Jacqueline Galiaci (1933 - 1992) performer. dog breeder, Burou patient

Original version May 2013

Galiaci grew up São Paulo state, in the village of Bocaina which at that time had only 10 streets. Father was a cattle drover. At age seven Galiaci attempted suicide after considering that he might be a ‘viado’ (similar to ‘queer’). The school mates and others did treat Galiaci as such, who was afraid that the father would find out. When Galiaci was 14, he did so, threatened his son with a machete, and then threw both mother and child out of the house. Young Galiaci was in the city of São Paulo the next day.

Jacqueline & Antonio

Galiaci became a nursing assistant at Santa Casa, where she read an article in Mundo Ilustrado magazine about Cristine Jorgensen. She explained herself to a doctor, Dr. Eduardo, who gave her her first dress. She had chosen the name ‘Jacqueline’ and grew her hair out, but had to hide it in a beret to avoid arrest. In 1952 Jacqueline was was taken by a friend – “Miss America”, who sewed for the artists Elvira Pagã and Bibi Ferreira - to the Ok nightclub, where she met the owner and was taken on as a performer. She became a singer of sambas, and having only female clothes did not go out during the day for fear of being arrested, as did happen when she attempted to change venues. She and her fiancé, Antonio, were arrested, the press ran photographs of the two, discussing her, her outfits and her cleavage. She was released only after forced sex with the jailor.

She was arrested several other times. After the military coup in 1964, she was raped by four agents from the Departamento de Ordem Política e Social (DOPS), the Brazilian secret police. She tried filing a habeas corpus petition to be allowed to walk the streets in women's clothing. Journalist José Magalhães published an article in the magazine Fatos e Fotos claiming that Jacqueline had had a surgical sex change. This news was a scandal, but it was a lie. She hadn't had it yet. Yet.

Jacqueline was registered with the Order of Musicians as an actress and singer. Through the 1960s she performed in all the concert halls of São Paulo, and many others across Brazil. She was written about in the press. Antonio often travelled across Brazil with her.

Finally in 1969 she went to Casablanca, to Dr Burou for completion surgery. She found the experience very painful, but one thing was certain in her mind: it was either that or die. Thus she was the first known Brazilian to have transgender surgery. This was two years before the first surgery in Brazil itself, that on Waldirene Nogueir by Dr Roberto Farina.

After a trip to Paris, Jacqueline returned to São Paulo in December just after the death of Artur da Costa e Silva (Brazil's seventh president and the second of the military regime), and the airport was swarming with military. Jacqueline was recognised, they told her she couldn't be dressed as a woman, and she was arrested. A female police officer took her into a room and checked inside her panties. The officer then reported that Jacqueline was indeed a woman. For a while there was confusion, but then Jacqueline was released.

On television, gay fashion designer Clodovil Hernades, known for his inappropriate comments about other people, said on the Flávio Cavalcanti show that Galiaci was neither a man nor a woman. She demanded a public retraction. She had a good lawyer, Giulio Bartolucci, and through him was able to gain the addition of 'Jacqueline' in the margin of her birth registration. The Magistrate authorized both this and the registration of her female sex.

Jacqueline’s love with Antonio lasted 32 years. She discontinued her stage career, and became one of the most respected breeders of Chihuahua dogs in São Paulo. “I have puppies in Germany, Italy, Bolivia, the United States, Portugal, in the hands of the consul of the USSR, in the family of General Couto e Silva, Nelson Gonçalves, Biro-Biro, etc,” she was quoted.

She died in 1992, age 58, of a heart attack, just after being interviewed by the Brasilian edition of Marie Claire magazine. She had exclusively granted Marie Claire two testimonials and an unpublished memoir.

Jacqueline's entry was deleted from the PT.Wikipedia in 2008, for no good reason.

• Adriano Fernandes Ferreira. Transexual como sujeito passivo de crime contra a liberdade: sexual: estupro ou atentado violento ao pudor. http://www.diritto.it/archivio/1/20258.pdf, 10.

• “Transexuais estranhos no próprio corpo”. Marie Claire, 1993. Copy Online.

• Neto Lucon & Astrid Beatriz Bodstein. “Conheça a Emocionante História de Jacqueline Galiaci, a 1ª brasileira transexual a passar pela redesignação genital” Identidade Mandacaru, 9 de marco de 2017. Online

• “Transcestrality, Travestiland, Traviarchy: the stage and gender dissidences in Brazil”. www.scielo.br, 2024. Online.

