But not one of the
500 acquaintances at Ft. Y ever inflicted pain because of ill will, and
only six or seven of the 500 at Ft. X. I had remarkable success in
winning the favor of men who before learning to know me personally
detested me because they thought I was of the type of fairie to be found
in the lowest of New York’s dens of vice. Personal acquaintance
convinced them that I was an individual devoid of all vices except
coquetry and dalliance.

[Sidenote: _Adventures with Policemen._]

In the vicinity of X, I several times came into contact with the police,
who came to know me as a fairie. The youthful ones would chat in a
friendly manner, but some of the older ones, to whom soldiers who had
not learned my inoffensive character had denounced me as an undesirable
person to have around, have heartlessly ordered me off their beat, and
warned me never to be seen there again under penalty of arrest. I
thereafter sought to avoid them, but nothing ever resulted. My conduct
in public was of course always above reproach. It was a bitter
experience to have the public streets closed to me when I had been
entirely inoffensive.

The following are extracts from letters written during this period to a
former university associate. He had always been my favorite of all the
students, being good-looking, athletic, and of particularly noble
disposition. If he had not turned the cold shoulder on my amatory
advances, and had been willing to be mated with me permanently—as I
fondly imagined before I started on my career as a fairie—monandry would
probably have satisfied me for life. In my first two or three years of
puberty, monandry had occupied my thoughts rather than polyandry. This
friend has continued to be a confidant from my student days down to the
present writing, when I have reached my middle forties. In all my fairie
life of twenty-five years, outside of several physicians, from whom I
sought a cure, and my favorite pastor, I have confided events of that
life only to five close friends of my ordinary life, and they all proved
helpful and compassionate, and continued to be as good friends as ever.

[Sidenote: _A Conductor’s Sympathy._]

(1) [Referring to only my second evening spent with men of Ft. Y.] Next
they led me to a tree, and said they were going to get a rope and hang
me. [Teasing.] I thought they intended great violence, and to save
myself, while still held by them, fell to the ground, feigning to have a
fit. This ruse frightened them, and they all ran off, fearing they had
seriously injured me by their rough treatment. I lay in the woods until
they were out of hearing, then arose and walked to the depot. But it was
dark and I lost my way, and arrived at the wrong depot. I had my return
ticket, which I had kept safe in my sock, but the conductor demanded an
extra nickel. I told him I had no money, except a dollar sewed in my
clothes. This I secured and paid him. I told him the soldiers had taken
all of my money, and how roughly they had handled me, of course
confessing myself to be an invert. It was surprising to hear his words
of condolence, coming as they did from an uneducated conductor, the most
beautiful words of sympathy I ever heard, just like the words of the
Savior to the woman taken in adultery. Among other things he said: “If
only every one lived as harmless a life as you, this world would be all
right.”

[Sidenote: _Female and Infant Impersonation Natural._]

(2) I sat down on a stone wall near the reservation to eat my lunch. I
was both sick and exhausted, and wept while eating, and regretted I had
come when I was feeling ill. But I felt that I couldn’t keep away. I
longed to be where I am regarded as a girl and a baby, and where I am
flirted with and petted.... I also mourned my fate, reflecting on my
errand, and realizing that I was doing what would ostracize me and shock
society if they heard of it.

(3) I often ask myself: When will it all end? I answer: When I am thirty
years old. [I was then twenty-eight.] Then I shall be no longer
youthful, and only a youthful person can be a professional fairie. A
fairie over thirty is unthinkable. If I still have strong desire after
that age, I shall have to seek some one in private [This came true]
instead of flaunting myself as a fairie before the public gaze. For a
male of over thirty to act the woman and the baby before a company of
men would be unthinkable. But now, at my present age, it seems to me
natural and not unbecoming.

(4) I am sometimes conscience-stricken over my actions. When I entered
college, I intended my life to be one of self-denial, and I intended in
every act to live over again as nearly as possible the life of Christ.
But I am now doing almost nothing to spread the kingdom of God in the
hearts of men, and to visit and cheer and relieve the afflicted, and I
am indulging in so much animal pleasure.... Nevertheless, though I
indulge in promiscuous intercourse, I spend no more moments in the
pleasures of Aphrodite than the majority of married people, and I do not
make these pleasures the chief aim of life. I spend one evening a week
in flirting with what to me is the opposite sex, intensely masculine,
fierce, cruel, pugnacious young men, and in dalliance with them. Two
hours per week spent in the company of sweethearts, and all the rest of
my time spent in seclusion from them. Am I a libertine? Am I indulging
excessively in the lower pleasures of life?

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Events of 1903._]

I shall now describe a chain of events which led up to my complaining in
person to the colonel commanding Ft. X.


                                                            Aug. 3, 1903

 Adored dark-eyed sergeant,

Please do not be offended because I called you a bad sergeant last
night. You were a bad sergeant when you gave me that other sergeant’s
name as yours, and so made me write that letter to him full of hot
protestations of love, all meant for you, but which he was mad to
receive. You made trouble for me by it, and the other sergeant
threatened to slap me unless I found out your name and told him. So I
have told him, but I made him promise not to hit you, only give you a
piece of his mind.... Two months ago you were so friendly to me when you
were on guard, and I was more than fascinated with you. The last ten
times since that I have been near the fort, I have gone up to the gate
to see if you were on guard. Last night I found you there for the first,
and I was so glad. But you were not friendly, as you were the first time
I saw you, so now I am afraid to write another love-letter to you, for
fear you will be mad.... Why did you let that horrible soldier Murphy
hit me and throw stones at me? He ought to be ashamed to hit a girl....
After I got home, I cried my eyes out because I couldn’t come in and
talk to you as last time, and because you aimed a gun at me.... Do
please speak to me the next time we meet, because I shall be too much
afraid to speak to you....

                                         I am, adored sergeant,
                                                     Your slave forever,
                                                             JENNIE JUNE


[Sidenote: _In My Thirtieth Year._]

About two weeks later I find the same sergeant on guard. Having no fear
because of his previous familiarity, I beg to be allowed to spend an
hour on the porch of the guard-house, as he had once permitted. But as
soon as I arrived there, he declares he gave me permission simply that
he might put me under arrest. I beg for mercy: “Do please let the baby
go home, and don’t arrest her!”

“Hand out a ten dollar bill and you can go home. I won’t have you
writing such letters to me as you did. Just for one sentence you wrote
to Sergeant V you could be imprisoned: ‘I am a woman entombed in the
body of a man.’ How can you write such things?”

“You cannot complain of the letters I write to you when you have used to
me the indecent language you have. I won’t pay you anything. You have
used language to me ten times as bad as I have ever used to you.”

[Sidenote: _Psychical Infantilism._]

He gradually lowers his demand to two dollars, but I did not have the
amount with me. He orders me to lay on the table all the money I have,
and it is pocketed by one of the soldiers standing by.

After some time, I felt reassured, and began to act the part of a baby,
hoping to put them in a good humor so they would allow me to depart
unharmed. Like a four-year old, I beg and pout to enlist so I “can give
the soldiers their bread and make their beds.” I pout “to be let in to
see the sleeping beauties,” meaning the soldiers who were in bed in the
guard-house. I complain of being sleepy, and sob to be given a bed in
the room with the sleeping guard. Artillerymen are repeatedly passing,
some of whom tease me rather roughly, pulling my hair, etc. I
supplicated: “Do please let me go home and don’t hurt me. I am half an
invalid and can’t stand much.”

“You’ll be a whole invalid before you get out of here tonight.”

“Really I am a semi-invalid. I look well, but eunuchs always look fat
and well, even when they are sick.”

After I had been detained about an hour, the soldier “Murphy” happens to
pass, one of the most burly and roughest in the post. He tries several
times to see if he can lift me off my feet by my hair, and though I
adore him, I call out just for effect: “You horrible soldier!” He took
me seriously. I suddenly felt myself being carried rapidly somewhere. He
bore me to the gate of the reservation, and pitched me out on the road.
Then he kicked me along for a few feet, crying out for me to get along
home, while I was screaming in fright.

[Sidenote: _Interview with Colonel._]

About two weeks later, as I was passing the guard-house, I was placed
under arrest by another sergeant-of-the-guard, and conducted before the
officer-of-the-day. This was the only time that I was genuinely placed
under arrest on a military reservation. The sergeant informed the
officer that I was a fairie and that I hung around the reservation and
the guard-house. The officer asked me why I frequented the reservation,
and I replied: “Because I like the soldiers, because I like to have them
for my friends.” After an investigation lasting several minutes, when he
found out that I had really been guilty of nothing improper, the officer
ordered the sergeant to let me go, and in a very mild and gentlemanly
way suggested, rather than forbade, that in the future I do not frequent
the reservation. He received me indeed in a wonderfully kind manner, for
which I shall be eternally grateful to him. Knowing that I was in
hostile hands, I appealed to the officer to order the sergeant that no
harm should be done me on the reservation.


But the sergeant—one of the few soldiers who detested me—was chagrined
that the officer had upset his plan of having me locked up. After the
officer had retired, the sergeant therefore started kicking me, and as I
ran past the guard-house, three of the guard, influenced by the example
of their sergeant, knocked me down three times. I immediately complained
to the colonel. He also received me most kindly, notwithstanding that I
explained at the outset that I was an invert, and he reprimanded the
sergeant.

[Sidenote: _Sadism._]

A week later I happened to meet “Murphy” on a much frequented street. On
my refusal to accompany him to a low bar-room, he dragged me there in
spite of continuous protest and struggling. Half a dozen civilians
watched the struggle but did not interfere. Inside were several soldiers
and civilians, some partially intoxicated and wrangling, and two filles
de joie. Before the eyes of all, my captor immediately rifled my
pockets, while exclaiming: “I am going to marry you! I am going to marry
you! As soon as I get a good drunk on, I am yours!” We were together an
hour in the bar-room. Soldiers come and go, some of them flirting with
me vigorously before the eyes of all. The next day I wrote my captor:


O you adored giant artilleryman, Ever since the first time you hit me
and drove me out of the gate, how I have adored you! But ever since you
carried me out in your arms, I have been wild for you, as I have never
been over any other fellow. You have abused me more than any other
soldier, but, my cruel master, I adore you the most of any fellow in the
world. Of all the men in the world, I would pick you out to be my
husband and master. You, fierce artilleryman, are my ideal of manly
beauty and charm. You are the ideal I have been looking for all my life.
O how I worship you! I pass by the fellows who have always been kind to
me, and seek for my husband that one who has been the most cruel. O
won’t you take me to be your wife? Last night you promised to marry me
before I ever spoke about marrying you. Won’t you keep your promise?...
You are the roughest, fiercest, most daring, most cruel fellow I ever
met. That is why I love you so. You are the greatest fighter and slugger
I ever met. That is why I am pining to become your slave....


