29 June 2023

Dolly Van Doll (1938 - ) performer

Dolly was born and raised in Turin. When she grew up she went to Paris, and eventually got taken on at Madame Arthur and then Le Carrousel. Her first love was with a man who told her that he was a baron. After he found that she was pre-op, he left her, but came back after a few days, and the affaire continued for almost five years. Also in Paris, she came to know Josephine Baker and Amanda Lear. Salvador Dali, a frequent visitor to Madame Arthur, especially liked to see a Dolly Van Doll show.

She had completion surgery from Dr Burou in Casablanca in 1964. She arrived without an appointment. The price was 1,200 Francs, but she had only 600. “I cried and despaired so much that they gave me the missing half.” (Barba p 364). Her off-stage name became Carla Follis. She was the first known Italian to have had the operation, and as with Coccinelle the Church re-issued her baptismal certificate in her new name. However it took another year to get all her papers changed.

She did six years in cabaret in Berlin. In 1969 she fell madly inlove with a man who worked at Siemens. When the affair ended in 1971, she was hurt and took the first contract that came along – six months in Barcelona, even though she did not know where Catalonia was.

She arrived in Spain during the final years of the Franco dictatorship. Despite initially not speaking Spanish, and being assigned to a rather dingy nightclub, her talent and beauty filled the place every night. She was soon transferred to Barcelona de Noche, and became treated as a star. In 1973 Coccinelle came from Paris to perform with her. In 1974 she put on a show called Travesti with renowned comedian Alfonso Lusson.

She met the love of her life, Fernando. He took her all over Catalonia. They became partners.

Under the Franco dictatorship, sexual expression was repressed. “A vedette [star] would show a little piece of nipple and men would flock like flies; if two little hairs stuck out of the top of her panties, people would run to see her”. (Barba p368)

When Franco died in November 1975, Carla and Fernando were starting a month’s vacation in Sri Lanka. When they returned, things were already changing. Drag and even nudity were becoming visible, and Dolly realised that her act had become old-fashioned and it had to be revamped. She did so and then did a tour all over Spain.

In 1976 she and her partner Fernando moved to Valencia to open their own venue, Belle Époque. They married shortly afterwards, and she stayed in Catalonia the rest of her life. Dolly was a businesswoman as well as a performer. She travelled to Tokyo, Paris and Berlin, observed kabuki, cabaret, lyric theatre and incorporated them into her show. In 1982 they opened a second Belle Époque in Barcelona. Her shows were broadcast on Catalan television as part of the New Year’s Eve gala. In 1988 she was in the film Entreacte, which was partly filmed at the Belle Époque. Shortly afterwards the Valencia venue was closed. The Barcelona one ran until 1995.

Carla and Fernando later divorced, but remained good friends.

In 2007 her biography, From a boy to a woman, by Pilar Matos was published.

Pilar Matos. De Niño a Mujer. Biografía De Dolly Van Doll. Arcopress Ediciones, 2007.
Stan Lauryssens. Dali & I: The Surreal Story. Thomas Dunne Books, 2008: 31.
Dolly Van Doll. “Dolly Van Doll, Turin, 1938” in David Barba. 100 españoles y el sexo. epublibre, 2009: 364-370.
Valeria Vegas. “Dolly Van Doll” in Liberate: La Cultura LGBTQ que Abrio Camino en España. epublibre, 2020: 91-4.
Luis Fernando Romo. “Dolly Van Doll: ‘Lo peor que me ha pasado es ser vecina de los Pujol’ ”. El Mundo, 26 enero 2020. Online.
“Dolly van Doll, pionera de la transsexualitat”. Betevé, 3 de maig del 2021. Online.

IMDB

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Most sites translate De Niño a Mujer as From a child to a woman. While the Spanish word for a boy is chico, the word Niño is a male child and Niña is a female child. Surely the point of the book title is a boy becomes a woman, not that a child becomes an adult.

Dolly gives the name of the 'baron' in Paris. I googled it to no effect.

26 June 2023

Trans New York 1963-1965

1963

Reed Erickson became a Benjamin patient and almost completed transition. He then founded the Erickson Educational Foundation (EEF), financed entirely by himself.

Through his foundation Erickson agreed to finance the newly created Harry Benjamin Foundation (HBF) for three years at a minimum of $1,500 a month. The money from Erickson enabled a move to a larger office at 86th St and Park Avenue. The foundation sought to enhance Benjamin’s professional status. Robert Stoller at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) had disparaged Benjamin in that he was not psychiatrically trained, and did not publish in the most reputable journals. Stoller politely declined to serve on the Foundation’s advisory board. Nevertheless Benjamin was able to use the Foundation to enhance his working relationship with other doctors and researchers in the field.

Leo Wollman also worked from the new office. He started running a group session the first Sunday of every month, near his other office at Coney Island where transsexuals could meet and exchange ideas and experiences. He also used hypnosis to determine whether a transsexual was authentic.

Meetings of the foundation were held in the office, mainly on Saturday evenings. The members conducted psychological, endocrinological and neurological tests on transsexual patients, and interviewed them before and after surgery, looking to prove or disprove any genetic, hormonal or neurological basis for the condition.

----

Susanna and Marie sold their resort property as it was unprofitable.

August: Patricia Morgan was arrested on East 57^th Street for wearing shorts that were too short. She replied to the judge: ““My shorts weren’t too short. It’s just that my legs are too long!”, and the case was dismissed.

After graduating High School in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Marsha P Johnson left home for Manhattan with $15 and a bag of clothes.

Donald Wollheim, being a professional writer and editor, began to consider putting his feelings and experiences of the past year onto paper, especially as the near mental-breakdown of the year before had passed as he had accepted what he really was, and something like normality had been recovered. He returned to Los Angeles, and met Virginia Prince again. However he also socialized with other transvestites who were by then ostracized by Prince.

Vicky West, after two years in Los Angeles as an engineer, and as a participant in Virginia Prince's Hose and Heel Club, returned to New York, and studied Fine Arts and Graphic Design at Cooper Union.

