RT (Russia Today) sometimes produces intriguing documentaries well worth thinking about. This is not one of their best. They interview three persons, raised as boys, who transitioned to female, and live in Arizona. Two, Billy Burleigh and the perennial Walt Heyer, have reverted, and the third, Rene Jaz (who continues to present as female) has written a book Don't get on the plane: Why a sex change will ruin your life. Jaz and Heyer were patients of Dr Biber.
The documentary also includes a brief interview with a sex-change surgeon. As they actually went to Arizona, the expectation would be that they would interview Drs Toby Meltzer and Ellie Zara Lay, both well regarded surgeons in Scottsdale, Arizona. However the documentary goes to Belgrade instead to interview Dr Miroslav Djordjevic (or is it recycled footage from another program?). Again a well-regarded surgeon, but why go to Serbia when making a film about Arizona?
There are several points that can be made. Nowhere is it stated that the vast majority of trans (97% or so) persons who have surgery are pleased and remain pleased with what they have achieved. On the other hand Heyer is allowed to spout his dubious statistics claiming that 40% of trans suicides are post-transition.
The infrequency of reversion is demonstrated by the repeated use of the same few persons, in this case Walt Heyer. Neither the narration nor the final credits say so, but I suspect that the RT film-crew went to Heyer who introduced them to the other two. Heyer actually says that he was in contact with Billy previously, and in this article by Heyer discusses Jaz and her book. Heyer has been in so many programs of this type.
Let us return to Jaz's book, Don't get on the plane: Why a sex change will ruin your life. The summary on Amazon contains an enormous clunker: "medicine is operating in the same ignorance and arrogance as it did when Magnus Hirschfeld killed Einer Wegener (The Danish Girl) with his experimental surgery in 1930". As we know, but apparently Jaz does not, Lili Elevenes (whose pen name was Lili Elbe) was a patient of the Dresden Doctor Kurt Warnekros, not of the Berlin Doctor Magnus Hirschfeld. Also Hirschfeld was not a surgeon. The three trans women who were patients of Hirschfeld, Carla van Crist, Toni Ebel and Dörchen Richter, all survived their operations and two of them lived into the 1960s. Bad fact checking like this makes one think that the book is not worth reading.
It is important to read one's enemies. If you are building up to gender surgery, it may be useful to watch this documentary to know what one is not. There is much diversity among trans women, and you will probably be aware of how different you are from these three.
Showing posts with label Biber patient. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biber patient. Show all posts
01 February 2014
Stanley H. Biber (1923 - 2006) surgeon, general practitioner, rancher, weight-lifter.
Stanley Biber was raised in Des Moines, Iowa by a father who owned a furniture store. He trained as a concert pianist and attended a rabbinical seminary. During World War II he was a civilian employee of the Office of Stategic Services and stationed in Alaska and the Northwest Territories. He graduated from the University of Iowa Medical School in 1948. He was an outstanding weight-lifter and just failed to make the US Olympic team. He was a MASH chief surgeon with the US army in the Korean War.
In 1954 he took a job at a United Mine Workers clinic in Trinidad, Colorado, a town where Frenchy Vosbaugh had operated a restaurant in the late nineteenth century, where Malvina Perry had been taken to court for her circus act, and just east of Segundo where Alice Baker had worked as a male teacher. Biber was the only surgeon in town, doing everything from gunshot wounds to Caesarian births to appendectomies.
He bought a small ranch and 25 head of cattle, and then expanded it. One year he took a bull to the Colorado State Fair and placed second in his class.
Biber did his first sex change surgery in 1968 for Ann, a social-worker friend who had been completing her real-life test without his realizing. Biber consulted with Harry Benjamin, who had started Ann on estrogens, and then sent to the Johns Hopkins Hospital for diagrams describing Dr. Georges Burou's technique.
Trinidad's only hospital was Mount San Rafael, a Roman Catholic hospital. After hiding the first few cases because of possible objections, Biber gave a series of lectures to the local Ministerial Alliance about the psychological needs of transsexuals and what his surgery entailed.
"First, patients must pass at least two psychiatric evaluations ensuring that they're not homosexuals or transvestites or simply people seeking fame and fortune on the talk-show circuit. True transsexuals, Biber says, are not attracted to members of the same sex and do not become aroused by wearing clothes of the opposite sex. True transsexuals consciously and subconsciously believe they are members of the opposite sex, trapped in the wrong body. ... Next, patients must receive hormone therapy for at least a year and live in the role of the opposite sex for the same period. If the adjustment is successful and another evaluation approved, plastic surgery is recommended. Then, and only then, will they get a consultation with Biber, who makes the final call. If he senses doubt, hesitation or confusion, which he does about 5 percent of the time, he sends patients home. As a consolation, he often performs minor cosmetic surgery first, such as an Adam's-apple reduction or breast augmentation."
He quotes the doctor:
He and his wife had seven children, he owned the largest cattle ranch in the county, and served as a Las Animas County commissioner from 1990 to 1996.
Notable patients include:
1968 Ann.
1976 Yasmene Jabar,
1978 Diane Delia,
1979 Nancy Ledins,
Joseph Cluse,
1980 Kay Brown,
Edie Lane,
1981 Susan Faye Cannon,
1983 Walt Heyer,
Rosalyne Blumenstein,
1984 Susan Kimberly,
Brenda Lana Smith,
1986 Kate Bornstein,
Leslie Nelson
1989 Les Nichols
1990 Rene Jaz
1991 Valerie Taylor,
1992 Claudine Griggs,
Cynthia Conroy,
1994 Melanie Anne Phillips,
Terri O'Connell,
1995 Gloria Hemingway,
Dr Biber would also mention in interviews that he did the operation on twins, on three brothers from Georgia and an 84-year-old railroad engineer.
Dr Biber retired at the age of 80, when his malpractice insurance became too expensive, although he was able to find insurance to continue as a general practitioner. His transsexual practice was taken over by Marci Bowers.
Biber died at age 82 from complications from pneumonia, shortly after returning from a cattle drive to Texas.
In 1954 he took a job at a United Mine Workers clinic in Trinidad, Colorado, a town where Frenchy Vosbaugh had operated a restaurant in the late nineteenth century, where Malvina Perry had been taken to court for her circus act, and just east of Segundo where Alice Baker had worked as a male teacher. Biber was the only surgeon in town, doing everything from gunshot wounds to Caesarian births to appendectomies.
He bought a small ranch and 25 head of cattle, and then expanded it. One year he took a bull to the Colorado State Fair and placed second in his class.
Biber did his first sex change surgery in 1968 for Ann, a social-worker friend who had been completing her real-life test without his realizing. Biber consulted with Harry Benjamin, who had started Ann on estrogens, and then sent to the Johns Hopkins Hospital for diagrams describing Dr. Georges Burou's technique.
Trinidad's only hospital was Mount San Rafael, a Roman Catholic hospital. After hiding the first few cases because of possible objections, Biber gave a series of lectures to the local Ministerial Alliance about the psychological needs of transsexuals and what his surgery entailed.
"Much to my amazement, there was no opposition. They were very understanding and accepting. All of a sudden, townspeople became very sophisticated and knew everything about transsexuals."However there was some reaction: a colleague resigned, in part because of the transgender surgeries, he had problems with insurance, and was admonished for poor record keeping. On the other hand the surgeries brought in almost a million dollars a year and definitely helped the hospital remain financially viable. A local was reported as saying:
"After my hysterectomy, I went to Denver, and one of my friends said, 'You didn't let that doctor do it.' And I said, 'I certainly did.' They looked at me funny. 'But he does that kind of surgery.' And I said, 'Which proves how good he is. You have to be darn good to do that.' They never thought of it that way."In the late-1970s when the Johns Hopkins Gender Clinic and others closed, Dr Biber became the major alternate source of transgender surgery in the US. Fletcher summarizes Biber's approach:
"First, patients must pass at least two psychiatric evaluations ensuring that they're not homosexuals or transvestites or simply people seeking fame and fortune on the talk-show circuit. True transsexuals, Biber says, are not attracted to members of the same sex and do not become aroused by wearing clothes of the opposite sex. True transsexuals consciously and subconsciously believe they are members of the opposite sex, trapped in the wrong body. ... Next, patients must receive hormone therapy for at least a year and live in the role of the opposite sex for the same period. If the adjustment is successful and another evaluation approved, plastic surgery is recommended. Then, and only then, will they get a consultation with Biber, who makes the final call. If he senses doubt, hesitation or confusion, which he does about 5 percent of the time, he sends patients home. As a consolation, he often performs minor cosmetic surgery first, such as an Adam's-apple reduction or breast augmentation."
