I just read the autobiography of (Therese) Andreas Bruce.

19th century... well, trans man is probably the closest modern word.

Pretty good read, too.

He was one of 12 children of a minor nobleman.

At birth, he was named Therese and raised as a girl, but he always claimed that he was really a boy. Members of the household called him Frken Herrn (Miss Master).

The parents showed little interest in the kids, except the father tried to make sexual advances on his daughters, including Therese/Andreas. (But I'm a boy!)

When confronted by his wife, the father claimed he had only wanted to see if his children were virtuous. Uh-huh. A+ parenting, dad.

Therese/Andreas wanted to live as a man, but his father categorically forbade him from wearing men's clothes.

Though he said having a mistress would be all right since no one had to know about that.

A+ parenting again.

Eventually Therese/Andreas tired of this and ran off from home, cutting off his hair and seeking help from a friend.

He'd left a suicide note, so the family got really scared.

When Therese/Andreas realized how much he'd scared his family he came back home.

They were now more willing to let him live as a man.

With his father's permission, he could finally get a doctor's appointment.

He told the doctor: If I can't wear trousers, I can't live!

The doctor signed an attestation that he was a hermaphrodite but mostly male.

Andreas changed his name, and his father had him taken from the list of noblewomen to the list of noblemen.

It was done in a matter-of-fact way, but predictably caused quite a bit of gossip.

There were satirical songs made about him, even.

Some members of the family stopped talking to him for a while.

He got a job in a shop. At one point a female customer asked him to show her how he was made.

When he politely refused, she gave him some money and said that she felt sorry for him.

Others were more hostile. There's a pretty nasty description of an attempted gang rape.

After a while, though, the commotion died down.

Most people seem to have regarded Andreas as a man, whether or not they knew his history.

He did a man's work, served in the army for a while, and had relationships with women.

(In the autobiography he repeatedly comes back to how manly he is compared to other, less brave or forceful men.)

There were still people who claimed that Andreas was really a lady. One was his colleague Nystrm, who fell in love with Andreas.

Somehow it doesn't appear to have been outright rape, but definitely coercion Andreas got pregnant.

He gave birth to his daughter in secret, and she was fostered away for a while.

There was gossip about this too. Sometimes people would come and tell him that the baby was dead, just to see how he'd react. Outwardly, he never did, though it cut my heart, as he writes..

A couple of years later, Andreas moved in with Maria Lindblad, who would be his de facto wife (they could never marry) for forty years.

He brought his daughter back home, and she was raised alongside Maria's daughter as sisters.

His letters to his daughter are signed dad, and Maria is called mom.

The rest of his life seems to have been quite mundane.

The letters certainly aren't very interesting, mostly local news and grumbles about money.

At one point, he found God, so there's a lot of admonitions to put your trust in Jesus.

The book ends with a long epic poem that he wrote, called Vengeance and Reconciliation.

It's not very well written, but still fun to read.

And that's it.