Siobhan Fredericks published Turnabout irregularly from 1963-7. Donald Wollheim was involved, and usually wrote as ‘D Rhodes’. This was in competition to Virginia Prince's Transvestia, and attracted crossdressers who were critical of Virginia Prince, her ideas and her list of femme* words. It was also more open to transsexuality and to activities that Prince regarded as fetishistic. In contrast to Transvestia, Turnabout did not feature autobiographies, especially those that catalogued the writer's wardrobe and measurements. Harry Benjamin described Turnabout as the "more objective approach". Renée Richards later described it as "a poor thing, on newsprint as I recall". Benjamin referred Richards and other clients to the support group held in Siobhan's home.

Benjamin was invited by Dr Robert Hotchkiss, the urologist, to read a paper at New York's Bellevue Hospital. He also read a paper at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex (of which he was a charter member).

Female Mimics, the glossy magazine for transvestites was launched. Performer Kim August was on the cover. The emphasis was mainly about female impersonators, sometimes ignoring that she had completed transition. An article about Christine Jorgensen, “A Real Woman” was included, but the article on Bambi (who had completion surgery in 1960) is called “French Fooler: Bambi” and uses male pronouns. The second issue featured Coccinelle (both completed surgery and taken a husband) referred to as “France’s Most Fabulous She-Male”, the article being a summary of Carlson Wade’s biography, uses male pronouns and gives only her male name, The third included “How I Changed my Sex” by Patricia Morgan.

The future Bunny Eisenhower/Barbara de Lamere completed military service and lived with his male lover in New York.

Cross-dresser and artist George Maciunas returned to New York and set up the Fluxus art movement, including a shop on Canal Street.

Jack Smith filmed Flaming Creatures, an underground film of an extended party on the roof of the Windsor cinema in New York's Lower East Side with lots of drag and nudity. Francis Francine had been intended as the star of Flaming Creatures, 1962, but disappeared partway through filming, leaving Mario Montez as a replacement. The film became famous when New York City police seized the print at the premier. The film was ruled to be in violation of New York's obscenity laws. Jonas Mekas and Susan Sontag mounted a critical defense of Flaming Creatures, and it became a cause célèbre for the underground film movement.

Harry Benjamin. “Clinical Aspects of Transsexualism in the Male and Female”. Read before the 6^th annual conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, November 2, 1963, and published American Journal of Psychotherapy, 18,3, 1964.
Patricia Ann Morgan. "How I Changed My Sex". Female Mimics, 1,3, 1963. Online.
Jack Smith (dir). Flaming Creatures, with Frances Francine, Mario Montez (as Dolores Flores). US 42 mins 1963.
Avery Willard (dir) Variety, with Minette. US ? mins 1963.
Avery Willard (dir) If Ads Were True, with Minette. US ? mins 1963.
Edward Sagarin writing as Donald Webster Cory with John P. LeRoy. The Homosexual and His Society; A View from Within. New York: Citadel Press, 1963. Cory and LeRoy (a sex partner whom he helped out financially) claimed that there is no such thing as a 'well-adjusted homosexual', and also discussed hustlers, but challenged the then common assumption that homosexuals were security risks.
Carlson Wade. She-male: the amazing true-life story of Coccinelle. Epic, 1963.
Turnabout, no 1. June 1963. With contributions by Fred Shaw, Siobhan Fredericks, D Rhodes, Quiven Enright. Susanna Valenti listed as Associate Editor.
Turnabout, no 2, October 1963. With contributions by Fred Shaw, Quiven Enright. D Rhodes and a summary of Harry Benjamin’s “Clinical Aspects of Transsexualism in the Male and Female”, and photographs of Sonne Teal in La Poupée.
Female Mimics no 1, no 2, no 3.

1964

A 17-year-old transsexual referred to as G.L. who had been convicted of stealing women’s clothing and $800 worth of wigs was ordered by the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City to have sex reassignment surgery at Johns Hopkins. Her probation officer delivered her to the Johns Hopkins Women’s Clinic where Howard Jones was to do the surgery. However the psychiatry department intervened at the last moment, and had G.L. referred to them for therapy instead.

John Money introduced Richard Green to Harry Benjamin in 1964, and for two years he saw patients in Benjamin's New York office and wrote letters for them so that they could obtain surgery in Europe.

April: Benjamin gave a talk at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Benjamin met monthly with John Money and Richard Green and the idea was raised of applying the kind of surgery being done on intersex patients to transsexuals as well. Money took three post-operative patients of Harry Benjamin to meet his colleagues at Johns Hopkins. As the Gender Identity Clinic there began to coalesce, it was integrated into the work of the Foundation, which provided them with patient referrals. Reed Erickson’s EEF donated $85,000 to the Gender Identity Clinic over a few years, and Reed became quite friendly with John Money. He went to Johns Hopkins for a double mastectomy repair in 1965.

The Harry Benjamin Foundation similarly endorsed the gender clinic at Stanford University.

The Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis was considering opening a gender identity clinic led by Donald Hastings. Two members went to New York, met with the HBF and were able to examine patients of Benjamin and Wollman who had had surgery abroad. Their surgeon, John Blum, went to Johns Hopkins to observe transgender surgery.

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British journalist James Morris was in New York and visited Harry Benjamin, who advised him that a change of body must be a last resort, and that he should try working life as a man. He procrastined another eight years

The future Renée Richards, then still in the US Navy, also came to Dr Benjamin, but procrastinated another decade before finally transitioning.

Susanna Valanti and Marie bought a replacement 150 acre property with a large house, close to Hunter, New York. This became Casa Susanna, and like the Chevalier D’Eon Resort was frequented by the transvestite crowd. Susanna and her guests would go, dressed, to drive-in movies and to friendly neighbours. Some transvestite visitors even went into the village of Hunter for shopping, where, if nothing else, they were noted for being overdressed.

Susanna wanted to make movies. A ndrea Malick, a professional photographer as well as a visitor to Casa Susanna, stepped up with a professional 16mm camera. Two films were shot in the same weekend in Marie’s wig store in New York. David/Gail Wilde, one of the richer members, had previously bought Andrea an expensive Roleiflex camera (which cost over $1,000) with the request that Andrea learn how to process color film. Gail also requested a copy of each photograph taken. Gail collected them in expensive albums.