He quotes the doctor:
"After doing so many of these, you develop a gut feeling. A bell will go off and you'll know something is wrong, even if they came with good evaluations. You certainly don't want to make a mistake. You've got to have a feel for if they're really worried about being a transsexual or if they're just scared of the surgery. It helps me in my own mind to know I'm doing the right thing."Dr Biber went on to do thousands of the operation, resulting in Trinidad, Colorado becoming known as the “Sex-Change Capital of the World”, and also trained other surgeons in transgender surgery. He became a celebrity and appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Sally Jessy Raphael Show, Geraldo Rivera Show, the Learning Channel, the Discovery Channel, the Playboy channel and the Guinness World Records Primetime TV show.
He and his wife had seven children, he owned the largest cattle ranch in the county, and served as a Las Animas County commissioner from 1990 to 1996.
Notable patients include:
1968 Ann.
1976 Yasmene Jabar,
1978 Diane Delia,
1979 Nancy Ledins,
Joseph Cluse,
1980 Kay Brown,
Edie Lane,
1981 Susan Faye Cannon,
1983 Walt Heyer,
Rosalyne Blumenstein,
1984 Susan Kimberly,
Brenda Lana Smith,
1986 Kate Bornstein,
Leslie Nelson
1989 Les Nichols
1990 Rene Jaz
1991 Valerie Taylor,
1992 Claudine Griggs,
Cynthia Conroy,
1994 Melanie Anne Phillips,
Terri O'Connell,
1995 Gloria Hemingway,
Dr Biber would also mention in interviews that he did the operation on twins, on three brothers from Georgia and an 84-year-old railroad engineer.
"I've got one patient married to a gynecologist, and he doesn't know: She won't tell him."He performed three reversals: The first patient, whose original operation was performed by another surgeon, proved not to be a true transsexual and developed psychological problems. The second was a renowned mathematician who succumbed to intense peer pressure. The third patient used the procedure to appear on talk shows, then decided to switch back. (Heyer?)
Dr Biber retired at the age of 80, when his malpractice insurance became too expensive, although he was able to find insurance to continue as a general practitioner. His transsexual practice was taken over by Marci Bowers.
Biber died at age 82 from complications from pneumonia, shortly after returning from a cattle drive to Texas.
- The Trinidad Experience. Seattle: Ingersoll Gender Centre 16 pp 1992.
- Michael Haederle. "The Body Builder: For 25 Years, Dr. Stanley Biber--America's Dean of Sex-Change Operations--Has Been Correcting Nature's Miscues". Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1995. http://articles.latimes.com/1995-01-23/news/ls-23267_1_stanley-biber.
- Dr Stanley H. Biber. “Current State of Transsexual Surgery: A Brief Overview”. In Bonnie Bullough, Vern L. Bullough, James Elias (eds). Gender Blending Prometheus Books. 504Pp 1997.
- Harrison Fletcher. "Sex Machine: Dr. Stanley Biber has made 3,500 women--and 300 men.". Denver Westworld, Aug 27 1998. www.westword.com/1998-08-27/news/sex-machine/full.
- Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States>. Cambridge, Ma, London: Harvard University Press, 2002: 272.
- Yasmene Jabar. “The Biber Girls: Alumi of Dr Stanley Biber”. The International Transsexual Sisterhood. www.the-sisterhood.net/transworldnews/id81.html. No Longer Available.
- Marci Bowers. "Stanley Biber". Transsexual Road Map. www.tsroadmap.com/physical/vaginoplasty/stanley-biber.html.
- Dennis McLellan. "Dr. Stanley Biber, 82; World Renowned Sex-Change Surgeon". Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2006. http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jan/22/local/me-biber22.
- Jay Hodges & PJ Raval (dir). Trinidad. With Stanley Biber, Marci Bowers. US 2008.
28 January 2014
Susan Kimberly (1941–) politician
After a journalism degree at the University of Minnesota and a stint in India for the Peace Corps, by 1968 Robert Sylvester was the editor of a small-town Minnesota newspaper, which led to meeting Mae, the women who became his wife. He told her that he was a transvestite, and later that he felt that he was a transsexual.
In 1970 he consulted a psychiatrist was told told that quitting was like quitting smoking. So he purged his female wardrobe, and Bob and Mae were married. Bob became a city councilor in St Paul, Minnesota, and then president of the council. Later he worked in investment banking.
In 1977 he told a female therapist that he wanted to be a girl, and she said: "Well, then, why don't you get on with it?" Susan started going out as female, and in January 1980 she committed to the gender change. Bob and Mae divorced in 1981. On 1 January 1983, Susan and Mae held a ceremony for invited friends including the mayor, to "commemorate the departure of Bob Sylvester and arrival of Susan Kimberly". Transition was completed in 1984 courtesy of Dr Biber.
After a few years of unemployment, she was back in City Hall working for the mayor. She ran unsuccessfully for City Council and County Board. In 1998 Susan was appointed deputy mayor of St Paul under Norm Coleman, they both having switched their allegiance to the Republican Party.
Later Susan was vice president of economic development for the St Paul Chamber of Commerce. In 2007 she flew to Florida to speak on behalf of Susan Stanton who was being fired from her job as city manager after announcing a coming transition.
She retired in 2010.
In 1970 he consulted a psychiatrist was told told that quitting was like quitting smoking. So he purged his female wardrobe, and Bob and Mae were married. Bob became a city councilor in St Paul, Minnesota, and then president of the council. Later he worked in investment banking.
In 1977 he told a female therapist that he wanted to be a girl, and she said: "Well, then, why don't you get on with it?" Susan started going out as female, and in January 1980 she committed to the gender change. Bob and Mae divorced in 1981. On 1 January 1983, Susan and Mae held a ceremony for invited friends including the mayor, to "commemorate the departure of Bob Sylvester and arrival of Susan Kimberly". Transition was completed in 1984 courtesy of Dr Biber.
After a few years of unemployment, she was back in City Hall working for the mayor. She ran unsuccessfully for City Council and County Board. In 1998 Susan was appointed deputy mayor of St Paul under Norm Coleman, they both having switched their allegiance to the Republican Party.
"I lost more friends becoming a Republican than I did becoming a woman".She also worked for Coleman when he was elected as a US Senator after Democratic incumbent Paul Wellstone, the most prominent senator to vote against congressional authorization for US invasion of Iraq, died in a plane crash (perhaps assassination) eleven days before the election.
Later Susan was vice president of economic development for the St Paul Chamber of Commerce. In 2007 she flew to Florida to speak on behalf of Susan Stanton who was being fired from her job as city manager after announcing a coming transition.
She retired in 2010.
- "Bob Sylvester finds peace as Susan Kimberly". Park City Daily News, May 3, 1983. http://tinyurl.com/o9tpqo3.
- Leyla Kokmem. “Body vs. Soul.” Minneapolis/St Paul City Pages, July 17, 2002. www.citypages.com/databank/23/1128/article10563.asp?page=1.
- Hastings Wyman "Transgender and Bisexual Issues in Public Administration and Policy" in Wallace Swan (ed). Handbook of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Administration and Policy. CRC Press, 2004: 126-7.
- Jeff Severns Guntzel. "Coleman, Paulose and Susan Kimberly". Minneapolis/St Paul City Pages, Dec 6 2007. http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2007/12/he_did_what.php.
- Joe Kimball. "Economic development expert Kimberly joining chamber full time" MinnPost, 01/11/08. http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2008/01/economic-development-expert-kimberly-joining-chamber-full-time.
- Wyman Spano & Nona Yates. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Senate: Franken vs. Coleman and the decline of civilized politics. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zenith, 2010: 61, 96, 104
- Chris Havens. "Susan Kimberly's new transition". St Paul Star Tribune, July 30, 2010. www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/99671469.html.
28 November 2013
Yasmene Jabar (1956 - ) artist, activist, comedienne.
Diana was raised in Noxubee County, Mississippi and then on a farm near Salisbury, North Carolina. She found out about transsexuality by buying Harry Benjamin’s book and the Erickson Foundation pamphlets by mail order from Michael Salem who had an ad in Playboy.
She married a Syrian man she met at college and became Diana Salameh. They were together seven years, and he gave her the name Yasmene which means ‘desert flower’. However she finally divorced him for philandering. By this time Yasmene had become a Muslimah.
She returned to Macon, Mississippi to take care of her handicapped mother. She was then an artist making dolls and Santas with a studio in Macon, where she was declared Business Person of the Year 1994.
Her second husband was a Jordanian living in Germany whom she met on the internet. They had a traditional Muslim wedding in Jordan and lived there for many years.
Yasmene set up the web sites Cafe Trans Arabi and the International Transsexual Sisterhood, the first to help trans women in the middle east, and then expanded to help trans women wherever they are. In 2005 she was involved in the Trans Eastern Conference (TEC) in Istanbul.
Personal problems resulted in Yasmene's web sites being discontinued at the end of 2006.
She has returned to living in the US, and has been working a a stand-up comedienne.
