The First Drafts of Trans Histories Part II: 1950-1969

It is a cliché that journalism is the first draft of history, and so it is with trans history. The following are journalists who were in the right place at the right time and saw the potential story.

Part I: 1900-1950

Part II: 1950-1969

Part III: 1970 onwards

Irmis Johnson (? - ?)

Johnson was a noted journalist who had written on a variety of topics. When the Christine Jorgensen story broke in December 1952, the Hearst company negotiated an exclusive deal with Jorgensen for $20,000 and sent Johnson to Copenhagen early in 1953 to interview Christine. Christine and Irmis got on well This resulted in five consecutive weekly articles in the the American Weekly, actually written by Johnson but attributed to Jorgensen.

Later Jorgensen paid Johnson $5,000 to expand the American Weekly articles into a full autobiography, but did not like the document that Johnson produced. Jorgensen’s 1967 autobiography was written by Lois Kibbee, an actress. Kibbee did have access to Johnson’s document.

In 1969 Lyn Raskin was looking for a writer to write her biography. There were discussions with Johnson, but as there was no publishers’ advance on offer, Johnson bowed out.

• Christine Jorgensen. “The Story of my Life”. The American Weekly, February 1953 for 5 weeks. Actually written by Irmis Johnson.
• Christine Jorgensen. A Personal Autobiography. Bantam Books, 1967. Actually written by Lois Kibbee.
• Richard Docter. Becoming a Woman: A Biography of Christine Jorgensen. The Haworth Press, 2008.

Ron Kenyon (1921- ?)

In 1954, Francis Marie Jefferson, who had recently had completion surgery, moved to Port Colborne, Ontario where she had some minor operations with Dr Stuart Wilson in nearby Welland, mainly to remove scar tissue. There had been rumours that a ‘Miss X’ had had a sex change, but she was not identified until Wilson spoke to the Toronto Telegraph – with her permission he said. He gave her name as ‘Josephine Jefferson’, falsely gave her male name as ‘Kenneth Jefferson’, and claimed that she had had surgery in the US. Her real name, her correct male name and the actual Canadian surgeons who had operated on her were not given.

Wilson’s version was written up by Ron Kenyon and published in the Toronto Telegram, 19 March 1954, and was repeated in other Canadian newspapers and also in the US and Australia.

However Kenyon realised that there was something wrong with the story. The population of Port Colborne at that time was just over 8,000. So Kenyon contacted each of the Jefferson families in town, and found Francis Marie. She agreed to be interviewed, and Kenyon’s real story of Francis Marie was published in the Toronto Telegram in three issues, on page 3 in each case, March 20, 22 and 23.

• Marie Jefferson as told to Ron Kenyon. “ ‘I Felt Guilty Living as a Man’ … Marie: People who think I’m Amusing Don’t know the horror …”. The Toronto Telegram, March 20, 1954 p3.
• Marie Jefferson as told to Ron Kenyon. “ ‘Now Men whistle at me …’ I like that, too – Yet I ran out on my wedding“. The Toronto Telegram, March 22, 1954 p3.
• Marie Jefferson as told to Ron Kenyon. “ “Sex switch aids understanding: Has escaped depths of horrible despair: Home, family her aim”. The Toronto Telegram, March 23, 1954p3.
• Zagria. “Frances Marie Jefferson (1929- ?) truck driver, domestic”. Gender Variance Who’s Who, 5 June 2026. Online.

Noyes Thomas (1916-2001)

Noyes Thomas was named after Alfred Noyes the Welsh poet, his uncle.

He became a leading foreign correspondent in the 1930s. In World War II he joined the Ghurkas, served in east Asia, and rose to Lieutenant Colonel. Afterwards, he returned to the News of the World as a journalist.

In the 1960s, the News of the World, which was a Sunday paper then selling for 6d (2.5p in the new money), was the biggest-selling newspaper in the world normally selling over 8 million copies of each edition. It was known for its emphasis on sex and scandal. Its major competitor was The People, also a Sunday paper, which had outed April Ashley 19 November 1961, and destroyed her career as a model and actress.

The News of the World made the best offer for April’s story offering £3,000. April asked for £15,000. They settled at £10,000. Thomas interviewed her and “My Strange Story” ran for six Sundays May-June 1962.

The next year, the big scandal was that of Christine Keeler who had slept with both John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War, and Soviet naval attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov. The News of the World paid Keeler £23,000, and Peter Earle and Noyes Thomas spirited her away so that journalists from other papers could not interview her.

However Noyes Thomas had, despite his experiences with April and Christine, a rather old-fashioned attitude to sex:

“In July 1964 the News of the World’s Noyes Thomas warned readers about the ‘creeping menace of homosexuality in Britain today’. There was, he added, ‘a vast “queer” brotherhood with tentacles reaching around the globe’.” (Joyce p167) In August he published a check list in how to spot a homosexual. (Joyce p233-4).