Donald Wollheim/Darrell Raynor became a regular at Casa Susanna and used the name Donna or Doris. He did not drive and so wife Elsie chauffeured him. The daughter Betsy was sent to summer camp for two months every year for 8 years to avoid awkward questions. In 1964 he announced that he was going out for Halloween as his sister, and spent five hours in the bathroom getting ready – even at age 12 Betsy realized that this was odd.

14-year-old Kim Christy was going out in semi-drag, and took up with the young Billy Schumacher (later to become International Chrysis). They were photographed fooling around outside the Astor in Manhattan when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were staying there, and the picture appeared in a Life Magazine article on teenage delinquents.

Holly Woodlawn was briefly employed as an in-house model at Saks Fifth Avenue.

The short-lived Lavender & Lace magazine for transvestites came out – it had a much greater racial diversity than Transvestia.

March: Felicity Chandelle, an airline pilot recently widowed, was arrested in New York near her home by an officer of the West 128^th Precinct for a violation of Section 887, Subdivision 7 of the New York Code of Criminal Procedure which designates as a vagrant any person who 'having his face painted, discolored, covered, or concealed, or being otherwise disguised in a manner calculated to prevent his being identified, appears on a road, lot, wood, or enclosure'. The law dates back to the 1840s when farmers were disguising as 'Indians' to harass Dutch landowners in the Anti-Rent Movement. Despite having no criminal intent John Miller was sentenced to two days, suspended. This resulted in losing her job with Eastern Airlines after 25 years, because such behavior ‘signaled homosexuality’, even though an Eastern Airlines manager actually phoned Harry Benjamin and was reassured that the conviction in no way impacted on Miller's competence as a pilot. Virginia Prince and Siobhan Fredericks worked together and championed her case, raising over $1,200 to finance an appeal. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief as amicus curiae, and the New York Times carried a sympathetic story. The appeal hearing was denied, by the New York appeal court and by the US Supreme Court.

Leonard Wheeler published Sex Life of a Transvestite. He revealed Connie, his female self as an erotic transvestite who was also into bondage, with cruel sadistic fantasies about women. He does state that his bondages and his attitudes to women are separate from his crossdressing, and that he is hardly typical of transvestites. His thoughts were written up by Jack Jardine (1931 - 2009), a lesser science fiction writer using one of his aliases. Using the same alias he had published Girls on Sin Street, about prostitution, the year before. The book contained an introduction by Albert Ellis (1913 – 2007), an associate of Alfred Kinsey, who had published Sex Without Guilt in 1958, and was then writing Homosexuality, Its Causes and Cures which would be published in 1965. He later became the father of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and was known for his liberal use of swear words.

Harry Benjamin. “Transvestism and Transsexualism in the Male and Female”. Presented at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine on April 13, 1964.
Harry Benjamin. "Nature and Management of Transsexualism, with a Report on 31 Operated Cases", Western Journal of Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 72, 1964.
Harry Benjamin & R E L Masters. Prostitution and Morality: a definitive report on the prostitute in contemporary society and an analysis of the causes and effects of the suppression of prostitution. Julian Press, 1964. Review. In this book, unlike The Transsexual Phenomenon, two years later, androphilic transvestites are acknowledged.
Benito B. Rish. 1964. "Profile-Plasty. Report on Plastic Chin Implants". The Laryngoscope. 74, 1, 1964: 144-154.
Hugo Beigel. “The Myth of the Latent Femininity in the Male”. Turnabout. He dismissed the idea that a male-bodied person could have a feminine soul. Susanna replied in Transvestia that Beigel was taking the girl-within over-literally rather than as a metaphor. The metaphor of the girl-within, she maintained, was simply an uncomplicated way of expressing these various motivations and urges that make up a transvestite’s second personality, the feminine self that had to be kept hidden in public settings out of fear of social disapproval. She also countered his claim that transvestism is an acquired condition.
Leonard Wheeler, as told to Jack Jardine writing as Larry Maddock, with an introduction by Albert Ellis. Sex life of a Transvestite. K. D. S. Publ. Co 1964.
Carlson Wade. The Twilight Sex. S. Publications, 1964.
Carlson Wade. "Men in Skirts". Female Mimics, 1,4, 1964.
Queens in Drag: Female Impersonators … on Parade. S-K Books 1964. Photo essay of the 'Art Students' Ball' held in Manhattan each year under the auspices of the Art Students' League of New York.
Female Mimics, no 4.

1965

Siobhan Fredericks participated in a panel discussion on New York's listener-sponsored station, WBAI- FM, with Dr. Wardell Pomeroy, co-author of the Kinsey reports.

The teenage Harvey Fierstein was attending the 82 Club. Angie Stardust was the first black star at the club, until she was fired for taking female hormones. One of the owners said to her: "Girls like you are going to be the death of this business".

Dario Modon graduated from the New York School of Visual Arts in 1965, and started doing drag at Halloween. He advanced to the drag balls and private parties. He was 6’2” (1.88m) and specialized in a simple black dress.

Chris Moore, ex-army and merchant navy, took up female impersonation, and appeared with Frank Bennet in the Follies Mantisque. This led to work with the Jewel Box Revue, at first doing a comedy strip. However it was discovered that he could impersonate Ethel Merman rather well, and he started singing songs from Gypsy. He then added Marlene Dietriche and Bette Davis to his repertoire. He used a special heavy makeup to hide the tattoo on his upper arm. He was also partially blind and required thick glasses.

Kim Christy and Chrysis each left home and shared a tiny apartment in the area that later became New York's SoHo. They met sex magazine pioneer and editor of Exotique magazine, Lenny Burtman who arranged photo-shoots and other favors. Kim had a boyfriend who worked with her to soften her Bronx accent. She got to know New York female impersonators such as Tammy Novak, and performed at Club 82 as a stripper and as a showgirl. Her song was the theme music from A Man and a Woman. She toured North America as a female impersonator.

The State Liquor Authority decided to revoke the Peppermint liquor licence. This was upheld in the state Supreme Court. The club closed in December.

