Earl Lind

“ After two weeks of many-sided investigation, the death of Z remains as great a mystery as on the evening of [date omitted by author of The Female-Impersonators] when his mother discovered him strangled aboard his power yacht in New York Harbor dressed in woman's apparel.
"No reason for suicide and no motive for murder—no proof of suicide, no positive evidence of murder." Such is the conclusion reached by the police, private investigators employed by Z's family, and by newspaper reporters who have worked on the baffling case unique for its mass of contradictory theories and circumstances. ”

“ The fact that young Z wore woman's clothing is to the police the strongest evidence of suicide and supplies to them evidence of a psychopathic individuality. [That fact is to myself the strongest evidence of murder since I have repeatedly witnessed the intense revulsion of prudish bigots at any cross-sex phenomenon, and have been myself half-murdered solely on this incentive.] ”

“ X (at the time my regular stamping-ground) who hated androgynism so fiercely as to be capable of murdering an individual in whom the phenomenon cropped up. I therefore explained matters to a brother: that if ever I was found murdered, to look for my assassin among the common soldiers of Ft. X. He replied: "Ralph, if you are ever murdered on one of your female-impersonation sprees, the family would be too much ashamed ever to take the first step to bring your murderer to justice!" ”

“ The autopsy showed that every character of blow had been inflicted—deep stab wounds, slashes, and fracturing strokes on the skull either with the broad side or dull back of the sabre. The coat of X, who was fully clothed when killed, had been slashed to tatters. [The assassin wished not merely to kill, but to hack X to pieces because of his loathing of androgynism. I myself have not alone been half-murdered, but mutilation has been practiced for its own sake. See page 132 of my Autobiography of an Androgyne.] ”

“ It was two miles from Z's residence to the boat; twenty minutes, by motor-cycle, to get on board. The reason given impresses me as a mere pretext to hide his appointment on the launch and prospective female-impersonation—because the pretext sounds just like me. I am one who has been compelled to falsify much because if my associates had been granted the truth, they would have impiously crushed me. In my university course in ethics, I was taught that it is proper to tell a lie if the persons deceived have no right to the truth. ”

“ And to the present writer, himself an androgyne and instinctive cross-dresser, the strongest of reasons for suicide and the strongest of motives for murder! Androgynes, because so terribly misjudged by their associates, are the most melancholy and prone to suicide of any class of mankind. Moreover, they are often murdered on the strong motive of intense loathing felt by prudes ignorant of abnormal psychology, in whose eyes the androgyne is a "sodomite," with all the terrible, though false, connotation of that term. ”

“ That he had never shown any suicidal tendencies. [Readers of my Autobiography of an Androgyne know that I probably showed more suicidal tendencies than almost any one else who has failed to carry them out; yet I always hid them absolutely from my family and every-day associates. Androgynes, because they do not want their friends to become aware of the cause of their melancholia (fearing it would alienate them, as at present no one can forgive cross-sexism in an intimate) habitually suffer in silence and seclusion the most intense mental torture.] ”

“ I append them here because tending to show that the sparser the population of a district, the greater the repugnance of civilized young roues to androgynism and the rarer is the latter phenomenon per thousand males. In other words: My conclusion from extensive travel and intimate mingling, as an ultra-androgyne, with native adolescent roues in every corner of the United States and Europe is that among civilized nations, the frequency of male bisexuals per thousand inhabitants and their tolerance by the full-fledged are in general in direct proportion to the density of population. ”

“ The sergeant I met two days ago—as common soldiers in general—was very much interested to hear the experiences of an androgyne as I narrated my life-story for the sixteen years since I talked with him. I habitually tell soldier associates the complete story of my life, and all who stay in the circle to listen appear very glad for the chat. ”

“ Z was only one more of the many martyrs to the public's prohibition of the showing up of the myth that bisexuals are monsters of depravity, deserving the crudest forms of torture and even murder. Those guilty of Z's death—under the theory now being propounded—were fundamentally . The guilt lies with the Church and public opinion, both of which teach that no punishment is too bad for an androgyne. ”

“ They are very frank in telling me their outlook on life. If there is no opportunity for assault and robbery (A large proportion of the uncultured thinking the first thing of robbing a stranger androgyne, if not of "beating him up") I have, to strange young soldiers, confessed myself an androgyne within three minutes after we exchanged our first words, because their learning that fact proves, in general, the strongest kind of a drawing card. ”

“ Q loved to roam the slums of large cities. [An earmark of cultured androgynism. They thus roam because realizing that in their Overworld, they are prohibited outlet for the feminine side of their duality. They roam with day dreams of how they would like to impersonate a female in the Underworld, where alone female-impersonators are welcome; and finally, in many cases, they are carried away by their mania for an actual female-impersonation spree.] ”

“ If I am correctly informed, court martials often impose on an enlisted man caught in a misdemeanor a prison sentence several times as lengthy as would a civil court. I take this opportunity to enter a plea for better treatment of common soldiers, who have been my "pals" for a quarter of a century—particularly for punishments by court martial no more severe than by civil courts. Sometimes I have thought that when an uneducated young man enlists to defend his country as a common soldier, he thereby forfeits all rights of citizenship and all privileges guaranteed by the American constitution. ”

