After some time, two of them said goodnight, leaving me alone with the giant whose acquaintance I had first made. I finally agreed to accompany him to his room. Whenever we sighted a policeman, he remarked: “Let’s go over to the other side of the street. I don’t want that cop to see my face.” After entering the side-door of a repulsive-looking “Saloon,” we walked down a very long passage, divided into sections by several heavily barricaded doors, each provided with a peep-hole and door-tender, who opened only to the elect. Protection was thus secured against surprises by the police. We finally arrived in a spacious room filled with small tables, around which were seated a dozen flashily dressed “sports,” about the same number of shabbily clad ruffians, three or four girls costumed as for a fancy-dress ball, and five “sports” in the biological sense of that word, that is, youths with no front teeth, hair à la mode de Oscar Wilde (that is, hanging down in ringlets over the ears and collar) and clad in bright colored wrappers. Their faces were painted, and their bodies also were seen to be when later they threw aside the loose wrappers.
Professional Fairies.
The assemblage were sipping their favorite beverages. From time to time decidedly obscene dances took place—in 1897 to be seen only in brothels, but in 1917 gracing even university receptions. In the terpsichorean art, our universities today stand only where our brothels stood twenty years ago. One of the painted youths furnished the dance music. Another from time to time rendered the latest songs in a treble voice.
When some came forward to make my acquaintance, my friend introduced me as “Miss June.” I protested: “Not Miss June. That doesn’t sound pretty. Jennie June. I am only a baby girl, not a grown-up female.”
Three of the fairies were introduced to me as Jersey Lily, Annie Laurie, and Grace Darling. Two others had adopted the names of living star actresses. The unreflecting and uneducated victims of innate androgynism, and having passed their lives exclusively in the slums of New York, they had always been perfectly satisfied with the lot Nature had ordained for them. As already stated, in unenlightened lands, as India, these human “sports,” clad in feminine apparel, appear in public in the company of young bloods. Among the American Indians, they adopt the dress and occupation of squaws, become married to a brave, and lead a quiet virtuous life of toil. But Christendom has refused to acknowledge that God has created this type of human being, the woman with masculine genitals. It hunts them down, and drives them from one section of our great cities to another by repeated raids on their resorts. It attributes their fundamental peculiarities to moral degradation, when they are due to Nature. Of course, in the case of these fairies in the slums of New York, deep moral degradation had supervened upon their innate androgynism.
Fairies in All Communities.
Active pederasts, who frequent such resorts, and normal young men who visit them just to see life, spoon with me. A charming smooth-spoken young gallant holds me on his lap before the roomful of people, and addresses me as “My dear boy,” to which I reply, “Please don’t call me boy; call me girl.” I am bewitched by my wooer, who uses to me the most indecent language I ever heard, and right in the hearing of all those assembled. I do not act rational. I do not wish to act rational. I wish to act like a baby girl. I am in high spirits, and the men visitors are much amused at my conduct. The other fairies also impersonate the woman and the baby, much to the amusement of their audience. Whoever has visited such a performance must acknowledge that this type of human being are born actors, or actresses, whichever term may be preferred. They themselves prefer the latter.
On another midnight when I was promenading the Bowery, a band of young desperadoes, who had been indulging freely in liquor, emerged from a dance-hall. They were longshoremen, coal-heavers, etc. Their burly forms and bacchanalian madness fascinated me, and I rushed into their midst exclaiming: “Where did you get these pretty red badges? Won’t you give me one?” They were all members of some political club which had given a dance that night.
Close of Low-Class Fairie Period.