Trans New York 1963-1965

  See also:

Trans New York 1961-1962

The four years leading to Stonewall – a New York timeline

The five years following Stonewall - a New York timeline

The Gilded Grape

The GG Knickerbocker P T Barnum Room

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.

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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.  Andrea 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.