“ All the ropes used in binding Z belonged to his yacht. [The reason Z was done to death with ropes is that there naturally were many on board a yacht and it was a noiseless death. There was a loaded rifle on the yacht. That a noiseless method was chosen indicates murder rather than suicide. The use of ropes also indicates a yachtsman as author of the crime—because accustomed to handling ropes. He lives and breathes ropes.] ”

“ But they could not have been particularly intemperate because my own experience proved that excessive venery soon wrecks the health of an androgyne. As both were close to sixty, their lives had doubtless been temperate. They had probably indulged (the more humiliating role in fellatio) not more than once a week throughout their adulthood. But although they apparently sought intimacy with almost every adolescent Adonis or Hercules (only one out of every twenty adolescents could qualify under either of these types) whose acquaintance they made, they harmed these youthful rakes not in the least ”

“ A small proportion of cultured androgynes who live alone in their own homes entertain there adolescents who bear the earmarks of trustworthy gentlemen. X's murderer could have been of no other type, but was in addition an extreme prude so far as concerns homosexuality. The cultured enjoin extreme noiselessness so as not to arouse suspicions of co-tenants of the same apartment house. The uncultured commonly receive any adolescent at all in their homes because having no fear of disgrace and blackmail. ”

“ Overcome with terror, she left the boat without further examination. Mr. Z, when his wife greeted him with the franctic cry: "A woman has been strangled on our yacht!" immediately visited it. He removed the hood from the form on the cabin floor, and in amazement recognized the face of his son. Around the neck was a tightened noose of Manila rope tied with a hangman's knot. Mr. Z is positive the knot was at the back of the neck. [This position is an indication of non-suicide. A suicide would naturally have placed the knot in front.] Unable to loosen the knot, Mr. Z cut the rope. ”

“ If the murder theory is true, the assassin must have planned to murder with great care. [It was all done on the spur of the moment, and the death probably an accident.] He must have had an accomplice who brought him to the boat before the murder, and took him away afterward, and he must have known in some mysterious way that Z was going to visit the boat that Sunday afternoon. ”

“ The families have my most sincere sympathy, particularly because I myself have several times been brought near death's door in the manner in which their unfortunate—but not in the least immoral—relatives were put out of the way. ”

“ Cultured androgynes, realizing how bitterly they are hated by prudes, live constantly under the sword of Damocles. Every night they fall asleep in the fear of being murdered. They are uncommonly careful in locking themselves in. ”

“ Z's ankles were tied together with rope, as were his knees and arms. [A queer way to commit suicide for the victim to take the greatest pains to make people think he had been murdered! And when there were a rifle and cartridges on board the launch! And only an hour or two before in a jovial mood, and laying in a supply of gasoline!] A medical examiner calculated that death had occurred between four and five P. M. The two men on the deck of the power-boat on one side of Z's launch had gone ashore at 5.30, and the single man on the power-boat on the other side, at 4.30. ”

“ Moreover, some androgynes are psychic hermaphrodites and capable of sincerity in courting a girl, while at the same time Nature insists on occasional female-impersonation sprees. Z might have been a psychic hermaphrodite. ”

“ Alike in mystery, the cases of both X and Y manifest the strong likelihood that the same man effected both murders, with a suggestion of a deeper motive than robbery, of a desire to do violence aroused to frenzy, judging by the stark ferocity with which both crimes were committed. ”

“ I estimate my own proportions as woman, 80 per cent; man, 20. Evidently Z was around 60, woman and 40, man, judging by his willingness to take a fire-arm into his hands, a thing which I would never do, even as a child shrinking from a cap-pistol. ”

“ III. College Student's Death is Unexplained.
(The following are excerpts from a New York paper. Every few months the press brings to light a similar death of an androgyne. All because the world misunderstands and grossly misjudges them, as well as because public opinion has always deprived them of the means of coming to an understanding of themselves. Bracketed words and italics are those of the author of The Female-Impersonators.) ”

“ Because it is inconveniently located for a visit. After sixteen years, I happened to be recognized by one soldier who had stuck to that post and risen to the rank of sergeant. He told me there were still only about four at the fort who served there when I had the honor to be "the daughter of the regiment." He expressed his amazement at my being so well preserved, saying I look twenty years younger than I am. ”

“ Therefore X is believed to have freely admitted the man who was to murder him—probably such a chance acquaintance as he appears frequently to have made in his saunterings through the city's streets and visits to its resorts. ”

“ His social hours were spent almost entirely with young men. He had been known to comment: "I keep young because I associate with the young." The Q servants said these young-men callers never behaved boisterously. ”

“ Q did not drink and never took special interest in any woman. But he did like to rove about in the districts of big cities in which the poorest classes live and work Whenever he was in New York, he spent most of his time in such districts At the Morgue, Mr. ”

“ He frequently organized card parties and dances for his guests, and to these were always invited freely young men in war service on leave in New York. [Warriors are androgynes' special heroes. A common soldiers' and sailors' club was situated next door, where Y apparently made many acquaintances.] ”