• Roy Kant “‘Her’ Secret is Out”. The People, 19 November 1961.
• Noyes Thomas writing as April Ashley. “My Strange Life”. The News of the World. 6 May 1962.
• Noyes Thomas writing as April Ashley. "Goodbye M'sieu, hello Mamsells, the doctor said". News of the World, 13 May 1962.
• Noyes Thomas. “Arthur Meets Mother”, News of the World, 20 May 1962.
• Noyes Thomas writing as April Ashley. "Roman Scandal – hotel throws us out". News of the World, 27 May 1962.
• Noyes Thomas writing as April Ashley. "The Operation". News of the World, 3 June 1962.
• Noyes Thomas writing as April Ashley. "There, in a crowded pub, Arthur told me he loved me". News of the World, 10 June 1962.
• Noyes Thomas, ‘Into the Twilight World’, News of the World, 26 July 1964.
• Noyes Thomas, ‘The Men Behind the Mask’, News of the World, 2 August 1964.
• Robert Warren. “Noyes Thomas” Press Gazette, June 26, 2001. Online. Obituary.
• John-Pierre Joyce. Odd Men Out: Male Homosexuality in Britain from Wolfenden to Gay Liberation, 1954-1970. The Book Guild Ltd, 2019:167.
• Zagria. “The authors of April Ashley’s autobiographies”. Gender Variance Who’s Who, 7 August 2024. Online.

Barry Farber (1930-2020)

Farber was born in Baltimore and raised in North Carolina. He had a knack for languages, and, to varying extents, picked up 25 of them, and published a book, How to Learn Any Language. He attended the Zagreb Peace Conference, 1951 in Yugoslavia, and the 1952 Summer Olympic Games in Helsinki. As a newspaper reporter in 1956, Farber was invited by the US Air Force to cover the airlift of Hungarian refugees from the uprising in Hungary that year. By 1960 he had his first talk show; in 1962 he had an evening talk show on radio station WOR in New York, and in 1967 he became an all-night host, also on WOR.

His first wife was Norwegian, and for some years he was an advocate for Norwegian-style social democracy, and at that time supported the US Democrat Party. However in 1970 he ran for the the U.S. House of Representatives in New York City's 19th district as the candidate of the Republican and Liberal parties, and in 1977 he ran for New York City Mayor for the Conservative Party - in both cases receiving only a small percentage of the votes.

Despite his turn to the right, he - like Lyle Stuart - believed in free speech. He featured Frank Kameny the pioneer gay activist, and Anton LaVey of the Church of Satan in 1969.

Trans activist Siobhan Fredericks was interviewed July 1966. The interview was arranged by Lyle Stuart, publisher of A Year Among the Girls. Farber had done his homework well on the topic of transvestites: he'd read the book thoroughly and familiarized himself with Turnabout magazine in advance of the broadcast. He was so favorably impressed with both the book and magazine that he expanded the originally scheduled forty-five minute interview to a full ninety minutes. This was the first time a radio discussion of transvestism reached a national audience.

In June 1968 Virginia Prince was interviewed by Farber.

In March 1975, after a discussion by a Deputy Police Chief from the Times Square area, of the problems of prostitution and other illegal sexual activities in mid-town New York, there was a panel discussion of transvestism. The panel included a psychiatrist who specialized in transvestite and trans-sexual cases, a transsexual, the wife of a transvestite, a transvestite, and the proprietor of a TV boutique in mid-town Manhattan.

And, August 22, 1972, the day that John Wojtowicz did what came to be called the Dog Day Afternoon bank robbery, he was phoned in the bank by journalist Arthur Bell, who later that evening went on Farber’s program to discuss what he knew including about Wojtowicz’ trans lover Liz Eden.

Farber remained active in broadcasting until May 5, 2020, the day before his 90th birthday. On the 6th he died at home.

• Zagria. “Barry Farber (1930-2020) radio host”. Gender Variance Who’s Who 22 May 2023. Online.

Tom Buckley (1928 - 2015)

New York City born and raised, Buckley served twice in the US Army: just after WWII, and again in the Korean War. He became a New York Times correspondent, and 1966-8 he was mainly based in Saigon to report on the Vietnamese War, although when back in New York, he became involved with reporting on transsexuals.

Oct 4, 1966 a gossip column in the New York Daily News carried the item: “Making the rounds of the Manhattan clubs these nights is a stunning girl who admits she was male less than a year ago and that she underwent a sex change operation at, of all places, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore”. This caused Dr Edgerton to get a phone call from Dr Russell Nelson, president of Johns Hopkins Hospital, to find out if the story were true. Edgerton made a tactical decision and gave an exclusive to The New York Times. Tom Buckley had already contacted Harry Benjamin about doing an article on transsexuals, and he was given the story, which ran on the front page on Nov 21, 1966. A press conference was called on the same day, where Edgerton and several colleagues announced at a press conference the establishment of the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic.

Buckley continued with his project based on four patients of Harry Benjamin, and it was published in Esquire in April 1967 with a photograph of Clara Miller, but without naming her. He estimated that at that time there were 1500 persons in the world who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery, 400 in the US. He also gave a summary of the positions of Benjamin and Robert Stoller, and details about the opening of the Johns Hopkins Clinic.

In 1975 for Harry Benjamin’s 90th birthday, Buckley wrote a profile of the doctor.

• Thomas Buckley. “Johns Hopkins Begins Sex Change Surgery”. The New York Times, Nov 21, 1966.
• Tom Buckley. "The Transsexual Operation". Esquire. April 1967.
• Tom Buckley. “Transsexuality Expert, 90, Recalls ‘Maverick’ Career”. The New York Times, Jan 11, 1975.
• “Tom Buckley, Versatile and Colorful Times Reporter, Dies at 87”. The New York Times, Nov 20, 2015. Online.

DE.Wikipedia(Tom Buckley (journalist))       Muck Rack