Emma Heinrich - Eli Erlick

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Emma Heinrich is a complicated character. Today, she might be considered a butch or gender nonconforming trans girl. Like other narratives in Before Gender, Emma continued to live as a girl even after she was outed, indicating a strong sense of gender.

I was not surprised I couldn’t find photos of Emma as a member of a low-income family in 1900s suburban New Jersey. However, I am able to post these full articles that I could not print in full in Before Gender:

During the height of her fame, Emma was labeled “A Female Fagin.”
(The News, Paterson, New Jersey, Dec 14, 1905)

Emma’s 1905 outing sounds humiliating. It also offers us valuable information about her life. If these reports are correct, she likely wasn’t intersex and had not spent her whole life presenting as a girl.

1908 headline documenting abuses in the New Jersey State Home for Girls, where Emma resided (article link)

The New Jersey State Home for Girls c. 1910

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