Jennie June: Difference between revisions
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| nationality=American | | nationality=American | ||
| pronouns=[[English neutral pronouns#he|he/him]] | | pronouns=[[English neutral pronouns#he|he/him]] | ||
| gender=[[androgyne]] | | gender=[[androgyne]] | ||
| occupation=law clerk | | occupation=law clerk | ||
| known_for=Autobiographies | | known_for=Autobiographies | ||
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==Early life== | ==Early life== | ||
Jennie June was born into a Puritan family<ref name="Yale" /> in 1874 in Connecticut.{{Citation needed}} He was [[sexes#Assigned male at birth|assigned male at birth]]. At the time of his birth, his mother was twenty-eight, and his father thirty-two. June was their fourth child, out of eleven children.<ref name="OutHistory 2" /> During that era, it was common for people in the US to have many children, because the infant mortality rate was high. | Jennie June was born into a Puritan family<ref name="Yale" /> in 1874 in Connecticut.{{Citation needed}} He was [[sexes#Assigned male at birth|assigned male at birth]]. At the time of his birth, his mother was twenty-eight, and his father thirty-two. June was their fourth child, out of eleven children.<ref name="OutHistory 2" /> During that era, it was common for people in the US to have many children, because the infant mortality rate was high. His family was white, middle-class, and wealthy. | ||
== Education == | == Education == | ||
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The suicide rate of LGBT youth is still high today, due to discrimination. | The suicide rate of LGBT youth is still high today, due to discrimination. | ||
== Career == | == Career == | ||
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== Identity and transition == | == Identity and transition == | ||
During the Victorian and Edwardian eras, people did not yet use words like transgender or | During the Victorian and Edwardian eras, people did not yet use words like transgender, transsexual, or gay. June described himself with all of these contemporary words for his gender and sexual variance: | ||
* [[androgyne]], an ancient word meaning having a combination of masculine and feminine qualities | * [[androgyne]], an ancient word meaning having a combination of masculine and feminine qualities | ||
* [[history of nonbinary gender#1890s|invert]], a new contemporary word from psychiatry and sexology for all kinds of people who we would now call LGBT+ | * [[history of nonbinary gender#1890s|invert]], a new contemporary word from psychiatry and sexology for all kinds of people who we would now call LGBT+ | ||
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* instinctive female impersonator, meaning that it was his nature to want to live as a woman | * instinctive female impersonator, meaning that it was his nature to want to live as a woman | ||
* fairie, a word widely used in the contemporary underworld for people who were assigned male at birth, and who had receptive sex with men<ref name="auto1 xxiv">Jennie June, ''Autobiography of an Androgyne.'' p. xxiv. https://books.google.com/books?id=KXxTbGocCvQC&lpg=PA68&ots=G_-s_fmwR8&dq=%22Robert%20S.%20Newton%22%20alienist&pg=PR24#v=onepage&q=%22Robert%20S.%20Newton%22%20alienist&f=false</ref> | * fairie, a word widely used in the contemporary underworld for people who were assigned male at birth, and who had receptive sex with men<ref name="auto1 xxiv">Jennie June, ''Autobiography of an Androgyne.'' p. xxiv. https://books.google.com/books?id=KXxTbGocCvQC&lpg=PA68&ots=G_-s_fmwR8&dq=%22Robert%20S.%20Newton%22%20alienist&pg=PR24#v=onepage&q=%22Robert%20S.%20Newton%22%20alienist&f=false</ref> | ||
Many of these names reflect the contemporary way of thought, which saw no difference between gender identity (what you are) and sexual orientation (who you want to be with). There was a popular misconception during that era that if a man was attracted to men, then it must be because he was somehow partly a woman, in brain or even body. Some contemporaries recognized this was not true for everyone, arguing that men who liked men could be just as manly.<ref>Edward Carpenter. "The Intermediate Sex." ''Love's Coming-of-Age.'' London: Swan Sonneschen & Co., 1906. Transcribed at Sacred Texts. Accessed July 3, 2020. https://www.sacred-texts.com/lgbt/lca/lca09.htm</ref> However, for June, it was a suitable description of how he felt. | |||
