Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/103

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Recourse to Medical Professors.
73

fel- walks rapidly, turns the first corner, sprints, turns another corner and sprints, and repeats this maneuver several times, as if bent on giving the slip to any possible follower. He finally reaches the Bowery and takes a train uptown from the Grand Street station. ******* For several days following I suffered from shame and remorse. In order, if possible, to be cured of my abnormality, I now resolved to consult a specialist in venereal diseases, because at that time I believed my ailment came under that head. I was led to go to Dr. Prince A. Morrow, then the leading specialist in that line in New York City, who declared that either castration or marriage would be a sure cure for my abnormal passion! How many inverts have followed such advice of a physician, and seeking a cure in marriage, have been plunged into insanity or suicide, either on the eve of marriage, or soon after! Individuals like myself are women mentally. How is one woman to marry another, unless indeed one of the pair be a gynander, when marriage de facto often takes place. I could never think of tying myself to a wife until I felt myself to be a man.

Not satisfied, I immediately consulted another medical-college professor, this time an alienist, Dr. Robert S. Newton. Both drugs and electrical stimulation of the brain and spinal cord were tried. Hypnotism was attempted unsuccessfully. During the first month of treatment, I excluded from my mind all thoughts of sexual admiration. Then, though I continued to struggle against them, they would occasionally be present in the stream of