pining for you. I want to visit you at the barracks. I want to see where
the dear soldiers sleep and I want to eat in the mess-hall with them.
Could you not let me spend a few days with you in the barracks? You can
tell the fellows I am your cousin. I wish I could live with warriors all
the time. My highest earthly joy is to be in a squad-room and with
soldiers.... What do you see in a girl to love? In a fellow I see
strength, boldness, recklessness, pugnacity, a manly walk, and
fierceness of expression, which cause me to fall down before him in
adoration....
Your baby,
JENNIE JUNE
After receiving a satisfactory reply, I one afternoon, according to
appointment, arrived at the barracks’ railroad station. Two soldiers
were waiting, but not the two I had met. I inquired if they knew A. B.
One replied that he was A. B., and they tried to pass as the two I had
met. I declared he was not A. B., but he proved his identity by
displaying wearing apparel I had sent him and the letters I had written.
I had been corresponding with a total stranger. Nevertheless I
accompanied them and they entertained me royally.
[Sidenote: _Debut at Fort Y._]
They refused to take me to the barracks, as they did not wish to be seen
in my company by the other soldiers. They also refused to tell me the
names of my two Bowery acquaintances, but inadvertently referred to one
by a nickname. I went to the barracks and hunted for its owner until I
found him. He received me hospitably. As companionship with soldiers in
a squad-room was for me the best of earth’s paradises, I had the
intention at Ft. Y to conduct myself invariably on the military
reservation just like a normal young man, so that I would not be barred
from the squad-rooms, as had happened at Ft. X because I had acted the
fairie in these rooms.
Nevertheless the fact that I was a fairie spread rapidly, and all eyes
were fastened upon me wherever I moved. I learned later that my
love-letters had been handed around for every one to read. When my call
ended, a crowd of fifty soldiers gathered on the porch to see me off. In
addition every window was filled with soldiers calling out: “Hello
Jennie June!” “Hello sweetheart!” Under such an incentive, I yielded to
the impulses of a coquette and gave a female-impersonation, much to the
delight of my audience. I was overjoyed at receiving attentions
simultaneously from a hundred young Mars. I was never better dressed,
blue suit bound with braid—as ornamental as a man not in uniform could
possibly wear—and large red bow with ends hanging down below the
coat-collar, the bow constituting the badge of fairie-ism. The skin of
my face was as soft and smooth as that of a baby, I having only just
pulled out every hair by the roots.
[Sidenote: _Events of 1902._]
Possibly on account of its being just before retreat, only one soldier
followed when I took my departure, and one with whom I had never
exchanged a word. He scraped acquaintance and demonstrated himself to be
an ideal associate for an androgyne. But he was a born and bold robber,
ransacked my pockets, and even helped himself to some of my wearing
apparel. Nevertheless for the two years following, he was my special
partner at Ft. Y, always picking my pockets mercilessly and fearlessly
as soon as we met, but otherwise an ideal lord and master. I adored him
because he was marvellously handsome, strong, and brave, as well as
because he was one of the greatest desperadoes I ever met.
From this date on, in the summer of 1902, until the summer of 1905,
which saw the close of my open career as a fairie, I made it a practice
to spend an evening (in warm weather generally including the afternoon)
one week at Ft. Y, and the alternate week at Ft. X. Having the closest
of friendships at both forts, I had thus to divide my time between them.
Because of the demands on me in my ordinary scholarly career, I could
not give to the “Jennie June” side of existence any more time than that
mentioned, although I would have very much liked to be with my idols
continuously.
The time that I did spend with the soldiers was almost entirely devoted
to innocent frolicking. I was to a large extent the medium through which
they got joy out of life. For example, they have given me names of
comrades and even of commissioned officers as their own, with the
request for a love-letter. Until I learned of the deception, the letters
went. I was told that my love letters and songs were tacked to the fort
bulletin boards in order that every one might have the opportunity to
read them. Several times at the beginning of my visits to Ft. Y, I was
received in the squad-rooms. Soldiers danced with me there, making
believe I was their girl. I was otherwise their plaything, being paraded
about on their shoulders or lying in a stretcher, being tossed up in a
blanket, etc. I joined with them in base-ball and foot-ball, of course
not in regular games, as I was as awkward as the average girl in these
sports, being merely the buffoon of the game. Thus taking part in the
pastimes of the soldiers was to me one of the highest pleasures of life.