She was an early proponents of the concept of Harry Benjamin Syndrome (Yasmene's take) but did not stay with the HBS groups.
For some reason Yamene has become part of a miscellaneous group of trans women who are reprinted with their before and after images in several dumb sites professing a false shock that transsexuality exists.
"By the time I got my license to drive a car, I was going out dressed as a girl-- just going shopping, to the movies or out to eat. Sometimes I would talk a cousin into going with me so I would not be alone, at first it was scary but I got used to it quickly and to the fact that I passed as female better than I did as male."She transitioned socially in 1974 taking hormones purchased at a black-market pharmacy. Diana worked at an impersonator club, Orleans, in Charlotte, N.C.
"The club was run by an older woman named Olean who always wore a long blonde wig, and false eyelashes and lots of makeup, who looked more like a drag queen than the real drag queen".Diana also worked stealth in a massage parlor to save for her operation. She had surgery from Dr Stanley Biber, 1976, at the age of 20.
She married a Syrian man she met at college and became Diana Salameh. They were together seven years, and he gave her the name Yasmene which means ‘desert flower’. However she finally divorced him for philandering. By this time Yasmene had become a Muslimah.
She returned to Macon, Mississippi to take care of her handicapped mother. She was then an artist making dolls and Santas with a studio in Macon, where she was declared Business Person of the Year 1994.
Her second husband was a Jordanian living in Germany whom she met on the internet. They had a traditional Muslim wedding in Jordan and lived there for many years.
Yasmene set up the web sites Cafe Trans Arabi and the International Transsexual Sisterhood, the first to help trans women in the middle east, and then expanded to help trans women wherever they are. In 2005 she was involved in the Trans Eastern Conference (TEC) in Istanbul.
Personal problems resulted in Yasmene's web sites being discontinued at the end of 2006.
She has returned to living in the US, and has been working a a stand-up comedienne.
She was an early proponents of the concept of Harry Benjamin Syndrome (Yasmene's take) but did not stay with the HBS groups.
- Colin Crawford. Uproar at Dancing Rabbit Creek: Battling over Race, Class and the Environment in the New South. Perseus Books, 1996: 75-6
- “The Beautiful Sister: An interview with Yasmene Jabar”. Huriyah Freedom: A Magazine for Queer Muslims. Sep 7, 2004. Online at: transdada2.blogspot.com/2004/11/beautiful-sister-interview-with.html.
- http://butterfly-sisterhood.tripod.com.
- http://yasmenejabar.tripod.com.
- www.granny-maes-place.com.
For some reason Yamene has become part of a miscellaneous group of trans women who are reprinted with their before and after images in several dumb sites professing a false shock that transsexuality exists.
14 October 2013
Melanie Anne Phillips (1956 - ) film-maker, story-software designer.
After a degree at the School of Cinema and Television at the University of Southern California, directing two feature films before the age of 30: Brothers of the Wilderness, 1984, and The Strangeness, 1985, recording many hours of music, marrying as a man and fathering two children, Melanie became involved with the International Foundation for Gender Education and worked with them to produce a VHS Tape on developing a female voice which focuses on voice resonance rather than pitch.
In 1991, Melanie took a break from film-making and, with her long-time writing partner Chris Huntley, developed the Dramatica Theory of Story, for which they had first laid the foundations while still at college together.
She also began her three-year transition that concluded with surgery with Dr Biber in Trinidad, Colorado. She kept a daily journal during transition which is available online. In 1994 she set up the first online transgender support site, and became one of the most cited advisors on developing a female voice.
After three years of full-time effort, the first version of Dramatica (Amazon reviews, WIKIPEDIA) was released. It is one of the most sophisticated software packages for fiction writers, which included a long manual, and supporting videos. Melanie also teaches courses in Dramatica theory through UCLA.
In October 2006 in an essay on her Heartcorps site, and reprinted on Gender Life Forum, she wrote:
Andrea James' TS Roadmap is dedicated to Melanie for her inspiration.
*Not Melanie Phillips the Daily Mail journalist who was nominated bigot of the year.
*There is no connection between Dramatica and the rude and satirical Encyclopedia Dramatica.
_____________________________________________________________________________
WorldCat dates the IFGE tape to 1980 which cannot be right as IFGE was not founded until some years later.
Melanie in 2006 seems to be proposing 2 types of transsexuals like either HSTS/Autogynephilia or HBS. However I could not find any discussion of her proposal compared to HSTS/Autogynephilia or HBS.
In 1991, Melanie took a break from film-making and, with her long-time writing partner Chris Huntley, developed the Dramatica Theory of Story, for which they had first laid the foundations while still at college together.
She also began her three-year transition that concluded with surgery with Dr Biber in Trinidad, Colorado. She kept a daily journal during transition which is available online. In 1994 she set up the first online transgender support site, and became one of the most cited advisors on developing a female voice.
After three years of full-time effort, the first version of Dramatica (Amazon reviews, WIKIPEDIA) was released. It is one of the most sophisticated software packages for fiction writers, which included a long manual, and supporting videos. Melanie also teaches courses in Dramatica theory through UCLA.
In October 2006 in an essay on her Heartcorps site, and reprinted on Gender Life Forum, she wrote:
"I've unintentionally perpetrated a great disservice. I've given the impression the anyone can learn to sound completely female in voice as I have. That's why I created the voice video I've been selling for about ten years. Now, I'm not so sure. And in my diary, without ever considering an alternative, I've presented myself as just another transsexual and documented my story in the hope it might smooth the way for others. But now I wonder if it doesn't really foster false hope. … out of all those who have sex reassignment surgery, only a very few have female minds. All the rest, no matter how feminine they have become, have male minds - they don't just think like men, then think as men. ... After all, those who speak in a female voice are as rare as those with female minds, in my experience. Sure, anyone can learn to be more feminine in their speaking, but to actually alter the timber of the voice so it is rich and full but female in resonance, that may be beyond the ability of the rank and file transsexual."However she does insist:
"Now, granted, a woman born into a male body is no more entitled to sex change surgery than any man who wanted it. And the standards that they use to determine if you can receive surgery are ignorant, outdated, and laughable, if they weren't so cruel. Honestly, SRS should be available to anyone who wants it, as long as they are certified sane. No RLT should be required. I don't know of a single individual (though there must be some) who determined to have the surgery and then changed their mind because of problems with RLT. And I don't know of anyone who had the grit to go through with the surgery who didn't have what it needs to get through RLT. … Again, there is nothing better or worse about having SRS if you are of male or female mind. And the achievements of anyone from that community who has a female mind and a collection of female physical traits may not be as heroic or laudable as it first appears. They simply may have had more to start with and an easier path because there was less to alter. Ultimately, I think of female minded post-ops as intersexed women rather than transsexual. In some, they are close enough to the range of normal male physical form with fully functioning testicles and no ovaries that no medical professional would class them as hermaphrodites. And yet, possessing many of the traits above, they are truly intersexed in all ways except the reproductive organs."On her web site Melanie describes herself as "parent of two, still married to my spouse of thirty years but living with another woman, my soul mate, for the last eight years".
Andrea James' TS Roadmap is dedicated to Melanie for her inspiration.
*Not Melanie Phillips the Daily Mail journalist who was nominated bigot of the year.
*There is no connection between Dramatica and the rude and satirical Encyclopedia Dramatica.
- Melanie Anne.Phillips. Girl Talk Melanie Speaks on Developing a Female Voice. Wayland, MA: International Foundation for Gender Education, ??1980. VHS Video tape.
- Melanie Anne.Phillips. Raised by Wolves: A Transsexual Diary. Melanie Anne.Phillips, 1993.
- Melanie Anne Phillips. Melanie Speaks! on Developing a Female Voice. Melanie Anne Phillips, 1996. DVD
- Richard Ekins & Dave King. The Transgender Phenomenon. London: Thousand Oaks; California: Sage. 2006: 49.
- Melanie Anne Phillips. "By Way of Apology". GenderLife Forum, 10/10/06. www.genderlife.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/200150/Melanie_Anne_Phillips_speaks.html. Also at: www.heartcorps.com/journeys-end/4.html.
- Melanie Anne Philips. The Transgender Trilogy: A transgendered woman's journey of self discovery. CreateSpace, 2009. Online at: http://heartcorps.com/melanie/diary/diary.htm.
- http://melanieannephillips.com.
- http://dramaticapedia.com.
- Andrea James. "Have a great Journey!". TS Roadmap. www.tsroadmap.com/reality/finance/finfinal.html.
_____________________________________________________________________________
WorldCat dates the IFGE tape to 1980 which cannot be right as IFGE was not founded until some years later.
Melanie in 2006 seems to be proposing 2 types of transsexuals like either HSTS/Autogynephilia or HBS. However I could not find any discussion of her proposal compared to HSTS/Autogynephilia or HBS.