PT.Wikipedia(deletion)

Lorraine Channing (1923 - ?) magazine illustrator

Lorraine was a magazine illustrator. When Turnabout: a Magazine of Tranvestism was founded in June 1963, she was the Art Editor, working with Siobhan Fredericks and D.Rhodes/Darrell Raynor.  For the 3^rd issue in 1964 she supplied a poem, “Each Day I Live a Lie”:

Issue 1 p18

“Would that I were as other women are! Yet I am not a woman either in body or in the life they lead. I am a woman in my soul, in my fantasy. In the deep recesses of my being, I am like them. Inside me, I am one of them. How can I be !!!QI.! in their likeness?

That is what I want, yearn for, seek more than anything. Now I live only incompletely. I am in a prison -- the prison of my body, the prison of a society which does not understand.

Until I can become more like other women -- if I ever can I must live a lie, day after day. Physically I am a man; mentally and emotionally I am a woman.

I am a transsexual.”

This was reprinted in Harry Benjamin’s The Transsexual Phenomenon two years later.

Also in the 3^rd issue she started advertising as a Certified Grapho-Analytical Psychologist. For $3 and a sample of your handwriting, she would provide “a general scientific analysis of your handwriting and what it reveals of you”.

In the 4^th issue she reviewed Vance Packard’s The Naked Society on how in the 1960s in the US persons were losing their privacy.

Issue 2 p31

In the 6^th issue she reviewed Antony James’ The Abnormal World of Transvestites and Sex Changes:

“This work is so shoddy and nonsensical that if the author does enlighten his reader, the reader must be indeed beyond psychiatric help or have been too long "in the closet." Some factual information is present, but it's scanty and misleading. Disappointing also is the printing of the book ~ enough typos occur to make the least literate TV squirm in his panty girdle.”

She did illustrations for the transvestite books published by Siobhan Fredericks’ Abbé de Choisy Press, in particular for the forced femininity stories by Nan Gilbert.

Channing had become a patient of Leo Wollman, attending the office that he shared with Harry Benjamin at 1045 Park Avenue, and in September 1967 she flew to Casablanca for completion surgery by Dr Burou. This was announced in a press release by Dr Wollman, and the story was carried in the New York Daily News and elsewhere.

• Harry Benjamin. The Transsexual Phenomenon. Julian Press, 1966. Warner Books Edition 1977: 91-2. PDF: 41-2.
• Paul Meskil. “Albert Now Lorraine & the List is Growing”. New York Daily News, Oct 10, 1967

Lyn Raskin: Part II - transition

Part I: life until first visit to Benjamin clinic 

Part II: Transition

Part III: comments

Raskin was looking for a writer to write her biography, and a friend suggested Irmis Johnson, a noted journalist whom the Hearst company had sent to Copenhagen in 1953 to meet Christine Jorgensen. This had resulted in five consecutive weekly articles in the the American Weekly, actually written by Johnson but attributed to Jorgensen. Johnson expressed interest and even gave Jorgensen’s contact details. Raskin as Edward phoned several times starting the next day, and Christine told Raskin that her autobiography was being filmed. During this period Raskin continued attempting his theatre career as Edward. Wollman told Raskin that she should start to live in female clothes

In May Raskin got a reply from Dr Money at Johns Hopkins. Money said that “I had to prove my capacity to earn, dress and live as a female before undergoing irrevocable surgery” (May 3, 1969). Raskin and Wollman dismissed this as ridiculous as thry thought that drag was illegal in New York State (unlike Maryland – where Johns Hopkins is – where it was legal).

After feedback from possible publishers re an advance or not, Irmis Johnson bowed out from the project.

The next appointment at the Benjamin clinic was with Dr Benjamin himself, as Wollman would in future be seeing his patients at his Coney Island practice – although Raskin did visit him there to have a mole removed. Benjamin revealed that a) Wollman had her down as a “Type 4 – Transsexual, nonsurgical” b) the pills that Wollman had prescribed were not estrogen but Dilantin. In Jan Wälinder’s 1967 Transsexualism: a study of forty-three cases, he had reported finding an abnormal EEG in 28% of a group of transvestites and transsexuals, and that an anti-convulsive drug had led to a cessation of the desire to cross-dress in some cases. Benjamin had tested this on a few volunteers, but Wollman had prescribed surreptitiously. 

Raskin asserted strongly that she was a “Type 6 – Transsexual, true, high intensity” and that the Dilantin had not decreased her urge to transition. Benjamin asked whether Raskin would still want to become a woman if she could not have sex afterwards. Raskin replied: “I said I wouldn’t but I understand once the vagina is created you can have fulfilling sexual relations”. Benjamin gave a subscription for real estrogen. (May 3, 1969)

The visits to Benjamin were $20 and the estrogen was $3.75 for fifty capsules.

