Confidences et axeux d'un Parisien
1874
Arthur-Louis Belorget
Paris : Libraire de L'académie de médicine
French
Memoir
65pp
Transgender, Lesbians, Gay Men, Sex Workers, Queer Experience
From that day on I understood the power and the value of the word 'to love.' From that moment on I suffered because of it — but I also lived. (Tr. William A. Peniston and Nancy Erber)
Summary
An autobiography of a cross-dressing sex worker, detailing the operations of queer sex trade, the queer community, her loves, and her account in prison. If not a transgender account, then at least one with a complicated relationship to gender.
More Info
Written by Arthur-Louis Belorget as Arthur W, aka The Countess.
First published by Dr. Henri Legludic as the final chapter of his Notes et observations de médicine légale: Attentats aux moeurs (1895). More of the Countess' drawings are contained in this original edition.
Although Arthur's attraction to men is more certain, her gender is not; still, I prefer to use she/her pronouns for her since I believe she felt happier as a feminine figure. Although she refers to herself as a man by birth, she expresses more comfort and joy when as the Countess: "I, who had so desired to be a girl, had triumphed over natural law. With a great deal of patience and effort, I had succeeded in resembling the finest being in all creation — I was a woman!" and "The desire to dress as a woman, to be accepted in the eyes of the world as an elegant lady, pleased me so much."
Content & Trigger Warnings
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Editions
Paris : Libraire de L'académie de médicine (1896)
University of Nebraska Press (2008) in Queer Lives: Men’s Autobiographies from Nineteenth-Century France by William A. Peniston and Nancy Erber. Translated and published as Secret Confessions of a Parisian.