As young as the ages three to seven, June expected that he would only ever wear skirts after growing up, and asked playmates to call him Jennie.<ref name="OutHistory 2">Jennie June. "II. The Boy is Father to the Man." ''The Riddle of the Underworld'' (partial manuscript). Out History. 1921. https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/earl-lind/manuscript/two</ref> In that era, in order to make hand-me-down clothing easy for large families, all very young children wore dresses. When | As young as the ages three to seven, June expected that he would only ever wear skirts after growing up, and asked playmates to call him Jennie.<ref name="OutHistory 2">Jennie June. "II. The Boy is Father to the Man." ''The Riddle of the Underworld'' (partial manuscript). Out History. 1921. https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/earl-lind/manuscript/two</ref> In that era, in order to make hand-me-down clothing easy for large families, all very young children wore dresses. When older, boys would be "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys) breeched]," that is, switched to wearing masculine attire, with trousers. When June's parents breeched him at seven, he was so heartbroken that he wished he were dead. He occasionally borrowed a sister's clothing. He often prayed to be turned into a girl, and sometimes almost believed that his prayers were being answered. He began to have some breast growth in his middle teens, possibly gynecomastia, which is not rare in people who were assigned male at birth. He was disappointed that his genitals remained the same. At fourteen, he began to instead pray for one to two hours a day to no longer desire to be a girl, and to no longer desire males.<ref name="OutHistory 2" /> | ||
At eighteen, June became so depressed about being an invert that he sought medical help to make him feel like a "normal male." The two New York medical professors he went to first, venereologist Dr. Prince A. Morrow<ref name="OutHistory 2" /><ref name="Hansen">Bert Hansen, "'Discovery' of homosexuals." ''Framing Disease: studies in cultural history.'' 1992. Page 119. [https://books.google.com/books?id=agi08bNtBwgC&lpg=PA119&ots=ioHwOGB3Zg&dq=venereologist%20Prince%20A.%20Morrow&pg=PA119#v=onepage&q=venereologist%20Prince%20A.%20Morrow&f=false]</ref> (1846 - 1913{{Citation needed}}) and then alienist Dr. Robert S. Newton<ref name="OutHistory 2" /><ref name="Hansen" /><ref>In re Alma Louise Larner. New York Supreme Court. February 21, 1902. P. 16. https://books.google.com/books?id=Ad84AqOJaAwC&lpg=PA16&ots=Vm0r-Dde4J&dq=%22Robert%20S.%20Newton%22%20alienist&pg=PA16#v=onepage&q=newton&f=false We are citing this legal document as proof that there was an alienist in New York around this time period named Dr. Robert S. Newton. This shows this name was not an invention of June's autobiography.</ref> attempted for months to cure him of | At eighteen, June became so depressed about being an invert that he sought medical help to make him feel like a "normal male." The two New York medical professors he went to first, venereologist Dr. Prince A. Morrow<ref name="OutHistory 2" /><ref name="Hansen">Bert Hansen, "'Discovery' of homosexuals." ''Framing Disease: studies in cultural history.'' 1992. Page 119. [https://books.google.com/books?id=agi08bNtBwgC&lpg=PA119&ots=ioHwOGB3Zg&dq=venereologist%20Prince%20A.%20Morrow&pg=PA119#v=onepage&q=venereologist%20Prince%20A.%20Morrow&f=false]</ref> (1846 - 1913{{Citation needed}}) and then alienist Dr. Robert S. Newton<ref name="OutHistory 2" /><ref name="Hansen" /><ref>In re Alma Louise Larner. New York Supreme Court. February 21, 1902. P. 16. https://books.google.com/books?id=Ad84AqOJaAwC&lpg=PA16&ots=Vm0r-Dde4J&dq=%22Robert%20S.%20Newton%22%20alienist&pg=PA16#v=onepage&q=newton&f=false We are citing this legal document as proof that there was an alienist in New York around this time period named Dr. Robert S. Newton. This shows this name was not an invention of June's autobiography.</ref> both saw inversion as a defect, and attempted for months to cure him of it by every known method. (Alienist was an early Victorian word for a psychiatrist.) The treatments included drugs, hypnosis, aphrodesiacs in the hope of making June attracted to women, and electrical stimulation of the brain and spinal cord.<ref name="Auto1 p68">Jennie June. ''Autobiography of an Androgyne.'' P. 68. https://books.google.com/books?id=KXxTbGocCvQC&lpg=PA68&ots=G_-s_fmwR8&dq=%22Robert%20S.%20Newton%22%20alienist&pg=PA68#v=onepage&q=%22Robert%20S.%20Newton%22%20alienist&f=false</ref> These treatments had no effect: June remained an invert, depressed, and also a nervous wreck from the drugs.<ref name="OutHistory 2" /> Indeed, it is understood today that trying to make someone stop being LGBT (called [[conversion therapy]]) is not effective, and is even abusive. | ||
