Earl Lind

“ The bugle-call, because closely associated with the clash of arms and with that type of human who shine as demigods, always lifts me up into an unutterably blissful female-impersonate and cross-dress intoxication. I seem to be raised to the very zenith of the universe as THE SUPREME WOMAN, THE FAIRIE QUEEN, and to have all the fighting men that ever lived bowing low in worship of my feminine attributes. During the minute that the bugle-call resounds and reverberates, I live infinitely! I live out a whole eternity! ”

“ I do not give a straw to see any other type of men marching. But while witnessing warriors stalk by, I am seized with a craze to prostrate myself in the roadway and have those fierce, pugnacious young tigers—as they tramp, tramp, tramp!—trample upon me until dead.
The two artillerymen I met in the Rialto begged me to make an hegira out to the barracks to give a female-impersonation before their buddies. One afternoon I made the hour's journey, clad as an extreme dresser of the gentle, and at the same time harebrained, sex. ”

“ Being in woman's garb, I would not step inside, but jollied with them on the large porch. The news spread that I was only a female-impersonator and half-a-hundred crowded around, flirting for all they were worth. That was, mon cheri, my apotheosis—far above all other adventures. I was overjoyed at hearing at one time from half-a-hundred demigod? cries of admiration and affection. For I would sacrifice myself more for, and give more richly to, youthful common soldiers than any other class of men. ”

“ The only taint in my family is that father is somewhat womanish: falsetto voice, sissie mannerisms, and never any mind for things thoroughly masculine. He ought never to have married to perpetuate, and probably strengthen, his own mild sexual intermediacy.
As I walked the Bowery on that first spree, I was puzzling my mind as to which of the brightly lighted dance-halls or the dark and fearsome dives—through whose doors I saw pass only sailors, guttersnipes, and slovenly gangsters—would be the best stage for my virgin effort at female-impersonation. ”

“ Whenever I catch sight of a youthful soldier, I rivet my gaze every second possible, even halting at the curb to look back at the wonderful vision. I yearn to fling myself at the soldier's feet and cry out my worship of all his magic traits. As the vision fades away, a pang goes through my heart that he must pass out of my life forever and I never be able to make known to him that for the rest of my days I shall be continuously burning incense in my heart to his memory. ”

“ Ralphie, I am overwhelmed when I call to mind the hundreds of the cream of physical youngmanhood with whom I have flirted, and whom I wholeheartedly loved! I have to weep at thinking that the way the world is made, I must be forever barred from them. ”

“ Cross-dressing is generally an earmark of sexual intermediacy. It is not at all due—as bigots claim—to moral depravity, but entirely to irreproachable instinct. It is not at all due to childhood's training, such as the stories of parents' bringing up their boy or girl as a girl or a boy when they particularly wished a female or a male heir. Such child, as soon as he or she became old enough, would wholeheartedly rebel against such a travesty. In nearly every case, cross-dressing is due to the fact that Nature injected a psyche of the one sex into a corpus of the other. ”

“ Ralphie, mon cheri, I can never forget the entire day spent in getting together my woman's wardrobe on arrival in New York. I went to a ladies' store in the Ghetto. I lacked the cheek to buy feminine finery uptown. I gave the Russian Jewess the usual hoax of amateur theatricals. And women are so dense as to believe it! She helped hugely to the end of my being able to turn myself into a stunning soubrette.
An evening or two later, in my flat, I dressed for my first spree. ”

“ In the next world, how I wish, as a reward for my always having tried in this to make my associates happy, I might be placed by Providence in the position of a sort of sub-deity to the hundreds of rough, uncultured young bachelors whom I have made proteges in this life, in order that I might be the means of affording each the eternity of bliss I so covet for them!. ”

“ Mildly virile writers on sex forget that there exist tens of thousands of men of far superior sexual energy. While they themselves, for example, may care for the services of their legal wife as seldom as twice a month, the tremendously virile "fellow" is not satisfied with less than an opportunity every night, and is at the same time "the husband of all women." In my opinion, Philippics against the androgyne have their basis only in prudery and bigotry. ”

“ Those tears were chiefly due to the world's forbidding a bisexual's living according to his-her nature. I could not assume the responsibilities of a man and pay court to women—an ordeal so horrible, but expected of me if I stayed in my home town. I balked at having my life forced into a masculine groove. In New York one can live as Nature demands without setting every one's tongue wagging.
I was unconscious of sex until my fourteenth year. Up to that age, I went to pay school. My dozen schoolmates—including four sisters—were all of the goody-goody type. No one ever tried to seduce me. ”

“ To have my soul wholly clothed in woman's bone and flesh instead of man's for the most part—the latter so hated in my own body, but slavishly worshipped when breathing out yells of joy in sport or the cry to battle and the clash of arms! ”

“ I read how a girl-boy of eighteen committed suicide in New York City by jumping from a thirty-five foot bridge upon railroad tracks. Adolescent androgynes are continually putting an end to their lives because bitterly persecuted merely on account of their bisexuality and most unfeelingly told by their closest associates that they are deeply depraved, and because prohibited by the leaders of thought from acquiring scientific knowledge of their idiosyncrasy. ”

