Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/293

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Legal Persecution of Androgynes.
265

and it was not false. His face was as smooth as a woman's [naturally beardless evidently], his voice was distinctly feminine, and his hands and feet were small. He wore high-heeled shoes. In examining this person the matron insisted that he strip. The prisoner refused, and thereupon I was notified to make an examination When questioned, he stated that he preferred to dress as a female because he found that he was effeminately inclined He was sent to the work-house, and after serving his time was released. Several months later I learned that he had again been arrested for a similar offence. This time he wore a wig in addition to the feminine garb. [Because during his prior imprisonment, he had, under pressure, consented to have his hair cut short, like a man, and promised to live henceforth as a man—a promise hard to keep since "he" was psychicly, and in part physically, a female.]

"The next case .... was arrested .... When taken to the female prison, he refused to allow the matron to search him I was called in. I found that the prisoner wore a wig and artificial breasts. Every bit of his attire was feminine The voice and mannerisms were distinctly effeminate

"Many of the so-called 'social elite' are to be included among these people" ["Many" only in the aggregate. Proportionately, only about one out of one-hundred-and fifty men. But the ratio is probably higher among the cultured than among manual laborers. They are not at all blameworthy, because they were born with the strongest kind of instincts in that direction, and do not thereby harm in the least any individual or society as a whole. They carefully keep their idiosyncracy under cover.]