Edward Sagarin was increasingly at odds with the new activists in the Mattachine Society including LeRoy who were advocating for civil rights and liberation for homosexuals. In 1965, after a bitter fight for control, Sagarin quit the Mattachine Society. The conflict, expressed with some bitterness, appears in his PhD thesis, Structure and ideology in an association of deviants, that he submitted in 1966.

Reed Erickson hired Zelda Suplee to run his Erickson Educational Foundation (EEF). 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.

Howard and Georgeanna Jones with Edmund Novak wrote a textbook of gynecology which went through several editions and in its time outsold all other such textbooks combined.

Ira B Pauly. "Male Psychosexual Inversion: Transsexualism. A Review of 100 Cases". Archives of General Psychology, 13, 1965:172-181.
James Mills. "The Detective: a good cop fights for law but the deck is stacked against him". Life, 3 Dec 1965: 90d-123. Online. Contains the photograph of Chrysis and Kim outside the Astor.
Andy Warhol & Ronald Tavel (dir). Screen test Number 2. Scr: Ronald Tavel, with Mario Montez and Salvador Dali, Dennis Hopper and Lou Reed. US 4 mins 1965. Montez is confronted about his gender and admits that he is a man, but he does so, he says, only because he is a woman.
John Oliven Sexual Hygiene and Pathology, revised 2^nd edition, Lippincott,1965 (a year before Benjamin’s Transsexual Phenomenon) where he wrote: “The term [transsexualism] is misleading; actually, “transgenderism” is what is meant, because sexuality is not a major factor …”.
Edmund R. Novak, Georgeanna Seegar Jones, and Howard Wilbur Jones. Textbook of Gynecology. Williams & Wilkins Co, 1965.
Siobhan Fredericks. The Best of Both Worlds: A Novel of Transvestism. Abbé de Choisy Press, 1965.
Abby Sinclair, George Griffith, Carlson Wade & Latina Seville. I Was Male. Novel Books. 95 pp 1965.
Antony James. Abnormal World of Transvestites & Sex Changes. New York: L. S. Publications 192 pp1965. Chapters on history, operations, prisons, married tv's, lesbian tv's, tv prostitutes, S&M among tv's and more. James also published America’s Homosexual Underground, in the same year.
Female Mimics, no 5, no 6, no 7.

24 June 2023

Trans New York 1960-1962.

1960

Gynecologists Howard and Georgeanne Jones left their private practice to become full-time faculty at Johns Hopkins Psychohormonal Research Unit. Howard started doing ‘corrective’ surgery on intersex infants.

Female impersonator Libby Reynolds was working in mufti as a bartender at Main Street Lounge in Greenwich Village when actor Raymond Burr (1917 - 1993), who played Perry Mason on television, came in and they spent the night together. Reynolds sold the story to Confidential magazine, and the story now was that Burr had innocently picked up Libby and never realized that she was a ‘man’. The story included a composite photo of Burr and Libby en femme.

Nan Gilbert, author of forced femininity fiction and who had been active among transvestites at an earlier date, had his mail stopped and was fined $500. Donald Wollheim contacted Gilbert, and they corresponded for some time.

Patricia Morgan became a patient of Harry Benjamin, started taking estrogen, and began living full-time as female. She was saving seriously for the $5,000 plus expenses for the operation. She was arrested as a female prostitute, got through the strip search without being read, and declared herself as a ‘boy’ only in court. She was released in that the prostitution law applied only to women.

New Yorker, Susanna Valenti started her “Susanna Says” column in Transvestia.

David Wilde separated from his wife and moved to an apartment on the East Side of Manhattan. As Gail he subscribed to Transvestia, and became a New York contact for the Foundation for Full Personality Expression, (FPE). Those who knew both David and Gail found Gail to be less abrasive, but both personae were negative about gays and transsexuals.

Felicity Chandelle first met other cross-dressers through the Transvestia contact ads. Then she took up the practice enthusiastically.

Edward Podolsky and Carlson Wade. Transvestism Today; The Phenomena of Men Who Dress As Women. Epic Pub. Co, 1960. Online at Queer Music Heritage.
Edward Podolsky and Carlson Wade. Erotic Symbolism; A Study of Fetichism in Relation to Sex. Epic Pub. Co, 1960.

1961

Ira B Pauly was doing a psychiatric residency at Cornell Medical Center in New York. He was called to urology to counsel a trans man who was in for a hysterectomy. He attempted research in the hospital library but found material on transsexualism only in French and German. He had patients who were willing to do longhand translations for him. He then discovered a paper by David Cauldwell.

“And then there was a brief article by someone named Harry Benjamin. And in those days, it was in a somewhat obscure journal. I don’t quite remember which journal it was. But it had his address. And it was an address that was about five blocks away from the hospital that I was working at. So, I looked up his name in the phone book and told him that I was a psychiatry resident, and I had a little experience with a transgender, transsexual patient. And was there any way I could come over and talk to him, because I had read—he was an endocrinologist. And a lot of these folks, the first step in the physical transition is taking the contrary hormone.”

For much of that year, he attended Benjamin's Wednesday afternoon clinic.

“So every Wednesday afternoon, through the generosity and mentorship of Harry Benjamin, I was able to see probably more transsexual patients than any psychiatrist in North America. … As I got to know the patients, they uniformly described being happier into the gender role that they felt they were in from the very beginning. And that the only thing that needed to be done as far as treatment was concerned was to get the body on board with the gender of their choice.“

Pauly set out to aggregate 100 cases from the literature and from among Benjamin’s patients.

Patricia Morgan, with arrangements made through Harry Benjamin, flew to Los Angeles in November 1961 for surgery with Dr Elmer Belt. While waiting for a hospital bed, she was in a car crash with a drunken john. She sued the john, a movie producer, to cover her medical bills, and they settled out of court. After four months in Los Angeles, Pat had a penectomy and her testicles implanted in her abdomen. Two months after that she had a vaginoplasty. Afterwards she was in pain, very weak and her money had run out.

