Important events in Rollin’s life occurred in the small state of Vermont (highlighted in red on this map), where a sparsely populated, highly rural milieu shaped his masculine-to-feminine transitions in the first decade of the twentieth century. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In contemporary use, trans often refers to someone who moves from one gender to another and remains in the target gender. Likewise, transition today often denotes the unilateral, permanent change in gender that a person makes.

The many social transitions of Rollin Kedzie Morgan (1880–1966), however, indicate that transition may be fluid and multidirectional over time. Between 1901 and 1910, Rollin, a young, White, middle-class trans man based in Vermont, socially transitioned. In fact, he moved, changed his name, and established his masculine gender four separate times during this period. In each of his first three feminine-to-masculine transitions, he was outed, returned to his immediate family, and made to assume a feminine identity. Humiliated but undaunted after his third feminine-to-masculine transition ended with a voided marriage in California, he quietly transitioned to a masculine identity for good in southern Vermont in 1910, leveraging his parents’ unusual support and their reputation as respected, influential community members. After this tumultuous decade, Rollin lived much like his White, middle-class, New England, cisgender male peers, working as an interior decorator, playing partners’ bridge, visiting and traveling with his parents and sisters, and spending winters in Florida until his death.

While Rollin undoubtedly faced challenges, his experiences illustrate the influences of his race and class on his feminine-to-masculine social transitions. As a White person of the professional class, he had certain advantages in his transitions when compared to people of other races or lower socioeconomic status. He also used the milestones of marriage, voter registration, and draft registration to further his social transitions and solidify his status as a man. Additionally, the rural, close-knit milieu of Vermont offered obstacles and opportunities that shaped his transitions.

I use the words trans and transition expansively in this paper. The term trans describes people who changed their names, clothes, and gender at some point in their lives. Some, like Rollin, eventually made a permanent transition from one gender to another. Others had temporary transitions for the purpose of safe travel or economic advantage. However long the period during which these people changed their gender, I refer to such a change as transition.

I use masculine pronouns and the name Rollin for Rollin because, in my interpretation, his actions made clear his preferred gender, pronouns, and name. When I talk about other people who moved from a feminine identity to a masculine one, I know much less about them, so I refer to them by their surnames (separated by slashes if necessary) without gendered pronouns.

Rollin’s story and those of other feminine-to-masculine trans people came to my attention through sensationalized newspaper reports, which perpetuated anti-trans rhetoric, and terse official records. The trans point of view appeared fleetingly if at all. To reconstruct Rollin’s life and perspective accurately and respectfully, I have centered his statements, actions, and opinions throughout, occasionally making informed speculation. Though some newspaper sources use Rollin’s birth name and misgender him, I hope to tell his story without perpetuating the erasure and bias inherent in these articles. The limitations of my sources, however, mean that my partial reconstruction is an interpretation combining scholarship, empathy, and the acknowledgment of unbridgeable gaps.[1]

Notes

[1] Thank you to Marc Stein, director of OutHistory, and Anne Valk, member of OutHistory Advisory Board, whose reviews and suggestions greatly improved this paper.