23 October 2012
Leslie Nelson (1957 - ) warehouse worker, sex worker, inmate.
Glenn Nelson was regarded as an emotionally disturbed child as early as kindergarten. During his teen years he became increasingly reclusive, relating to no-one other than his mother. He identified as female, and from 1984 was considering a sex change. In 1986 he twice traveled to Colorado to consult with Dr Biber, and began taking female hormones.
The same year Nelson was robbed at knifepoint in Philadelphia, and in response purchased a handgun. In 1987 he was arrested for felony possession of a weapon and dum-dum bullets. He served sixty days, received probation and had to have psychological evaluation. It was now illegal for him to possess a firearm.
He contemplated suicide. He resumed taking estrogens, and had breast augmentation. Leslie completed the sex change in 1992, despite a sex therapist declaring that psychological problems remained, although she was at risk of suicide if denied the change. The transgender program at Pennsylvania Hospital rejected her because she had a depressive disorder, and they felt that she did not feel like a woman in a man's body.
On returning to her warehouse job, Leslie was severely harassed and quit. She tried to be an exotic dancer, but was clumsy, and also failed to pass as female. She became a hooker in Camden, New Jersey.
On April 20, 1995, Nelson shot and killed two police officers, John McLaughlin and John Norcross, and wounded a third, Richard Norcross, John's brother, in a shootout at her parent’s home at Haddon Heights, New Jersey. She had refused to produce her gun, an AK-47 assault rifle on the policemen’s first visit after a neighbor had suggested that she had fondled her niece, and when they returned with a warrant she opened fire.
She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder of Officer John Norcross and life in prison with thirty years of parole ineligibility for the Murder of Investigator John McLaughlin. She was given a consecutive ten-year term with five years of parole ineligibility for the second-degree assault of Detective Richard Norcross. For a while she was the only transsexual on death row in the US in an all-male institution. Nelson's lawyers contended that a) she was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance; b) her capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct was significantly impaired as the result of a mental disease, but not to a degree that would allow her to plead the insanity defense. They also cited the civil suit filed by the surviving officer, Richard Norcross, to the effect that police guidelines for such high risk situations were inadequate.
The New Jersey Supreme Court twice ruled that executing ‘such a mentally ill and psychologically disturbed person’ would be cruel and unusual punishment., and with the agreement of the prosecution, she was sentenced to three life sentences, with a 65-year bar on parole. This permitted her to be transferred to the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, in Clinton, New Jersey.
She was Inmate of the Month at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in August 2005 for tutoring other inmates.
*Not Leslie Nielsen, the Hollywood comedy actor.
The Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women quite sensibly employed only female guards. The following is from the Wikipedia page:
The same year Nelson was robbed at knifepoint in Philadelphia, and in response purchased a handgun. In 1987 he was arrested for felony possession of a weapon and dum-dum bullets. He served sixty days, received probation and had to have psychological evaluation. It was now illegal for him to possess a firearm.
He contemplated suicide. He resumed taking estrogens, and had breast augmentation. Leslie completed the sex change in 1992, despite a sex therapist declaring that psychological problems remained, although she was at risk of suicide if denied the change. The transgender program at Pennsylvania Hospital rejected her because she had a depressive disorder, and they felt that she did not feel like a woman in a man's body.
On returning to her warehouse job, Leslie was severely harassed and quit. She tried to be an exotic dancer, but was clumsy, and also failed to pass as female. She became a hooker in Camden, New Jersey.
On April 20, 1995, Nelson shot and killed two police officers, John McLaughlin and John Norcross, and wounded a third, Richard Norcross, John's brother, in a shootout at her parent’s home at Haddon Heights, New Jersey. She had refused to produce her gun, an AK-47 assault rifle on the policemen’s first visit after a neighbor had suggested that she had fondled her niece, and when they returned with a warrant she opened fire.
 |
| Leslie Nelson, with public defender Joe Krakora, |
The New Jersey Supreme Court twice ruled that executing ‘such a mentally ill and psychologically disturbed person’ would be cruel and unusual punishment., and with the agreement of the prosecution, she was sentenced to three life sentences, with a 65-year bar on parole. This permitted her to be transferred to the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, in Clinton, New Jersey.
She was Inmate of the Month at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in August 2005 for tutoring other inmates.
*Not Leslie Nielsen, the Hollywood comedy actor.
- John Nordheimer. "Shooting Suspect Surrenders After 2 Officers Are Killed". The New York Times, April 22, 1995. www.nytimes.com/1995/04/22/nyregion/shooting-suspect-surrenders-after-2-officers-are-killed.html.
- John Way Jennings. "Accused Killer Of Lawmen Faces Death Penalty Leslie Nelson Was Indicted Yesterday. The Standoff In Haddon Heights Left Two Officers Dead, One Hurt.". Philadelphia Inquirer, June 22, 1995. http://articles.philly.com/1995-06-22/news/25691554_1_murder-of-police-officers-leslie-nelson-gas-mask.
- Aamer Madhani. "No Change Of Venue In Murder Case Leslie Nelson Pleaded Guilty To Killing Two Officers. Jury Selection Is Set For Jan. In A New Sentencing Trial.". Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec 13, 2000. http://articles.philly.com/2000-12-13/news/25580462_1.
- J. Zazzali. “State vs Leslie Ann Nelson”. New Jersey Court Cases. www.romingerlegal.com/new_jersey/supreme/a-29-01.opn.html.
- "A Question of Death". South Jersey.com, May 2005. www.southjersey.com/articles/?articleID=12827.
The Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women quite sensibly employed only female guards. The following is from the Wikipedia page:
A class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of male correctional officers alleging that the policy of only employing female officers was discriminatory. In 1991, the state entered into a consent agreement allowing male correctional officers to work at Edna Mahan.
The addition of male officers resulted in problems leading to additional legal action. Officers were disciplined, fired, or criminally prosecuted for offenses including exchanging sexual favors for gifts or money.
14 April 2012
Cynthia Conroy (1916 - 2009) scientist, doctor.
Robert Conroy emigrated from England to the US with his parents in 1920. His father beat his wife and children, and served three years for extortion.
Robert did a degree in physics and chemistry. While at college he was arrested while out cross-dressed. He married Margaret, who was of Concow (a California tribe), French and Irish descent.
After World War II he had a job with an electronics film in San Diego that was working with the US Navy in developing sonar. In 1957 the firm found out about his arrest while at college and he was instantly fired.
They moved to Berkeley and Robert became a eye doctor. He had few opportunities for cross dressing, but did so now and then. He was encountered so separately by his daughters, but they separately agreed to keep it secret. Margaret found it hard to deal with and went through a period of drinking.
After her death Robert started transition and as Cynthia was in her seventies when in 1992 she had surgery with Stanley Biber in Trinidad, Colorado.
She died aged 93 after a few year’s of Alzheimer’s disease.
As mentioned in the article on New York in the 1960s, the authorities intended that anyone arrested for 'sexual perversion' not be permitted to acquire professional qualifications. Fortunately, in the pre-computer age, the system was not always thorough.
Robert did a degree in physics and chemistry. While at college he was arrested while out cross-dressed. He married Margaret, who was of Concow (a California tribe), French and Irish descent.
After World War II he had a job with an electronics film in San Diego that was working with the US Navy in developing sonar. In 1957 the firm found out about his arrest while at college and he was instantly fired.
They moved to Berkeley and Robert became a eye doctor. He had few opportunities for cross dressing, but did so now and then. He was encountered so separately by his daughters, but they separately agreed to keep it secret. Margaret found it hard to deal with and went through a period of drinking.
After her death Robert started transition and as Cynthia was in her seventies when in 1992 she had surgery with Stanley Biber in Trinidad, Colorado.
She died aged 93 after a few year’s of Alzheimer’s disease.
- Janice Gould. “My Father, Cynthia Conroy”. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 2010, 16:19-103.
As mentioned in the article on New York in the 1960s, the authorities intended that anyone arrested for 'sexual perversion' not be permitted to acquire professional qualifications. Fortunately, in the pre-computer age, the system was not always thorough.
05 November 2011
Gloria Hemingway (1931 - 2001) writer, doctor.
Gregory Hemingway (Gigi) was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the youngest son of Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961), the novelist. Gigi was raised by a nursemaid until he was twelve, as his mother, Pauline Pfeiffer (1895 – 1951), Ernest’s second wife, showed little interest.