Vito Russo, the future gay film historian, was 15 and his parents bought a house in Lodi, New Jersey – to his chagrin. However, he soon found the local queer scenes:

“Vito’s first drag-queen contemporary was a fellow student …. Standing six feet two inches [1.89 m] under a bleached-blond man, Billy knew how to make a striking entrance – particularly when bombing around Lodi in his pink Cadillac convertible. Contact with Billy meant automatic social ostracism. … Billy invited Vito to a New Year’s Eve party held at the home of ‘the most outrageous drag queen in Bergen County’. …

Billy’s friends were working-class drag queens from Lodi and the nearby towns…. Like Billy, these men were wildly out of the closet, almost unwittingly so: they were ‘identifiable on the street whether they liked it or not. They couldn’t hide it even it they tried’. From them, Vito got his first lessons in gay survival. He listened attentively to their tutorials on ‘how to take care of himself on the street and be funny and get out of a raid and go through a window in a bathroom and all that stuff you had to know in the ‘60s’. …

Another favorite haunt was Danny’s in Fort Lee, where the group went to see ‘Bella from the Bronx’, a drag queen whose act consisted of traditional Italian families’ reactions to the revelations of their gay children. … He was also enamored of the headliner at Fran Bell’s in Nyack, New York. Fran herself … donned a tuxedo and top hat and crooned ‘Just a Gigolo’ à la Dietrich. Then there were the drag balls at Newark’s Robert Treat Hotel.”

Susanna Valenti’s male persona, Tito, was summoned by postal officials. Two of her correspondents had been charged with mailing obscene materials, and Susanna’s name had come up. Tito pleaded respectability and denounced the obscenities.

The future Vicky West, after army service, returned to Cornell and completed an engineering degree.

Virginia Prince flew into New York on her way to that year’s Halloween Weekend at Susanna Valenti's Chevalier D’Eon Resort in upstate New York. While in New York City,

“I was chauffeured over to Dr. Benjamin's office for a nice but too brief visit and dinner with him. Those of you who have never met Dr. Benjamin have missed a real treat. People of our persuasion have no better professional friend.”

Donald Wollheim, science fiction editor, was building to a nervous break-down from not expressing his cross-dreaming.

Greg Garrison (dir) Hey, Lets Twist, with Joey Dee and the Starlighters. US BW mono 79 mins 1961. IMDB. Wikipedia. A fictionalized story of the Peppermint Lounge, partially filmed there.
Avery Willard (dir) The Last of the Worthington, with Minette. US ? mins 1961.
Avery Willard (dir) Magic Music Hall, with Minette. US ? mins 1961.

1962

Ira B Pauly obtained a position at the University of Oregon Medical School.

John Money became head of the Psychohormonal Research Unit at Johns Hopkins University Hospital when Lawson Wilkins retired.

Holly Woodlawn, 16-years-old, hitch-hiking, arrived in New York. She found work as a saleswoman at Saks 5^th Avenue.

11-year-old Sylvia Rivera discovered 42^nd Street where he had heard that the maricónes were to be found. However a neighbour spotted Sylvia, which led to a row with grandmother, a suicide attempt and two months in Bellevue Hospital.

January: New York science fiction editor Donald Wollheim, discovered a copy of Transvestia, and a copy of Justice Weekly, in a store on 42^nd St.

March: Donald Wollheim was in Los Angeles on business. He, having previously corresponded, met first Virginia Prince in his hotel room, and then was invited to dinner with Virginia and wife Doreen. After an interesting evening, it was suggested that in New York Darrell should contact Gail and Susanna who were listed in Transvestia. He also bought the complete back file of Transvestia.

Back home, the first task was to tell Mrs Wollheim. This was done in stages and accomplished after 10 days, and a few days after that they went shopping together on 5^th Avenue for feminine nightwear.

Wollheim wrote letters to Gail (David Wilde) and to Susanna Valenti. The former had to go via Prince/Transvestia in Los Angeles, and therefore took longer to get a response. Susanna had published contact details in Transvestia, and could be contacted directly. A letter from Susanna arrived quickly, but an actual meeting – for one reason or another – took several months. It was early April, two weeks later, before a letter arrived from Gail, but it gave a phone number, and Wollheim was able to visit the next evening, had a heart-to-heart chat and was given gossip about New York transvestites.

Nan Gilbert advised Wollheim not to contact persons such as Gail and Susanna, in that they were frustrated persons who would be disappointing. On the other hand, Wollheim and Gail met a few times for lunch. In May Gail moved again to an apartment in Greenwich Village, and Wollheim attended a small party where Gail was the only person in female clothing. Gilbert was mentioned, and known by those who were present. Later when Wollheim sent regards to Gilbert from ‘Alice from Canada’, a reference to one in attendance, Gilbert became curt, and the correspondence was soon discontinued.

On the 4^th of July, Mrs Wollheim also attended the soiree at Gail’s. This was the first time that they met ‘Fiona from New Zealand’ (actually Katherine Cummings from Australia).

Patricia Morgan, still in Los Angeles, moved in with her friend Shelley, but was gang raped by two of Shelley’s tricks. Later they were arrested and Pat was charged with living in a house of prostitution. She served 30 days in the prison hospital. She developed urinary problems and had to have a third operation with Dr Belt. She hustled to raise the airfare to go home.

Back in New York Patricia took up prostitution again. She had breast implants to 42DD but then reduced to 38D. She also had her nose straightened. She was booked for prostitution when she accepted a ride in the rain. Her lawyer tried to get her off on the technicality that she was still a man, not having changed her name or birth certificate. The judge ruled that she was a female anyway, and gave her a suspended sentence. She started a business of limousines with female chauffeurs, but it lasted only a year. She also did modeling.

Betty, who had been living full-time, and working in a night club in New York, found a sponsor who paid for her consultations with Harry Banjamin, and a few months later she had surgery in Casablanca.

43 ‘men’ were arrested at the National Variety Artists Annual Ball and charged with ''masquerading to conceal identity”. Judge William Ringel ruled that the ball, of its nature was a masquerade and dismissed the charges.

