| Joseph Lobdell | |
| Birth Date: | 2 December 1829 |
| Birth Place: | Westerlo, New York, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Binghamton State Hospital, New York, United States |
| Other Names: | Joe Lobdell |
| Spouse: |
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Joseph Israel Lobdell (December 2, 1829 – May 28, 1912; born Lucy Ann Lobdell) was a 19th-century person who was assigned female at birth and lived as a man for sixty years, and is usually regarded today as a transgender man.[1] An 1877 New York Times article referred to Lobdell's life as "one of the most singular family histories ever recorded".[2] Writer William Klaber wrote an historical novel, The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell,[3] 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.[4] [1]
Joseph Lobdell was born December 2, 1829, to a working-class family living in Westerlo,[5] 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.[6] Lobdell was known for marksmanship and nicknamed "The Female Hunter of Delaware County".[7] He wrote a memoir about his hunting adventures, his disastrous marriage and his feelings about God, ending with a plea for equal employment for women. He was also known to be an accomplished fiddle player and opened a singing school for a time. While working at the singing school, he became engaged to a young woman. A rival for her affection learned Lobdell was assigned female at birth and threatened to tar and feather him. Lobdell's fiancé warned him and he escaped. Lobdell received a Civil War pension[8] when Slater was killed in the war. Lobdell entered the County Poor House in Delhi, New York, in 1860, where he met Marie Louise Perry.[9] Perry was a poor but well-educated woman, whose husband left her shortly after they eloped. He later married Perry in 1861[10] 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.[11] Then they were arrested for vagrancy and sent to Stroudsburg jail where "discovery that the supposed man was a woman was made". Joseph was later arrested again for wearing male clothes. Marie wrote a letter using a stick and pokeberry ink begging the jail to free her husband.
In 1879, Lobdell was taken away to the Willard Insane Asylum in Ovid, New York.[9] While in the asylum, Lobdell became a patient of Dr. P. M. Wise, who published a brief article, "A Case of Sexual Perversion", in which the doctor noted Lobdell said "she considered herself a man in all that the name implies".[12] Newspapers published two premature obituaries for him, first in 1879, then in 1885. He was presumed to have died on May 28, 1912.