June's third doctor was an alienist who understood inversion better. (The transcription of the manuscript of ''The Riddle of the Underworld'' also calls him Dr. Robert S. Newton, giving this name to two different doctors, which is a transcription error.) The alienist taught June that being an androgyne was natural for him, and not a "depravity." This finally cured June's lifelong depression, because instead of trying to purge himself of his inversion out of the fear that it was a sin, he instead concluded that God had predestined him to be an invert.<ref name="OutHistory 2" /> | June's third doctor was an alienist who understood inversion better. (The transcription of the manuscript of ''The Riddle of the Underworld'' also calls him Dr. Robert S. Newton, giving this name to two different doctors, which is a transcription error.) The alienist taught June that being an androgyne was natural for him, and not a "depravity." This finally cured June's lifelong depression, because instead of trying to purge himself of his inversion out of the fear that it was a sin, he instead concluded that God had predestined him to be an invert.<ref name="OutHistory 2" /> | ||
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As a young adult, June found safe havens in places such as Paresis Hall in New York City to express his feminine identity. Paresis Hall, or Columbia Hall, was one of many establishments considered the center of homosexual nightlife where male prostitutes would do as female prostitutes did, soliciting men under an effeminate persona. Places like Paresis Hall provided a place where people like June could gather and feel more free to express themselves and socialize with similar people in a time when cross dressing was socially unacceptable and illegal.<ref>Gross, Tasha. "LGBTQ History: Cooper Square and Bowery". ''LGBTQ History: Cooper Square and Bowery''. N.p., December 4, 2014. Web. Retrieved April 13, 2017.</ref> | As a young adult, June found safe havens in places such as Paresis Hall in New York City to express his feminine identity. Paresis Hall, or Columbia Hall, was one of many establishments considered the center of homosexual nightlife where male prostitutes would do as female prostitutes did, soliciting men under an effeminate persona. Places like Paresis Hall provided a place where people like June could gather and feel more free to express themselves and socialize with similar people in a time when cross dressing was socially unacceptable and illegal.<ref>Gross, Tasha. "LGBTQ History: Cooper Square and Bowery". ''LGBTQ History: Cooper Square and Bowery''. N.p., December 4, 2014. Web. Retrieved April 13, 2017.</ref> | ||
June then formed the Cercle Hermaphroditos in 1895, along with other androgynes who frequented Paresis Hall. The purpose of the organization was to "to unite for defense against the world's bitter persecution," and to show that being an invert was natural.<ref>Katz, Jonathan Ned. "Transgender Memoir of 1921 Found". ''Humanities and Social Sciences Online''. N.p., 10 October 2010. Web. Retrieved April 13, 2017.</ref> This is one of the earliest known organizations in the US for LGBT rights.<ref name="OutHistory intro">Out History. "Introduction." ''Earl Lind (Raph Werther - Jennie June): The Riddle of the Underworld, 1921.'' October 11, 2010. Retrieved July 2, 2020. https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/earl-lind/intro/intro</ref> | June then formed the Cercle Hermaphroditos in 1895, along with other androgynes who frequented Paresis Hall. The purpose of the organization was to "to unite for defense against the world's bitter persecution," and to show that being an invert was natural.<ref>Katz, Jonathan Ned. "Transgender Memoir of 1921 Found". ''Humanities and Social Sciences Online''. N.p., 10 October 2010. Web. Retrieved April 13, 2017.</ref> This is one of the earliest known organizations in the US for LGBT rights.<ref name="OutHistory intro">Out History. "Introduction." ''Earl Lind (Raph Werther - Jennie June): The Riddle of the Underworld, 1921.'' October 11, 2010. Retrieved July 2, 2020. https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/earl-lind/intro/intro</ref><ref>Susan Stryker, "Why the T in LGBT is here to stay." ''Salon.'' October 11, 2007. [http://www.salon.com/2007/10/11/transgender_2/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/11/transgender_2/] </ref> | ||
== Autobiographies == | == Autobiographies == | ||