71 transvestites gathered at the Chevalier D’Eon Resort for Halloween 1962, held a day after the National Variety Artists costume ball raid. The guests at Chevalier D’Eon Resort included Virginia Prince, Katherine Cummings, Felicity Chandelle, Darrell Raynor and Gail Wilde, and psychologists Hugo Beigel and Wardell Pomeroy. Raynor, Cummings and Beigel later wrote about the event. Harry Benjamin was invited bur sent his regrets.

Tobi Marsh was engaged at Club 82 where Tony Midnite was doing the costumes. Midnite also did the costumes for the road shows of Gypsy and Carnival!, for the Metropolitan Opera and some television shows.

Tommy Dorsey (later Issan Dorsey), then a touring stage female impersonator, was the only survivor of a car-full of drag queens that crashed on route from New York to Rochester. He suffered medical problems from it in later years.

Isabel Whitney (1878 – 1962) died. Her companion, the future Dawn Simmons, inherited an estate reportedly worth over $1 million. Simmons flew her body to Heathfield, England for burial, although she had never been there in life, and then moved to Charleston, South Carolina as Whitney and Simmons had intended to do together.

Edward Podolsky and Carlson Wade. Transvestism. Sexual behavior series, no. 5. New York: Epic Pub. Co, 1962.
Edward Podolsky and Carlson Wade. Fetichism. Sexual behavior series, no. 6. New York: Epic Publ. Co., Inc, 1962.
R E L Masters, with an Introduction by Harry Benjamin. Forbidden Sexual Behavior and Morality: An Objective Re-Examination of Perverse Sex Practices in Different Cultures. Julian Press, 1962.
Avery Willard (dir) The Dead Sister’s Secret, with Minette. US ? mins 1961.

13 June 2023

Jan Wålinder (1931-2014) psychiatrist, chief physician, sex change doctor

Jan Wålinder, the son of a civil engineer, was raised in Eskilstuna, 100 km west of Stockholm. He studied medicine at Uppsala University from 1952, and was licensed as a doctor in 1958. He spent a year at the Maudsley Hospital in London, 1961-2. In 1964, his boss, Hans Forssman, became a professor at the University of Gothenburg and chief physician at Sankt Jörgen Hospital in Gothenburg; Wålinder transferred with him.

From 1962–1974, 92 patients were referred to the University clinic, Sankt Jörgens hospital, for evaluation as transsexuals. Wålinder became the doctor leading the program. Fifty-two of these were considered transsexual and accepted for a sex reassignment program.

Wålinder published a first paper on occasional derivation of transvestism/transsexualism from cerebral dysfunction in 1965.

He wrote his dissertation in 1967, based on the patients in the program and a review of the then published literature.

He adhered to the then convention of using birth sex rather than gender identity – thus trans women are ‘male’ and ‘he’, and trans men are ‘female’ and ‘she’. Like many others, he incorrectly claimed that Hirschfeld had coined the term ‘transvestism’.

He analysed 207 cases that he found in the existing literature – 185 ‘males’ and 22 ‘females’. He found 70% had cross-gender behavior before the age of 10; that intelligence was distributed along the normal curve for the population; that 10 of the 207 had a family member who also cross-dressed; that 33% had adnormal EEG readings, and five of those also had epilepsy.

In February 1965 Wålinder sent a letter to every psychiatrist (child psychiatrists excluded) in Sweden asking about any trans patients that they had treated:

“Seventy-six per cent, or 361 out of the 474 psychiatrists answered the letter, and together reported 91 cases. Most of them gave detailed descriptions of their cases by letter or on the telephone. A few were unwilling to disclose any details about their patients, and these had to be excluded. Two of the patients were not known for sure to be alive on the census date, and these were also excluded. All patients under 15 were also excluded.

Sixty-seven of the remainder reported were transsexuals, judging by the safest criterion to use when one cannot interview the patient personally -- they wanted a surgical change in sex. It was checked that none were registered more than once. Including my own 43 cases, this gave 110 transsexuals in Sweden on December 31, 1965. Sweden having a population of ca. 5.96 million over 15 years of age, this meant a prevalence of ca. 1 per 54,000. Eighty-one of the 110 were men and 29 women, giving a male/female ratio of about 2.8:1, and a prevalence of ca. 1 per 37,000 for men and ca. 1 per 103,000 for women.

Transsexualism is naturally more common than indicated by these figures, which only stand for transsexuals under so much strain because of their anomaly that they had to consult a psychiatrist. Six of the 110 were foreigners, but only 3 of them appear to have come to Sweden expressly for a "change in sex". As I know of some Swedish transsexuals who have gone to other countries to have plastic surgery done, the admixture of these 3 persons to the series should not distort the figures for prevalence.”

Of the patients who came to the program at Sankt Jörgens hospital:

“Personal examination of the subjects, including: their personal accounts of their history, with the interviews conducted on informal lines in each case; physical and neurologic examination; body measurements; EEG-examinations; hormone analysis; examination of sex chromatin, occasionally supplemented with determination of the karyotype; analysis of personality by means of a questionnaire; psychologic tests of intellectual capacity and masculinity-femininity; examination for psychiatric disorders. In each case I first had an informal conversation with the patient, when he or she gave me a brief account of their troubles. The next time we met they were asked to describe their particular problems in detail. After these two interviews, the patients gave an account of their history along the lines of a questionnaire used routinely at our institute. Most of the patients stayed at the hospital for a week or so while the examinations were being made.”

Information was also gathered on the patients from their families and/or spouse, hospital records and social agencies.

Treatment:

“Ten men got no specific treatment, 11 only got estrogen treatment, 5 got estrogen treatment and afterwards a conversion operation. Eight got their name changed legally, all 8 after estrogen medication and 4 in combination with a conversion operation.

Two women got no specific treatment, 1 woman got only androgen treatment, 8 got their breasts amputated after androgen treatment, and 9 had their name changed legally, all after treatment with androgens and 7 in combination with a removal of their breasts.

In all except 3 cases of operation or change of name too little time has elapsed to be able to say anything definite about the results. The length of follow-up for the men who had an operation or their name changed now amounts to 20.7 months on the average (median 24.5 months) and for the women to 42.3 months (median 26.2 months). The patients themselves all said, however, that these measures had made it easier for them to adjust, made them more stable mentally, and improved their sex life. None regretted what had been done. None showed any signs of the treatment having an adverse mental effect.