                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _A Company Marshalled Before Me._]

After my arrest, I did not dare go on the Ft. X reservation for several
months. On one of my first subsequent visits—in daylight—I encountered
the officer who had mildly prohibited the reservation to me. As soon as
he spied me, he walked rapidly in the opposite direction as if fearing I
would speak.

In the following year, I was assaulted on the street by three privates
because I refused to take a walk with them off into the woods, since one
of them had formerly rifled my pockets. I complained by letter to their
captain, and he immediately invited me to call. But evidently he
afterward spoke of the matter to other officers, and learned my
character, for he withdrew his invitation in less than twenty-four
hours. Nevertheless I called. I thought it advisable to state in advance
something about the peculiar life I led, having no fear of arrest
because I never voluntarily rendered myself liable. He frankly confessed
that he could not courtmartial my assailants because I was an invert,
but courteously ordered all his command to appear before me for
identification since I was resolved to try prosecution in a police court
just to see whether an invert of unexceptionable conduct on the public
street, assaulted by ruffians without any reason, would be there
accorded the rights of all other citizens.

[Sidenote: _1905—Farewell to Men of Forts X and Y._]

On leaving the reservation—much to my surprise—a young woman accosted me
and pleaded for my assailants, one of whom was a brother, while she was
the wife of a non-commissioned officer. She stated that my assailants
solemnly promised never again to molest me, and entreated me not to have
them arrested.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Through no resolve of my own, the early spring of 1905 saw the end of my
association with men of Ft. X. For several months they were in Maryland,
taking part in the army manoeuvres. On their return I did not renew my
visits because of taking up my residence in a distant city.

It was with great pain that I paid my farewell visit to Ft. Y. About a
dozen soldiers happened to be leaving on the same train, and asked me to
join them. When they alighted, I waved from the car window, and they
gave in unison and loudly “Three cheers for Jennie June” as the train
moved away. Not one, however, knew that I was never to visit them again,
as it was not wise for me to make known that I was leaving New York
permanently.

At its very zenith—when I held the coveted position of pet of two forts,
as I was in large measure—my open career as a fairie now came to an end.
After I had removed permanently to a distant city, how I missed the kind
greetings which came from nearly every soldier whom I ran across on or
near the two reservations, and how I pined for them! I loved them
primarily with a Christian, non-sensual, wifely love. With my whole soul
I desired to serve them through life as their slave, but my being at the
very end of my physical endurance and an unusual economic opportunity in
a distant city induced me to say good-by forever. Farewell, a long
farewell, to my many soul-mates of both forts!

[Sidenote: _Fairie Songs._]

My songs, in a treble voice, contributed much to my popularity. The
soldiers were much diverted, eagerly grasped up the hectograph editions,
and treasured and sang them. They likewise preserved love-letters I had
written them, and stated their purpose to exhibit both songs and letters
to their friends at home when their enlistments expired. The songs
formed a large element in my fairie career, as well as describe some of
my adventures. Humans, when in love, are inspired to poetize. Some of my
own outpourings follow. The dedications are retained as in the original
hectograph editions.

[Sidenote: _A Corporal, a Private, and Me._]

(Air original.)

Dedicated to Corporal Frank B.

               As I was walking on the beach,
                 A corporal did me see;
               He said right off, “Dear Baby June,
                 Will you my wifie be?”
                   I fainted quite,
                   From joy, not fright,
                 And in his arms did fall;
                   I nestled there,
                   So free from care,
                 And called to him, “My all!”

               As we did talk on the sandy walk,
                 A private came stalking by;
               He said right off, “There’s Baby June,
                 The girl for whom I’d die!”
                   To see him by,
                   I had to cry,
                 I was so happy then;
                   Head on his blouse,
                   I breathed my vows
                 To both artillerymen.

               I took their brawny hands in mine,
                 Then kissed till they were sore;
               I slapped and slapped each soldier brave,
                 These mighty men of war;
                   For their love taps,
                   And playful slaps,
                 I also entered plea:—
                   Sweet words they breathed,
                   While me they wreathed,
                 Down by the murmuring sea.

[Sidenote: _Baby Crying for Her Brave._]

(Air: “Hello Central”)

Dedicated to Sergeant Frank B., handsome, strong, and noble; a brave,
brave gunner; the most popular man in his company; the favorite of his
captain; first in foot-ball; first in base-ball; and first in the heart
of Jennie June.

                  BABY is so sad and lonely,
                    Pining for her soldier brave;
                  Night and day, awake or sleeping,
                    Crieth for him, e’en doth rave:
                  O to rest upon his bosom,
                    In his blouse her face to hide!
                  O to feel his strong arms round her!
                    Why this bliss denied?

                  Refrain:
                  Baby’s dying, naught can save her,
                    Pining for her brave;
                  Naught can save but his caresses,
                    For which she doth rave:
                  O come quick, dear soldier hero,
                    Clasp her to thy breast;
                  For she’s surely pining, dying,
                    In thine arms to rest.

                  Were she able, surely would she
                    Hasten quick to reach thy side;
                  To thee knit, cemented, mortised,
                    Would she e’er henceforth abide:
                  Clinging, O so fast and closely,
                    Would she lose herself in thee;
                  No more two, but ever, always,
                    With thee ONE to be.

[Sidenote: _My Fierce Murphy._[6]]

Footnote 6:

  A substitute is here used for the real name of the soldier.

(Air: “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean.”)

             THE night I first met my fierce Murphy,
               He punched me and kicked me and stoned;
             He sent me away all in tatters,
               I screamed and I wept and I moaned.
             But I loved him, I loved him,
               I loved him more than I can tell, can tell!
             I loved him, I loved him,
               I loved him more than I can tell!

             He was the next time even fiercer,
               He snatched me up, threw me outside;
             But while I was held in his clutches,
               My face in his blouse I did hide.
                 I loved him, I loved him,
             That moment I was in his arms, strong arms!
                 I loved him, I loved him,
               That moment I was in his arms!

             The third time he said he’d me marry,
               This wonderful, wonderful brave!
             I then was so robbed of my reason,
               I nothing did but for him rave.
                 I loved him, I loved him,
             I nothing did but for him rave—yes, rave!
                 I loved him, I loved him,
               I nothing did but for him rave!

             I’m dying, I’m dying, I’m dying,
               For love of this wonderful brave;
             I’m dying, I’m dying, I’m dying—
               Will he not show mercy and save?
                 Dying—dying—
             I see yawn for me the dark grave, dread grave!
                 Dying—dying—
               Will he not show mercy and save?

[Sidenote: _Wild Arthur McCann._[7]]

Footnote 7:

  The soldier gave me this name, later found to be fictitious. “Blanco”
  is here inserted in place of the real name of the fort.

(Air: “Sweet Rosy O’Grady”)

 O DOWN at Blanco fort, that overlooks the deep blue sea,
   I found a big ferocious brave on guard the other day;
 His name is Art McCann, and O, I don’t mind telling thee,
   That he’s the wildest fiercest Art—that’s ever come my way.

 Refrain:
   Wild Arthur McCann—
     He’s stolen my heart!
   O what a fierce man
     Is this big strong Art!
   I say he looks fierce—
     Fierce, fierce is his face;
   I love wild Arthur McCann—
 In my heart he holds the first place.

 He’s not afraid of anything, a man more than the rest;
   A man that is a man, enlists, and fights, yea valiantly;
 A man in blue!—Red color too is seen upon his breast!
   The strong, the mighty brave, who fights!—who is all boy, all he.

 Wild, wild, wild, wild!—I could him kiss forever and a day;
   Strong, strong, strong, strong!—I do adore prostrate upon the ground;
 Brave, brave, brave, brave!—I will him praise and every homage pay;
   Fierce, fierce, fierce, fierce!—I would it tell—in all the world
      around.

[Sidenote: _The Night on the Hillside._]

(Air: “Old Oaken Bucket.”)

Dedicated to J. F. M.

      How dear to my heart is the night on that hillside,
        Where we, my dear warrior, did first our love show;
      When I on your breast did contentedly nestle,
        While we as two lovers did whisper so low:
      How charming you looked in your blue and brass buttons,
        Your belt and your military cap and your part;
      Bewitching you were as you put your arms round me,
        And called me your wife and your baby sweetheart.

      Refrain:
      Your baby girl pines for you, sighs for you, cries for you,
        Moans, shrieks, and dies for you, soldier in blue.

      I’ll always remember that night on the hillside,
        E’en if, my dear warrior, we ne’er meet again;
      E’en though I have many brave beautiful sweethearts,
        You never, ah never, shall drop from my ken:
      I’ll think of you darling—yes pray for you ever,
        As long as I live on God’s beautiful earth;
      God gave you to me as a husband so tender,
        You’re mine now forever, so much to me worth!

[Sidenote: _A Man that is a Man._]

(Air: “The Last Rose of Summer.”)

Dedicated to “Curly.”

                  ’Tis a soldier I’m praising,
                    So big and so strong;
                  The most manly, yet tender,
                    That e’er I did song:
                  Oh people, you know not
                    The gem that he is!
                  How can I sing to you
                    What virtues are his!

                  To fight for his country,
                    He shoulders a gun;
                  He fears not the bullets,
                    Their whistle’s but fun:
                  Though others might waver
                    In battle’s uproar,
                  My boy shows the hero,
                    A born man of war.

                  He’s the pride of his country,
                    A most mighty brave;
                  We have fear of no nation,
                    We trust him to save:
                  With fear he and his fellows
                    The nations inspire;
                  For they shine out as warriors
                    Of might and of fire.

                  Though a man of such power,
                    He uses it alone
                  In causes that are righteous,
                    And ne’er in his own:
                  He can spare and can punish—
                    A man of such might!—
                  But is kind-hearted and gentle,
                    Acts ever aright.

                  He’s so kind to the outcast,
                    To me whom all curse;
                  A big heart, sympathetic,
                    That never thinks worse
                  Than to speak kindly words out
                    To whome’er he meets,
                  And assist any sufferer,
                    As he stalks through the streets.

                  And he takes with the maidens?
                    They fall at his feet;
                  They just worship his manhood,
                    As master him greet:
                  O yes he is all glorious,
                    In girls’ eyes all fair;
                  His own baby girl boasteth
                    His charms, yes, for e’er!

[Sidenote: _The Aughty-Aughth for Mine._[8]]

Footnote 8:

  The expression “aughty-aughth” is here used in order to spare the
  company notoriety.

(Air: “Wearing of the Green.”)

  OH here’s to the aughty-aughth company, the finest to my mind,
    The bravest boys in blue and red that I did ever find;
  Of all the sweethearts I have met, they are of all most kind,
    In every glory you can name, they have the rest outshined.

  Refrain:

  They’re the finest warriors in the land, in all the world most fine;
    The aughty-aughth for my sweetheart, the aughty-aughth for mine.

  They are a model band of men, the only such to find,
    Beyond belief fraternal love rules every heart and mind;
  They live as brothers in the fort, no brawl, or words malign,
    So brave, polite, magnanimous, surprisingly benign.

