Autobiography of an Androgyne

Earl Lind

Description

Earl Lind’s 1918 autobiography has been recognized as a pioneering work in the history of transgender literature. Throughout his life, Lind was forced to justify and defend his existence from puritanical authorities. In the first of his trilogy of autobiographical works, he not only demands recognition, but exposes the denial of his existence as nothing but hatred and fear.

“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. […] [T]hese 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.”

Situating his own identity within this history of oppression, Lind makes the case for recognizing the presence of androgynes in all human societies. Ever since he was a child, Lind identified as feminine and was keenly aware of his homosexual desires, gaining a reputation among the local boys and soon turning to girls for friendship and understanding. In a world that saw androgynes as both corrupt and willfully different, Lind sought to increase understanding and to explain through scientific, historical, and personal evidence why his identity was congenital, and therefore natural.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Earl Lind’s Autobiography of an Androgyne is a classic work of transgender literature reimagined for modern readers.

Sujets

• Classiques
• Tous les classiques
• Transgender Studies
• LGBTQ+ Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Mint Editions
• Date de parution: 21 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781513298467
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Autobiography of an Androgyne
Earl Lind
 
 
Autobiography of an Androgyne was first published in 1918.
This edition published by Mint Editions 2021.
ISBN 9781513296968 | E-ISBN 9781513298467
Published by Mint Editions®
minteditionbooks .com
Publishing Director: Jennifer Newens
Design & Production: Rachel Lopez Metzger
Project Manager: Micaela Clark
Typesetting: Westchester Publishing Services
 
 
 
Inscribed to N ATURE’S S TEP- C HILDREN —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
 
C ONTENTS I NTRODUCTION A UTHOR’S P REFACE A UTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN A NDROGYNE A PPENDIX I. I MPRESSIONS OF THE A UTHOR A PPENDIX II. T HE C ASE OF O SCAR W ILDE A PPENDIX III. Q UESTIONNAIRE ON H OMOSEXUALITY
 
I NTRODUCTION
I offer no apology for bringing the A UTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN A NDROGYNE 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 longfelt want.
For, although I hope to fill with the A UTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN A NDROGYNE 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 p æ derasty 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.
O UR 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 f