On the whole, the women seemed to have profited more from their treatment than the men.

All patients were given supportive psychotherapy in order to help them cope with their problems, and various measures were taken to provide a better social adjustment.”

A notable difference between Wålinder’s study and that of Benjamin, published the year before, is the factor of organic causes which apply in some cases.

“Several authors have suggested that transsexualism is of organic origin, that it is due to genetic, hormonal or cerebrolesional mechanisms. Data pointing to an organic factor in my series were: (1) The large number of abnormal EEG's. Epilepsy was over-represented in the cases I collected from the literature, and 1 of the 43 transsexuals in my own series was epileptic and another got a grand mal attack during photostimulation. I have already reported (Wålinder, 1965) that cerebrolesional factors have been noted in cases of different kinds of sexual aberration. (2) In 1 of the present cases the transsexualism started some years after a severe head injury, no signs of deviation being observed before; in this case the transsexualism disappeared on anticonvulsant medication (given because of an abnormal EEG) and reappeared when the medication was stopped. (3) The familial occurrence in 4 cases of mental retardation, cerebrolesional signs and abnormal EEG's, pointing to the possibility of a hereditary disorder in cerebral functioning. (4) Definite evidence of an early cerebral lesion in 1 case (case 1) and the possibility of such in case 16. Adding together these cases gives 15, or about 35 per cent, with evidence of an organic disorder (cases 1, 4, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 23, 25, 29, 31, 33, 38, 42).

It is unlikely that the same mechanism lies back of every case of transsexualism. On the other hand, disorders in cerebral functioning may cause a wide variety of mental disorders, the kind probably depending on the site of the injury, and the age at which it occurs. In view of NS, and the usually early onset of transsexualism, the injury must occur early in life if transsexualism is of organic origin. One can influence the sexual behavior of animals by giving hormones prenatally … My study of prenatal and perinatal factors, however, did not reveal any circumstances of note.

Of particular interest when discussing the possibility of an organic factor are the cases in which treatment of a hormonal disorder … or treatment of cerebrolesional disorders … eliminated or lessened the intensity of the transsexualism" transvestism. My case 15 is another example. In all these 3 cases the symptoms were reversible and, in my case at least, they began later than in most cases. In the majority of cases, however, the transsexualism begins early in life and does not respond to treatment. The consistency from case to case is compatible with some form of organic disposition.

My investigation has shown that it is hardly possible to attribute transsexualism to only psychologic or only organic causes. Circumstances pointing to organic origin were present in some cases, and circumstances pointing to environmental origin were present in others. It is reasonable to assume that the two kinds of factors interact, that environmental factors in the wide sense shape and determine how the transsexualism develops, and that some unfavorable external factors precipitate the transsexualism, or turn what was only a disposition to transsexualism into a permanent, fixed form of the anomaly. It is also possible that psychologic factors affect the fixity of the transsexualism, and help to make it irreversible after puberty.”

The dissertation, published 1967, led to his becoming an associate professor in psychiatry.

Harry Benjamin in New York read Wålinder’s study and tested the claim re an anti-convulsant drug and tried Dilantin with a few transvestites who wanted to be cured, and two transsexuals who were willing to experiment. This apparently worked for some of the transvestites who desisted [for a while at least] but it had no effect on the transsexuals. Leo Wollman, in a lapse of ethics, prescribed Dilantin instead of estrogen to Lyn Raskin - and it had no effect at all on her yearning to be a woman.

In 1968 Wålinder published a summary in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. He repeated his definition:

“The line between transvestism and transsexualism drawn by many authors has been and still is all too obscure. As long as no definite criteria are employed to differentiate these two groups, progress in understanding of the conditions will be limited,

In an investigation of 48 cases of transsexualism primarily segregated according to Benjamin’s (1966) criteria, the following variables were noted in 100% of the subjects:

A sense of belonging to the opposite sex, of having been born into the wrong sex, of being one of nature’s extant errors.

A sense of estrangement with one’s own body; all indications of sex differentiation are considered as afflictions and repugnant.

A strong desire to resemble physically the opposite sex via therapy including surgery.

A desire to be accepted by the community as belonging to the opposite sex.

The fundamental, primary disturbance appears to be a feeling of contrary sex-orientation, i.e. inverted core gender identity in Stolleu’s (1964, a, b, c ) meaning. All of the other symptoms seem to cluster around this erroneous sex identity.”

In 1969 he contributed two papers to the Richard Green & John Money anthology, Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment: one on parental age and birth order of transsexuals, and one on the situation in Sweden.

He gave a paper at the Reed Erickson sponsored September 1971, Second International Symposium on Gender Identity in Elsinore, Denmark re legal changes for trans persons in Sweden.

In 1974 he became the chief physician at Sankt Jörgen Hospital

From 1992-1996 he was professor of psychiatry and chief physician at Linköping University and Linköping Regional Hospital, where he stayed for 18 years,

In 1996 Wålinder responded to a paper ‘Men as women’ by Stig-Eric Olsson, Inge Jansson, and Anders Möller in the Nordic Journal of Psychiatry:

“The authors of the previous article state that ‘the phenomenon of transsexualism is still controversial from a medical standpoint’. On the contrary, transsexualism is a well-recognized disorder and identified in DSM IV under the heading ‘Gender identity disorder’. The authors’ statement that ‘reports in the medical literature on psychologic adjustment after sex change treatment are rare’ indicates that they are unfamiliar with current research in the field.

It goes without saying that, given the irreversibility of sex reassignment surgery, the need for investigation of prognostic factors is compelling. Such factors have already been identified. In a Swedish sample of more than 200 sex-reassigned persons 3.8% have in some way regretted measures taken. Any one of these cases tells a sad story and is indeed a tragedy. If we consider the years from the early 1950s until now, the figures for repentance cases have steadily decreased, and of those who have been sex-reassigned after 1982 only one person has regretted what was once done. Thus, outcome has improved over the years owing to improved assessment and, consequently, more restricted inclusion criteria, improved surgical techniques, and more attention paid to psychosocial guidance and careful posttreatment follow-up procedures.