He was trying on his mother’s clothes from age four, but it wasn’t until age ten, on a trip to Cuba, that Ernest walked in and discovered him. He stood there frozen and then turned and left. That was the same year that Ernest started encouraging him to get drunk daily on hard liquor. A few months later when the boys had returned to their mother, Ernest wrote to his ex-wife about Gigi that
“He has the biggest dark side in the family except me and you and I’m not in the family. He keeps it so concealed that you never know about it and maybe that way it will back up on him”.
father and son in Cuba
In 1950 Gregory dropped out of college, and briefly took up Dianetics. In 1951, aged 19 he married Jane, and was working in an aircraft factory in Los Angeles. He sometimes borrowed Jane’s things, and in the evening of September 29, due to become a father in two months, he was arrested en femme in the women’s restroom of a movie theater (in his 1976 book he described it as a drug arrest).
His mother, Pauline, flew down from San Francisco and stayed with her sister, Jinny Pfeiffer and her lover Laura Archera, the violinist and film producer (they would later enter into a polyamory arrangement with Aldous Huxley). Pauline already had a stomach pain. She failed to get Gigi out of jail, and had a very emotional phone call with Ernest. She was rushed to hospital a few hours later and died on the operating table, on October 1.
Gigi was then released. Ernest told Gigi re his arrest: “Well it killed mother”. This caused a rupture between father and son. However Gregory started to write again after Ernest had two back-to-back airplane crashes in east Africa in 1954, and sent a congratulatory wire when he won the Nobel Prize later the same year.
Gregory drank a lot throughout most of the fifties, he could not hold a job, and he lost his wife after a disastrous trip to Africa. He joined the army on the fifth anniversary of his mother’s death, October 1, 1956, but was soon sent home for psychological instability. He was diagnosed and hospitalized with schizophrenia, and had electroshock treatments. In between treatments, Gigi and Ernest drove down to Key West, their last time together.
Yet he also completed pre-med at ULCA, and in 1960, at the age of 29, was accepted at the University of Miami Medical School. He requested a copy of the autopsy on his mother, and found that she had a pheochromocytoma tumor on an adrenal gland. The phone call with Ernest caused the tumor to secrete large amounts of adrenaline, and then to stop. Her blood pressure went up to 300, and then dropped to zero, and she died of shock.
Gigi wrote to his father to explain, and to transfer the blame. Ernest committed suicide nine months later. Gigi attended his father’s funeral and met Valerie Danby Smith (1940 – ), who had been Ernest’s last secretary. They married in 1966, even though he was still married to Alice, his second wife who had just given birth to his fourth child, and though Valerie had had a child by Irish playwright Brendan Behan in the meanwhile. Gigi and Valerie married again the next year when a divorce had been sorted out, and remained married for 20 years.
For a decade they lived mainly in New York. Gregory was a physician, but without enthusiasm, at Standard Oil, General Motors and McGraw-Hill publishers. Sometime he was hospitalized and had more shock treatments. He would buy female clothing at Saks Fifth Avenue, wear them once and dump them. He also borrowed his wife’s things, but she said, in the Colapinto Rolling Stone article, that she never saw him cross-dressed. However in 1974 he read Jan Morris’ Conundrum and talked to Valerie about having the same surgery. Valerie wrote:
"I never had it in my heart to be angry with Greg, except momentarily, for he suffered far more than anyone I have known. (Running: 294)”Gregory published an autobiography in 1976 with a preface by Norman Mailer. It was a critical success but did not discuss his gender problems.
He was then 44. He became a general practitioner in Fort Benton, Montana (population 1500), and stayed for a year. From 1978-83 he was a country doctor in Jordan, Montana (population 600), the sole MD for an area the size of Connecticut. The population appreciated his hard work and dedication.
Valerie and their two children came west in 1980 and settled in Bozeman, 320 miles away. Gregory was expected every other weekend. He would often stop in a motel to dress. He even appeared in the cowboy bar in Jordan in drag. The locals pretended not to notice. In the Spring of 1983 Gigi was arrested after trying on clothes in a boutique and smearing them with makeup. He’d ruined over $1,000 of merchandise.
Later that year he took leave to run in the Boston Marathon, but didn’t show up, didn’t return when expected. He then got a job in Missoula, Montana, and started divorce proceedings. He was going out en femme more and more, and was so when his son John (his second child with Jane) came to visit in 1985. Gigi demanded entrance to a women’s exercise class and then kicked in the door at a restaurant when they wouldn’t serve him. He was sentenced to six months, and served two weeks. Nine months later, again in drag, he kicked in another door and threw a rock though a window. He was referred for psychiatric treatment and later lost his license to practice medicine in Montana.
He managed to escape to Florida. He studied for the Florida medical license, but then dropped out. In 1987 Gigi first met Paul Hendrickson.
“I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying not to be a transvestite. It’s a combination of things. The problems are twofold - no, they’re threefold. First, You’ve got this father who’s supermasculine, but who’s somehow protesting it all the time, he’s worried to death about it, never mind that he actually is very masculine, more masculine than anyone else around, in fact. But worried about it all the same--and therefore worried about his sons and their masculinity. Secondly, you start playing around with your mother’s stockings one day when you’re about four year’s old . Maybe it all starts with something as innocent as this. And why do you do this? Who knows? But it must have something to do with the fact that your mother doesn’t seem to love you enough. Or that’s your perception of it . Her maternal instincts just aren’t very strong .... You think that she loves your older brother Patrick more. So maybe you’re putting on her clothes in the first place because you somehow think that you’ll be able to win her that way, get close to her. But then, you see, it starts to feel sexy for its own sake, just to have those things on. It’s erotic, it arouses you. The third thing is your own heightened awareness to everything around you. You’re a writer’s son, after all. You take in a lot more. (Hendrickson, 2011: 383-4)”.In 1987 Paul Hendrickson’s articles on the Hemingways in The Washington Post revealed Gigi’s semi-secret for the first time in a national publication. As this was shortly after the drastically cut-down posthumous first publication of Ernest’s The Garden of Eden, in which a male-female couple exchange clothes and identities, questions were raised in the press re how much of the father was in the son. Gloria played to this when in an interview with the short-lived magazine, Fame, she asked the rhetorical question:
“What’s wrong with the family? My God! Is he doing this too?”.
 |
| Gloria and Ida two years after Gloria's surgery |
In 1995, Gregory and Ida divorced; Gregory, now Gloria, had surgery with Stanley Biber; as Gregory attended the First International Hemingway Colloguium in Havana; and back in Coconut Grove, Gloria made a scene on a bus and resisted arrest.
Gregory, and Ida remarried in 1997 in Washington State. It was more frequently Gregory rather than Gloria who appeared in public.
 |
| mugshot after last arrest |
Gloria left $7 million to Ida, but the children challenged the will on the grounds that same-sex marriage is not legal in Florida. The parties eventually reached an undisclosed settlement.
- Gregory H. Hemingway. Papa: A Personal memoir. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1976.
- Ernest Hemingway. The Garden of Eden. New York: C. Scribner's, 1986.
- Paul Hendrickson. “The Hemingway Heritage: Papa's three sons are still living in conflict with the powerful image of that famous and macho writer” The Washington Post August 23, 1987.
- Kenneth Lynn. Hemingway Harvard University Press 1987: 403,418-9,499-502,561-4.
- Gerald Clarke, "The Sons Almost Rise". Fame, September 1989: 108.
- Lorian Hemingway (G’s first child). Walk on Water: A Memoir. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1998.
- John Colapinto. “The Good Son.” Rolling Stone 5 September 2002: 60–65.
- Valerie Hemingway (G’s third wife). Running with the Bulls: My Years with the Hemingways. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.
- John Hemingway (G’s second child). Strange Tribe: a Family Memoir. The Lyons Press, 2007.
- Lynn Conway (ed). "The Strange Saga of Gregory Hemingway". http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/GregoryHemingway.html#anc.
- Paul Hendrickson. Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011: 15, 297-9, 382-5, 386, 390-2, 397, 400, 403-53, 493, 496, 498.
I previously, in June 2008, published a much shorter version. My first draft had been based mainly on Paul Hendrickson’s Washington Post article. I recently noticed reviews of Hendrickson’s new book, and realized that it went into a lot more detail about Gloria. I was one of the first to borrow the book from my local library, and it is the major basis of this revised version. I did not realize that Hendrickson was the same writer as the Washington Post article until part way through the book.
None of the Wikipedia articles on the three towns in Montana where Gregory worked mention him among the notable residents. The Wikipedia article on Pauline Pfeiffer says nothing about her unusual death. The Wikipedia article on Laura Archera completely fails to mention her long-time lover Jinny Pfeiffer – which is outrageous. The Aldous Huxley article does not mention her either. If I were doing a blog on polyamory, I would certainly do an article on the three of them.
I failed to find any mention in Hendrickson’s book of electrolysis or female hormones. From this I assume that Gloria did not do either, even though as a doctor she could have self prescribed hormones. It is quite possible that if Gloria were on estrogen she would not have been arrested so often.