At a final visit to Wollman’s office in Coney Island to finish the warts treatment Raskin expressed her displeasure at being classified as a Type 4, and over the Dilantin.

Benjamin transferred Raskin to his new associate Charles Ihlenfeld, and Raskin went in for hormone shots every second week. Benjamin wrote a letter to excuse Raskin from jury duty. Raskin finally started electrolysis having found an electrolysist who would do it for $10 per hour (most charged $20), and also started to let her hair grow. In September she bought dresses for the first time, and tried wearing them in the apartment. She finally had her nose job with Dr Rish. She spoke to Rish re sex change operations, and he claimed that he did not do them, but mentioned a Dr Jones who required a record of cross-living. A week later she wrote to Dr Burou in Casablanca to ask his prices.

In her diary she wrote: “I have definitely decided against having any New York doctors perform the sex operation on me. They require you to come to their office and have a castration done there — with only a local anesthetic. Then a month later they complete the surgery in a hospital.” (October 8, 1969). 

Two weeks after her letter, she received an answer from Dr Burou: 

“I received your letter of October 9. The cost of surgery and 15 days of hospital is $4000. You must send it before you arrive to the enclosed address. [It was a Swiss bank.] If you can come with another patient I can do the two operations for $7000. I have not a brochure or the itinerary for transportation, but you can find that in any travel office in New York City. You have not need to bring many things. Only your clothes. You can make operation of breast implant here, but is necessary that the Doctor see you before — and difficult for me to tell you what is the cost of the operation.

                                            Sincerely yours,

PS. Please if you think coming in April send to me a confirmation for reservation.” (October 20, 1969). 

In November Raskin wrote back and said that she could afford only $2000. 

For the first time, through a common friend, Raskin met with another transsexual, and compared notes. In January 1970 Look Magazine had a feature on transsexuals. Raskin felt chagrin in that she had approached them a year previously – however Look specifically featured transsexuals who had already transitioned.

Finally Raskin started wearing female clothing outside, but only after make-up sessions and shopping with female friends. Edward told the building superintendent that his sister Lyn would be staying in the apartment. Lyn met several transsexuals at a party given by her electrolysist. She was doing electrolysis as much as six hours a week. A friend suggested Maurice Girodias’ Olympia Press to publish Lyn’s autobiography. Girodias was in New York after being pressured out of Paris in 1963. Lyn presumably did not know of his practice of not paying his writers.

Both Lyn and Edward had a joint bank account, and the manager, citing a possible discrepancy, insisted that both Lyn and Edward come in together. (May 7, 1969)

Edward had met Zelda Suplee twenty years earlier in the town of Homestead, Florida. Lyn encountered her again as she was now the director of the Erickson Educational Foundation (EEF). Zelda was due to return to Florida, and said that she would visit Lyn’s father and explain things – although when there she was unable to do more than phone him. Zelda, Lyn, Dr Wollman, Constance (who had met Lyn at their electrologist, and had recently returned from completion surgery in Casabalanca) and cis actress Pamela Lincoln (who was purportedly seeking information about transsexuals and ten years later would be in the film Tootsie) were in a 28 minute filmed discussion sponsored by EEF. By this time Raskin had a job as Lyn, working from home doing sales promotion for a music company.

Constance had reported unhygienic practices at the clinic in Casablanca. However she had a history of lying; Zelda introduced Lyn to Bonnie, also back from Casablanca, who gave a much more positive account, and had negative accounts of three friends who had had problems after gender surgery in New York.

In June one of Lyn’s aunts supplied a check for $2500 (which Lyn suspected actually came from her father). She wrote to Dr Burou saying that she could afford only $1500, and that a flight was booked. This was accepted. Only then did Raskin apply for a passport – as Edward as stated on her birth certificate.

Lyn Raskin arrived in Rabat, Morroco and then Casablanca July 7, 1970. Three days later all was complete. She returned to her apartment in New York. She still had appointments with Dr Ihlenfeld, and also with Dr Rish as she wished to increase her vaginal depth. Rish sent her to Dr Roberto Granato, who found the urethra and vagina infected. She was in Rish’s Yonkers Professional Hospital several times: for an operation on the urethra, to have her ears pinned, breasts implanted and a facial skin-peel. She started having sex with straight men, usually without mentioning her past.

Lyn’s book, Diary of a Transsexual, was published by Olympia Press in 1971. We don’t know if Maurice Girodias did pay any royalties. 

