“Mith Nighty!” one of the youngest hermaphroditoi shouted in a falsetto. “Queenie and I want you to coach us in female-impersonation. Next Friday at the Masked Ball we make our debut as public female-impersonators.”
A senior: “The world would call our hobby insanity. But the explanation is that we were created psychic females, who yearn for the dress and role of that sex—to feel skirts flapping about our ankles—and nevertheless Nature has been so cruel as to incarnate our woman-souls in the abhorred male body.”
Another: “But other than in us women-men, the male figure is infinitely more artistic than the female. The only disgusting thing in man is the beardal growth. I can tolerate in a beau a small moustache only, but prefer him clean-shaven. But feminine breasts are the very badge of beastliness! You, of course, excepted, Ralph-Jennie. The short, fat, knock-kneed feminine legs are monstrosities! If you’ll pardon |Common Androgyne Practices.| me for saying it, Phyllis. On the other hand, the muscles of an athlete compel the attention.”
Later it chanced that Roland Reeves and myself entered into a soft-spoken dialogue: “Ralph, do you know any woman-man whom we ought to get into the Cercle?”
“Four! But they do not realize anybody is wise outside the young athlete each has selected as chum. No one but another woman-man, or a full-fledged man who had read Krafft-Ebing,[[41]] would ever suspect them. Their public conduct is always the height of propriety. One of them even makes it a practice to boast of excesses cum femina—to ward off suspicion, for he has always shunned females as one would the plague. But on the basis of self-knowledge, we women-men easily recognize our own kind. I need only hear the voice and glimpse the features and figure.
“But none of the four ever visits the Underworld. They do not feel the need. Their being so fortunate as to have secured soul-mates among their every-day circle has proved their safety-valve. You, Roland, and I have simply been denied by Providence a hero-confidant from among our every-day circle. Moreover, we have been unwilling to risk betrayal to that circle. We are not hunting for high-figured blackmail and possibly years in prison.
“One is a university student. The college body refers to his ultra-virile room-mate and himself as “X and wife.” But no user of the phrase ever dreams of its real significance, not knowing of the existence of intermediates. Of course they have heard of homosexuality, |An Androgyne Outcast.| but think only the scum of mankind could be guilty. Impossible in the case of a high-minded intellectual!
“Here’s Plum. Plumkin, you look as if you had lost your last friend!”
The 23-year Mollie Coddle sobbed: “Everything looks dark. Two days ago I was fired. I have hardly slept a wink since. I have hope for the future only in the grave. Some bigot denounced me to the boss. He called me into his private office. As this had never happened before, I guessed the reason....”
Plum outlined his conference. I have listened to several similar confessions. The following is a composite.