True Sex. Emily Skidmore

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СКАЧАТЬ a man, William Howard became well-known within the small towns of western New York State. According to the Syracuse Evening Telegram, “ ‘William’ was quite a favorite with the girls, whom he frequently took riding in his rig, as many other ‘young fellow’ was wont to do on a Sunday afternoon.”25 Similarly, the Ontario County Journal reported that Howard was “a frail but good-looking young man, who enjoyed the company of girls. He spent his money freely and the rivalry for his exclusive attention was participated in by almost all the young women in the neighborhood.”26 As for Howard’s family, the paper reported, they “had tolerated the secret [of William’s ‘true sex’] so long that when they discovered the fearful limit to which the girl was going—the marriage to another woman—they seemed almost unable to break the secret.”27 These newspaper accounts are revealing in what they suggest about queer possibilities in rural spaces. Indeed, not only do they portray William Howard as successfully dating several young women, but they also reveal that these relationships took place under the watchful eye of Howard’s family.

      As the Ontario County Journal article quoted above suggests, Howard not only courted young women but also ultimately married.28 In 1892, Howard married Edith Dyer, a local woman twelve years his junior, at the Wellsville Methodist Episcopal church; the officiating minister was Rv. E. P. Hubbell.29 Edith and William likely met when William was working as a milk peddler in Hornellsville, Edith’s hometown.30 The couple adopted a daughter named Ruby and established a home together in a “modest little cottage on D. C. Cook’s farm, on the Chapinville road,” near the outskirts of Canandaigua, New York.31

      Howard remained a visible character within the rural community, and yet despite this visibility, no one suspected that he had been assigned female at birth. The Ontario Repository-Messenger later reported that he “was well known by the merchants here where she habitually traded.” However, this close contact did not raise any suspicion that he was not male—or if there was any suspicion, it did not infringe on his ability to carry out his life publicly as a man, as he enjoyed all the privileges that came along with masculinity. For example, he was allowed to enjoy a right that all women in the early twentieth century were denied: the right to vote. The Repository-Messenger reported that Howard “was a voter and regularly supported the republican candidates.”32

      The Repository-Messenger was not the only local paper to publish accounts that indicated Howard’s masculinity had never been questioned by members of his community. The Ontario County Journal reported, “Working upon the farm among the men in summer, splitting wood and caring for the cattle in winter, many a night … in her action at home and among people, everywhere, she was a man. She voted and drove to town to trade.”33 As such, it appears that the rural outskirts of Canandaigua provided Howard and his wife, Edith, with an ideal environment in which to live their queer lives. Judging from appearances, the Howards were a happy family; the Ontario County Journal referred to William and Edith’s marriage as unfolding “with almost uninterrupted happiness.”34 Similarly, the Syracuse Telegram reported that “those who know the Howard family best declare they lived not only happily, but that there was an unmistaken affection between husband and wife.”35

      However, their happiness was brought to an end in March 1902, when William suddenly died three hours after ingesting tablets for a cough. Given that he had previously been healthy, the circumstances surrounding Howard’s death prompted his wife to ask for an autopsy. However, the autopsy revealed more than the official cause of death (which, it turned out, was a cardiac event, unrelated to the ingested tablets).36 Coroner O. J. Hallenbeck also discovered Howard’s “true sex,” noting in his report that Howard’s genitalia was that of a “normal woman or adult female human being.”37 However, the coroner’s report is fascinatingly contradictory, as it includes a sworn statement from Howard’s widow, who refers to Howard as her “husband” and utilizes male pronouns throughout.38 In this way, the coroner’s report reflects the local coverage of the story: newspapers acknowledged the discovery of Howard’s “true sex” yet continued to depict his life as that of a “good man.”

      As newspapers throughout western New York covered the story, they generally published ambivalent accounts of Howard’s life and marriage. Howard’s case was discussed as being unique, while at the same time his behavior as a man was cast in entirely normative terms. Rochester’s Democrat Chronicle, for example, reported of Howard’s half brothers (who, significantly, were described as “members of respectable families”) that “though the family had known of the strange predilection of [the] deceased for many years, they had been unable to induce her to array herself in the proper garb for a member of her sex.”39 In these quotations, Howard’s behavior, although out of the ordinary, is nonetheless described according to the scripts of normative male heterosexuality. Indeed, after assuming male attire “on her father’s farm” to perform chores, Howard soon “escorted girls about to parties and dances, spent money freely on them, and finally, as is seen, she married a woman named Dwyer.”40 As such, Howard’s life as a man was narrated along the course of normative heterosexuality: his courtship of women was conducted chivalrously, and he quickly settled down into married life, without an extended, raucous bachelorhood. Not only did this narrative remember Howard’s earlier life fondly, it also produced the women who had been involved with Howard in those years (and their families) as entirely normative.

      As the story circulated away from the local context, however, newspapers were less likely to publish supportive accounts of Howard’s story. For example, the most common iteration was a brief Associated Press wire that appeared in at least twelve newspapers nationwide. This version relayed only a few details about Howard’s life and did not provide any details explaining the origin of his queer embodiment or the rationale behind his marriage:

      CANANDAIGUA, N.Y.—March 22—A person who was known here for five years as William C. Howard died suddenly Wednesday night, and an autopsy showed that the supposed man was a woman. Howard, who was about 50 years old, and who was employed as a farm hand, came here five years ago with a woman, who was known as Mrs. Howard. Two children were born to the supposed wife.

      The dead woman worked for farmers in the neighborhood, and those most intimately acquainted with the family never had the slightest suspicion that she was not a man. The cause of the woman’s death is a mystery. On Wednesday night she took two tablets for throat affection, and died in fifteen minutes. The medicine was sent from Wellsville, this State, where relatives reside. The authorities are completely mystified as to all matters touching upon the woman’s life. They do not know her right name. Two men, claiming to be half brothers, attended the funeral, but refused to divulge any information. An inquest is to be held, and some light may be thrown upon this strange case.41

      In this account, both Howard’s life and death are cast as mysterious, and very little context is given to readers to help them understand the story. Even though Howard and his wife had been lifelong residents of the region, they are here produced as relative strangers, without anyone to speak on their behalf, other than former employers of Howard’s, whose only insights were that Howard’s “true sex” had eluded them. Additionally, Howard’s story is fashioned as a mystery because of the strange circumstances surrounding his death. Although precious few details about his death are revealed, those that are provided suggest that distant family members might have sent Howard poisoned tablets. Indeed, throughout the brief account, readers are encouraged to consider the story as one that is “strange” and “mysterious”—two of the most common words used in the headlines that accompanied the article (e.g., “A Strange Story” or “Mysterious Death Comes to a Mysterious Woman”).

      Another remarkable aspect of the national coverage of Howard’s story is the (almost) complete lack of connection that journalists drew between his case and George Green’s, despite the numerous similarities between the two. Both individuals passed as men for decades, lived with wives in rural areas, and died within days of each other, and yet national newspapers fell silent regarding these similarities. For example, the Chicago Tribune published an article discussing Green’s “deathbed discovery” on March 22, 1902.42 When the paper reported Howard’s death the very next СКАЧАТЬ