Later that year the agony aunt Ann Landers was on the tail-end of the Dick Cavett television show following a pre-op trans woman enthusing about designing her wedding dress. Landers felt that that particular trans woman was inauthentic, and resented having to comment on her performance. When Patrick M McGrady, Jr wrote this up in his 1972 book, The Love Doctors, he added a comment from Raskin as a footnote: “They should not have had that sort of person. Ann Landers had a perfect right to be upset. It was like having a guy in drag.”

Nothing is known of Lyn Raskin after that.

• Roland Berg. “The Trans-sexuals: Male or Female”. Look Magazine, January 1970. Online.
• I Am Not This Body, with Zelda Suplee, Leo Wollman, Lyn Raskin, Constance and Pamela Lincoln. EEF, US 28 mins 1971.
• Lyn Raskin. Diary of a Transsexual. The Olympia Press, 1971.
• Patrick M McGrady, Jr. The Love Doctors. Macmillan, 1972: 165-6, footnote.

Latina Seville (1940 - ) performer

The boy who later grew up to be Latina Seville was pretty and grew neither body nor facial hair, and because of this was called ‘fruit’ or ‘queer’ at school, often by the same bullies who made passes when they were alone. 

Age 16 having dropped out of school and gone to New York, she became Latina Seville, found work as a female impersonator, and lived fulltime as female. She was recruited by the Jewel Box Revue, and with them travelled across the USA. As also happened at Le Carrousel in Paris, conversation among the Jewel Box performers often drifted to discussions about sex changes, especially with Dr Borou in Casablanca. 

She often felt lonely and had difficulties relating to men, and thought that it would be easier as a completed woman. She wrote to Dr Burou giving a complete medical history. He accepted her and gave her a date in July 1963 – she was then 22. She saved up, got a passport and went. 

The bill was $2,500. She was told no sex for six months after the operation. She recuperated at her mother’s, and practiced Flamenco dancing. Under the impression that being post-op she could no longer work as a female impersonator, she became a stripper with a Flamenco opening. This went well and her salary doubled and then tripled. But she could not handle the men who were pushy about making passes. 

After six months she had a close male friend make love to her, but experienced no pleasure. She thought that perhaps she still thought like a man, and started seeing psychiatrists who advised that she adjust to herself.

At age 25 she wrote an account of herself for the National Insider, saying that she wanted to be a man again. As they often did, the National Insider recycled her article in a book later that year as a supplement to Abby Sinclair’s autobiography and an essay by Carlson Wade mainly about eunuchs and castratos.

She was not heard of again.

• Latina Seville. “I Want to be a Man Again”. The National Insider, 6,7, Feb 14 & 6,8 Feb 21, 1965.
• Latina Seville “I Want to be Male Again” in Abby Sinclair, George Griffith, Carlson Wade & Latina Seville. I Was Male. Novel Books. 95 pp 1965.
• Liam Oliver Lair. Disciplining Diagnoses: Sexology, Eugenics, and Trans* Subjectivities. PhD thesis, University of Kansas, 2016 : 147n95.

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Remember this is 1963-5.   The amount of information available to prospective trans women was miniscule compared to what we have today.  Obviously she did need advice from someone who had already transitioned.   She also needed advice from women (cis or trans) on how to handle pushy men.  

Do women think differently than men do?  She writes: "Maybe this is because I still think like a man.  I know what they are thinking, I know what they want from me.  Many guys have asked me how I got so hip, how I know just what they're going to say before they say it."  This is learned anticipation.  There are many cis women who can do it - especially prostitutes, but not only prostitutes.

If you are not the party type, or not good at socializing, and end up feeling lonely, a gender change will not change that.

$2,500 in 1963 is almost $25,000 today.

Dolly Van Doll (1938 - ) performer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carla and Fernando later divorced, but remained good friends.

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

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

IMDB

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

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

Abby Sinclair (1938 - ) performer

Sinclair was raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn. By age 14 Sinclair was starting to be perceived as gender variant, and at age 17 left home and found work as a female impersonator at the Circus Bar in Miami.  

However the club closed after two years, and Sinclair returned home, and found a sympathetic doctor who found female hormones in a blood sample.  Sinclair was then drafted, and explained the circumstances to the medical officer.  

“I was told I would get a discharge, not because I wasn’t physically fit to serve, but for psychological reasons.  I Waited four months to be processed out and then suddenly I learned that my company was being sent to Trieste.”  

An officer in Trieste was sympathetic and arranged for Sinclair to serve as a hospital orderly.

After discharge Sinclair rented an apartment in Manhattan, and found work as a female impersonator in clubs on Long Island and in the Catskills, sometimes with the Jewel Box Revue.  This was supplemented by work as a photographer’s model, usually in furs – this paid up to $70 an hour. She was by now taking female hormones, and having electrolysis to remove facial hair, and she had been told of the outstanding work of Dr Burou in Casablanca.

