Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/230

200 by the years of excessive emissions during sleep. But I am not convinced that my career as a fairie has contributed. Subsequently to the age of twenty-three I have been a very poor listener, unable to focus my attention, particularly on conversation. Much goes into one ear and out the other notwithstanding my best efforts at attention. It is a species of mental deafness. I hear the words distinctly but cannot grasp their significance. The only other considerable dimmution of my youthful keenness of mind is my slowness since passing the age of twenty-five in unravelling a problem, and in arriving at a decision on any matter. For example, as a student, I could see through a mathematical problem almost as "quick as a flash." More and more as I have grown older I am very dense in mathematical reasoning.

To sum up seventeen years after castration—I have always been of the opinion that it was the only thing to have done. But on account of even the slight risk attached to the operation, and particularly the resultant diminution of physical vigor, I would not advise that other inverts be castrated unless they suffer seriously from spermatorrhea.

On my trip to New York in order to be castrated, I had my first opportunity in five months to go on a female impersonation spree. On the Bowery I met two youthful artillerymen. On our parting they gave me their names and invited me to call at their barracks, which, to obviate notoriety, I will refer to as "Ft. Y." I will likewise hereafter refer to my first military stamping ground as "Ft. X."