  Oh noble hearts, oh manly souls, oh men who were born for war,
    Who’re ready at your country’s call to shed your blood and gore;
  Who’re ready to protect the weak, and to relieve the oppressed,
    All that’s feminine would worship you, fall in your arms to rest.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Adventures with Men of Ft. Z._]

When the five companies of Ft. X went south, the “aughty-aughth” of Ft.
Z acted as guard of Ft. X. On the evening of May 3d I scraped
acquaintance. Coming upon a group, I talked and acted more and more like
a coquette, greatly to their amusement. I finally started singing my
songs, which caused soldiers to gather from every direction, as we were
on the reservation. Never before had I received a warmer reception, and
I immediately wrote “The Aughty-Aughth for Mine.” Contrary to my custom,
I was attracted from the city twice a week.

On my sixth visit, there came, suddenly and unexpectedly, a change in
their attitude. It came about through a soldier’s going over to New York
to play the spy. It was the first time in my six years of frequenting
the forts. He secured a hold on me through the address which I used in
corresponding with soldiers. I had revealed my true name and residence
to none of them. Hitherto they had believed I was a nobody, but now
discovered that I occupied a fairly high social status. This changed
everything. The thirst for money supplanted the desire for a good time
with me. Many now felt that they had a grievance because I being well
off—as they thought—made them only small presents. They now began to
demand that I deliver comparatively large sums, and inflicted suffering
when I did not. I gladly gave them all I could—about one-quarter of my
income.

After several moderate beatings on the military reservation because I
did not hand over the exorbitant amounts demanded, I decided not to
enter it again while this company was in charge. They had never dared
assault me off the reservation, fearing arrest by the police. On June 3d
I was inveigled on in order to be brutally assaulted. The next day I
complained in writing to the lieutenant commanding the company. He wrote
asking me to call. He immediately laid before me several love letters
and songs, of the kind known to my reader, and inquired if I was their
author. On my confession, he refused to hear a word about the assault,
and sternly warned me never to come on the reservation again. He then
ordered my chief assailant to march me off ignominiously, as if I had
been under arrest.

[Sidenote: _Events of 1905._]

Several days later I spent the evening at a resort frequented by
soldiers. Many flirted with me, but though repeatedly asked to take a
walk, I was afraid to trust myself with any after the serious assault.
About 10 P. M., I encountered Sergeant J., who had always been
exceedingly kind and twice had let me pass the evening flirting with the
soldiers awaiting duty in the guard-house. I therefore entertained not
the least suspicion of treachery and accepted his invitation for a walk.
His conduct was of an inflammatory character, and I followed him over a
fence into a field, which happened to belong to the federal government,
but at the time I gave this fact no thought. The police and the courts
had no jurisdiction there. He immediately said: “Do you know you are on
the military reservation? What did the commandant tell you would happen
if you came on it again?... Sergeant W. told me that you told the
commandant in his presence that I was the best friend you had in the
post. I am now going to show you different.” [I had simply referred to
him as “a certain sergeant” who had given me the freedom of the
guard-house.]

[Sidenote: _At Age of Thirty-One._]

Corporal F., a regular Samson, had been following at a distance.
Sergeant J. was just about to be appointed quarter-master sergeant of
Ft. Z. Not wishing any charges to imperil his promotion, he had asked
his friend F. to inflict the punishment, as the latter’s enlistment
would expire in three weeks. But the latter had his own grievance also.
Two weeks before he and two other soldiers had been torturing me because
I had not brought them the sums of money demanded. In order to
deliberate without my hearing them as to the next step to take in
persecuting me, they had ordered me to run 200 feet to a sharp corner in
the path and back again. But I ran a dozen feet around the corner and
threw myself in the tall grass. A stone wall too high to climb prevented
my getting more than three feet from the path. Because the path was so
hedged in, they knew that I could not escape them, and besides we were
on the reservation and a sentry was permanently stationed 500 feet
around the corner who would surely halt a fugitive. The three
immediately sprinted past. In the pitch darkness and with eyes fixed on
a point 200 feet ahead where I ought to be, they failed to spy me at
their very feet. I immediately arose and sprinted in the opposite
direction. In less than a minute I ran into a sentry, but he happened to
be a friend and helped me to escape.

On this subsequent evening when I was with Sergeant J., Corporal F. had
his first opportunity to avenge my escape. I saw the Samson draw back
his fist and covered my face with my hands. But they compelled me to
drop them, and I received in the left eye a terrific blow. Five followed
on the mouth, nose, and left eye. The right eye seemingly was purposely
spared so that I could see to get away. Then my pockets were rifled. I
happened to raise a hand to the left eye and felt just below where the
eye ought to be a circular protuberance about the size of the eyeball.
In my dazed condition I entreated: “Please, please, let this be enough!
Don’t you see you have already knocked one of my eyes out of its
socket?”

[Sidenote: _I Am Half-Murdered._]

They now commanded me to turn my back, apparently being convinced my
face could stand no more sledge-hammer blows without a murder resulting.
The corporal landed several on the skull, and being evidently a
congenital criminal, would have probably kept on until I was dead. The
sergeant ordered him to desist, but he would not. The sergeant now had
to throw himself on the corporal and hold him from me, while he directed
me to hurry off the reservation.[9]

Footnote 9:

  Some years ago the newspapers told of the killing of an androgyne in
  Boston by soldier associates.

Reaching a street, I appealed to some civilians, who assisted me to a
hospital. For a half hour my face bled profusely and my clothing became
soaked with blood. For weeks afterward blood exuded from the nose. My
face was all discolored and swollen beyond recognition. As already
stated, a former physician, whom I had met intimately several score of
times, happened to be a visiting physician at this hospital, and was one
of those who attended me as I lay in bed. But my extreme disfigurement
prevented recognition, much to my satisfaction, since I had never had
occasion to disclose my inversion.

For a month, until my face became presentable, I had to remain away from
my ordinary circle. A full description of my injuries was written out by
my regular physician to accompany the charges presented several days
after the assault to the general commanding the military Department of
the East, Governor’s Island, New York Harbor. I had to go so high
because the temporary commandant at Ft. X was among those accused, that
is, for not giving me a hearing when I sought to bring charges against
earlier assailants.

I immediately visited the United States district attorney also, thinking
my case lay in his province. But he dismissed me after merely remarking
that according to law, he could only be on the side of the soldiers and
against me. I next went to the police station in whose precinct the fort
was situated. I was here received with warm sympathy, notwithstanding
that at the outset I declared myself an invert. But I was informed that
since all the offences had been committed on the military reservation,
the police and civil courts had no jurisdiction. News of the assault had
got into the papers, and a police detective had made an investigation.
Both the detective and the police sergeant told me that the commandant
of the fort had informed them that I had been assaulted because I had
indecently accosted my assailants.

[Sidenote: _I Am Courtmartialled._]

The military secretary at Governor’s Island appointed Col. G. to
investigate my charges. In the course of the hearing, which lasted about
three hours, I appeared to be the one under charges, and was repeatedly
insulted by the captain adjutant and the temporary commandant. At its
close the latter cried out: “The police are waiting to arrest you as
soon as you step off the reservation!” This statement proved to be
false. But they succeeded in literally frightening me out of my wits.
For the following 24 hours, I had repeated attacks of hysteria, and was
actually insane from grief. My mourning lasted for months, because
notwithstanding my repeated importuning in person and by letter, they
refused to courtmartial or punish those who had half-murdered me. The
reason was that I had the reputation of being addicted to fellatio.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Fellatio Obsession Declines._]

Approximately two years after castration and one year previous to the
close of my open career as a fairie—at which latter date this
autobiography has now arrived—I found that my desire for fellatio had
perceptibly decreased. In all probability, it was due to that operation,
but possibly to satiety or to advancing age, then thirty. Up to about
two years after castration I did not pass by a single opportunity except
when exhausted. But now I began to reject a large proportion of the
opportunities, although I had as strong a craze as ever for association
with ultra-virile adolescents who treated me as a member of the gentle
sex. I seemed now to be satisfied with simply reclining in their arms,
etc. Sometimes during fellatio, I would feel no satisfaction and ask
myself why I should stoop to it. If at the beginning of my career as a
fairie, my desire had been only of the present strength, I would
probably have lived a life of chastity and carried out my plan to be a
preacher of the Gospel. The strength of desire was now about that of the
average male of thirty—strong, but controllable. For about a year,
however, I did not relinquish the open career of a fairie because
circumstances had placed me in a remarkably seductive environment. I was
also influenced by the desire to make the most of my youth—for at
thirty-one I was told that I looked to be twenty-one. A quasi-public
fairie career must end before youthfulness passes. I had in advance
reconciled myself to semi-chastity, as monandry, after I should pass the
age of thirty. As already stated, the saving of my physical and mental
vigor was a powerful motive in my weaning. Most of all, my being nearly
murdered by soldiers contributed to enabling me to break away from my
intimate association with them at the forts. In previous years I had
rejected excellent positions because they would take me out of New York
and thus put a stop to my visits to the forts. Now in 1905, a few weeks
after my disaster at the hands of men of Ft. Z, I was for the first time
able to leave New York permanently.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Year 1905—Open Career Ends._]

One morning at the close of my association with the men of Ft. Z, I
discovered a chancre on the under surface of my tongue. “At last a
chancre!” I exclaimed with a slight laugh. It lasted six weeks.
Simultaneously at two points the gum of the upper jaw became as hard as
bone. Beginning two months later, I would every few minutes during the
day for about a month feel a pleasurable thrill in different parts of
the body, now in the arm, now in the leg, etc. Four months after the
appearance of the primary sore, a second chancre appeared on the under
surface of the tongue, only slightly painful, and lasting three weeks.
During this time I felt rather ill. It left a small furrow in the
tongue, which did not disappear for three years. Simultaneously with the
appearance of this second chancre, the skin in the right and left groin,
alternately, became very tender, so that in walking the two abutting
surfaces would wear each other away. Walking became painful. A
disgusting odor was emitted, but daily bathing enabled me to continue my
vocation uninterruptedly. Matter exuded from the under surface of the
eyelids. I was unable to focus my eyes properly, and sometimes saw
double. I suffered from general debility.

[Sidenote: _How Syphilis Affected Me._]

I was in despair, regarding myself as at last rotting away with syphilis
and perhaps destined to spend decades in a cell in some insane asylum.
But I thank a merciful Providence that the state just described lasted
little more than two weeks. The abrasion of the skin in the groin alone
failed to disappear, but I soon found—on my physician’s suggestion—that
smearing a little vaseline after each bath prevented all trouble. This
precaution has been necessary the bulk of the time subsequently up to
this autobiography’s going to press (1918).

Before the end of the second year after inoculation, I suffered from two
more chancres on the tongue, which did not permanently destroy any
tissue. On two other occasions the tongue became considerably swollen
without any visible sore, occasioning some difficulty in speaking.