[Sidenote: _Frolicking with Soldiers._]
Of course they always regarded me as a girl-boy weakling. Policy
required that I always represent myself as a person of no talents except
those of the fairie, and as a person occupying a humble station in life.
Otherwise some of a vicious turn of mind would have followed me up with
the purpose of blackmail, as was done in 1905, when the thirst for money
suddenly put an end to my association with soldiers of one fort and
almost occasioned my murder. Some quizzed me from time to time in order
to ascertain whether I was worth following up, but I saved the situation
through subterfuge. While they were ignorant that I belonged habitually
to a high social stratum, I lost only trifling sums through robbery and
blackmail.
They looked upon me as a rather remarkable individual. One of them told
a policeman in my presence that I had been the talk of the fort for
months. In a parade in which my soldier friends took part, I as
spectator occupied a rather prominent position on the very edge of the
line, and from rank after rank as they passed, I distinguished the
words: “There’s Jennie June.” At an inter-fort ball game at which there
were 500 spectators, amid the continuous shouting, a score got together
on my arrival and several times in unison shouted “Jennie June!” I
achieved popularity at both forts, although a small percentage proved
irreconcilable.
[Sidenote: _Popularity and Fame Achieved._]
When soldiers of Forts X and Y met at athletic contests, they
interchanged stories about my adventures. At the army manoeuvres in
Virginia in 1905, in which soldiers from all the forts in states
bordering on the Atlantic took part, my peculiarities and adventures
were spread broadcast, as I learned through encountering on the Bowery a
soldier from a fort which I had never visited who had just returned from
the manoeuvres. Realizing that as “Jennie June” I was very widely known
among soldiers, I made it a practice of asking those whom I ran across
in New York if they had ever heard of “Jennie June.” A considerable
proportion, before I revealed my identity, were able to recount
adventures in which I had figured.
During this closing period of my open career as a fairie, I was indeed
very widely known personally. On the streets and on public conveyances
when amid New York’s crowds, I was a number of times accosted by young
men, some of whom I could not remember, but who had seen me somewhere
and knew me as Jennie June. Several times as many people knew me under
this name and character as under my real masculine name.
[Sidenote: _Adventures at the Forts._]
I overran the two military reservations as no other civilian would have
been allowed to. Soldiers on or off guard would escort me under or
behind the fortifications, beyond the “dead line” for all other
civilians. Sometimes at night when I had learned that one of my
intimates was on guard on a certain beat, I would seek him. Perhaps I
would run up against a stranger on guard, but one who knew me by sight
or reputation. A voice out of the darkness: “Halt! Who goes there?”
“Jennie June.” “Advance to be recognized!” On half such occasions I
received the most enthusiastic welcome, and always at least kindness and
permission to go on my way.
When I met an acquaintance on guard at night, I would kiss his rifle and
bayonet as being the emblems of the highest function of the mere animal
man. I would also kiss his gloves and his hat, and shower the rest of
his clothing with kisses.
Sometimes I was admitted for an hour or two in the guard-house, where
the soldiers waiting for their turn at guard would while away their time
in spooning with me, imagining that I was a complete physical puella. I
was even introduced near midnight into the prisoners’ quarters. To be
thus handed over to the youthful military prisoners—in general the
wildest and roughest of all humanity—was the attainment of the very
height of my ambition as a fairie.
On my departure for home, as high as a dozen have escorted me at night
along the deserted country roads and through the woods. Thoroughly
fatigued after an hour, and refusing to go on, I would have my wrists
twisted, and be slapped and pinched into obedience. But not one of the
500 acquaintances at Ft. Y ever inflicted pain because of ill will, and
only six or seven of the 500 at Ft. X. I had remarkable success in
winning the favor of men who before learning to know me personally
detested me because they thought I was of the type of fairie to be found
in the lowest of New York’s dens of vice. Personal acquaintance
convinced them that I was an individual devoid of all vices except
coquetry and dalliance.
