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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Inversion"

A few instances of
marriage between women will be found in the _Alienist and
Neurologist_, Nov., 1902, p. 497. In all such cases more or less
fraud has been exercised. I know of one case, probably unique, in
which the ceremony was gone through without any deception on any
side: a congenitally inverted Englishwoman of distinguished
intellectual ability, now dead, was attached to the wife of a
clergyman, who, in full cognizance of all the facts of the case,
privately married the two ladies in his own church.
When they still retain female garments, these usually show some traits of
masculine simplicity, and there is nearly always a disdain for the petty
feminine artifices of the toilet. Even when this is not obvious, there are
all sorts of instinctive gestures and habits which may suggest to female
acquaintances the remark that such a person "ought to have been a man."
The brusque, energetic movements, the attitude of the arms, the direct
speech, the inflexions of the voice, the masculine straightforwardness and
sense of honor, and especially the attitude toward men, free from any
suggestion either of shyness or audacity, will often suggest the
underlying psychic abnormality to a keen observer.


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