“ Ralphie, I am now going to tell you about the foremost specimen of young manhood I ever met. If a man show had been held five years ago, on the model of the horse show, the young fellow I am going to tell you about would have won first prize.
You know that most of us hermaphroditoi have a single soul-mate. Of course they are uncultured. Mere diamonds in the rough. For the past four years, George Greenwood, whom you have seen with me, has been my own soul-mate. For while I have flirted with many others, he alone has been like an adopted son—as we older hermaphroditoi look upon our soul-mates. ”

“ The sexually full-fledged cannot get into their heads that we women-men are just as high-minded and conscientious as themselves. They are continually hurling insults—calling' us "degenerates." But my only thought is to heap blessings on those whom I worship. ”

“ The cross-dresser is not usually conscious of the oddity of taste for apparel. His or her -manner of dressing indicates what he or she considers artistic. All ultra-androgynes—such as made up the membership of the Cercle Hermaphroditos—would always, if society permitted, clothe themselves as women. ”

“ It is difficult for any of us hermaphroditoi to take a wife. One hates so to explain to a woman that after marriage, the life must be that of brother and sister. And no woman—excepting only the most old-maidish—would marry under these conditions. But I know one of us hermaphroditoi—before your time, Ralphie—who did marry, after thirty, under that arrangement, and only because he had political ambitions, and his being known as a married man would give pause to enemies who were backbiting him because of the indiscretions of his youth. ”

“ In a physical male, cross-dressing is the instinctive wearing of feminine apparel, or, in default, of the loudest and fanciest male styles. In a physical female, it is similar adoption of masculine habiliments, or in default, of feminine attire and aspect approaching the masculine as nearly as possible: hair bobbed, stiff linen collar, a man's neck scarf, and always severely plain tailor-made waist and skirt. ”

“ Ralphie, mon cheri, the sexual cripple now speaking was born in 1862 and brought up in a town of 50,000 within 300 miles of New York City. I did not move here until twenty. As soon as I became financially independent of father, I chose New York as the stage for my career because only in a great city can an instinctive female-impersonator give his overwhelming yearnings free rein incognito and thus keep the respect of his every-day circle. ”

“ For a brief history of New York's bright-light districts since 1800, see the author's RIDDLE OF THE UNDERWORLD, in its Table of Contents. ↑ A warning to any unsophisticated androgyne who may be moved to an impersonation spree in a red-light district. It is necessary to go slow and be ultra-cautious. Numerous androgynes have been murdered by gangsters. Frank-Eunice, Angelo-Phyllis, and myself were exceptionally fortunate. Every time an androgyne puts himself in the power of a stranger gangster, it is at the risk of murder. ”

“ For the latter was conspicuously womanish: beardal growth sparse and always clean-shaven, if not eradicated; breasts as large as in some women; hips very broad; spine disproportionately long and legs correspondingly short. "Hisher" body approached the feminine to a higher degree than that of any other androgyne I ever set eyes on with the possible exception of myself. Phyllis surpassed me in meagreness of beardal growth, sissie voice, feminine strut and gestures, and craze and taste for feminine finery. ”

“ As "women's men" are prone to take for private secretary the prettiest face or "divinest" form among the gentle sex, likewise I picked out the applicant standing highest as an Adonis. He is only twenty and possesses golden curly hail ”

“ It is inconceivable that a young man of that type should be intimate with an androgyne except for a rich reward—which has occurred when the individual androgyne was cut off from all access to the ultra-sexed, toward whom alone he gravitates The mildly virile young man shudders violently at the very thought and is confident—a priori, as it is only a traditional phantasy—that his vita sexualis, health, and morals would be seriously under-mined. ”

“ Blue clothing and brass buttons surely bring out whatever charm was born in a young fellow. Furthermore, his taste for warfare, shown by his volunteering, proves him a demigod. For I think warfare the highest function of the real man. ”

“ And fortunately, for I thus met Roland and the other hermaphroditoi who had likewise turned to the Rialto to blow off now and again their ordinarily pent up, but at last overwhelming, craze for female-impersonation.
II. Jailed for Wearing Petticoats.
A scrape that I like to tell about, mon cheri, although very bitter in the happening, is my only arrest for flaunting myself in feminine finery. Don't you think a jail a queer home for a wishy-washy gentleman and art connoisseur? A softy whose swatting a fly was the worst act he was ever guilty of, and he almost had to weep when he did that. ”

“ I have already made something of a confidant of him in order to learn his feelings toward a woman-man. Most young fellows with a puritan bringing up would turn the cold shoulder. But I found Calvin Luther open to reason. He told me he has always, as a good church member, struggled against his wanting the gentle sex. ”

“ Their behavior became boisterous and improper. When the waiters tried to curb them, a terrible fight started. The waiters were themselves ex-soldiers and born fighters. Heavy glass schooners were thrown back and forth. I had to get under a table.
After several minutes, two constables burst in and put all my party under arrest. I had now to 'fess up that I was not really a girl. My faltering words filled the constables with disgust and hatred. ”