Fourteen months after inoculation four bright copper-colored mole-like
spots appeared on the face. The color changed to a dull brown, and they
have thus remained a permanent part of me. On several occasions, my body
and limbs were dotted with a syphilitic rash, horrifying to see, but
disappearing in a week or two and causing no pain or inconvenience.

[Sidenote: _Tertiary Syphilis._]

During the third and fourth year after inoculation, I suffered slightly
from “gray patches” on the tongue, swelling of glands in the face and
neck, and quite serious syphilitic affections of the lungs and stomach.
For several years now I had to use potassium iodide extensively, and
with good results. Earlier I had taken only 500 ⅛-grain protiodide
pills.

From the fifth to the ninth year after inoculation, there were no
symptoms except the abrasion of the groin. For the first nine years, the
aggregate amount of suffering caused me by syphilis was approximately
equivalent to two five-day attacks of influenza (the “grip”), from which
disease I have repeatedly suffered. I am of the opinion that the peril
to the human race from syphilis is greatly exaggerated by specialists in
venereal diseases. There is little danger from the disease if one
totally abstains from alcohol, and possibly tobacco and other narcotics.

But the most serious outbreaks came in the tenth and eleventh years. I
awoke one morning to find a small set of muscles paralyzed as a result
of a cerebral tumor. The paralysis lasted three months, but these
muscles were not entirely restored to normal for two years following. I
had simply used potassium iodide in large doses.

Just about twelve months later, I again awoke one morning to find
another small set of muscles paralyzed. I immediately received one
intravenous injection of salvarsan, and the paralysis practically
disappeared a week later. I was disinclined to receive further
injections as long as suffering from no serious outbreak. I however kept
my system steeped in potassium iodide for several months following.

[Sidenote: _No Alcohol, No Syphilis._]

Each attack of paralysis came at the close of one of the only two
periods of my life when I have consumed large quantities of temperance
beers (sarsaparilla and root beer), from two to three pints a day. The
small amounts of alcohol steadily imbibed apparently brought on the
serious outbreaks. Furthermore, both came at the height of the grape
season, which fruit, up to the second paralysis, I have always consumed
in large quantities. In my case, practically all the serious outbreaks
of syphilis came during the grape season.

In the tenth year after inoculation, I was for an entire winter the most
crippled person daily mingling with the New York crowds. The rheumatism
never troubled me before or since. It immediately succeeded the first
paralysis. Rheumatism remedies proved entirely ineffective.

Subsequently to the second paralysis, for the thirty months up to this
book’s going to press, I have totally abstained from all drinks
containing even a trifling percentage of alcohol, as well as from grapes
and unfermented grape products. During these months I have experienced
no outbreak beyond the abrasion in the groin if not kept lubricated with
vaseline. More than ever I am convinced of the truth of the maxim: No
alcohol, no syphilis.

[Illustration: The Author at Thirty-four.]

                  *       *       *       *       *

As already indicated, three years after castration, my open (i.e.,
quasi-public) career as a fairie came to an end through my removal to a
distant small city where such a career incognito would be impossible. I
also now considered myself past the age for such a career, being in my
thirty-second year. My suffering from practically total abstinence was
now slight compared with earlier periods of isolation, and only such as
multitudes of normal individuals endure whom the rules of society compel
to celibacy. I no longer lost my self-control, nor was driven into the
poor quarters to make a quest under the most unfavorable and hazardous
conditions.

[Sidenote: _Year 1907—Alone in Rockies’ Wilds_.]

In 1907 I had occasion to make a trip in an uninhabited region. My
adolescent companions, who had spent a large part of their lives in the
wilds of the Rocky Mountains, had prostitutes as the main subject of
their conversation. The first hour of our travels, they recognized my
inversion, began to refer to me in my hearing as “that ——,” and
otherwise made it so disagreeable that I would have abandoned the
travelling camp if it had been possible.... I tasted such depths of
sorrow as not a human being out of a million ever tastes. One evening in
particular I wandered off alone in the woods until out of hearing of the
camp, though I actually saw that night several bears roaming within a
hundred feet. I had a violent desire to die, and did not fear being torn
to pieces. Continuously for about an hour, I wailed at the top of my
voice over my terrible lot in life, that of a despised, hated, and
outlawed degenerate, and over the possibly impending unfathomable
disgrace among a party of men from whom I could not at present get away.

Not until after my thirty-third birthday did I attempt coitus cum
puella. Up to this time the very thought was too repulsive. This
aversion had now in large part passed away, although I had not the
slightest inclination. I looked upon it merely as a scientific
experiment. Though castration has always been without effect on orgasm
when in juxtaposition cum viris, it was now impossible, notwithstanding
my companion’s manustupration and my own concentration of thoughts on
fellatio with my idols. Penetration was of course impossible.

                  *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Coitus cum Puella Impossible._]

In 1907 I removed to a city of several hundred thousand inhabitants. As
I frequently felt a sense of utter loneliness and melancholia during my
two years of practical sexual isolation—for I never indulged in even
flirtation with adolescents of my every-day circle—I decided to seek a
mate at a military post a few miles from the city. I still longed for a
mate to the same degree as the average normal individual.

I had several hundred to choose from, and selected the most attractive,
a six-foot, curly-haired, large-boned, blonde athlete of twenty years. I
easily scraped acquaintance, and thereafter visited him at the fort
three evenings a month, but fellatio occurred at hardly more than
one-half of our meetings, chiefly because I did not wish to be
intellectually dull the next day or two. The most beautiful sight that I
ever saw was this adolescent when accoutered to stand guard. I found
that he was by far the most tattooed person that I had ever associated
with—for me a great attraction. I also found that he possessed the most
charming personality, always treating me most affably notwithstanding
that I represented myself—as a safeguard against possible blackmail—as
occupying a far lower station in life than the actual. At almost our
first meeting I determined to adopt him as my “kiddo-son” (combination
of son and consort). For the first time, I now, at the age of
thirty-three, regarded my particular friend in the son-relation rather
than in the husband-relation. But I secretly looked upon him as my
husband. Relations were, however, not entirely monandrous, as he brought
several of his comrades on our walks.

[Sidenote: _First “Adopted Son.”_]

Not until after sixteen months of occasional association at the fort did
I reveal my true name and status, having found that he was entirely
trustworthy. He now regularly visited my home, and continued to manifest
a most beautiful and accommodating disposition. He was my jewel—the
chief thing to me in life. When his second enlistment expired, he was to
come and live with me as my “son.”

In 1914 business took me back to New York. My “son’s” enlistment was
soon to expire, and he was to join me there. I had no thought of
renewing my visits to Forts X and Y, because practically all the
soldiers serve only three years and my friends had doubtless all left.
Besides I had become too old (40, though looking to be below 30) for
romantic adventures, and my desire for female-impersonation had become
comparatively weak.

In due time, my “son” came to make his home with me. We shared a
pleasant and refined apartment. I had at last obtained an almost
life-long desire—to live with an adored young man as his mate. I told
him that whenever he was ready, I expected him to bring a wife to our
home, and I was to continue to live with them as a parent. I hoped that
occasional fellatio would continue unbeknown to the wife. I also told
him that his offspring would be to me the same as if they were my own.

[Sidenote: _Year 1914—At Age of Forty_.]

But within a few days after we were settled, he, much to my surprise,
forbade me to touch him, and insisted that we sleep in separate rooms.
My grief was intense. As many as a hundred times a day as I sat in my
office or in my home, I had to wipe the tears out of my eyes. Finally he
yielded to my tears, and promised that one hour each week I could get
close to him, and that all love-making must be confined to that one
hour. But I kept an accurate account, and the period averaged only
thirty-six minutes a week. I had continually to beg and weep for that
morsel of time. I was presenting gift after gift, mostly cash. For every
gift, I received a kick—figuratively. He told me that he stayed with me
for the six months just for what he could get out of me. He said he
could never think of admitting to the bonds of friendship a person
abnormal sexually. He would stay in the same room with me an aggregate
of only about three hours a week, although I was pining for his mere
presence.

He permitted fellatio three times a month, but much preferred the normal
with a fille de joie, with whom he spent one night each week, and on
whom he spent practically all his money. He stated that he was averse to
fellatio because he wished to save all his vita sexualis for the filles.

With the exception of the half-year following my expulsion from the
university, this half-year was the most unhappy of my life. The three
hours a week that we saw each other were mostly spent in his scolding me
and my weeping almost continuously. He would say that he hated the sight
of me. Tears were generally running down my cheeks even during fellatio.
He had broken my heart by proving to be a traitor to our friendship. But
my devotion was not at all lessened. After six months he deserted my
home—as stunning a blow as the death of a brother.

[Sidenote: _“Son” Breaks My Heart._]

But I pursued him and through cash induced him to call on me twice a
month for the following two years, when he removed from New York.
Several months after he deserted my home, he showed repentance for the
way he had treated me while living there. He became as winsome and
accommodating as ever, but did not care to live with me again. He said
that he could not stand my continual petting. He gave as the reason for
his change from winsomeness to an extremely cruel attitude the influence
of a boon companion in the army, who, after expiration of enlistment,
also took up his residence in New York and continued to be a chum and a
frequent visitor at our home. This companion was one of the few
adolescents who feel an intense and incurable antipathy for an
effeminate male, and continually sought to poison my “son’s” mind
against me, and persuade him to have nothing to do with me.

During the summer of 1916, when my “son” left New York, I became anxious
to be possessed of a second. Four evenings were spent hunting in small
parks where poor adolescents were accustomed to sit. As I searched I
prayed the Heavenly Father to send a suitable adolescent to become my
“son.” I still shrank from betraying my androgynism to any adolescent of
my every-day circle. I desired to reveal it to some brand-new
acquaintance among manual laborers, associate with him a few months
incognito, and then, if he proved worthy of trust, reveal my identity.
Not until the fourth evening did I run across a cleanly good-looking
adolescent seated alone—a khaki-clad soldier, my ideal both in respect
to type of manhood and in respect to apparel. I immediately entered into
conversation. He confided that he was penniless and was spending the
evening in the park with the hope that a passive invert would come along
and provide him with money. I found him an ideal companion for an
androgyne. He had also served an enlistment in the navy, thus uniting
the two characters, soldier and blue-jacket, which I have always gone
wild over.

[Sidenote: _Second “Adopted Son.”_]

After an acquaintance of _only one hour_, because I found him uniquely
acceptable, and because he had to leave the following morning for the
Mexican border, the agreement was made that he was to be my “adopted
son” and come to live with me when his enlistment expired. At the same
time I gave him my true name and address.

In the late fall his enlistment expired, and he returned to New York to
live with me. The indications that he would prove to be an ideal
adolescent to share the apartment of an androgyne more than came true.
He was always good-natured and respectful. But he had had no moral
training and was an extreme dipsomaniac. He was the illegitimate son of
a mistress of a house of ill fame. I did my best to reform him. He would
carry away my personal belongings to exchange for whiskey. He refused to
work, depending entirely on me for his support.

