A Strange Sort of Being by Bambi Lobdell

A Strange Sort of Being:
The Transgender Life of Lucy Ann/Joseph Israel Lobdell, 1829-1912
By Bambi Lobdell
        
Bambi Lobdell was at a loss as to what to research and write about for her dissertation when she was given a copy of an ancestor’s writings about her own life.  Her name was Lucy Ann Lobdell, but she didn’t live out her life under that name, later taking the name of Joseph Israel Lobdell and spending the rest of her life as a man.

“I see Joe as a transgender pioneer, one who bravely lived life as authentically as possible, even though it brought him harassment, ridicule and incarceration, and I feel it necessary to present Lobdell’s life from that perspective,” the author says in introducing her topic.

Lucy Ann Lobdell was born in 1829 and grew up in Albany County, New York, then moved with her family to Long Eddy.  She was pressed into marriage but her husband left her soon after.  The family looked the other way when Lucy wore men’s clothes while she did farm chores, worked in her father’s mill and went hunting.  She became known as the Female Hunter of Delaware County due to her prowess. 

Eventually she left home to earn money as a singing teacher, clothed as a man because, she explained in her writings, no one would pay a woman as much as they did a man.  First she went to Pennsylvania and then west. 

Though the information becomes more scarce about her life out west, it is clear that she was engaged to be married to a woman when she was found out and driven out of town.  She returned home, too depressed to work, and ended up in the poor house. 

There she met Marie Louise Perry and presumably fell in love.  They escaped the poor house together and Lucy become Joe permanently.  They were married in 1862.  They lived off the land in the woods until her brother helped her get the widow’s pension from her first marriage, her husband having died in the civil war, and she bought a house for herself and Marie. 

An understanding of the thinking at the time by the psychological community can help to explain the persecution that Lobdell underwent.  “Before the second half of the nineteenth century, there was no concept of homosexuality as an identity that described a type of person.”

Further, two women desiring each other made no sense at all to the psychological community.  “Since sexual desire was read as an active behavior, and active behaviors were gendered as masculine, it was believed only men possessed sexual urges.  Women were believed to have no sexual desire and simply passively received male advances and pleased men for the sake of having families.”

In the author’s research, she found that stories of Lobdell suggest she was a lesbian or a “passing woman” trying to further her earning ability through wearing men’s clothes.  The author’s research brought her to a different conclusion. 

"While others tell stories that present Lobdell either as an insane woman or a beleaguered lesbian, Lobdell’s own story about sex and gender is that he is a heterosexual man.”

It is a fascinating story of a brave person living their most authentic life.  It is a heartbreaking and tragic story as well.  Lobdell’s brother tricked him on a visit and had him forcibly institutionalized, where Lobdell spent the last decades of life, a prisoner.  False obituaries and reports ensured that Marie Louise Perry never knew what really happened to her husband. 

“Lobdell’s persistence in living as a man only brought him poverty and a lack of employment opportunities, a marginalized life outside of society, and persecution and incarceration by legal and psychiatric authorities.”

Dune by Frank Herbert

Dune
By Frank Herbert

Dune presents the reader with one of the single best examples of science fiction world building ever written.  The forces at work in this novel bring politics, environment, science, religion and more all into play.  The story begins on the planet of Caladan and introduces the hierarchal life there but the family already knows that they are being transplanted to govern Arrakis, also known as Dune, a desert planet.  Arrakis is the only source of a spice which the entire universe needs.  Paul’s father will not survive long there, an assassination ends his reign and Paul must go into hiding.  He goes to live amongst the Fremen, the desert dwelling natives, and learns their ways.  Their legend of a messiah seems to fit Paul and he becomes Maud’Dib.  He learns to ride the giant desert worms and uses the spices to enhance the mental powers he inherited.   

It is an epic story so complex that to encapsulate it in a paragraph can only fail to do justice to the story.  Perhaps the best I can do is to explain how the novel affected me.  It drew me in and held me in thrall. The litany against fear is firmly entrenched in my mind.

I first read Dune as a young teenager.  My father had taken my mother out to dinner and a movie.  Apparently they went by a book store and he saw a copy of the book.  He remembered how much he had enjoyed it when my oldest brother recommended it to him, so he bought it for me. 

I was surprised and I don’t remember exactly what I thought, but I suspect I looked at it with distrust.  I doubted I would enjoy it but I didn’t want to let my father know that because I was so pleased that he had thought of me.  I took the book, said thank you and I don’t recall whether I started it right away or it sat on a shelf for a bit. 

I certainly never suspected how deep an impact it would have on my reading selections or my thinking.  I’m not sure how old I was exactly so I don’t know if I was already reading fantasy and science fiction.  I suspect I was.  I read this book several times over the years, and can quote quite a few paragraphs.

One lesson that has stayed with me over the years comes from this section –

 "Jessica, have you ever stopped hating me?" the old woman asked.

"I both love and hate you," Jessica said. "The hate -- that's from pains I must never forget. The love -- that's . . . "

"Just the basic fact," the old woman said, but her voice was gentle.

The concept of that duality helped me immensely over the years.  I remember a classmate in high school saying that she hated her father.  “No, you don’t,” I said.  “You don’t hate him, you just hate his behavior.” 

Even now, I come across the quote “A beginning is a time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct,” and my brain automatically continues, “This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of the life of Muad'Dib, then, take care that you first place him in his time...” 

Scary, right?  There was also a British accent in my head for some reason.

I can’t say how the new novels by his son Brian are, the continuation of the series never quite fired my imagination the way the first one did, and I’ve never seen the movie but Dune remains one of my all time favorite novels.  I highly recommend it.