They corresponded, and then Abby with a female friend for support travelled to Casablanca.  The operation cost $5,000. A few weeks later, they were in Paris. Abby even had a brief fling with a count who took her to the Riviera.

Back in Manhattan, Abby became a stripper – one known to be transsexual.  In Summer 1965 Female Mimics magazine ran a photo-spread on her and announced that she was to wed a New York Lawyer.

• Watson Crews. “Sex Change Breaks Up Old Gang of His (Hers)”. New York Sunday News, 43, 47, March 22, 1964: 1-3,26.  Online.
• “MD’s Knife Changed my Sex”.  The National Insider, 5, 14, Oct 18, 1964.
• Abby Sinclair, George Griffith, Carlson Wade & Latina Seville. I Was Male. Novel Books. 95 pp 1965.
• “Abby Sinclair .. Ex-GI now a Bride-to-be”.  Female Mimics, 1, 6, August 1965: 54-63”. Online.
• “Dear Abby: A Change is Gonna Come”.  Pulp International, Oct 18 2011. Online. 
• Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Harvard University Press, 2002: 199-201.

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$70 in 1963 is equivalent to $580 now.

$5000.00 is equivalent to $42,000 now.

Betty (?1938 - ?) female impersonator, salesgirl, model

Betty was raised in the US Northwest, one of five children. He was initially permitted to dress as a girl, but his parents divorced when he was five, and the step-father objected to the cross-dressing.

At 15, Betty was raped. At 16 she read about Christine Jorgensen and knew what she wanted. She had seen the Jewel Box Review when it came to town, and a close friend had obtained a position there as a chorus boy. After winning first prize at a local Halloween ball she sent photographs to the friend at Jewel Box Review, and got back a wire from the manager offering a job.

She grew her hair to shoulder length, which led to complications when out in male guise – this being over a decade before men began growing their hair long. After a two-month club residency, the troupe played Betty’s home town, and then she was laid off.

She asked her parents to permit that she have a sex change – she being a minor – but they refused, and at their request she visited a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist discovered what Betty already knew: she was androphilic and desperately wanted to become a woman. She continued to find find work as a female impersonator.

At age 20, after a period of despondency at not having a female body, he decided to return to being a man, cut his hair short and then volunteered to join the US Navy. He was almost rejected when the medical inspection discovered the old rape, but he asserted that he had been a victim, and was accepted. He was assigned to record keeping, and deployed to Japan, where he quickly discovered the gay bars, and then a male geisha house. Citing his female impersonator experience, he was taken on as a male geisha. She had a thrill when several of her shipmates came into the bar, but they did not recognize her. Back in the US he had an affair with a man in Oklahoma City.

One day after being honorably discharged she was back on the stage as a female impersonator. During a nine-month engagement at a “well-known club” in New York, she met two performers who had transitioned, and knew instantly that she wanted to do the same. She grew her hair again, and started going out as a woman, quite successfully even before starting female hormones. When her show went on tour, she stayed in New York to continue hormone treatment. She found another job as an impersonator-dancer at a “major nightspot”.

Late in 1961 she was invited to the table of a man, an ambassador of a Latin American country, who invited her first to have a drink, and then offered to pay for her transformation. He “took me to an internationally famous endocrinologist, whose prices I could never have afforded”. She also underwent electrolysis to eliminate her facial hair.

A year later, July 1962, she was ready for surgery, and the ambassador arranged a trip to Casablanca. In Paris she was joined by another impersonator making the same journey. The cost at the Casablanca clinic was US$1250. The operation apparently went well. However a week later when she was back in Paris, she suffered continual vaginal bleeding, and went to a US hospital. A week of douching fixed the problem. On return to the US, Betty felt obliged to explain to immigration why she had only female clothes in her suitcase: that she was a professional female impersonator.

For a few months she worked as a prostitute, “to prove to myself that I was really a woman”, but then found such work distasteful. She worked as a salesgirl, and as a fashion model. She finally won acceptance from her mother and step-father. She started writing, with the aid of professional writer, her autobiography. During the mid-1960s she acted as a confessor and adviser to other transsexuals in the city.

• Harry Benjamin. The Transsexual Phenomenon. Julian Press, 1966. Warner Books Edition 1977: 239-255, 308-313.

________________________________

The Transsexual Lives Appendix to Harry Benjamin’s book by REL Masters says that “Betty” is a pseudonym, although she uses it for herself in her autobiographical segment. Other than that we do not have a name for her.

