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| Reed as a teenager |
She started her own company making stadium bleachers. In 1962, when her father died Erickson inherited the majority of the family businesses, Schuylkill Products Co., Inc. and Schuylkill Lead Corp.
In 1963, at the age of 46, she became a patient of Harry Benjamin, and started living as a man. Reed legally transitioned the same year, and had an hysterectomy in New York, and double mastectomy at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, both in 1965 – which was a legal precedent in Louisiana. Also in 1963 he married his first legal wife, who was in the entertainment industry, but they divorced in 1965.
In 1964 he founded the Erickson Educational Foundation (EEF), financed entirely by himself. That year he also met Aileen Ashton, a New Zealander who was working as a dancer in New York City. He proposed on their second date, and they had a lavish wedding in Christchurch, New Zealand. They lived in Baton Rouge, and within a few years they had a son and a daughter, and Reed had started doing recreational drugs.
++Reed employed Zelda Suplee to run the Erickson Educational Foundation. She had managed nudist camps, and was the first full-frontal nude in Playboy magazine (in black-and-white). From her office in New York she and lesbian feminist activist Phyllis Saperstein (they had met in a nudist camp) managed the daily operations, and the contacts with transsexuals who asked for help. Erickson made the final decisions about who and what he funded, but spent much of his time in Baton Rouge and then Mexico with his family.
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| Reed in 1962 |
Though the EEF he financed gay and trans organizations, and research into New Age activities such as acupuncture, homeopathy, dolphin communication and altered states of consciousness. The EEF published booklets on various aspects of transsexuality, sponsored addresses to various professionals, and sponsored two of John Money’s books, and three of Vern Bullough’s. It donated money to the Harry Benjamin Foundation, but fell out with Benjamin in 1968. It subsidized the transsexuality program at the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic. It sponsored three symposia that grew into the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA).
The longest-running recipient of financial support was ONE Inc of Los Angeles, founded in 1952 and still running, the pioneer homophile organization. Erickson had advised them to create a non-profit tax-exempt charitable arm, the Institute for the Study of Human Resources (ISHR). Erickson was president of ISHR from 1964 till 1977. He donated 70-80% of the budget, some $200,000. In 1981 ONE was accredited as a graduate degree-granting institution. Erickson suggested that the college needed a proper campus, and for $1.9 million purchased a 3.5 acre property from the religious leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet. ONE moved its large library and archives into the campus. However by this time Erickson had apparently soured on the organization. He failed to turn over the property deed as previously agreed, and began filing legal suits against ONE to remove them from the campus. The expense of the move and the cut of funding from EEF almost bankrupted ONE, and the defensive efforts paralyzed its operations. The battle continued for over 10 years, with Erickson’s daughter continuing his fight. In 1992 a settlement was reached whereby ONE received $1 million, the property was sold and ONE came under the auspices of the University of Southern California.By the end of his life Erickson was addicted to drugs, and a fugitive from US drug agents.He was
arrested for cocaine possession in Ojai, in 1983. After two more arrests he retreated to Mexico.
He died in January 1992, aged 74.
- Aaron Devor writing as Holly Devor. "Reed Erickson (1912-1992): How One Transsexed Man Supported ONE." In Vern Bullough (ed). Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. New York: Haworth. 2002. Online at: http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/ReedErickson.pdf
- Aaron Devor. Reed Erickson and The Erickson Educational Foundation. http://web.uvic.ca/~erick123.
- Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States
. Cambridge, Ma, London: Harvard University Press. 363 pp 2002: 210-2, 215-6, 219, 223, 258, 268, 327n5,8, 336n6.
Vern Bullough's stipend from Reed Erickson was $70,000 (almost $1 million in today's money), and the ingrate completely leaves Erickson out of his Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender.
Great article.
ReplyDeleteIn the early 1990s Vern Bullough told me at Fantasia Fair how at one point in Erickson's later years EEF Director Zelda Suplee and psychologist John Money traveled deep into Mexico to rescue him from a band of drug dealers.
Thank you for this article. I find it particularly interesting to learn that Reed Erikson, a transman, was so important and pivotal in the early years of the transsexual movement and the development of the gender identity clinic at John Hopkins. So often transmen are relegated a back seat in the the trans movement, apparently yet another example of sexism. I'm curious to how this happened: "They lived in Baton Rouge, and within a few years they had a son and a daughter". Wondering how they "had" these two children? Adoption, sperm donor? Reminds me of Billy Tipton's married life.
ReplyDeleteGreat article, im from Mazatlán, the city Reed fled, He built a mansion here, which is the subject of several urban legends, almost all say that satanic rites were performed in the mansion. The mansion was demolished several years ago, and there was built one of the most expensive and exclusive residential areas in the city.
ReplyDeleteI just ran across this article while lost down an internet rabbit hole. Interesting but some of the other commenters have their information wrong.
ReplyDeleteI knew Reed and was part of the scenario that Cheyenne Palisades mentions. While there were drugs involved the main issue was a mental breakdown. Because of the politics of the situation it was very difficult to get proper help for Reed in Mazatlan. Zelda Suplee and John Money showed up to help. We wound up sedating Reed and smuggling him out of Mexico on a Learjet in the middle of some Mexican night with John Money and Reed's wife. Reed was taken to John Hopkins where he could get proper care. I stayed on to take care of the mansion and Reed's pet leopard.
Reed was not "trans" but hermaphrodite. Raised early as a girl, later a puberty taking on the more the characteristics of a male. He lived the rest of his life as a man and did indeed father his own children. John Money was a world expert on Hermaphroditism.
Reed preferred to be called "Eric" Another interesting side note is that Reed financed the original publication of "A Course in Miracles" which went on to become a major world wide phenomenon.
I came back to this page for another look and wanted to address what arcadesloth mentioned
ReplyDeleteReed was very interested in Spirituality and Mysticism. That's how I met him. I would sometime host retreats or training where there would be meditation, yoga and chanting. Given that it started in the mid-seventies I can see how the participants may have seems like crazies to some of the locals. But the only thing "satanic" about any of it would have been in the minds of indoctrinated Christians.
Even Reed's descent into drug abuse began as a genuine attempt to find a shortcut to spiritual awareness. But I will admit that once drugs became a significant part of the scene things took a turn for the worse.
Reed was generous on many fronts. One example is that shortly after moving to Mazatlan, he financed the construction and stocking of a new central municipal library.
Garry Dufresne, that's very interesting. I wish someone would write a biography about Reed. I remember when the Erickson Educational Foundation was in Baton Rouge. I once drove by the house where it was located. It was a small house near LSU, I think, but by that time it had already closed and moved to Galveston, Texas and became the Janus Information Facility.
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