[Sidenote: _Adventures with Policemen._]
In the vicinity of X, I several times came into contact with the police,
who came to know me as a fairie. The youthful ones would chat in a
friendly manner, but some of the older ones, to whom soldiers who had
not learned my inoffensive character had denounced me as an undesirable
person to have around, have heartlessly ordered me off their beat, and
warned me never to be seen there again under penalty of arrest. I
thereafter sought to avoid them, but nothing ever resulted. My conduct
in public was of course always above reproach. It was a bitter
experience to have the public streets closed to me when I had been
entirely inoffensive.
The following are extracts from letters written during this period to a
former university associate. He had always been my favorite of all the
students, being good-looking, athletic, and of particularly noble
disposition. If he had not turned the cold shoulder on my amatory
advances, and had been willing to be mated with me permanently—as I
fondly imagined before I started on my career as a fairie—monandry would
probably have satisfied me for life. In my first two or three years of
puberty, monandry had occupied my thoughts rather than polyandry. This
friend has continued to be a confidant from my student days down to the
present writing, when I have reached my middle forties. In all my fairie
life of twenty-five years, outside of several physicians, from whom I
sought a cure, and my favorite pastor, I have confided events of that
life only to five close friends of my ordinary life, and they all proved
helpful and compassionate, and continued to be as good friends as ever.
[Sidenote: _A Conductor’s Sympathy._]
(1) [Referring to only my second evening spent with men of Ft. Y.] Next
they led me to a tree, and said they were going to get a rope and hang
me. [Teasing.] I thought they intended great violence, and to save
myself, while still held by them, fell to the ground, feigning to have a
fit. This ruse frightened them, and they all ran off, fearing they had
seriously injured me by their rough treatment. I lay in the woods until
they were out of hearing, then arose and walked to the depot. But it was
dark and I lost my way, and arrived at the wrong depot. I had my return
ticket, which I had kept safe in my sock, but the conductor demanded an
extra nickel. I told him I had no money, except a dollar sewed in my
clothes. This I secured and paid him. I told him the soldiers had taken
all of my money, and how roughly they had handled me, of course
confessing myself to be an invert. It was surprising to hear his words
of condolence, coming as they did from an uneducated conductor, the most
beautiful words of sympathy I ever heard, just like the words of the
Savior to the woman taken in adultery. Among other things he said: “If
only every one lived as harmless a life as you, this world would be all
right.”
[Sidenote: _Female and Infant Impersonation Natural._]
(2) I sat down on a stone wall near the reservation to eat my lunch. I
was both sick and exhausted, and wept while eating, and regretted I had
come when I was feeling ill. But I felt that I couldn’t keep away. I
longed to be where I am regarded as a girl and a baby, and where I am
flirted with and petted.... I also mourned my fate, reflecting on my
errand, and realizing that I was doing what would ostracize me and shock
society if they heard of it.
(3) I often ask myself: When will it all end? I answer: When I am thirty
years old. [I was then twenty-eight.] Then I shall be no longer
youthful, and only a youthful person can be a professional fairie. A
fairie over thirty is unthinkable. If I still have strong desire after
that age, I shall have to seek some one in private [This came true]
instead of flaunting myself as a fairie before the public gaze. For a
male of over thirty to act the woman and the baby before a company of
men would be unthinkable. But now, at my present age, it seems to me
natural and not unbecoming.
(4) I am sometimes conscience-stricken over my actions. When I entered
college, I intended my life to be one of self-denial, and I intended in
every act to live over again as nearly as possible the life of Christ.
But I am now doing almost nothing to spread the kingdom of God in the
hearts of men, and to visit and cheer and relieve the afflicted, and I
am indulging in so much animal pleasure.... Nevertheless, though I
indulge in promiscuous intercourse, I spend no more moments in the
pleasures of Aphrodite than the majority of married people, and I do not
make these pleasures the chief aim of life. I spend one evening a week
in flirting with what to me is the opposite sex, intensely masculine,
fierce, cruel, pugnacious young men, and in dalliance with them. Two
hours per week spent in the company of sweethearts, and all the rest of
my time spent in seclusion from them. Am I a libertine? Am I indulging
excessively in the lower pleasures of life?