The discussion in Hendrickson of Gloria's visit to Dr Biber is very brief, and the others don't even name the surgeon. Hendrickson doesn't ask the questions that those who know of sex-change surgery would ask. There is no mention of psychiatrists' letters, nor of Biber's reaction to her not being on estrogens. What does he mean by 'a series of operations'?
Of Ernest’s three sons, Gregory was the only one to have a career, and he had the most children: eight if you included Brendan, who was named after his father. His two brothers had one and three children respectively.
Pauline Pfeiffer was Catholic. Ernest Hemingway converted to Catholicism (but not to the Catholic notion of marriage for life) in order to marry her in 1927. While Ernest supported the elected government in the Spanish Civil War, Pauline’s Catholicism led her to support the fascist insurgents. Her reward for this was, because she was divorced, to be denied both a Catholic Mass and burial in a Catholic cemetery.
08 July 2010
Valerie Nicole Taylor (1956 - ) model.
Freddie Lee Turner was raised in Greenville, South Carolina with five brothers and a sister. He helped out as a surrogate mother to his siblings after their mother left. He got good grades at school, but dropped out during senior year. He was arrested, once in Atlanta, and several times locally, on misdemeanor charges.
By 1979, using the name Freda, she was known as a trans woman, and was seen leaving a bar in nearby Gaffney with Billy Posey who was found shot dead the next morning in a motel room. A taxi-driver told police that he had taken Turner to Spartanburg, and that Turner had flashed a gun and confessed the killing. It took a few days to sign an arrest warrant, by which time Turner had disappeared.
Turner moved to Atlanta and Florida, and then in 1985, as Valerie Taylor, to Glendale, Los Angeles. She sometimes worked as a photographer’s model. Valerie advertized in the personals and met Dave Allen (1944 – 1999) who did visual effects in and directed movies. She was his date to the Oscars in 1986 when he was nominated for Best Special Effects in Young Sherlock Holmes, 1985. They lived together for some years, their relationship occasionally becoming violent.
In 1990 Dave Allen started to also date divorced mother of two, Donita Woodruff.
In 1991 Dave paid for Valerie’s legal name change and surgery with Dr Biber. Also in 1991 Valerie had an accident while learning to drive, and left the scene of the accident. She was sentenced to three years probation and community service.
Dave moved in with Donita and finally married her in 1995. Valerie and Donita took a strong dislike to each other. Donita researched Valerie at the Burbank city hall and obtained a copy of Valerie’s name change. She freaked out that Dave had had a relationship with a transsexual and went for an Aids test. Her psychiatrist suggested that she watch The Crying Game, 1992, and the scene where Dil shoots the IRA agent reminded her that Dave had once mentioned that he knew someone who had killed another. She became obsessed that Valerie must be a murderer, and collected evidence.
In 1996, she informed the Burbank police that Taylor was a fugitive. Taylor denied being Freddie Turner, but her fingerprints were the same as those taken from Freddie in Atlanta. She was extradited to South Carolina. In 1997, she pled self-defense and the evidence being mainly lost and witnesses having died since, she was sentenced to 15 years, suspended to three.
All this destroyed the marriage of Donita and Dave and their divorce was finalized in 1998.
Valerie served two years in prison at the Leath Correctional Institute for women, before returning to Los Angeles and Dave Allen.
Dave died of cancer in 1999 and it is rumored that he left most of his money to Valerie. In 2002, Valerie was convicted of assault on a boyfriend, and put on probation.
Donita Woodruff published her account as a true crime book in 2005.
*Not the English actress, nor the lesbian novelist, not the shark and underwater expert.
The major source on Valerie Taylor is Woodruff’s book. However Woodruff is very much a hostile witness. Once Woodruff realizes that Taylor had been a transsexual, she constantly refers to her as ‘Freddie Turner’ and ‘he’ despite Valerie having completed both surgery and legal name change.
Woodruff comes across as very transphobic. In her opinion a trans woman is a man for life, Dave must be gay because he had an affair with Valerie, and she is at a serious risk of Aids because of Dave. Whenever she meets persons who had taken Valerie as herself, Woodruff writes it that they had been ‘fooled’. Her book could be a lot more plausible if she had consulted a trans person for advice.
She is constantly being scandalized by the world as it is. She is scandalized that the South Carolina justice system uses plea bargaining and that the justice system is imperfect.
Donita also comes across as an unreliable narrator. In addition to detailed accounts of dialogue which she surely could not remember that precisely, several of the reviewers on Amazon find complete incidents unlikely at best.
I was amazed that Donita could go to city hall and get Valerie’s name change papers. Are there no privacy provisions? This is explicitly forbidden in the UK’s Gender Recognition Act, but that is another country.
In Donita’s account, Valerie is a psychopathic killer and violent, physically and emotionally, with all who know her. In the news articles sourced above, the murder comes across as a self-defence after a night gone wrong. It is an unfortunate fact that some people do go crazy when with a transsexual. As stated, Donita spoils her case by being transphobic.
Valerie Taylor is not mentioned among the inmates on the Wikipedia page for Leath Correctional Institute.
The Wikipedia page on Dave Allen does not mention either Valerie or Donita.
By 1979, using the name Freda, she was known as a trans woman, and was seen leaving a bar in nearby Gaffney with Billy Posey who was found shot dead the next morning in a motel room. A taxi-driver told police that he had taken Turner to Spartanburg, and that Turner had flashed a gun and confessed the killing. It took a few days to sign an arrest warrant, by which time Turner had disappeared.
Turner moved to Atlanta and Florida, and then in 1985, as Valerie Taylor, to Glendale, Los Angeles. She sometimes worked as a photographer’s model. Valerie advertized in the personals and met Dave Allen (1944 – 1999) who did visual effects in and directed movies. She was his date to the Oscars in 1986 when he was nominated for Best Special Effects in Young Sherlock Holmes, 1985. They lived together for some years, their relationship occasionally becoming violent.
In 1990 Dave Allen started to also date divorced mother of two, Donita Woodruff.
In 1991 Dave paid for Valerie’s legal name change and surgery with Dr Biber. Also in 1991 Valerie had an accident while learning to drive, and left the scene of the accident. She was sentenced to three years probation and community service.
 |
| Dave and Donita |
In 1996, she informed the Burbank police that Taylor was a fugitive. Taylor denied being Freddie Turner, but her fingerprints were the same as those taken from Freddie in Atlanta. She was extradited to South Carolina. In 1997, she pled self-defense and the evidence being mainly lost and witnesses having died since, she was sentenced to 15 years, suspended to three.
 |
| Valerie |
Valerie served two years in prison at the Leath Correctional Institute for women, before returning to Los Angeles and Dave Allen.
Dave died of cancer in 1999 and it is rumored that he left most of his money to Valerie. In 2002, Valerie was convicted of assault on a boyfriend, and put on probation.
Donita Woodruff published her account as a true crime book in 2005.
*Not the English actress, nor the lesbian novelist, not the shark and underwater expert.
- Jaxon Van Derbeken and Steve Getzug. “Puzzles Surface In 1979 Slaying : Sex Change One Of Many Twists In Case”. Daily News. May 20, 1996. Online at: www.thefreelibrary.com/PUZZLES+SURFACE+IN+1979+SLAYING+%3A+SEX+CHANGE+ONE+OF+MANY+TWISTS+IN...-a083932605.
- Ann W. O’Neill. “Fingerprints Implicate Transsexual in Killing”. Los Angeles Times. May 29, 1996. http://articles.latimes.com/1996-05-29/local/me-9522_1_valerie-taylor.
- Donita Woodruff. Deadly Masquerade: A True Story of Illicit Passion, Buried Secrets, and Murder. Far Hills, N.J.: New Horizon Press, 2005. New York: St Martin’s Paperbacks 2007.
The major source on Valerie Taylor is Woodruff’s book. However Woodruff is very much a hostile witness. Once Woodruff realizes that Taylor had been a transsexual, she constantly refers to her as ‘Freddie Turner’ and ‘he’ despite Valerie having completed both surgery and legal name change.
Woodruff comes across as very transphobic. In her opinion a trans woman is a man for life, Dave must be gay because he had an affair with Valerie, and she is at a serious risk of Aids because of Dave. Whenever she meets persons who had taken Valerie as herself, Woodruff writes it that they had been ‘fooled’. Her book could be a lot more plausible if she had consulted a trans person for advice.
She is constantly being scandalized by the world as it is. She is scandalized that the South Carolina justice system uses plea bargaining and that the justice system is imperfect.
Donita also comes across as an unreliable narrator. In addition to detailed accounts of dialogue which she surely could not remember that precisely, several of the reviewers on Amazon find complete incidents unlikely at best.
I was amazed that Donita could go to city hall and get Valerie’s name change papers. Are there no privacy provisions? This is explicitly forbidden in the UK’s Gender Recognition Act, but that is another country.