[Sidenote: _My Home is Burglarized._]

One evening after we had lived together a month, I returned from work to
find my apartment in the condition in which burglars would have left it,
locked closets and drawers broken open, and their contents scattered
around. All small objects of some value which could readily be pawned
were missing. Particularly the carbon duplicate of this autobiography,
the ink original having been sent to Berlin three years before and not
heard from since on account of the war. I found the following note:


“Dear friend Ralph,

My friend over in Jersey City told me to do this what I have done. He
may come over to see you tonight or soon, for he says I am doing wrong.
He tells me you will get ten years for what you have done. I was drunk
when I told him.”


I hardly slept that night. It was primarily a wife’s sorrow over
desertion by an idolized husband, and secondarily the overwhelming fear
of blackmail or else of disclosure with consequent loss of economic and
social position. Moreover, I momentarily expected that the Jersey City
friend—a former soldier—would call, possibly in order to put me under
arrest. I kept my apartment in darkness the entire evening as I lay on
my bed immersed in the deepest grief. My only utterance was, over and
over again: “The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed
be the name of the Lord.”

The following evening I was amazed at learning that the manuscript of
this autobiography had been returned by _parcels post_. The package had
been inadvertently opened by my landlord, and I therefore decided to
confess my androgynism. Moreover, on account of the expected call from
criminally-minded blackmailers, it was desirable to appeal to him for
protection. His marvellous and hardly expected sympathy greatly relieved
my distress. I proposed vacating his house, but he would not hear of it.

[Sidenote: _Year 1917._]

The next evening I was amazed at receiving by messenger a letter from my
boy to come at once to his succor. I found him in a terrible plight,
recovering from a spree. His “pal” had kicked him out of his home as
soon as the money was gone received for my belongings. Blackmail and a
ransom for my manuscript had been planned, but relinquished when they
had skimmed the story of my life. My “son” had only discovered its
existence after he broke the lock where it was in storage. I would have
immediately taken him back into my home, but my landlord refused to let
a thief and a drunkard into the house again. I supported him for another
month, but as he rendered me almost continuously unhappy, I then put him
on a train bound for his Illinois home.

To those who have not arrived at a correct estimate of androgynism, I
state that if he had continued to live with me as my son, his life would
have been enriched along all lines, in particular morally and
religiously. In practically every act of my life, I have been guided by
the highest moral and religious ideals. Outside of sexual delinquencies,
my life has been entirely offenceless. An androgyne, even when living
out his nature, can attain the same ethical and religious heights as any
other individual.

[Illustration: The Author at Forty-four.]

                  *       *       *       *       *

Arrived in my 45th year and at practically the close of my vita
sexualis, my advice to the youthful invert just embarking on the journey
of life is not to be disheartened over his fate. Nature, as in my own
case, will bestow compensating boons for her harshness in this one
respect. If instinct is strong, it is advisable to follow it in
moderation. But it should hold only a secondary place in life. It should
be remembered that Nature exacts a penalty in the shape of impaired
vigor of mind and body for practically every sexual indulgence—and
perhaps as much of the normally sexed as of her stepchildren, the
congenitally abnormal. Consider whether indulgence is worth the cost in
health.

[Sidenote: _In My 45th Year._]

Comparing in 1918 my sexual lot with that of the normal male, I feel
that in the matter of the vita sexualis, Nature has been kind to me. She
has compensated me for the unusual amount of suffering bound up with the
life of the outcast androgyne.

Comparing my sexual lot with that of the normal woman who bears
children, I feel of course that she stands on a much higher plane. Her
functioning has an exalted end, the perpetuation of the race, and is
attended with infinitely more self-sacrifice than is the androgyne’s.

Why does Nature make approximately one out of every 300 physical males
an androgyne or passive invert? The practice of the ancient Romans, as
well as my own experience and that of other androgynes whom I have
known, suggests the answer. All patrician fathers of ancient Rome
provided androgyne slaves as concubines of their adolescent sons.
Marriage with a woman put an absolute end to these relations. In the
case of myself and my androgyne acquaintances, practically no man beyond
the age of 26 ever sought or permitted relations. The function appears
to be to fill in the period between the arrival at puberty and the
arrival at the age when it is possible to beget unblemished offspring.
With the ultra-virile adolescent, it is often a choice between solitary
onanism and androgynous relations.

[Sidenote: _Year 1918._]

As this autobiography goes to press in my 45th year, my health is
unchanged from what it has been since castration at the age of 28. I am
rather feeble, almost a semi-invalid, averaging two days a week when I
am in a state of mental and physical collapse. I am, however, an
unusually hard worker in my profession during my comparatively well
intervals. I have achieved the average business success that comes to
university graduates notwithstanding my semi-invalidism and effeminacy.
Particularly business has caused me to mingle intimately to a large
extent with the very highest class of society, just as my lot has been
to mingle intimately and to a large extent with those at the very bottom
of the social scale.

As to my personal appearance in my middle forties, my youthfulness is
still often commented upon. Recently a new acquaintance, twelve years
younger than myself, remarked that he would have taken me, “as for the
oldest possible, for twelve years younger than” I really am. I am
inclined to think that preservation of a youthful appearance down to
middle life is a common characteristic of androgynes. As they are
affected more or less with psychical infantilism, this mental trait is
likely thus to betray itself somewhat in the physical form. An adult
androgyne of my acquaintance has conspicuously the form of skull and
face of an infant. Another androgyne acquaintance appears at fifty-five
to be under thirty when viewed from a distance of forty feet, but close
by his face is seen to be covered with very fine wrinkles such as appear
in the face of an ordinary individual only when past the age of eighty.

[Sidenote: _Conclusion._]

Having now (1918) arrived near the close of a half-century of life as an
androgyne, I find my vita sexualis practically at an end, and feel
thereby liberated from an incubus which has hitherto prevented my making
the most of my god-given faculties. As I look back on life, I am of the
opinion that I have had a “hard row to hoe.” In occasional spells of
anguish, I have been tempted, like the patriarch Job, to “curse God and
die,” because He created me a _degenerate_, a person almost universally
despised and hated for proclivities and acts for which he is not really
responsible. On such occasions, I have also, in the deep gloom which the
realization of my perverted nature brings upon me, importuned the
Creator to show mercy on me, who have been appointed to such a terrible
fate. In my more spiritual moods I shrink from the memory of the
experiences through which my abnormality caused me to pass, and am
overwhelmed with despair at the thought of the depths of perdition to
which cultured humanity consigns the androgyne who yields to his
instincts.

I trust that the publication of my life story will contribute to a
correct estimate of androgynism on the part of scientists, the molders
of public opinion, and the lawmakers, and to a more kindly treatment by
society of those born with this curse. It is only expressing half the
truth to say that they are more to be pitied than scorned. They are
wholly to be pitied.

October, 1918.




                               APPENDIX I
                       IMPRESSIONS OF THE AUTHOR


                       _By a Business Associate_


[The editor, although aware of the identity of the writer of this
sketch, omits his name upon his request.—A. W. H.]


[Sidenote: Impressions of an Associate.]

My acquaintance with the author dates back over eleven years to the day
when I commenced work in the same large office where he was employed. We
continued to work in the same room and in close association for five
years, and have kept up a close friendship for the six subsequent years.
On entering my new place of work, he was one of the first persons to
attract my attention because of his rather peculiar cast of features. My
second distinct memory of him is of entering the office to find him
weeping bitterly as he sat at his desk. Since masculine tears are a
rather unusual sight, I instituted inquiries and learned that his chief
had just called his attention to an error discovered in his work. A
third very early memory was of the author’s coming up to me, and saying
after we had exchanged a few words: “Did you know I am a woman?” After
beholding for a moment my mystification, he said: “I was only joking.”
He went on his way, leaving me trying to unravel the question as to
wherein the joke lay.

Other incidents like the two described tended to confirm my original
impression that he was a rather eccentric individual, as he was indeed
generally regarded by the office staff, who, however, at the same time
recognized his good qualities.

About a year elapsed before our acquaintance assumed any degree of
intimacy, and it was only after a second year had elapsed that he
confided to me his history as outlined in the autobiography. His thus
making me his confidant I attribute in large measure to the circumstance
that he had learned at a relatively early date that I had read
Krafft-Ebing’s “Psychopathia Sexualis,” and was therefore presumably in
a position to give a sympathetic and intelligent hearing. Whether this
was the underlying reason or not, it was an important factor in
determining my attitude towards him, since the practices consequent on
his abnormality inspire me with intense disgust. Only the conviction
that he was no more responsible than was Dr. Holmes’ Elsie Venner for
her obliquity could have induced me to associate on terms of intimacy
with one who resorted to such practices. In fact I had been for some
years previously acquainted with a man notorious throughout his
community for these same practices, but always avoided him whenever
possible.

As a matter of fact, it would be difficult for any but the most bigoted,
knowing the author of this autobiography, to impute wilful perversion to
him. In his general habit of thought, he has always shown an austere
morality that caused him at times to be referred to playfully in the
office as “Cato the censor.” At the same time he displayed in many ways
so much guilelessness and lack of worldly wisdom as to make it
impossible to believe that this moral austerity could be merely a mask
of deep-dyed hypocrisy. It is, in fact, difficult to associate with him
without being convinced of his deep religious feeling. Going to church
appears to be indeed one of the chief joys of his life. Because it would
keep him from the church service, I have even known him to decline an
invitation to dinner from an old friend whom he had not seen for several
years and to whom he was under great obligations. In fact I have myself
come to regard attendance at church services on Sunday as inevitable a
feature of my visits to the author’s home as it is of my visits to my
parents, these being in fact the only occasions on which I attend
church.

My characterization of the author’s personal appearance would be as mild
and ovine (that is, sheeplike). A young lady co-laborer of his in the
office said on one occasion when some of us men had been teasing him
that he looked “like a frightened bunny.” Most persons would probably
set him down as somewhat lacking in the more forceful, virile quality.
He conveys the impression, as it were, of always being on the point of
apologizing for the fact that he exists.

He proved to be an admirable subject for teasing, and some of us at the
office got as much fun out of teasing him as we would from teasing and
playing tricks on our girl friends, and his reaction to it was
essentially feminine—a sort of pleased childlike pride at being the
object of attention.

He also at times displayed typically feminine reactions of disgust at
repulsive or seemingly repulsive objects. On one occasion, for example,
he tore off and threw away the cover of a publication on his desk in the
office which had been stained with red ink, because it looked like
blood.

In my own judgment, the aspect in which he displays most strongly the
feminine attributes is in his capacity for lavishing trust and affection
upon unworthy objects. During my acquaintance with him he has at
different times had two friends for whom he had especially strong
affection, even to the extent of taking them into his own abode; and in
one case going so far as to talk of adoption. From his own account of
his relations with these young men, the inference which the
disinterested listener would draw was that they were persons who were
playing a good thing for all it was worth. According to his own
statement, they were mulcting him, on one pretext or another, of large
sums of money, albeit always on some colorable excuse. He always,
however, affirmed their essential goodness of character and refused to
believe that they could be otherwise, even when they were acting towards
him in the most unfeeling manner. To my mind, in his relations with
these acquaintances, he afforded an almost perfect parallel to the woman
who, wedded to a drunken brute, nevertheless remains faithful and
adoring to the end.

