In 1889, Howard Calder gained national attention when he attempted to elope with 18-year-old Catherine Beall in Harford County, Maryland, and came out as a trans man in the pages of the Baltimore Sun. The case was remarkable for its media coverage, Howard’s ability to navigate the public spotlight, and the unusual involvement of a Catholic priest in rural Maryland who re-baptized him as a man.

While the couple was on the run, the Baltimore Sun interviewed Father J.A. Frederick, the priest who married Howard and Catherine, revealing the era’s complex attitudes toward gender. Frederick described Howard as “an eccentric old maid” but noted his short hair, “masculine step,” and lack of feminine traits. Months before the elopement, Howard had shown the priest a newspaper clipping about Lawrence Payne, a possibly intersex person initially assumed female but later confirmed as male by doctors.

Payne’s case, framed as a “mistaken sex,” aligned with the 19th-century belief that masculine traits indicated inherent maleness. Inspired by Payne’s story, Howard told the priest, “This is my case exactly.” Convinced Howard had also been misgendered at birth, Frederick re-baptized him as a man and later officiated his marriage to Catherine.

A month after their elopement, detectives found Howard and Catherine near Baltimore, returning Catherine to her family. Howard, however, embraced his newfound fame, inviting reporters into their temporary home for interviews. Coverage in the Baltimore Sun was unusually sympathetic, correctly gendering Howard, calling Catherine “Mrs. Calder,” and lamenting how they were “rudely separated by parental decree.” Howard vowed to fight for his rights as a legally married man, stating, “I must come out and assert myself and take my proper place in the world as a man, which I certainly am.”

The most striking part of the interview was Howard’s explanation of his gender identity, referred to by reporters as “the wonderful change of sex.” He explained, “I was a girl until I was about twenty-five years old. Then I noticed a change coming in my sex. I was becoming a man. I certainly have been one for over ten years.” This was different from the story of “mistaken sex” he had seen about Payne and shown to the priest, and the priest’s belief in a birth misclassification. Instead Howard described his gender as transitioning later in life—his public declaration as a man, long before “transgender” became a term.

As Howard’s story gained national attention, he became both a curiosity and a target. Some newspapers portrayed him as a tragic figure, cursed by his difference but recognizing his identity as a man. Howard embraced the publicity, exhibiting himself as “the Mysterious Bridegroom” in Baltimore to raise legal funds. However, during the trial, he was told he could only be recognized as Catherine’s husband if he submitted to a medical inspection.  It’s unclear whether Howard agreed to this or simply dropped the suit, either way he walked away without his bride.

Reactions weren’t all sympathetic. The National Police Gazette referred to him as “it,” while other papers mocked him as a “man-woman” or freak. The New York World went further, calling him a monster with “a long, black record of immorality.” At a masquerade in Baltimore for the Jewish holiday of Purim, a male reveler dressed as Howard in a gown with a mocking sign, drawing laughter from the crowd.

After losing his case, Howard continued public exhibitions before relocating to Virginia, where he married a woman named Sara. Eventually moving south again, the couple were described in a Richmond notice as respected community members. One blurb noted, “Mr. and Mrs. Calder regret leaving the home, to which they are much attached, and their many friends wish them God-speed,” as Howard sought better health in Florida.

Howard resurfaced in headlines in 1914 when his transgender identity was exposed after a hospital admission in Orlando shortly before his death. Newspapers recounted the Calders’ modest but respectable life, first in Orlando, then Tampa, where they ran a small grocery store. Again, coverage was remarkably sympathetic as articles emphasized their education, resourcefulness, and determination to maintain a stable life. Howard was described as “a genius in most anything he undertook,” with coverage noting the couple displayed “marks of refinement” during their time in Florida.

Sara’s death in 1910 deeply affected Howard, who spent much of his remaining money on an elegant cemetery plot and memorial for her, reserving a space for himself. He was often seen mourning at her grave, telling a cemetery keeper, “No one could realize how much I loved my wife.”

Discovering that Howard died penniless and was buried in a pauper’s graveyard in Orlando, the cemetery keeper called for compassion, urging that “some charitable institution ought to take the matter up and have the remains sent here for interment in the lot that the poor ‘man-woman’ bought and paid for.” The plea resonated, and within a week, Orlando residents raised funds to exhume and rebury him next to Sara in Tampa, fulfilling his final wish.

As with earlier chapters of Howard’s life, media coverage of his death revealed tensions between rigid gender norms and the realities of his life as a trans man. While many articles respected Howard’s devotion to Sara, his intelligence and perseverance, they often erased his trans identity, offering fabricated narratives to explain his relationship with Sara—some claiming she was his sister, others that she was his illegitimate daughter. The idea of a trans man living as a husband to a woman was so far outside the bounds of what was considered respectable or comprehensible that these fabricated narratives seemed more plausible to many journalists.

Over time, coverage of Howard’s gender shifted. Early reports emphasized his confidence as a man, while later ones focused on his success as a breadwinner and traditional husband, presenting this as proof of his virtue. His unwavering devotion to his wife–first Catherine, then Sara–remained central, but his trans identity continued to challenge societal ideas about gender, particularly ideas about a woman’s ‘natural’ behavior and role. These tensions were always interpreted through the era’s politics: by the 1910s, his death prompted nearly every report to note with shock that Calder had exercised a power still highly debated for women: as one paper put it, “as a man, she registered and voted in Orlando a number of times.”