In Donita’s account, Valerie is a psychopathic killer and violent, physically and emotionally, with all who know her. In the news articles sourced above, the murder comes across as a self-defence after a night gone wrong. It is an unfortunate fact that some people do go crazy when with a transsexual. As stated, Donita spoils her case by being transphobic.
Valerie Taylor is not mentioned among the inmates on the Wikipedia page for Leath Correctional Institute.
12 September 2009
Joseph Cluse (1954 - 2018) performer, housewife, pastor.
Joseph was born in LaFayette, Louisiana, three months early. From the age of seven he was molested for several years by a male relative. At 10 he was gang-raped at a boys’ camp. In 1971 the family home burned down, and his parents divorced.
He started a relat
ionship with an older man, but was dumped. After high-school he moved to New Orleans, became Joanna, performed in a nightclub and did sex work. She also did lots of drugs and drink.
In 1975 Joanna moved to San Francisco, and started taking counseling. She had breast implants, and in 1979 had genital surgery from Dr Biber. Joanna met and married a loving Jewish man, but cheated on him, and then asked for a divorce. Her next fiancé dropped her when he discovered her past.
She returned to LaFayette in 1986. One evening, while drunk, she crashed her car and almost killed her passengers. In 1988 she married a single father of two children. They moved to Marietta, Georgia, and she became a Christian wife and mother, and stayed off drugs and alcohol.
She embraced her Christian beliefs more deeply, and by 1994 had concluded that she was outside God’s will. She shared her conclusion with her husband, and they separated.
She returned to Louisiana as a woman, but not until 1997 did she participate in Crosso
ver, the ex-transgender group. Eighteen months later she did a 40-day fast, and then in January 1999 returned to being Joseph.
Joseph had his breast implants removed. He is now a pastor with Crossover and with Exodus, and is a star feature on the Exodus Gender Identity page, where he explains: “Satan’s stronghold on my life was such that I could see no other course for my life than a complete sex change operation. I believed God had made a mistake and given me the physical attributes of a man, and I determined to set things ‘right’ ”.
++Joseph died on his birthday, age 64.
He started a relat
ionship with an older man, but was dumped. After high-school he moved to New Orleans, became Joanna, performed in a nightclub and did sex work. She also did lots of drugs and drink.In 1975 Joanna moved to San Francisco, and started taking counseling. She had breast implants, and in 1979 had genital surgery from Dr Biber. Joanna met and married a loving Jewish man, but cheated on him, and then asked for a divorce. Her next fiancé dropped her when he discovered her past.
She returned to LaFayette in 1986. One evening, while drunk, she crashed her car and almost killed her passengers. In 1988 she married a single father of two children. They moved to Marietta, Georgia, and she became a Christian wife and mother, and stayed off drugs and alcohol.
She embraced her Christian beliefs more deeply, and by 1994 had concluded that she was outside God’s will. She shared her conclusion with her husband, and they separated.
She returned to Louisiana as a woman, but not until 1997 did she participate in Crosso
ver, the ex-transgender group. Eighteen months later she did a 40-day fast, and then in January 1999 returned to being Joseph.Joseph had his breast implants removed. He is now a pastor with Crossover and with Exodus, and is a star feature on the Exodus Gender Identity page, where he explains: “Satan’s stronghold on my life was such that I could see no other course for my life than a complete sex change operation. I believed God had made a mistake and given me the physical attributes of a man, and I determined to set things ‘right’ ”.
++Joseph died on his birthday, age 64.
- Joseph Cluse. “Joseph: A Man Reclaimed”. Exodus Real Life Stories. http://exodus.to/files/JCluseTestimony.pdf.
- “Story of Joseph Cluse”. Christian Marriage Romance. www.marriageromance.com/stories/11006261116.htm.
- “Gender Identity” Exodus International. www.exodus.to/content/view/508/0.
11 September 2009
Brenda Lana Smith, consul, activist.
Brenda Lana Smith has a small but important part in our history. You can read about her in Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States
, and Richard F. Docter. Becoming a Woman: A Biography of Christine Jorgensen,
and the Cleis Press' 2000 edition of Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography
.
In her male phase she was a long-time resident of Bermuda and was the Honorary Danish Consul. This led to the bestowment of Ridder af Dannebrogorden (R af D). After a divorce after 29 years of marriage with a son and daughter, Brenda completed transition with surgery with Stanley Biber in 1984. Brenda was introduced to Christine Jorgensen by Sister Mary Elizabeth, and became Christine's housemate for the last six months of her life, and arranged her estate at her death. Later Brenda moved back to England. She has remained active for transsexual rights, and especially against the lack of gay and transsexual rights in Bermuda where the Gender Recognition Act and other UK civil rights acts do not apply.
A few days ago Stephen Whittle commented on this blog:
, and Richard F. Docter. Becoming a Woman: A Biography of Christine Jorgensen, and the Cleis Press' 2000 edition of Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography.
In her male phase she was a long-time resident of Bermuda and was the Honorary Danish Consul. This led to the bestowment of Ridder af Dannebrogorden (R af D). After a divorce after 29 years of marriage with a son and daughter, Brenda completed transition with surgery with Stanley Biber in 1984. Brenda was introduced to Christine Jorgensen by Sister Mary Elizabeth, and became Christine's housemate for the last six months of her life, and arranged her estate at her death. Later Brenda moved back to England. She has remained active for transsexual rights, and especially against the lack of gay and transsexual rights in Bermuda where the Gender Recognition Act and other UK civil rights acts do not apply.A few days ago Stephen Whittle commented on this blog:
Brenda,Brenda has replied:
How lovely to hear you are still alive and kicking so to speak. At this age, one tends to presume the worst far too often.
Is your autobiography on the press yet. Or do we really have to wait until you are gone.
love, Stephen (Whittle) .
Greetings, all… especially to Stephen (Whittle OBE—a blast from my
past…)
Rest assured that this otherwise reclusive 76-year-old Anglo-Danish
Mancunian born Bermudian exile is particularly alive and kicking when
it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity being individually
separate and distinct entities that need to be regarded and legislated
as such in much needed amendments to Bermuda's present gay and gender-variant omissive Human Rights Law...
That done and dusted…
As most folk will have probably observed I am not given to bantering
online... this is not so much that I dislike confrontational
situations or that I might diplomatically prefer not to unnecessarily
fuel volatile situations with my two cents' worth... but, since my
early pre World War 2 school days, due to what is now termed Attention Deficit Disorder impeding my committing on paper/online what I might readily articulate…
Whether publicly or privately... we gender-variant folk all seem to
hold that our own particular manifestation of dissociative gender
identification is unique... often deep down believing that we
individually hold the proprietary format on all matters gender-
variant... and… divided by semantics idealistically bicker between
ourselves to that end…the end result is that none of us tend to
countenance our peers lightly… no doubt subconsciously looking for
imperfections that we have yet to come to terms with within our own
selves...
My own metaphysical belief in that we need search inwardly for the
answer to whatever over attracts or irks us gave rise to the
therapeutic content of not only my partially electronically
transcribed journals, but my still self-searching twenty-two year-old
musing: "a'top a dung-hill..." with its some 200-plus A4 page small
print roots in what is a now politically incorrect 1950s mind-set...
remains "a work in progress" procrastinating on my 2.66GHz Intel iMac,
in much need of my editing, and properly punctuating by a grammarian
before ever being photographically embellished and archived for
posterity, whatever…
One thing for sure… while my failing memory is increasingly in the
habit of relying on extracts to support or illustrate an occasional
argument online… any publisher of "a'top a dung-hill…" whose author
The Gender Genie thinks is male… will certainly have a field day
posthumously endeavouring to commercial address my dyslexic 'stream of consciousness' style musing...
So, I while I need not worry about being unable to claim immunity
behind:
"Kindly appreciate that Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. having had no
editorial input whatsoever in the above declines to entertain e-mail
argument on its content..."
A diplomatic fence-sitting rider that I long ago attached on articles
I had gleaned and once widely conduited—that are now posted sans rider on "From brendalana's Archives…" < http://www.bermudasucks.com/forum/index.php?topic=3038.0
My present bloated unresolved concern raised by "Is your autobiography on the press yet, Or do we really have to wait until you are gone…" is to whom I now best leave my archives and memorabilia, etc... to honourably enjoy after I am gone…
Brenda Lana Smith R af D
Cornwall 2009-09-08
14 November 2008
Nancy Ledins (1932 - ) priest, electrologist.
William Griglak was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He became a Catholic priest and 
earned a PhD in Psychology at The Catholic University in Washington D.C..
William resigned the priesthood in 1969, and transitioned surgically to Nancy in 1979 with surgery from Dr Biber.
She never returned officially to lay status, and thus is claimed as the first female Roman Catholic priest.
Afterwards Nancy became a noted electrologist, and served as the educational director for the American Electrology Association.