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Events of 1903._]
I shall now describe a chain of events which led up to my complaining in
person to the colonel commanding Ft. X.
Aug. 3, 1903
Adored dark-eyed sergeant,
Please do not be offended because I called you a bad sergeant last
night. You were a bad sergeant when you gave me that other sergeant’s
name as yours, and so made me write that letter to him full of hot
protestations of love, all meant for you, but which he was mad to
receive. You made trouble for me by it, and the other sergeant
threatened to slap me unless I found out your name and told him. So I
have told him, but I made him promise not to hit you, only give you a
piece of his mind.... Two months ago you were so friendly to me when you
were on guard, and I was more than fascinated with you. The last ten
times since that I have been near the fort, I have gone up to the gate
to see if you were on guard. Last night I found you there for the first,
and I was so glad. But you were not friendly, as you were the first time
I saw you, so now I am afraid to write another love-letter to you, for
fear you will be mad.... Why did you let that horrible soldier Murphy
hit me and throw stones at me? He ought to be ashamed to hit a girl....
After I got home, I cried my eyes out because I couldn’t come in and
talk to you as last time, and because you aimed a gun at me.... Do
please speak to me the next time we meet, because I shall be too much
afraid to speak to you....
I am, adored sergeant,
Your slave forever,
JENNIE JUNE
[Sidenote: _In My Thirtieth Year._]
About two weeks later I find the same sergeant on guard. Having no fear
because of his previous familiarity, I beg to be allowed to spend an
hour on the porch of the guard-house, as he had once permitted. But as
soon as I arrived there, he declares he gave me permission simply that
he might put me under arrest. I beg for mercy: “Do please let the baby
go home, and don’t arrest her!”
“Hand out a ten dollar bill and you can go home. I won’t have you
writing such letters to me as you did. Just for one sentence you wrote
to Sergeant V you could be imprisoned: ‘I am a woman entombed in the
body of a man.’ How can you write such things?”
“You cannot complain of the letters I write to you when you have used to
me the indecent language you have. I won’t pay you anything. You have
used language to me ten times as bad as I have ever used to you.”
[Sidenote: _Psychical Infantilism._]
He gradually lowers his demand to two dollars, but I did not have the
amount with me. He orders me to lay on the table all the money I have,
and it is pocketed by one of the soldiers standing by.
After some time, I felt reassured, and began to act the part of a baby,
hoping to put them in a good humor so they would allow me to depart
unharmed. Like a four-year old, I beg and pout to enlist so I “can give
the soldiers their bread and make their beds.” I pout “to be let in to
see the sleeping beauties,” meaning the soldiers who were in bed in the
guard-house. I complain of being sleepy, and sob to be given a bed in
the room with the sleeping guard. Artillerymen are repeatedly passing,
some of whom tease me rather roughly, pulling my hair, etc. I
supplicated: “Do please let me go home and don’t hurt me. I am half an
invalid and can’t stand much.”
“You’ll be a whole invalid before you get out of here tonight.”
“Really I am a semi-invalid. I look well, but eunuchs always look fat
and well, even when they are sick.”
After I had been detained about an hour, the soldier “Murphy” happens to
pass, one of the most burly and roughest in the post. He tries several
times to see if he can lift me off my feet by my hair, and though I
adore him, I call out just for effect: “You horrible soldier!” He took
me seriously. I suddenly felt myself being carried rapidly somewhere. He
bore me to the gate of the reservation, and pitched me out on the road.
Then he kicked me along for a few feet, crying out for me to get along
home, while I was screaming in fright.
[Sidenote: _Interview with Colonel._]
About two weeks later, as I was passing the guard-house, I was placed
under arrest by another sergeant-of-the-guard, and conducted before the
officer-of-the-day. This was the only time that I was genuinely placed
under arrest on a military reservation. The sergeant informed the
officer that I was a fairie and that I hung around the reservation and
the guard-house. The officer asked me why I frequented the reservation,
and I replied: “Because I like the soldiers, because I like to have them
for my friends.” After an investigation lasting several minutes, when he
found out that I had really been guilty of nothing improper, the officer
ordered the sergeant to let me go, and in a very mild and gentlemanly
way suggested, rather than forbade, that in the future I do not frequent
the reservation. He received me indeed in a wonderfully kind manner, for
which I shall be eternally grateful to him. Knowing that I was in
hostile hands, I appealed to the officer to order the sergeant that no
harm should be done me on the reservation.
