Not a transgendered man, mind you, but a born-male baby whose parents gave a name that sounded decidedly female.
It has happened before. George Beverly Shea, whom everyone called Bev, sang at just about every Billy Graham crusade. Joyce Kilmer, a man, wrote a poem called "Trees". Johnny Cash famously sang about a boy named Sue (3:46) in his San Quentin Prison concert.
If you know of other examples of boys with girls' names, tell me in the comments.
Here, from 1913, is "Trees":
Trees
by Joyce Kilmer (1886 - 1918)
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Joyce Kilmer looked like this in 1908, when he was attending Columbia University:
Many years later, poet Ogden Nash wrote:
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree;
Indeed, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.
Here is Ogden Nash in his youth:
Here he is later in life weariing a spiffy houndstooth jacket, the money for which might have been better spent on dental work:
And many years after that -- today, in fact -- yours truly wrote the following:
Blogposts are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.
Here I am at age 27:
I end this post with these trees, whose age I do not know:
