Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/21

Rh unfortunates systematically. This form of blackmail is known under the term of "chantage," and practiced in every large city of the European and American continents. The laws against homosexuality, as at present in force, similar to the Mann White Slave Act, seem to only serve blackmailing crooks, so as to give them an easy living.

It is true that homosexuality at present is not punished as severely as it was in olden times. It was not so long ago when in Europe it was punished by burning, later by burying alive; only a few years ago in the United States it was punishable by hanging; now the punishment is much milder, but, if it be admitted that homosexuality in certain easily recognizable persons is congenital and incurable, and if it be also admitted that it surely is a great deal less harmful than ordinary prostitution, why punish it at all, or why not at least exempt from punishment those homosexualists whom Krafft-Ebing so rightly calls "true stepchildren of nature"?

The author of the called on me some time ago with his manuscript, imploring me to read it and to publish it.

He told me that he had written most of it years ago and that he had spent a great deal of time trying to find a publisher, but unsuccessfully.

He stated that he had written his autobiography in an endeavor to bring his misfortune vividly before the medical and legal fraternities, for the purpose of lightening the heavy load which rested so unjustly, as he said, upon the unfortunates of his class.