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.
This edition of Earl Lind’s Autobiography of an Androgyne is a classic work of transgender literature reimagined for modern readers.
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Despre autor
Earl Lind (1874-unknown) was a pioneering transgender autobiographer. Born into a Puritan family in Connecticut, Lind—who also used the pseudonyms “Jennie June” and “Ralph Werther”—asked others to call him Jennie as a child, and soon began identifying as an androgyne. As a young adult, Lind moved to New York City and began participating in the homosexual nightlife centered at Columbia Hall. In 1895, Lind cofounded the Cercle Hermaphroditos, perhaps the first advocacy group for transgender rights in American history. At 28, Lind underwent an operation to be castrated, hoping to suppress his masculine features. Although he identified as feminine, the term “transgender” had yet to be coined in Lind’s lifetime, leading Lind to self-identify as an “effeminate man, ” “androgyne, ” and “invert.” His autobiographical works—The Autobiography of an Androgyne (1918), The Riddle of the Underworld (1921) and The Female-Impersonators (1922)—are considered pioneering works of LGBTQ literature by scholars around the world.
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