Another somewhat feminine trait is a sensitiveness that is readily moved
to tears. I have already referred to the time when he wept over an
implied criticism of his work. An equally characteristic episode
occurred later, during a visit to his home from his mother. One night he
was caught in a heavy rain, and reached home drenched to the skin. The
next morning, his face convulsed and tears hardly kept back, he told me
of his fear that he was losing his love for his mother because he did
not feel like talking to her the night before—as if forsooth a drenching
would not have dampened the desire for speech in any man.

One other trait worth mentioning—because it is one that I regard as more
or less feminine—is a certain lack of perspective, a tendency to allow
minor details to bulk as large in his eye as major. This showed itself
in his work, which, though always characterized by thoroughness, was
frequently too much so, the really vital things being allowed to become
obscured by a mass of detail of minor importance.

May, 1918.




                              APPENDIX II
                        THE CASE OF OSCAR WILDE


                 _By the author of this autobiography_


Oscar Wilde presents a different phase of homosexuality from the author,
that is, active pederasty. Apparently his was the active rôle in
pædicatio or inter femora. According to Frank Harris, Wilde’s confidant
and the author of his best biography, Wilde thus analyzes his penchant:
“What is the food of passion but beauty, beauty alone, beauty always,
and in beauty of form and vigor of life there is no comparison [with the
female sex]. If you loved beauty as intensely as I do, you would feel as
I feel. It is beauty which gives me joy, makes me drunk as with wine,
blind with insatiable desire.” “There are people in the world who cannot
understand the deep affection that an artist can feel for a friend with
a beautiful personality.”

Like the author, Wilde was born and reared in the best environment and
enjoyed unexcelled educational advantages. But as a boy and youth, he
betrayed no feminine mental traits. Unlike the author, he was not
feminesque physically. Further, while the author during youth and early
“manhood” was notably small, Wilde grew to be one of the largest of men,
six feet, two inches in height, and of stout build.

Apparently instinct did not become sufficiently powerful to cry for
appeasement until he became a student at Oxford. While one of the
leaders in scholarship and already a society favorite, it was
nevertheless being whispered that he was a pederast. This was due to his
openness, he not seeming to care if every one knew of his penchant, and
not realizing that he was guilty of anything scandalous.

Having graduated from Oxford with the highest honors, Wilde took up his
residence in London. Unlike the author, he was capable cum femina, but
did not marry until twenty-nine. Two sons resulted. Marriage and
fatherhood are the two strongest arguments against him in any judgment
on his pederasty.

Hardly another human being has at the age of thirty achieved such fame.
In the family of the author, then a boy of ten, and living in a
different country and 3,000 miles away, the name “Oscar Wilde” was a
household term. Even every child of the village was as familiar with
that name as with that of the man next door. This fame resulted from his
being the idol of England’s aristocracy, the greatest social light of
the nineteenth century in any land, one of the most brilliant
conversationalists that ever breathed, a poet of high rank, and the
foremost English playwright of his generation.

But notwithstanding that during the late eighties and early nineties of
the nineteenth century, Wilde was the most widely known and the most
talked about man in London, he was so disdainful of the opinion of
mankind as to visit regularly—not incognito, but under his own
illustrious name—the leading maison publique of London which catered
exclusively to active pederasts. He here made the acquaintance of
adolescents—little better than gutter-snipes—some of whom he
subsequently entertained in private rooms of London’s foremost hostelry.
He also had a habit of leaving his meek, long-suffering wife at home
with the children, and taking up his residence in a furnished apartment,
where he entertained his adolescent friends. Occasional visits would be
paid his wife and children. Some of London’s leaders of thought,
although at the same time “men-about-town,” have been known to exclaim
at what they witnessed in the city’s drinking palaces: “Is this the
great Oscar Wilde who sits, chats, and drinks here with ragamuffins whom
he has picked up off the street!”

Blackmail was looked upon as an every-day occurrence. As money both came
and went easily, he never gave it a second thought.

Gradually stories of his doings spread throughout all grades of London
society. The middle and lower classes soon came to hold his name in
abomination, but comparatively few of the “upper crust”—with whom he
exclusively associated apart from his nights with adolescent
menials—held anything against him because of his almost unrivaled
talents and delightful personality.

In 1895, at the age of forty-one, Wilde had reached the zenith of
earthly glory. But the puritan element had naturally come to hold him in
the greatest detestation. He was thoroughly pagan in thought and in his
published works. Particularly was he thoroughly saturated with the
writings and ideas of the ancient Greeks, with whom pederasty was common
and open. Unlike the author, he had had no religious training, and when
adult seems always to have turned the cold shoulder on the Church. Some
of his writings were positively blasphemous. He would boast also that
for him morality was non-existent—only the beautiful. While possibly
irresponsible to a considerable degree for his pederasty, he was
decidedly to be blamed for flaunting it in the face of everybody. On the
whole, he was, because of his exalted position and his writings, the
most pernicious influence of the 19th century on British morals. The
puritan element were quick to take advantage of his arrest under the
charge of being a “corrupter of youth,” and jumped into the fray. The
slums of London were combed in order to find witnesses.

From Harris’s “_Oscar Wilde and His Confessions_” I quote Wilde’s most
striking defensive statement at his trial:

“The ‘love’ that dare not speak its name in this century is such a great
affection of an older for a younger man as there was between David and
Jonathan, such as Plato made the very base of his philosophy, and such
as you find in the sonnets of Michael Angelo and Shakespeare—a deep
spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect, and dictates great
works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michael Angelo and those two
letters of mine [evidence against him], such as they are, and which is
in this century misunderstood—so misunderstood that, on account of it, I
am placed where I am now [in the prisoner’s dock]. It is beautiful; it
is fine; it is the noblest form of affection. It is intellectual, and it
repeatedly exists between an elder and younger man, when the elder man
has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope, and glamor of
life. That it should be so the world does not understand. It mocks at it
and sometimes puts one into the pillory for it.”

Subsequently his confidant, Harris, asked in private: “There is another
point against you which you have not touched on yet: Gill asked you what
you had in common with those serving men and stable boys? You have not
explained that.”

“Difficult to explain, Frank, isn’t it, without the truth?” ... “How
weary I am of the whole thing, of the shame and the struggling and the
hatred. To see those people coming into the box one after the other to
witness against me makes me sick.... Oh, it’s terrible. I feel inclined
to stretch out my hands and cry to them, ‘Do what you will with me, in
God’s name, only do it quickly; cannot you see that I am worn out? If
hatred gives you pleasure, indulge it.’”

In other conversations with Harris, Wilde justified his penchant, as
narrated in the biography, as follows:

“There is no general rule of health; it is all personal, individual....
I only demand that freedom which I willingly concede to others. No one
condemns another for preferring green to gold. Why should any taste be
ostracised? Liking and disliking are not under our control. I want to
choose the nourishment which suits _my_ body and _my_ soul.”

“Each man ought to do what he likes, to develop as he will.... They
punished me because I did not share their tastes. What an absurdity it
all was! How dared they punish me for what is good in my eyes?...”

“What you call vice, Frank, is not vice.... It has been made a crime in
recent times.... They all damn the sins they have no mind to, and that’s
their morality.... Why, even Bentham refused to put what you call a vice
in his penal code, and you yourself admitted that it should not be
punished as a crime; for it carries no temptation with it. It may be a
malady; but, if so, it appears only to attack the highest natures....
The wit of man can find no argument which justifies its punishment....
You admit you don’t share the prejudice; you don’t feel the horror, the
instinctive loathing. Why? Because you are educated, Frank, because you
know that the passion Socrates felt was not a low passion, because you
know that Caesar’s weakness, let us say, or the weakness of Michael
Angelo, or of Shakespeare, is not despicable. If the desire is not a
characteristic of the highest humanity, at least it is consistent with
it.... Suppose I like a food that is poison to other people, and yet
quickens me; how dare they punish me for eating of it?... It is all
ignorant prejudice, Frank; the world is slowly growing more tolerant and
one day men will be ashamed of their barbarous treatment of me, as they
are now ashamed of the torturing of the Middle Ages.”

Harris constitutes himself an apologist for his friend. He outlines a
conversation in which he defended Wilde during the time of the latter’s
imprisonment. After demolishing the argument of a leading English
journalist that “any one living a clean life is worth more than a writer
of love songs or the maker of clever comedies”—Mr. John Smith worth more
than Shakespeare [who was a rake and very likely a psychical
hermaphrodite], Harris “pointed out that Wilde’s offence was
pathological and not criminal and would not be punished in a properly
constituted state.” Harris is quoted further:

“You admit that we punish crime to prevent it spreading; wipe this sin
off the statute book and you would not increase the sinners by one: then
why punish them?”

[Another guest of the journalist:] “Oi’d whip such sinners to death, so
I would. Hangin’s too good for them.”

“You only punished lepers in the Middle Ages because you believed that
leprosy was catching: this malady is not even catching.”

“Faith, Oi’d punish it with extermination.”...

“You are very bitter: I’m not; you see, I have no sexual jealousy to
inflame me.”

Oscar Wilde deserved his fall—possibly not because he was a pederast,
but because he flaunted his pederasty before the world, and because he
was otherwise anti-ethical and anti-religious in the highest degree.
After two years in prison, he never again set foot in the British
Empire. His wife would never again even see him. He lost all ambition to
put to use his extraordinary literary talents. For the rest of his life
he made his home for the most part in Paris. Apparently he indulged his
penchant more than ever. He remarked once that life would not be worth
living if desire should die, as compared with the author’s heartfelt
wish that it might die in himself. He was constantly pursuing
adolescents of the laboring class. He was known to call in to dine with
him at a high-class restaurant a dirty, unkempt, but Adonis-faced
gutter-snipe. He now acquired syphilis. The chase appeared to be the
chief aim of his life, although he now distinguished himself also as an
extreme gourmand, tippler, and sybarite in general, not to mention his
habitually swindling his old friends out of money.

According to general belief, death came in 1900 at the age of forty-six,
and was due to a general breakdown occasioned by gluttony, alcoholism,
absinthism, and syphilis. But strong reasons existed why he and his
confidants should palm off his death upon the world. In 1918 it is
rumored that he is still alive, at the age of sixty-four.

Wilde has given evidence of a slight approach toward feminine mentality.
(1) He was unequalled in vanity. (2) During his twenties, he wore his
hair in tufts several inches long and partially concealing his ears and
coat-collar. (3) He was the most extreme esthete (extravagant feeder on
beauty wherever it is to be found, like the author) the world has ever
seen. Æstheticism and homosexuality are often linked together. (4) At
thirty-three he became editor of England’s leading woman’s magazine. (5)
Harris speaks of his “extraordinary femininity and gentle weakness of
his nature, and instead of condemning him as I have always condemned
that form of sexual indulgence, I felt only pity for him and a desire to
protect and help him.” Harris further expresses Wilde’s reaction to the
prison atmosphere as essentially that of a “woman.”

