Miss Destiny (1936 -) sex worker, muse to John Rechy

Original March 2007; revised March 2019.

The person who became Miss Destiny was born in Trinidad, Colorado, and raised in a nearby mining camp.  Her parents took her to California age 6.  "I simply loved my mother's clothes. I couldn't imagine why she dressed me as a boy.  Even then I wanted to talk to her about my feelings, but I just couldn't." (Drag, p13)

In her 20s she took the name, Miss Destiny.
She became famous in 1963 when she was featured in John Rechy's City of Night.  "Take John Rechy for instance. I can't recall whether I first met him in Pershing Square or in the 1-2-3. I do remember I had just turned 21. In fact on the eve of my 21st birthday I waited around the corner from the 1-2-3 until midnight and burst into the place at exactly 12:01 expecting to dazzle the girls and boys. It was the first bar I was ever in." (Drag p15)

She became part of the scene in Pershing Square, (map) Los Angeles.  John Rechy used her for a chapter in his book. A year later she was interviewed in the September 1964 issue of ONE magazine, and expressed scepticism of Rechy's masculinity.  "When I first saw Rechy he looked butch. ... I loved it because that was exactly what I wanted to see in him. I only had sex with him once, and he didn't disappoint me. But I was a silly girl in those days, and I couldn't stand to do the same one twice. Besides, I could see that he was really a queen."

As she was in her early 20s in the early 1960s, she will be in her late 60s now. Did she ever have completion surgery?  What did she do with the rest of her life? Neither Charles Casillo nor Lillian Faderman & Stuart Timmons have any extra information.

*not the band from Melbourne.

• John Rechy. City of Night. Grove Press. 1963: 94-119.
• “The Fabulous Miss Destiny”. ONE Magazine. Sept 1964. 6-12. Interview.
• "The Common Sense of Miss Destiny". Drag Magazine, 1,2, 1971. Online.
• Charles Casillo. Outlaw: The Lives and Careers of John Rechy. Advocate Book 2002: 93-7, 158-160.
• Lillian Faderman & Stuart Timmons. Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians. Basic Books 430 pp 2006: 114, 115.
• John Rechy. After the Blue Hour.  Grove/Atlantic, 2017.