It is a problem for the historian that Betty does not give the name of the clubs where she works, or the doctors that she went to, although the “internationally famous endocrinologist, whose prices I could never have afforded” is obviously Benjamin and the surgeon in Casablanca is obviously Dr Burou. If there is any information about her after 1966, it is not found in that we do not have her name. Is the “well-known club” in New York the 82 Club?

Jan Morris also had need of further medical attention after returning from Dr Burou’s clinic.

One wonders if the unnamed ambassador asked for anything, sexual of otherwise in return. However we have come across another rich man, Rex/Gloria who paid for younger trans women to go to Dr Burou without such requests.

The information about Betty is in two parts. An excerpt from her unpublished autobiography, and a clinical overview by Masters. Despite having her account to consult, Masters is sloppy with facts. He puts her first attempt at surgery, which was vetoed by the parents, before the first period of working as an impersonator; he says that Betty joined the Army rather than the Navy. Also he continues to refer to Betty as ‘he’ even after surgery.

We have no information about Betty after Benjamin's book in 1966.

Deborah Hartin (1933 -2005) sailor, activist

The AP wire photo of Debbie

Austin Hartin joined the US Navy in 1953. He married while serving in Florida the next year. Later Hartin would explain that he married to escape from having to live in the all-male environment on the navy base. A daughter, Deborah, was born a year later. The Hartins separated in 1957.

Hartin became a patient of Leo Wollman, and then had surgery from Dr Burou in Casablanca, April 16 1970. She was granted a divorce later that year from the wife not seen since 1957. A name change to Deborah Hartin was also granted. The mother retained custody of the daughter. The case attracted press attention as it was one of the first divorce cases where one party had transitioned.

In 1971 Debbie was featured on local cable television and in Screw magazine. Both appearances included a clear view of her vagina. Later, in March the Queens Liberation Front presented themselves in a class on homosexuality at New York University, where Debbie also spoke. Later Debbie spoke about her problems with ‘her family, her neighbors and her daughter’ at a meeting that was supposed to be the inaugural meeting of Transsexuals Anonymous held at the office of Dr Benito Rish.

That same year she was on the New York David Susskind Show, and later was filmed being interviewed and examined by Leo Wollman. Again this examination included a close-up of her vagina. The segment was eventually incorporated in the 1978-released film Born A Man... Let Me Die A Woman. She was living with her parents at that time.

from Let Me Die a Woman

Deborah had been able to get her name and sex changed on her baptismal certificate and certificate of discharge from the navy. She applied to get the same changes on her New York birth certificate. The name was changed but sex left blank. The Bureau of Records had adopted a committee report in 1965 to omit a sex designation from amended birth certificates for transsexuals. This had been tested legally but unsuccessfully in Matter of Anonymous v. Weiner, 1966. This was re-inforced by an amendment to the New York City Health Code which was adopted unanimously in 1971 that a re-issued birth certificate for a transsexual should not indicate the applicant’s sex. Nevertheless Deborah sued the Director of the Bureau of Records in 1973 in that she was not issued a revised birth certificate saying ‘female’ and that this was arbitrary and capricious and constituted an abuse of discretion. However the court denied her suit ruling that the Board had acted in a rational manner and made no error with regard to their own rules. They cited the 1966 precedent.

In 1976, Jude Patton and Deborah were guests on the syndicated The Phil Donahue Show.

Deborah died age 71.

• “Father divorced, wants to remarry as woman”. Seattle Daily Times, October 7, 1970: F1. Online.
  
• “Transsexual Divorce Is Approved”. Mobile Register, October 8, 1970: 7F. Online.
  
• Heidi Handman. “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Mother”. Screw, 109, April 5, 1971: 4,center spread.
  
• Drag, 1,3, 1971: 10. Online
  
• Garry Pownall, “AV View”. New Scientist, 54, 793, 27 April 1972: 221. Online
  
• Hartin V. Dir. Of Bur. Of Recs. Supreme Court, New York County, August 3, 1973. Online
  
• Doris Wishman (dir). Born A Man... Let Me Die A Woman. Hosted by Leo Wollman, with trans persons Deborah Harte, Leslie, Lisa Carmelle, Ann Zordi, and porn stars Harry Reem, Angel Spirit and Vanessa del Rio. Scientific and medical advisor: Dr Leo Wollman. US 78 mins 1978. Debbie is featured from 90-100 minutes.
  
• M.J. Lucas. Let Me Die A Woman: The Why and How of Sex-Change Operations. New York: Rearguard Productions. 1978: 22-4.
• Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge, Ma, London: Harvard University Press, 2002: 202, 236, 249, 278.
  
