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With so many politicians and media figures denying the existence of trans youth today, you would think they had no history at all. Yet, while writing Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950, I located hundreds of their stories going back over 200 years. Emma Heinrich was one of these trans children. A clever and mischievous trans girl, Emma’s story shows us how trans teens lived 120 years ago.
The police never knew what to do with 14-year-old Emma Heinrich, dubbed “The Girl Bandit of Passaic County.” A passionate critic of all social and legal norms, she embraced the “tomboy” label as national reporters tried to make sense of her gender identity. Emma’s astonishing story shows us how young trans girls explored their identities between, beyond, and before our modern concept of gender.
Emma was born in 1891 in Germany before immigrating to suburban New Jersey around 1899. Like a surprising number of other trans youth during her time, her whole family supported her gender identity and expression. They were unwavering in their defense of her girlhood. Although Emma knew she was a girl, she still refused to define herself by gender. She paired feminine hats, always adorned with flowers, with comfortable jackets designed for boys. Her ambivalence toward gender presentation helped her command respect while affirming her status as a girl.
Emma first formed her gang in her early teens. She initially became a solo thief after her mother died when she was 10. Realizing she had a knack for burglary, she then enlisted help to expand her endeavors. With a friendly freckled face and radiant red hair tied up with a ribbon, the young bandit attracted the attention of many boys around her.
Emma’s first accomplices were John Laksock, 11, and John Doolick, 14. Apparently, her glare was so powerful that John Doolick “lost all will power when she cast her stern eyes upon him.” A local newspaper called her the “Female Fagin,” an antagonist from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist who teaches children to live lives of crime. She would allegedly call up the boys on a whim and entice them into committing break-ins with her.
Late on Halloween night, 1905, Emma and her gang started a steady string of robberies. They stole cigars, “great quantities” of tobacco, and five gold rings from a local store (altogether worth around $1,785 in 2025). Halloween night was a citywide celebration in Passaic, and the holiday provided the perfect cover for their heist to go undetected. The following evening, the gang stole alcohol, tobacco, and other valuables from a nearby saloon. The trio slid through a skylight to plunder the bar. One estimate put their loot at an astonishing fifty bottles of alcohol, which they resold to a local man.
The police caught Emma a week later. An officer spotted her in a shoplifted coat and stopped her, recognizing the missing item. She acknowledged that it was stolen but denied that she was the one who looted it. The officer marched her to jail. Her uncle paid for the coat, and the judge dismissed the case. However, officials remained curious about her “boyish nature.”
Respecting her gender, Emma’s father explained, “She is a Tom boy [ . . .] she invariably associates with boys and leads a reckless sort of existence.” Charles’s statement is a small but remarkable piece of trans history. He was willing to defend her gender (and perhaps commit perjury) even when she misbehaved. Gender is not a reward to be distributed but a basic form of self-expression that families must support. If Charles Heinrich knew this in 1905, we can certainly understand it today.
Charles’ testimony seemed to satisfy the officials, who let his daughter go. Emma, unfazed by the arrest, immediately returned to stealing.
Police were unaware that the Halloween robberies were connected until early November 21, 1905. Hidden by the night shadow, Emma’s gang sneaked into a grocery store through a tiny, unlocked window above the back door. They nearly escaped, but an officer heard muffled voices through the walls at 2 am. Knowing the store owners were gone, he cautiously approached the building and caught Emma and John Laksock in the act. They held $4.35 from the till along with several small items. John Doolick had already fled the scene, but Emma and the other John implicated him in the robbery. All three were interrogated so officers could understand how they accomplished such a complex heist.
While Emma was in holding, Laksock and Doolick turned against their friend and claimed she was the mastermind behind the scheme. They admitted to having plundered many stores in the area by using their small bodies to enter locked buildings. The police seized the rings the gang had stolen on Halloween while searching Emma’s home. The judge held the trio without bail, and they became a small media spectacle. It was unusual for such young individuals to be involved in complicated break-ins—and for a girl to lead a gang. The press dubbed Emma the “tomboy burglar,” and she sat in jail for nearly a month.
Emma’s case finally reached juvenile court on December 14. She was only 14 and was not considered fully liable for her many crimes. However, her father attested that she was persistent in her mischief and should be sent to an institution. After listening to testimony, the callous Judge Scott sent Emma to the notorious State Home for Girls in Trenton. Emma burst into tears when hearing her sentencing, pleading for mercy. Judge Scott did not yield. “You are the worst girl I ever saw,” he scolded during sentencing, not knowing that she was trans.
The press continued to debate Emma’s girlhood. One reporter described the 14-year-old as “muscular as any boy her size and equally masculine in her language.” She allegedly boxed and pitched baseball in her free time. The journalist guessed this was a way for her to command respect from the boys of her gang. She continued to enjoy both men’s and women’s fashion, which did not help with the questioning. However, when the sentencing came, the reporter claimed, “She lost her masculine aspect and pleaded with the judge to let her go.” The judge still refused.
The State Home for Girls was infamous for its brutality. It is unclear if Emma knew its reputation, but the New York Times ran a widely-circulated article around that time detailing the institution’s horrific abuses. The girls were frequently whipped with leather as punishment. Some were confined to a tiny windowless room known as “the ‘dark’ dungeon” for days on end. It is no surprise that Emma allegedly “had broken every rule of the institution” within two weeks of living there. Her personal experiences in the home were not documented, but were undoubtedly harsh.
On January 1, 1906, a state doctor inspected Emma and learned she was assigned male at birth. Upon the discovery of her sex, an attendant from the girls’ home swiftly brought Emma back to the county jail. The case was so unusual that the Boston Globe covered Emma’s story:
Emma considered the event blasé. “I don’t know. I was never dressed any other way that I can remember,” she claimed, feigning ignorance. Media attention exploded over the mystery of Emma’s past. “Emma was the object of curiosity when she was before the courts recently, and the curious interest taken in the child will be doubled now,” a newspaper read on the day of her outing. Emma remained in the women’s section of the jail as she waited for Judge Scott to return to court.
The judge offered Emma a retrial. She accepted and waited another three weeks in holding. Emma’s stepmother and brother came to court to demand her release, still refusing to misgender her. The judge decided the best way to deal with Emma was to discharge her to her family on the condition that she wear masculine clothing. Emma protested. As a local paper reported, “‘Emma’ doesn’t want to wear trousers; ‘she’ objects to separation from dresses and ribbons—‘she’ wants to continue to be a girl.” Just shy of her 15th birthday, Emma was out of jail again.
Emma stayed out of the spotlight for over a year. She was caught stealing again in Yonkers, New York, in March 1907 after being forced into trousers. After this point, her trail runs cold. Emma Heinrich is not an unusual name. Records show dozens of individuals with the same name born in 1891. Perhaps as more historical documents are restored and digitized, we will learn what finally happened to Emma, the tomboy bandit.
Emma’s story is perhaps a warning that basic tolerance of gender identity is not enough. Emma’s family may have accepted her gender identity, but clearly could not provide her with the opportunities to keep her out of trouble. It is unclear exactly what Emma did with her stolen money. However, her father struggled to support at least four people at the time. She may have felt the need to steal to live how she wanted. Whatever lessons you take away from Emma’s story, she is a reminder that trans youth have been the subject of public scrutiny for decades.
Excerpted from Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950 by Eli Erlick. Copyright 2025. Excerpted with permission by Beacon Press.