But the sergeant—one of the few soldiers who detested me—was chagrined
that the officer had upset his plan of having me locked up. After the
officer had retired, the sergeant therefore started kicking me, and as I
ran past the guard-house, three of the guard, influenced by the example
of their sergeant, knocked me down three times. I immediately complained
to the colonel. He also received me most kindly, notwithstanding that I
explained at the outset that I was an invert, and he reprimanded the
sergeant.
[Sidenote: _Sadism._]
A week later I happened to meet “Murphy” on a much frequented street. On
my refusal to accompany him to a low bar-room, he dragged me there in
spite of continuous protest and struggling. Half a dozen civilians
watched the struggle but did not interfere. Inside were several soldiers
and civilians, some partially intoxicated and wrangling, and two filles
de joie. Before the eyes of all, my captor immediately rifled my
pockets, while exclaiming: “I am going to marry you! I am going to marry
you! As soon as I get a good drunk on, I am yours!” We were together an
hour in the bar-room. Soldiers come and go, some of them flirting with
me vigorously before the eyes of all. The next day I wrote my captor:
O you adored giant artilleryman, Ever since the first time you hit me
and drove me out of the gate, how I have adored you! But ever since you
carried me out in your arms, I have been wild for you, as I have never
been over any other fellow. You have abused me more than any other
soldier, but, my cruel master, I adore you the most of any fellow in the
world. Of all the men in the world, I would pick you out to be my
husband and master. You, fierce artilleryman, are my ideal of manly
beauty and charm. You are the ideal I have been looking for all my life.
O how I worship you! I pass by the fellows who have always been kind to
me, and seek for my husband that one who has been the most cruel. O
won’t you take me to be your wife? Last night you promised to marry me
before I ever spoke about marrying you. Won’t you keep your promise?...
You are the roughest, fiercest, most daring, most cruel fellow I ever
met. That is why I love you so. You are the greatest fighter and slugger
I ever met. That is why I am pining to become your slave....
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _A Company Marshalled Before Me._]
After my arrest, I did not dare go on the Ft. X reservation for several
months. On one of my first subsequent visits—in daylight—I encountered
the officer who had mildly prohibited the reservation to me. As soon as
he spied me, he walked rapidly in the opposite direction as if fearing I
would speak.
In the following year, I was assaulted on the street by three privates
because I refused to take a walk with them off into the woods, since one
of them had formerly rifled my pockets. I complained by letter to their
captain, and he immediately invited me to call. But evidently he
afterward spoke of the matter to other officers, and learned my
character, for he withdrew his invitation in less than twenty-four
hours. Nevertheless I called. I thought it advisable to state in advance
something about the peculiar life I led, having no fear of arrest
because I never voluntarily rendered myself liable. He frankly confessed
that he could not courtmartial my assailants because I was an invert,
but courteously ordered all his command to appear before me for
identification since I was resolved to try prosecution in a police court
just to see whether an invert of unexceptionable conduct on the public
street, assaulted by ruffians without any reason, would be there
accorded the rights of all other citizens.
[Sidenote: _1905—Farewell to Men of Forts X and Y._]
On leaving the reservation—much to my surprise—a young woman accosted me
and pleaded for my assailants, one of whom was a brother, while she was
the wife of a non-commissioned officer. She stated that my assailants
solemnly promised never again to molest me, and entreated me not to have
them arrested.
* * * * *
Through no resolve of my own, the early spring of 1905 saw the end of my
association with men of Ft. X. For several months they were in Maryland,
taking part in the army manoeuvres. On their return I did not renew my
visits because of taking up my residence in a distant city.
It was with great pain that I paid my farewell visit to Ft. Y. About a
dozen soldiers happened to be leaving on the same train, and asked me to
join them. When they alighted, I waved from the car window, and they
gave in unison and loudly “Three cheers for Jennie June” as the train
moved away. Not one, however, knew that I was never to visit them again,
as it was not wise for me to make known that I was leaving New York
permanently.