• Samuel E Bartos. “Letting "privates" be private: Toward a right of gender self-determination”. Cardozo Journal of Law and Gender, 15,67, 2008. 

EN.Wikipedia     IMDB

__________________________________________

Deborah is the only trans woman that I have come across who took her daughter's name.

Capucine (193?–) performer

Original March 2007.

Capucine was a performer at Le Carrousel and was frequently mentioned along with Coccinelle and Bambi.

Capucine and Coccinelle

April Ashley comments:

"Anyway, Capucine's heart was pierced by a conflict: the ancient sugar-daddy and luxury, or the young blades and penury?  Of course the luxury always won in the end because Capucine's keeper was a very famous millionaire, enabling Capsy to compete with and overtake Coxy's mink collection.  But unlike Coxy, Capsy wanted to be 'a lady' as well.  This put him into agonising quandries when he fell for a bricklayer or a road-digger (which was frequently, because Capsy couldn't resist the boue)."

In 1960, the same year as Bambi and April, Capucine went to Dr Burou clinic in Casablanca for surgical completion.

In 1961 she starred in the Amsterdam extension of Madame Arthur. In 1963 she was part of the first Le Carousel tour of Japan. She also performed at Le Boeuf sur le Toit in Paris.

*Not the French film actress.

• Vittorio Sala (dir).  I don giovanni della Costa Azzurra.  With Curd Jurgens, Coccinelle and  Capucine.  Italy 98 mins 1962.  IMDB
  
• “Capucine”. Female Mimics,1,6, August 1965: 27-37. Online.
  
• Duncan Fallowell & April Ashley. April Ashley's Odyssey. Jonathan Cape, 1982: 67-8. Arrow 1983. Online.

_________________

Capucine is the French word for the nasturtium flower.

Unlike Coccinelle, Bambi and April Ashley, Capucine never published her autobiography. We don't even know where she came from. Is she Parisian? Nor, what happened to her after the mid 1960s. The Female Mimics article is mainly photographs with content-less text. There is an obvious comparison to Hans Crystal who was in also a star female impersonator at the 82 Club, had her surgical completion in the mid 1960s, and likewise disappeared from view.

There is a confusing tradition among drag performers of taking the name of an established cis star. Germaine Lefebvre (more) was an established French film star from the early 1950s using the name Capucine. Other drag performers to take an established name include Lynne Carter who took his name from the 1940s actress; Murry Pickford , was not Mary Pickford); Gloria Swanson (who was a big name in Chicago and New York drag circles in in 1920s, but not the Hollywood actress): Jean Malin who performed drag under the name of Imogene Wilson, one of the most famous of the Zeigfeld Follies showgirls otherwise known as Mary Nolan; Helen Morgan who used the name of the famous torch song singer; Brenda Lee the Brazilian activist who was not the country singer; and Bibíana Fernández, the transgender actress who used to be known as Bibí Andersen, only two letters away from the name of the Swedish actress Bibi Andersson.

Both IMDB and EN.Wikipedia claim that the Capucine in I don giovanni della Costa Azzurra (Beach Casanova) is the other Capucine, Germaine Lefebvre (1928 – 1990). This conflation went so far that after Lefebre took her life in 1990 by jumping from her eighth-floor Lausanne apartment, some actually said that she did so because she was transsexual.  !!!

---------

For some reason, Capucine is not mentioned at all in April Ashley's second autobiography, The First Lady.

Jo Shanley (1936 - ) machinist

Joseph Shanley of Billerica, Massachusetts, had felt since childhood that he was the wrong sex. In 1969, at age 33, Shanley went to Casablanca and had surgery with Dr Burou.

However on return Shanley continued dressing as a man to keep his job as a machinist. Shanley dressed and lived as Jo outside work.

Shanley retired in 2001, and with her sister, Ann Cavanaugh, bought a house in Claremont, New Hampshire. After a few weeks, it was apparent that the arrangement was not working, and the house was put back on the market. On October 4^th three real estate agents and two prospective buyers heard gunshots, found Shanley apparently intoxicated, and Cavanaugh dead on a bedroom floor.

Joseph Shanley was arrested, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and was sentenced to 22 years to life. Shanley also filed a motion to be declared a woman. The state attorneys objected to the motion on procedural and jurisdictional grounds in that the court had no power to make such a ruling.

However, after Shanley's physical state was confirmed, the prosecutors were agreeable that she be placed in a Connecticut prison with a special transgender unit. A year later she was transferred to the Correctional Center for Women, in Purdy, Washington.