Of course there are other candidates for 'the first female Roman Catholic priest'. I seem to remember an Italian priest who transitioned around the same time, but I cannot find any details any more.
earned a PhD in Psychology at The Catholic University in Washington D.C..William resigned the priesthood in 1969, and transitioned surgically to Nancy in 1979 with surgery from Dr Biber.
She never returned officially to lay status, and thus is claimed as the first female Roman Catholic priest.
Afterwards Nancy became a noted electrologist, and served as the educational director for the American Electrology Association.
- “First Woman Catholic Priest”. Arizona Gay News. Vol 5, Sept 5, 1980: 2. www.tucsonobserver.com/archives/pdf/1980/09/SEP%205.pdf.
- “De kapelaan veranderde van geslacht”. What the Papers Say. www.europeants.org/WTPS/Papers/kapelaan.htm.
Of course there are other candidates for 'the first female Roman Catholic priest'. I seem to remember an Italian priest who transitioned around the same time, but I cannot find any details any more.
02 August 2008
Susan Faye Cannon (1925 - 1982) historian of science.
Walter Faw Cannon was born in North Carolina to a line of Methodist divines. His father was a former Dean of the Divinity School at Duke University. Walter escaped to Princeton University at the precocious age of 16. His physics degree was interrupted by war service in the US Navy.
Both at university and in the Navy, he considered himself to be a 'male woman' and was used sexually by 'straight' men. He had a severe stammer, but compensated for this and became a major debater.
Walter did a PhD at Harvard in the history of science, 'On uniformity and progression in early Victorian cosmography', and then held various university teaching positions in the subject.
In the 1950s he had a relationship with a lesbian friend who would screen men for him to see. They planned a marriage so that they could have children, but in the end they did not go through with it.
In 1962, Cannon joined the Smithsonian Institute where he would spend the rest of his professional life. His academic specialty was science in the Victorian period. He was active in poetry groups and his poems were published a few times in anthologies.
In the 1970s he also joined a transvestite social group. His mother died in 1974, and his lesbian friend in 1975. Little by little he changed his dress, first by carrying a purse, and then eventually he was a tall, balding, broad shouldered man in a skirt.
In 1976 Cannon legally changed her name to Susan Faye, and insisted on being called this at work. She was interviewed in May 1977 by The Washington Post and defined herself as a 'male woman'. 'I feel I'm dressing up as a clown when I wear men's clothes'.
Her major book is Science in culture: the Early Victorian Period, 1978, which was published as by Susan Faye Cannon. It won a major prize from the History of Science Society. However, her work situation deteriorated and there was growing pressure to get rid of her. In 1979 she came to a deal with the Smithsonian, and retired.
By now she was taking hormones, and had decided to have a sex-change. However she was 55 years old, had arthritis in her back, trouble with her eyes and stomach problems. She was a chain-smoker and addicted to painkillers. She was declared a recovered alcoholic after a session in a clinic. Susan had gender surgery with Dr Biber, at age 55, but never really recovered. Her intake of painkillers escalated, and a year later she was found dead, probably from overdoses of painkiller.
Both at university and in the Navy, he considered himself to be a 'male woman' and was used sexually by 'straight' men. He had a severe stammer, but compensated for this and became a major debater.
Walter did a PhD at Harvard in the history of science, 'On uniformity and progression in early Victorian cosmography', and then held various university teaching positions in the subject.
In the 1950s he had a relationship with a lesbian friend who would screen men for him to see. They planned a marriage so that they could have children, but in the end they did not go through with it.
In 1962, Cannon joined the Smithsonian Institute where he would spend the rest of his professional life. His academic specialty was science in the Victorian period. He was active in poetry groups and his poems were published a few times in anthologies.
In the 1970s he also joined a transvestite social group. His mother died in 1974, and his lesbian friend in 1975. Little by little he changed his dress, first by carrying a purse, and then eventually he was a tall, balding, broad shouldered man in a skirt.
Her major book is Science in culture: the Early Victorian Period, 1978, which was published as by Susan Faye Cannon. It won a major prize from the History of Science Society. However, her work situation deteriorated and there was growing pressure to get rid of her. In 1979 she came to a deal with the Smithsonian, and retired.
By now she was taking hormones, and had decided to have a sex-change. However she was 55 years old, had arthritis in her back, trouble with her eyes and stomach problems. She was a chain-smoker and addicted to painkillers. She was declared a recovered alcoholic after a session in a clinic. Susan had gender surgery with Dr Biber, at age 55, but never really recovered. Her intake of painkillers escalated, and a year later she was found dead, probably from overdoses of painkiller.
- Susan Faye Cannon. Science in Culture: The Early Victorian Period
. New York : Science History Publications, 1978.
- Aaron Latham & Andrea Grenadier. “The Ordeal of Walter/Susan Cannon” Psychology Today October 1982.
09 March 2008
Diane Delia (1957 - 1981) Performer
John Delia was the son of a builder, John was Rh-negative and required a transfusion within hours of birth. His mother doted on him and, preschool, dressed him as a girl. He attended Manhattan’s High School of Art & Design and specialized in music.
He graduated to become a drag artist: doing lip-synch impersonations of Diana Ross. He would perform without underwear so that the audience could see his penis under his skirt. At age 21, after several gay affairs including one with Robert Ferrara, he started seeing a psychiatrist with a view to transition, took estrogens, and had facial surgery.
Then he met Robyn (originally Roberta) Arnold, the rich daughter of an ear, nose and throat surgeon. They became lovers and John stopped his hormone shots and started lifting weights to discourage his breasts. His father was delighted. John was starting to perform at the major Manhattan discos. John announced that they would marry.
However his urge to be a woman had returned. After discussion, Robyn agreed to support him in this. In November of that year he flew to Dr Biber in Colorado and returned as Diane (from his favorite impersonation subject). Diane worked for a while as a nightclub hostess in Montréal, and as a model for Avon cosmetics.
After a run of unsatisfactory promiscuity she persuaded her old flame, Robert Ferrara to marry her, which he did, in his home town of Berwick, Pennsylvania. His parents tried to talk them out of it, and a neighbor objected to the sheriff that they were two men, but Dr Biber's affidavit and a reissued birth-certificate carried the day. Robyn paid $1400 for the wedding ring. Although Robert had had affairs with women, he did not relate to having sex with Diane. They also argued and fought, physically. So she moved out, and in with Robyn.
The move expanded into a two-day party. After the party Diane agreed to meet Robert to talk over their difficulties. She was never seen again until her body washed up in the Hudson River. Robert and Robyn lived together in the latter's apartment after the murder. They were charged together that they had both shot her. Robyn, with her expensive lawyer, was acquitted. Robert, with his inexperienced lawyer, went to prison. The bar where Diane used to do her Diana Ross impersonations commemorated her passing by having several people imitate her impersonation.
He graduated to become a drag artist: doing lip-synch impersonations of Diana Ross. He would perform without underwear so that the audience could see his penis under his skirt. At age 21, after several gay affairs including one with Robert Ferrara, he started seeing a psychiatrist with a view to transition, took estrogens, and had facial surgery.
Then he met Robyn (originally Roberta) Arnold, the rich daughter of an ear, nose and throat surgeon. They became lovers and John stopped his hormone shots and started lifting weights to discourage his breasts. His father was delighted. John was starting to perform at the major Manhattan discos. John announced that they would marry.
 |
| Diane's one and only modelling gig. |
After a run of unsatisfactory promiscuity she persuaded her old flame, Robert Ferrara to marry her, which he did, in his home town of Berwick, Pennsylvania. His parents tried to talk them out of it, and a neighbor objected to the sheriff that they were two men, but Dr Biber's affidavit and a reissued birth-certificate carried the day. Robyn paid $1400 for the wedding ring. Although Robert had had affairs with women, he did not relate to having sex with Diane. They also argued and fought, physically. So she moved out, and in with Robyn.
The move expanded into a two-day party. After the party Diane agreed to meet Robert to talk over their difficulties. She was never seen again until her body washed up in the Hudson River. Robert and Robyn lived together in the latter's apartment after the murder. They were charged together that they had both shot her. Robyn, with her expensive lawyer, was acquitted. Robert, with his inexperienced lawyer, went to prison. The bar where Diane used to do her Diana Ross impersonations commemorated her passing by having several people imitate her impersonation.
- "Transsexual Murder: Tangled Relationships Described in Trial of Former Lover, Husband". New York Herald Journal, Sep 27 1982. Online
- Carol Vecchione. "The jury in the slaying of a transsexual fashion.." UPI, Oct 9, 1982. Online
- Linda Wolfe. "The Transsexual, the Bartender and the Jewish American Princess". New York Magazine, 17 Jan 1983. Online. Reprinted in The Professor and the Prostitute, and Other True Tales of Murder and Madness.
Ballantine Books. 1987: chp 6.
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