Transvestite Marriage
The Third Sex Issue 2, article 9 (September 1930)
Even as a child, I was more of a girl than a boy. I prefered to wear girls’ dresses. The urge had gotten stronger with age. When I was young I confided in my relatives and was occasionally allowed to wear my skirts as a game. How happy I was there. Only I never knew an explanation for my longing. War came, I didn’t become a soldier. In 1919, at the age of 27, I married. It was only in marriage that by chance I found clarity. Through more and more extensive research, I fully realized what cruel game our mother nature was playing with us …
Before my marriage, despite my ignorance, I did not fail to inform my wife about my condition as far as I could understand. She loved me as I love her, deeply and sincerely. So she had no hesitation in agreeing with my inclination, and she supported me in every way. When we were married, however, the situation for my young woman was very different. Despite her great competence, prudence and energy, (which seems almost masculine) she is a fully woman, so the fact that she actually has a woman for a man was very depressing to her. She never spoke of it, but I felt it, but I couldn’t help. If I tried to fight the urge now and then, I became restless, nervous and dissatisfied. But we both suffered even more from that. There was nothing else to do but to come to terms with the condition, which came about through practice after a while. My wife got used to it over time and finds me more tender and attentive as a woman than as a man. I myself admit that I feel more comfortable as a woman by letting my true feelings run free. I love my wife very much, but I love her much more heartfelt and deeply in my capacity as a transvestite. I love her as a woman can only love her husband in all her great love. She is my everything. If she goes away for a few weeks to relax in the summer, I am restless and suffer greatly from the great longing for her. We live happily ever after and have no other wish than to come to a big city one day so that we can live there according to my longing. And this longing is great, very great. I have been so happy to have been wearing my women’s clothes at work for three years now. My personal assistant1 was discreet and thought I was made for women’s skirts. I never saw or heard a comment or anything like that, but will probably have to abstain again because I have to make new appointments and will not dare to reveal my real “Me” a second time to the general public, who do not understand us. One laughs, scoffs, in the best of cases the verdict is passed, “a perversion”. And surely there is no trace of this in a full transvestite2. Our disposition is not unhealthy, because quite a few would certainly seek a cure if it were only possible. Our disposition is innate, we are women and we have a right to demand recognition and a standing in social life as such.
The full transvestite2 strives, in spite of one’s love toward, and sex-preference as women3, to be able to live the life of the true sex that is hidden in one’s false body. He is a wife with every fiber of his soul. And what wife is not happy when she can do whatever she wants in her own home. Who is not happy with her handicrafts and other women’s work. Each with the exception of those who are not women, who die the life of a man according to their soul attitude, and such women for whom a benevolent fate has not made work an absolute necessity. And even these are active in their home, even if only with light work or housework. Therefore, I find it quite natural that a transvestite4, if she puts on women’s clothes in response to an urge, i.e. also gives the female “Self” the appropriate expression, becomes a whole woman. Not only does the woman take care of her clothes, but also all of her work. Only then is she a transvestite4 in the fullest sense of the word. I myself am happy if I can manage the household a little and would be happy to do without my second, really wrong role forever, if only it could be possible. A transvestite4 without the urge to do housework is simply not one and, in my opinion and conviction, there will be only a few who evade these housewife duties.
The transvestite4 who does not have the femininity to do domestic chores deserves no recognition, least of all from her normal wife, who has enough to bear and is rightfully able to demand relief, at least in this respect.
I should be delighted if my letter today encourages all readers to take part in this debate and this spurs a lively exchange of views.