Wilde’s case suggests an hypothesis: Homosexuality is due to innate
abnormal participation in the mentality of the opposite sex. Whether an
active pederast or a passive invert results, depends on the degree of
feminization. If slight, the former results, who is also capable of
heterosexual love and coitus—a psychical hermaphrodite, as was Wilde,
who however had a far stronger leaning toward the homosexual than toward
the heterosexual. If the degree is high—for example, almost entirely
feminine psychically and even inducing feminesque anatomy—a passive
invert results, as in the case of the author.

 September, 1918.




                              APPENDIX III
                     QUESTIONNAIRE ON HOMOSEXUALITY


[The governments of all cultured lands take from time to time censuses
of the blind, the deaf, and other defective classes. None has ever taken
a census of homosexualists, although the latter are fully as numerous as
the two definite classes previously named, and their effect on the
social body is even more marked. The Medico-Legal Journal, on the basis
of the following questionnaire, makes the first essay, in the history of
culture, in lining up the defective class in question so that science
may have a broader knowledge of them than that afforded by the
comparatively few detached biographical and analytical notes at present
extant. The reader is therefore requested to fill out the following
questionnaire—or have the intelligent homosexualist do so—and mail it to
the Medico-Legal Journal, New York. If unable to answer all queries,
kindly give as much information as possible. Additional schedules will
be furnished on request. Unpublished textual descriptions of cases would
be welcome, and will be returned on request. The results of this
questionnaire will be published, and the addresses of respondents will
be filed for due notification.]


(1) Physical sex of homosexualist...... (2) Age at date.... years
(or.... years at death)

(3) No. of brothers.... Sisters.... (4) Approximate age of father at
subject’s birth.... Of mother....

(5) Underline applicable physical type: Brunette. Blonde. Red-haired.
Not definitely any of these.

(6) Principal occupation as adult.....................

(7) Lineage (i.e., from what foreign countries did forebears emigrate)
........................................................................

(8) Environment in which life principally passed (Indicate by x’s):

           Rural or  Municipality Municipality Municipality
           village     2,500 to    25,000 to    100,000 to  Municipality
            under       25,000      100,000      500,000    over 500,000
            2,500
 Up to 10
   years    .....       .....        .....        .....        .....
   old
 11 to 20
   years    .....       .....        .....        .....        .....
   old
 21 to 50
   years    .....       .....        .....        .....        .....
   old
 After 50
   years    .....       .....        .....        .....        .....
   old

(9) Ever legally married..... Children, how many.....

(10) Plays any musical instrument.......................................

(11) Underline interest in sport: Practically none. Slight. Extensive.

(12) Underline interest in music: Practically none. Slight. Extensive.

(13) Underline interest in other art (designate): Practically none.
Slight. Extensive.

(14) Underline interest in religion: Practically none. Slight.
Extensive.

(15) Underline applicable schooling: Less than 8 years. High school.
Liberal arts college. Postgraduate. Professional school.

(16) If liberal arts course, favorite subjects in order of
preference....

(17) Number—if any—of foreign languages ever spoken with considerable
ability..... Number studied for translation.....

(18) What—if any—mental diseases suffered...............................

(19) A dipsomaniac..... Other drug addiction.....

(20) What rather serious (excluding the practically universal)
bodily diseases suffered......................
..................................................... Particularly
underline applicable: Venereal warts. Syphilis. Gonorrhea. Locality
(initial) of last three...

(21) If dead, cause of death............................................

(22) What—if any—disease has run in the family of either parent.........

(23) What other blood relatives have shown sexual abnormality:

Definite relationship Nature of abnormality ....................
...........................................
....................................................................
....................................................................

(24) Are sexual organs normal..... Describe any abnormalities...........
........................................................................
........................................................................

(25) Underline applicable fundamental or original instinct: Fellatio
(active buccal). Passive buccal. Masturbation of other. Mutual onanism.
Pædicatio (anal), indicating whether subject is active or passive, or
both. Cunnilingus (corresponding to active fellatio in the male).
Tribadism (corresponding to masturbation of other in the male).

(26) Approximate age when instinct first manifested itself in the
feelings.....years. In actions.....years.

(27) Secondary or acquired methods of coitus............................
........................................................................

(28) Is subject a psychical hermaphrodite (attracted toward both
sexes)....

(29) Does coitus stimulate any erogenous center (i.e., afford a
pleasurable titillation of any portion of the body) or is the
satisfaction entirely or almost entirely mental ........

(30) State of health day following coitus...............................

(31) If a male, does coitus induce an emission..... If so,
is sensation pleasurable or horrifying.............
........................................................................

(32) Is there love or adoration for the associate, or is the latter used
merely to secure the stimulation of the subject’s erogenous
center..........................................

(33) Upper and lower age limits of individuals that attract, with
indication of subject’s own age at the different periods
................................................................

(34) Any quality or apparel (such as plumpness, military
uniform) that constitutes a special attraction....
........................................................................

(35) If a physical male, is he undersized..... If female, unusually
large..... Muscles vigorous or feeble.........

(36) Is there a striking contrast between the real and apparent age.....

(37) Any peculiarity about the hair system, particularly the facial.....
........................................................................

(38) If a physical male, any tendency to wear the hair several inches
long.......................................

(39) Describe any anatomical approach toward the psychical
sex (e.g., milk glands in a male).....................
........................................................................

(40) Ever desired to wear apparel of psychical sex.....
Ever worn such apparel since childhood.........
........................................................................

(41) If a physical male, fondness for loud or fancy apparel.....
If female, for plain apparel..............
........................................................................

(42) Ever arrested or imprisoned for following instincts of
psychical sex..... If so, aggregate number of months or years
imprisoned..............................................

(43) Please note any other significant data as to particular
homosexualist on separate sheets.

                            GENERAL QUERIES:

(44) Approximate number of homosexualists—positively known as such—have
you encountered in your life-time: Passive inverts.... Active
pederasts.... Male psychical hermaphrodites.... Physically female
homosexualists....

(45) How many additional individuals have been under your suspicion:
Passive inverts.... Active pederasts.... Male psychical
hermaphrodites.... Physically female homosexualists....

(46) The author of “Autobiography of an Androgyne” estimates, roughly,
_passive inverts_ as 1 out of 300 physical males. Please give your
estimate: Passive inverts, 1 out of....males. Active pederasts, 1 out
of....males. Male psychical hermaphrodites, 1 out of....males. Female
psychical hermaphrodites, 1 out of....females. Other physically female
homosexualists, 1 out of....females. (In query 46, only adults are to be
considered.)

NAME AND ADDRESS OF PHYSICIAN SUBMITTING SCHEDULE. THIS INFORMATION WILL
BE CONSIDERED CONFIDENTIAL, AND IS ESSENTIAL.

                                    Name......................
                                     Street and number.................
                                       Post-office.................
 Date..........                          State.................




                         INDEX TO AUTOBIOGRAPHY


                                   A

 Abnormality, congenital, 29

 Abstinence would wreck life, 106

 Acting out a drama, 120

 Active pederasts, 156

 Actives are ultra-virile, 118

 Adopted son, first, 87, 236 ff., 249

 Adopted son, second, 240 ff., 249

 Advice to young inverts, 94, 242

 Æstheticism, 16

 Aftermath of dissipation, 93, 94, 150, 195, 243

 Age 4 to 8, 31 ff.
   9 to 12, 38 ff.
   13 to 18, 44 ff.
   19 to 21, 79 ff.
   22 to 23, 139 ff.
   24 to 26, 180 ff.
   27 to 28, 195 ff.
   29 to 30, 210 ff.
   31 to 39, 225 ff.
   40 to 44, 238 ff.

 Ague, sexual, 62, 72

 Alcohol, author’s attitude, 78, 126

 Alcohol conduces ven. disease, 126, 234

 Aliases, origin of, 26

 Alleviating ill effects, 95

 Anatomical peculiarities of associates, 87, 127

 Androgyne defined, 6

 Androgyne’s marriage bond, 83

 Androgynes the handiwork of God, 108

 Androgynism, frequency of, 2, 34

 Apparel, feminine, coveted, 36, 103

 Apparel of inverts, 36, 122, 202

 Appeal to General G., 229

 Appeal to highminded adolescents, 105, 195

 Appeal to U. S. district attorney, 229

 Army officers, interviews with, 213, 215, 226, 229, 230

 Arrest, 112, 130, 213, 226, 230
   chronic fear of, 114
   wishing for, 171

 Assault and battery, 64, 135, 136, 145, 146, 149, 172, 225–228

 Attraction, in boyhood, exercised on males, 10, 37, 44

 Attractiveness, what constituted, 86, 148, 149


                                   B

 Babying, 15, 48, 52, 78, 79, 85, 90, 152, 154, 179, 191, 192, 218

 Babyishness, 15, 64, 80, 85, 90, 98, 116, 119, 120, 123, 147, 154–156,
    191, 209, 210, 212, 218, 219, 222, 239, 246, 219

 Beauty, feminine, powerless, 47, 236

 Bemoaning lot, 41, 46, 48, 49, 51, 53, 54, 58, 67, 69, 70, 75, 129,
    141, 196, 209, 235, 245

 Betrayal of author, 139

 Beza on androgynes, 6

 Biblical condemnation not applicable, 107

 Birth, 27

 Blackmailers, 112, 145, 149, 165, 171, 186, 193, 212, 225, 241, 242

 Body-shaving, 124

 Bowery, debut on, 66
   night on, 147

 Burglarized, 241

 Business success of author, 244


                                   C

 Cannibalism, 171

 Career (open) ends, 231

 Cast out of a camp, 121

 Castration, 197
   appeal for at nineteen, 74
   by self meditated, 41
   effects of, 198 ff., 230

 Cause of inversion, 18

 Ceremony of adoration and of enslavement, 98

 Chance encounters with associates of other self, 162 ff.

 Child, hypochondriacal and weak, 31

 Childhood eccentricities, 37
   pastimes, 36, 37

 Childlikeness when adult, 14, 44, 119, 189, 248

 Chronic overwhelming fear, 146

 Coitus cum puella, 30, 236

 Coitus (fellatio) a panacea, 82
   effects of, 82, 90, 92 ff., 243

 Coitus, methods of, 89 ff.

