Joseph Lobdell

Joseph Israel Lobdell (December 2, 1829 – May 28, 1912) was an American hunter and fiddler usually characterized as a transgender man. Lobdell was the subject of frequent negative media attention within his lifetime, which characterized his gender nonconformity as a form of insanity; In later life, he was the subject of an early medical case study regarded as "the first United States to describe a person who would today be understood as transgender." which was based on Lobdell's life. An 1883 account by P. M. Wise, which cast Lobdell as a "lesbian", was the first use of that word in an American publication. Albany County, New York. Lobdell married George Washington Slater, who was reportedly mentally abusive and abandoned Lobdell shortly after the birth of their daughter, Helen. Lobdell was known for marksmanship and nicknamed "The Female Hunter of Delaware County". Lobdell wrote a memoir about their hunting adventures, their disastrous marriage and their feelings about God, ending with a plea for equal employment for women. when Slater was killed in the war. Perry was a poor but well-educated woman, whose husband left her shortly after they eloped. in Wayne County, Pennsylvania. They spent years roaming the woods together with their pet bear, living in nomadic poverty, surviving off hunting, gathering and charity. Then they were arrested for vagrancy and sent to Stroudsburg jail where "discovery that the supposed man was a woman was made". Newspapers published two premature obituaries for Lobdell, first in 1879, then in 1885. Lobdell was presumed to have died on May 28, 1912.