At-random-presented cases do not invalidate a worldwide pool of data that speak in favour of a successful outcome in cases that have been carefully selected for sex reassignment. These outcome data comprise in a strict sense both medical and psychologic factors.”

Wålinder was due to retire in 1997, but stayed an extra couple of years to secure the future of research projects. He returned to Gothenburg where his children lived. There he became involved with adult psychiatric reception at a clinic in Mölnlycke just outside Gothenburg.

Jan Wålinder died age 83.

----------------

Wålinder on trans topics:

“Transvestism, definition and evidence in favor of occasional derivation from cerebral dysfunction”. International Journal of Neuropsychiatry, 1, 1965.
Transsexualism: a study of forty-three cases. Goteborg Akademiforlaget, 1967.
“Transsexualism: Definition, Prevalence and Sex Distribution”. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 43, 1968.
“Transsexuals: Physical Characteristics, Parental Age, and Birth Order” and “Medicolegal Aspects of Transsexualism in Sweden” in Richard Green & John Money (eds). Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment. The Johns Hopkins Press, 1969.
with Hans Olof Åkesson. “Transsexualism. Effect on Rate and Density-Pattern of Change of Residence”. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 522, 1969.
“Incidence and Sex Ratio of Transsexualism in Sweden”. British Journal of Psychiatry, 119, 1971.
“A Proposal for a New Law Concerning Sex Assignment of Transsexuals in Sweden”. Second International Symposium on Gender Identity, Elsinore, 12-14 September 1971.
with Inga Thuwe. “A law concerning sex reassignment of transsexuals in Sweden”. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 5, 3, 1976.
with Inga Thuwe. “A Study of Consanguinity Between the Parents of Transsexuals”. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 131, 1, 1977.
with M W Ross, B Lundströ & Inga Thuwe. “Cross-cultural approaches to transsexualism”. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 63,1. 1981.
with Bengt Lundström. “Evaluation of candidates for sex reassignment”. Nordisk Psykiatrisk Tidsskrift, 39, 3, 1985.
“Comments on the paper ‘Men as women’ by Stig-Eric Olsson, Inge Jansson, and Anders Möller. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 50, 5, 1996.
Mikael Landén, Jan Wålinder, and Bengt Lundström. “Prevalence, Incidence, and Sex Ratio of Transsexualism”. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 93, 1996.

Jan Wålinder otherwise specialised in affective diseases: depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. Writings on these and other topics more.

Other:

Stoller, R. J . (1964 a ) : “A contribution to the study of gender identity”. Int. J . PsychoAnal., 45, 220.
Stoller, R. 1. (1964 b ) : The hermaphroditic identity of hermaphrodites. J . new. ment., 139, 453.
Stoller, R. 1, (1964 c): Gender-role change in intersexed patients. J A M A , 188, 684.
Harry Benjamin. “Newer Aspects of the Transsexual Phenomenon”. The Journal of Sex Research, 5,2, May 1969.
Erika Alm. “What constitutes an in/significant organ? The vicissitudes of juridical and medical decision-making regarding genital surgery for intersex and trans people in Sweden”. In Gabriele Griffin & Malin Jordal (eds). Body, Migration, Re/Constructive Surgeries. Routledge, 2019: 225-240.
Lyn Raskin. Diary of a Transsexual. The Olympia Press, 1971: 38.
Joanne Proctor writing as P J Schrödinger. “DSM-5: Gender Identity – Creating the Trans epidemic” Trans-friedfluff, December 27, Online.
Miki Agerberg, “»Jag lär mig något nytt varje dag«”. se, 2013-10-15. Online.

SV.Wikipedia

04 June 2023

The Cameron siblings: Bobbi and Loren

Marjorie (1922-1995)

One cannot mention the trans siblings, Loren and Bobbi, without also mentioning their remarkable aunt, Marjorie Cameron (sometimes just Cameron). She was in the US Navy during WWII as aide to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Afterwards she joined occult circles in Los Angeles, and became muse and later spouse to Jack Parsons, rocket scientist and thelemite magickian. In 1946 she, Parsons and L Ron Hubbard undertook the “Babalon Working” to create a magical child. They knew several science fiction writers. After Jack’s death in an explosion, she became known as an artist and acted in some films, most notably as the Scarlet Woman in Kenneth Anger’s Inaugeration of the Pleasure Dome (1954).

Spencer Kansa. Wormwood Star: The Magickal Life of Marjorie Cameron. Mandrake, 2014.
Michael William West. “Marjorie Cameron (1922-1995)” in Sex Magicians: The Lives and Spiritual Practices. Destiny Books, 2021.
Alice Troughton (dir). “Jack Parsons: The Devil and the Divine” with Josh Bowman as Parsons and Alicia Witt as Cameron. S2.E6 of Lore, US Amazon 40 mins 2018.

IMDB

Bobbi (1953 - )

We have already discussed Marjorie’s niece, Bobbi, who was in the Cockettes and starred in Elevator Girls in Bondage, 1972 and The Holy Mountain, 1973 and Star Trek.

GVWW IMDB

Loren (1959- 2022)

Marjorie’s nephew and Bobbi’s brother, Loren became a photographer and trans activist. He is best known for his book Body Alchemy, 1996, which documents the process of trans male transition, including his own.

While cis photographers such as Christer Strömholm, Andy Warhol, Walter Rutter, Brassaï, Mariette Pathy Allen had been taking pictures of trans persons as far back as the 1930s, Loren was the first trans photographer to be so recognized.

His work was also exhibited in San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles.

He died by suicide at age 63 after a period of poor health.

Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits. Cleis Press, 1996.
Man Tool: The Nuts and Bolts of Female-to-Male Surgery. Zero eBooks, 2001.
Cuerpos Fotografiados. 2 volumes. Taller Experimental Cuerpos Pintados, 2003.
“Finding love as a transman”. Advocate, December 18 2006. Online.
Loren Rex Cameron papers, 1961-2008. Cornell. Online.