Trans relationships, in 1908

CW sex

I just found a story about trans people (almost) getting married in 1908! The police and this writer only knew about this couple because things went wrong. Imagine how many other married trans folk there were, who were never found out.

A female invert, dressed as a young man, succeeded in winning the love of a normal girl, and was formally betrothed to her. Soon afterwards the woman was unmasked, arrested and sent to an asylum, where she was made to put on women’s clothes. But the young girl who had been deceived continued to be amorous and visited her “lover," who embraced her before everyone, in a state of voluptuous ecstasy, which I witnessed myself. When this scene was over, I took the young girl aside and expressed my astonishment at seeing her continue to have any regard for the sham “young man" who had deceived her. Her reply was characteristic of a woman: “Ah! you see, doctor, I love him, and I cannot help it!”

What can one reply to such logic? A psychic love of this kind is hardly possible in man; but if we go to the bottom of the matter and study the nature of woman, we can understand how certain feminine exaltations may be unconsciously transformed into love, platonic at first, afterwards sexual. At first, “they understand each other so well,” and have so much mutual sympathy; they give each other pet names, they kiss and embrace, and perform all kinds of tender actions. Finally, a graduated scale of caresses leads almost unconsciously to sexual excitation.

— "The Sexual Question”, Marshall, 1908, pp252-253