The first recorded appearance of Rollin’s fourth and final feminine-to-masculine transition was in the 1910 U.S. Census, conducted in Heartwellville, Vermont, on April 29, 1910. There the census taker found a family of four: Rollin’s father George, “head”; his mother Mary, “wife”; James W. Foote, Mary’s father, “father-in-law”; and Rollin (yes, he appeared under his chosen name), “son.”^[1] Perhaps Rollin acted as the informant and decided to give the government accurate information once and for all. Perhaps his parents had begun to accept his trans status. In any event, Rollin had apparently convinced his parents that he was a trans man with an enduring desire (and perhaps need, given his thoughts of suicide after the end of his 1901 transitions) to permanently transition to a masculine identity. Whatever the case, Rollin was going on official federal record as a man, mere months after national news had misgendered him.

The gap in the historical record between November 1909, when Rollin was derided and called by his birth name in the Bennington Banner, and April 1910, when the census recorded him as his parents’ “son” using his preferred name, elides a poignant shift in Rollin’s relationship with his family. Perhaps Rollin’s parents recognized that, after three feminine-to-masculine transitions, a voided marriage, and scandalous national coverage, Rollin’s identity as a trans man could no longer be denied or hidden. Perhaps Rollin pointed to his “boyish” childhood activities and his three previous feminine-to-masculine transitions to assert his enduring desire for a masculine identity. Whatever happened, everyone was likely exhausted and unhappy from a decade of struggle. They yearned for a solution.

Crucially, Rollin and his family’s solution did not involve repudiation of Rollin or a geographical separation between Rollin and his parents. In fact, Rollin stayed in Heartwellville with his family, even though his mother had once spent an entire Deerfield Valley Times interview denying her son and even though southern Vermont locals knew his struggles with gender identity. Though Rollin’s parents’ control had previously forced him to abandon his first and second feminine-to-masculine transitions, the involvement of his mother and father in the small community of Heartwellville ultimately proved essential to the success of his fourth and final feminine-to-masculine transition. Ten years of scandal and public disapprobation towards Rollin evidently did not deter the Morgans, as status-conscious as they were, from acknowledging their son, assisting in his final feminine-to-masculine transition, and apparently remaining emotionally close to him throughout their lives.

Rollin’s family accepted this latest social transition, and, without fanfare, Rollin pursued his usual activities. In February 1911, for example, the Brattleboro Reformer reported that “Mrs. Morgan and Rollin Morgan of Heartwellville” attended a funeral in Jacksonville, Vermont.^[2] Rollin’s mother Mary now made the social rounds with him. Appearing in public with Rollin, Mary was apparently introducing him by his chosen name and as her son, thus establishing his masculine identity in a social context. Just over sixteen months after being mocked as “‘Dr.’ Morgan” by the Bennington Banner, Rollin now showed up in the Brattleboro Reformer as “Rollin Morgan of Heartwellville” in the same neutral manner reserved for his cisgender peers. From this time forward, newspapers never mentioned his birth name.

Notes

[1] U.S. Census Bureau, 1910 United States Census, Readsboro, Bennington County, Vermont, supervisor’s district 301, enumeration district 32, sheet 12B, dwelling 141, family 204, s.v. “Morgan, George E.,” digital image, ancestry.com.

[2] “Jacksonville. Sudden Death of Mrs. Oded Fairbanks,” Brattleboro (VT) Reformer, 17 February 1911, 7.