Keeper of the Superfluous Es!

"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 [i.e. mental] sex?"

This is a pseudonymous autobiography by an American writer sometimes known as Jennie June, and sometimes as Earl Lind, Raphael Werther, or Ralph Werther (none of which were legal names). It describes June's experiences as an AMAB person who felt like a woman, had relationships with men, and eventually had a gender-affirming orchiectomy. The book advocates for kindness towards queer and gender-nonconforming people (or at least the sorts June approved of) and the repeal of sodomy laws. It was published under the imprint of the New York Medico-Legal Journal and its sale was restricted to "members of the learned professions" as June had been unable to find a publisher who would market it to a general readership, so it's framed as a sort of self-narrated medical case study.

I haven't read a lot of queer books of this era and I probably won't make a habit of it, but this was an interesting look at what people were thinking and experiencing not all that long before modern Western conceptions of trans identity and gender transition started to take shape.

I'm going to use he/him pronouns for June because that's how he referred to himself in his writing.

( Cut for length and content (hate crimes, sexual abuse and assault, suicide, period-typical social attitudes) )

The Autobiography of an Androgyne is in the public domain, so you can read it on Project Gutenberg or on the Internet Archive if you like.