Earl Lind

Earl Lind (1874-unknown) was a pioneering transgender autobiographer. Born into a Puritan family in Connecticut, Lind-who also used the pseudonyms "Jennie June" and "Ralph Werther"-asked others to call him Jennie as a child, and soon began dentifying as an androgyne. As a young adult, Lind moved to New York City and began participating in the homosexual nightlife centered at Columbia Hall. In 1895, Lind cofounded the Cercle Hermaphroditos, perhaps the first advocacy group for transgender rights in American history. At 28, Lind underwent an operation to be castrated, hoping to suppress his masculine features. Although he identified as feminine, the term "transgender" had yet to be coined in Lind's lifetime, leading Lind to self-identify as an "effeminate man," "androgyne," and "invert." His autobiographical works-The Autobiography of an Androgyne (1918), The Riddle of the Underworld (1921) and The Female-Impersonators (1922)-are considered pioneering works of LGBTQ literature by scholars around the world.