In words which I wrote down immediately after leaving his presence, he declared: “These inverts are not fit to live with the rest of mankind. They ought to have branded in their foreheads the word ‘Unclean,’ and as the lepers of old, they ought to cry ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ as they go about, and instead of the law making twenty years imprisonment the penalty for their crime, it ought to be imprisonment for life. Are they assaulted and blackmailed? They deserve to be. Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis know nothing about them if they say they are irresponsible. They are wilfully bad, and glory and gloat in their perversion. Their habit is acquired and not inborn. Why propose to have the law against them now on the statute books repealed? If this happened, there would be no way of getting at them. It would be wrong to make life more tolerable for them. Their lives ought to be made so intolerable as to drive them to abandon their vices.”
Prevalent Lay Opinion on Inverts.
This attitude of mind is a proper one toward possible male filles de joie who are fundamentally normal in their sexuality, but who through cupidity, or with the purpose of blackmailing those who seek them, offer themselves to take the passive rôle in pædicatio. Your author doubts whether any such males ever lived. But the true invert belongs to a different class, and should have the same standing before the law as the normal individual. He even should be dealt with more leniently, because his passion is often abnormally intense, and his mental eccentricities sometimes lead him into unwise though little harmful, or not at all harmful, acts.
In this autobiography, I may sometimes refer to myself as “Ralph Werther.” At the beginning of my career as “Jennie June,” when asked for my real name, I answered “Raphael Werther,” since I did not wish to bring disgrace on my family name. I adopted the name “Raphael” because of its euphony and glorious associations; the name “Werther,” because like Goethe’s hero I was doomed to great sorrow through the passion of love. During my first two years in college, when I often meditated suicide, and was by far the unhappiest person in the college community, Goethe’s “Sorrows of Werther,” the romance of suicide, had a peculiar fascination for me. Later I substituted “Ralph” for “Raphael” since I found the latter sounded too “stagey” to be believed.
Choosing Aliases.
The author may be accused of copying the pen-name of Mrs. Croly in the name that he gave himself when undertaking the role of a girl. But I was not conscious of the existence of this pen-name until after I had selected “Jennie June.” In early childhood I had called myself “Jennie,” always my favorite girl’s name. It has always seemed to me the most feminine of names. I adopted the name “June” because of the alliteration, the beauty of the word, and its agreeable associations. It was first suggested to me while reading one of Cooper’s novels, where it appears as the name of a gentle, extremely feminine squaw. It was suggested to me secondly by my seeing it appear as a surname on the sign of a business house.
At the beginning of my career as a fairie, I debated for some time whether the name of my feminine personality should be “Jennie June,” “Baby,” “Pussie,” or the name of a particular one of the foremost prima donnas of history. I enjoyed hugely being called “Baby” by young men. A strange young ruffian one day passed me on the street, and addressed me jocularly: “Hello Pussie!” I cannot express how much it pleased me, and I longed to be called “Pussie” always. As to my impulse to copy the name of the prima donna, I would have day dreams of being such a personage. At the opera I would imagine myself as identified with the leading soprano—that I was she. As is usual with professional fairies, I sought to cultivate a soprano singing voice, though singing a baritone when in my every-day circle.
Year 1874—Birth and Parentage.