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.”