Ralph Werther—writing under the female persona Jennie June, and also as 'Earl Lind'—opens this 1922 volume with a subtitle that signals its hybrid nature: part sequel to his earlier Autobiography of an Androgyne, part sociological account of 'six years’ career as instinctive female-impersonator in New York’s Underworld.' The book is edited by Dr. Alfred W. Herzog, who also contributes an introduction, and was originally sold only to professionals—physicians, lawyers, clergymen—reflecting its intended status as a scientific document rather than a popular memoir. Werther’s voice, however, is anything but clinical; he writes with a frankness about his desires and experiences that challenges the era’s medical and moral categories.

A Life Framed by Science and Confession

Werther’s narrative is structured as both a personal confession and a scientific treatise. The table of contents reveals a deliberate organization: Part One, 'The Third Sex,' includes chapters on 'The Place of the Androgyne in the Male Sex Scale' and 'Androgynes of Mythology and History,' while Part Two traces his own development from infancy through school days to his emergence as 'The Fairie Boy.' This dual framing—the personal and the taxonomic—is central to the book’s method. Werther repeatedly positions himself as a specimen, offering his own body and history as evidence for a broader argument about the naturalness of androgyny. Yet he also insists on his individuality, describing specific encounters and emotions with a vividness that resists reduction to type. The tension between these two impulses—to be a case study and to be a person—runs throughout the text.

The Language of the Body and Its Changes

Werther pays close attention to physical transformation, both as a marker of identity and as a biological process. He describes his own 'menopause' at age forty-two, when his weight jumped from 133 to 160 pounds within six weeks, and links this to a shift in his sexual instincts. 'The hitherto passive ultra-androgyne occasionally becomes active,' he writes, drawing an analogy to menopause in women. This physiological language is typical of the book’s blend of personal observation and pseudo-scientific generalization. Werther also notes that androgynes often become more masculine as they approach fifty, and may even marry—a claim he supports with his own abortive courtship of a young woman. His willingness to chart these changes in himself, and to generalize from them, gives the book a distinctive texture: it is at once a memoir, a medical text, and a plea for understanding.

Underworld Networks and the Cercle Hermaphroditos

Werther’s account is populated by a network of androgyne associates, many of whom he met in New York’s 'underworld'—a term he uses to describe both the physical spaces of bars and pick-up spots and the social world of those who, like him, lived outside conventional gender and sexual norms. He mentions the Cercle Hermaphroditos, a group he belonged to in his twenty-second year, and describes writing a brief autobiography at that time, though publication was delayed for twenty-three years due to 'the bigotry of cultured man.' The book includes chapters on specific locations and encounters, such as 'A Stuyvesant Square Pick-up' and 'Evenings at Paresis Hall,' which ground his theoretical claims in lived experience. These vignettes offer a rare glimpse into a hidden social world, one that Werther presents as both a refuge and a site of danger.

Readers should approach The Female-Impersonators as a document of its time, shaped by the medico-legal discourses of the early twentieth century and by Werther’s own complex motives—self-justification, advocacy, and a desire to be understood. The book’s value lies not in its scientific claims, which are often dated, but in its firsthand testimony and its refusal to conform to simple categories. Werther’s voice, at once defiant and vulnerable, remains its most compelling feature.