Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/111

Rh. Men are so biassed on the subject of sex that I can not let my friends read the secrets of my life until I reach an independent old age when they can not make me suffer much on account of my androgynism.

In college, I was compelled to exercise in the "gym." I hid my form. It was a terrible ordeal to have to strip before the physical director, who remarked: "Your figure is feminine." Apparently he did not suspect the sexuality that was bound up with that figure. If military drill had been required—as in 1917—I would have quit the university.

Since nineteen my yearning for skirts has been in part met by habitually wearing about my home an ornamental dressing-gown. Thus clad, I have often gazed in a mirror, imagining myself a complete female. I have taken pleasure in hearing the gown rustle, like a silk dress; in feeling it strike against my legs; and in holding up the front in ascending the stairs.

was my nickname from nineteen to thirty-one outside my every-day circle. And outside I was far more widely known. Inside I had the reputation of being an insignificant, puritan, unpractical bookworm and Mollie Coddle who knew nothing of life and human nature. Outside I achieved wide notoriety as an amateur actor—or, properly speaking, actress.