 Conflict of my two lives, 129

 Conflicts of double life, 162

 Conversation, samples of, 64, 72, 122, 129, 134, 148, 165, 169, 181,
    192, 211

 Convulsions in early childhood, 31

 Courtmartialled, 229

 Cured (practically), 235, 245


                                   D

 Darkest New York, 154

 Debut as deliciae militum, 111
   as high-class fairie, 122
   as low-class fairie, 142
   at Fort X, 191
   at Fort Y, 202
   in Fort Z company, 225
   in Fourteenth Street, 122
   in Stuyvesant Square, 130
   on Bowery, 66
   on Mulberry Street, 71

 Defecation, incontinence of, 158

 Depilation, 124

 Detective arrests, 130

 Divine ban on celibacy, 161

 Double-life disclosed, 139, 188
   reason for, 174

 Driven to a stripling, 195


                                   E

 Eavesdroppers, 152, 168

 Eekhoud on inversion, 20

 Effects of fellatio on associates, 88, 89, 194

 Ejaculations in self, 39, 92, 95, 195, 196, 198

 Ellis’s theory of inversion, 21

 Encounters with acquaintances of one life while living out the other,
    162 ff.

 Eradication of facial hair, 124, 202

 Erotic dreams, 46

 Ethics of inversion, 23, 45, 52, 56, 67, 81, 105 ff., 139, 142, 190,
    194, 247

 Eunuchs by birth, in India, 69, 117, 155

 Europe, adventures in, 186 ff.

 Evening with a gang, 78

 Expelled from university, 140


                                   F

 Fairie apprenticeship, 77 ff.
   by destiny, 29, 35, 45, 74, 76
   defined, 7
   in all communities, 33, 156
   other, 32, 33, 125, 155
   qualifications, 119, 120, 189, 209
   sobriquets, 155

 Faith-cure tried, 68

 Farewell to forts, 216
   Fourteenth Street, 134
   low-class fairie period, 157
   Mulberry Street, 99

 Fear of slums, 146, 176

 Fellatio, at age of twelve, 39
   defence of, 90, 106 ff.
   defined, 89, 90, 92
   early opinions of, 42
   in infancy, 30 ff.
   in early youth, 39
   its genesis, 15, 29
   not a sin, 106 ff.
   not rare, 92
   obsession declines, 230
   prescribed by physician, 81, 105

 Female and infant impersonation natural, 19, 209

 Female brain in male body, 19, 246

 Female-impersonation, 10, 19, 31, 36, 62, 64, 85, 98, 111, 118, 119,
    120, 143, 156, 191, 202, 225, 237

 Female-impersonation sprees, 62 ff., 71, 77 ff., 85, 101 ff., 111, 122,
    128, 133, 147 ff., 151 ff., 154 ff., 157, 167 ff., 178 ff., 180 ff.,
    191 ff., 201 ff., 225

 Feminine apparel, yearning for, 36, 103
   stamp on author, 10–12, 13, 36–38, 248–250

 Femininity, sensitiveness over, 37, 48

 Fetishes, 49, 50, 206

 First catch, 72
   encounter with Mars, 111
   full knowledge, 57
   half of open career ends, 188
   knowledge of N. Y. professionals, 78
   knowledge of other adult inverts, 53
   nocturnal ramble, 61
   reading about inverts, 70
   robbery and assault, 65
   self-knowledge, 46

 Flirtations of boyhood, 36, 37, 43

 Forced into breeches, 35

 Fort X, debut at, 191

 Fort Y, debut at, 202

 Fort Z men cultivated, 225 ff.

 Fourteenth Street period, 122 ff.

 Frequency of fairie-ism, 151
   of passive inversion, 2, 34

 Freshman year, 47 ff.


                                   G

 Gethsemane, author’s, 46

 Girl-boy playmates, 32

 Glimpses into Hell’s Kitchen, 62, 167

 Gonorrhea, 126, 190

 Grapes conduce syphilis, 234

 Gynander, 28


                                   H

 Hair system of author, 11, 13, 124, 125, 199

 Half-murdered, 228

 Haunted by sensual images, 59

 Hecatontandry, 193

 Hell’s Kitchen, glimpses into, 62 ff., 167

 Hermaphrodism, types of, 8, 10, 33, 70

 Hermaphroditos, 5

 High-class fairieship, 122 ff.

 How marriage bond was cemented, 83

 Hyperæsthesia, author’s, 94


                                   I

 Incognito adventures inevitable, 137

 In college gymnasium, 103

 Infant fairie, 30 ff.

 Infantilism, psychical (See _Babyishness_)

 Innocent in red-light district, 66

 Instinct proven irresistible, 105, 174, 175

 Inter femora defined, 95

 In the lair of a strumpet, 102

 In the slums in my best, 101

 Introspective, 1

 Inversion, cause, 18
   frequency of, 2, 34
   not sodomy, 21
   promotes music, 33

 Inverts, forbearance due, 109
   good actors, 118 ff., 156
   occupying eminent positions, 91, 175
   two kinds, 20

 Irresponsibility, dawning sense of, 51

 I touch bottom, 143


                                   J

 Jail, reflections in, 113

 Jennie J. encounters R.W.’s associates, 164

 Jennie June is introduced, 62


                                   K

 Krafft-Ebing on androgynes, 6

 Kurella’s theory of inversion, 22


                                   L

 Legal injustice to inverts, 23, 24, 133, 136, 229

 Letters, sample, 201, 210, 214

 Liquor vitæ as medicament, 93

 Looked upon as girl, 10, 48, 85, 120, 128, 192, 204, 206, 218, 222

 Low-class fairieship, 142 ff.


                                   M

 Manuscript of autobiography stolen, 241

 Manustupration, 38, 41, 97

 Medicine, recourse to, 47, 73, 81

 Melancholia, 32, 45, 46, 48, 54, 58, 67, 69, 70, 75, 104, 109, 136,
    141, 173, 176, 230, 235, 238, 239, 241, 245

 Mental acumen, 38, 93, 114, 123, 139, 140

 Mental characteristics, 12, 14–17

 Method of leading up, 63, 181

 Middle life reached, 238

 Milites easiest of conquests, 117

 Model pupil, 38

 Monandry, periods of, 138, 237, 240

 Moral paragon outside venery, 44, 121, 131, 136, 189, 242

 Morality judged by others, 25, 44, 81, 140

 Mujerados among red men, 70, 156

 Mulberry Street period, 77 ff.
   farewell to, 99
   night on, 85

 Muscle dance, 15, 166

 Music, effect of, 116


                                   N

 Nature of satisfaction, 91, 97

 Nature’s aim in androgynism, 88, 108, 243

 No alcohol, no syphilis, 234

 Nymphomania, 59, 60, 96, 104, 142, 159, 173, 174, 195


                                   O

 Open career ends, 231

 Opinion of inversion, prevalent, 25, 75, 110, 140

 Outcast period, 141 ff.


                                   P

 Pædicatio dangerous, 82, 96, 158
   defined, 92, 96

 Parentage, 27

 Persecution of inverts, 130, 132, 149, 172, 227, 235

 Petit-jesus, etymology, 8

 Physical traits, 12, 13, 35, 48, 248

 Physicians consulted, 47, 73, 81

 Pickpocketing, 101, 145, 203, 228

 Police, encounters with, 112, 122, 132, 145, 178, 193, 207, 229

 Polyandry vs. monandry, 88

 Polyglottism and inversion, 17

 Popularity and fame achieved, 205

 Potassium iodide antidote vs. ill effects, 95

 Prayers for feminization, 41
   virility, 46, 67, 68

 Pregnancy, fear of, 43

 Private secretary period, 173 ff.

 Professional fairies, 122, 125, 143, 155

 Pursued by women, 13


                                   Q

 Quarters of the city frequented, 76, 122, 131, 143


                                   R

 Race for life, 170

 Raison d’étre of inverts, 88, 108, 243

 Recognized by Jennie J’s associates, 162 ff.

 Recognized by Ralph W’s associates, 162 ff.

 Reform, 158

 Rejected by Providence from ministry, 76, 161

 Relatives, abnormal, 28

 Religion unavailing, 49, 56, 58, 68, 159

 Religious prodigy, 35, 45, 58, 68, 248
   worker, 35, 45, 47, 56, 80, 81, 159, 162, 230

 Reveries, youthful, 40

 Robbers, 64, 78, 102, 145, 149, 169, 179, 193, 214, 241

 Rockies, in, 235

 Ruffians’ attitude, 63


                                   S

 Sadism, 98, 214

 St. Vitus’ dance, 37

 School life, 38

 Second nocturnal ramble, 71

 Semen ingested, effect of, 93

 Semi-invalid, author a, 244

 Senior year, 122 ff.

 Sex is psychical primarily, 22
   scale, 9

 Sexes not sharply divided, 8

 Sexual determinants of author, 10–13
   lot compared with normal, 243
   precocity, 30
   preferences, 87, 127, 142, 149
   reveries, youthful, 40
   starvation, 104

 Sexually abnormal relatives, 28

 Singing, fairie, 78, 155, 192

 Soldiers deliciae, 111 ff., 138, 147, 189 ff., 236, 240
   demigods, 50, 115, 190, 192, 202, 206
   European, 187
   in camp, 116 ff.
   in squad-room, 191, 192
   persecution by, 193, 225 ff.
   susceptibility to homosexuality, 117 ff., 191

 Songs, 217 ff.

 Sophomore and junior years, 69 ff.

 Spermatorrhea, 194, 196

 Spied on, 225

 Spree, preliminaries to, 177

 Squad-room, evening in, 192

 Squaw-men in red race, 70, 156

 Stamping ground as low-class fairie, 144

 Steamboat flirtation, 180

 Stuyvesant Square, debut in, 131

 Suicide contemplated, 32, 37, 46, 58, 69, 106, 109, 113, 141, 173, 235

 Syphilis, 126, 127, 150, 231 ff.


                                   T

 Taste for learning, 17, 35, 38, 51, 125, 139

 Tattooing, 87, 192

 Teasing, subject of, 14, 208, 212, 248

 Temptations peculiar to inverts, 39, 43, 44, 48–51, 55, 74, 235

 Tobacco, never used, 77

 Two-sided life, 119

 Typical chase, 153

 Typical night on side street, 151


                                   U

 Undersized, 13, 35

 Usual treatment of inverts, 75, 110


                                   V

 Venereal disease, 126, 127, 150, 190, 231 ff.

 Venery, excessive, harmful, 150

 Verdicts of pastor and alienist, 81

 Voice, singing, 11, 27, 78, 192
   speaking, 11


                                   W

 Warts, venereal, 126

 Weight, author’s, 198

 Whistling, inability, 37

 Who cultivate androgynes, 32, 33, 86, 117, 243

 Why a double life, 174

 Why an autobiography, 1, 3, 7, 35

 Why fairie career ended, 231, 235

 Wilde, Oscar, 20, 251


                                   Y

 Youthful appearance, 16, 189, 244

 Year 1874 on, 27 ff.
   1883 on, 38 ff.
   1889 on, 45 ff.
   1891 on, 47 ff.
   1893, 77 ff.
   1894–5, 99 ff.
   1896, 128 ff.
   1897, 158 ff.
   1898, 180 ff.
   1899–01, 189 ff.
   1902, 203 ff.
   1903–4, 210 ff.
   1905–6, 216 ff.
   1907–18, 235 ff.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
      spelling.
 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.