• Stephen Seitz. "Murderer's pre-sentence plea: I am a woman" The Union Leader, October 8, 2002. Online at: http://avitale.com/VL.238-10.14.2002.htm.
  
• "Murderer Who Had Sex Change Sentenced to Transgendered Unit". Corrections.com, 12/16/2002. www.corrections.com/articles/7993-murderer-who-had-sex-change-sentenced-to-transgendered-unit.
  
• "Prison near Purdy houses transsexual murderer". Seattle PI, December 7, 2003. www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Prison-near-Purdy-houses-transsexual-murderer-1131533.php.
  

__________________________________________________________

There are unanswered questions.   Was the sister unaware of Jo’s womanhood?   If not, what was Jo thinking in agreeing to share a house?  Shanley was presenting as male at the time of arrest, even though she had retired and moved to another town.

Jan Morris (1926 - 2020) Part 2: transition and empire

Part 1: youth and journalism.
Part 2: transition and empire.
Part 3: travel writer.

Morris investigated transsexualism. One winter evening in Ludlow he found a half-price copy of Lile Elvenes (Elbe)'s Man into Woman, and "with what agonies of embarrassment" bought it. Morris also read Robert Stoller, an unspecified account of Charlotte D'Eon and one transsexual novel: Geoff Brown's I Want What I Want.

"I trod the long well-beaten, expensive and fruitless path of the Harley Street psychiatrists and sexologists, one after the other, getting their names from their published works, or being passed from one to the other. None of them in those days, I now realize, knew anything about the matter at all, though none of them admitted it."

Morris was one of thirty cases featured in Georgina Turtle's Over the Sex Border, 1963. In 1964 Morris was in New York and visited Harry Benjamin, who advised him that a change of body must be a last resort, and that he should try working life as a man. Shortly afterwards Morris obtained an appointment with a London endocrinologist who said:

"What it would do to your personality or your talent, we cannot say. It is a grave decision to take, but it must be your own. You do know what you are doing?"

Morris returned to Venice with a box of oestrogen tablets, but considered the advice of both men and flushed them down a lavatory. However a subsequent prescription from Dr Benjamin he did take.

During this time Mottis was preparing a Empire trilogy, Pax Britannica.

With the support of Elizabeth, Morris lived as a woman in Oxford, but travelled the British Empire androgynously, sometimes being taken as male, and sometimes as female. Jan was issued a new passport 'without any indication of sex at all'.

Word of course got around. Morris' old tutor at Christ Church College had heard from a colleague at Harvard before being told directly. Some in London knew of Jan but others only of James. Private Eye magazine jested that if Morris were invited to a function 'dressed informally', it was Jan who was expected. At their other home in Pwllheli, Gwynedd in North Wales, Jan and Elizabeth presented as sisters-in-law to explain why two women had the same surname.

The first volume of James' trilogy, The Climax of Empire, was published in 1968 to mixed reviews but commercial success. In 1971 Morris was invited to write a short book on the Cascade Mountains and she and Elizabeth travelled by boat and car along the range being accepted as two women.

However "The book was still-born, all the same, for in Chapter Three the publishers discovered my unquenchable antipathy to the Douglas Fir".

Jan had been accepted in the program at Charing Cross Hospital Gender Clinic, but it was insisted that Jan and Elizabeth be divorced before surgery.

"I saw his point, for he could not know the nature of the relationship between us. And indeed I recognized that we must be divorced in the end. But after a lifetime of fighting my own battles I did not feel in a mood to offer my destiny like a sacrifice upon the benches of Her Majesty's judges. Who knew what degradations we might both endure? What business was it of theirs, anyway?"

Jan completed transitioned to Jan in 1972 at age 46, with two weeks in the clinic of Dr Georges Burou in Casablanca. She was in his clinic the same time as Carol Riddell.

"Dr B--'s craftmanship, though aesthetically brilliant, was functionally incomplete, and I underwent two further sessions of surgery in an English nursing home."

She commented on being a woman:

"I don't feel it incumbent on me to read Kate Millet and Germaine Greer. I like being a woman. But I mean a woman! I like having my suitcase carried. I like gossiping with the lady upstairs. If Elizabeth would let me, I'd be wildly extravagant about clothes, though I must say I'm not much interested in cooking. Never was. And yes, I like to be liked by men."

______________________________________________________________________________

Morris' comment that she needed further surgery on return to the UK is very imprecise. Does it mean that Burou's technique was not as good as we are told in other autobiographies?

The statement that Jan was issued a new passport 'without any indication of sex at all' means less than it appears.  I was granted the same privilege 16 years later.   The old pre-European-Union UK passports had no 'sex' box to be filed with either 'F' or 'M'.  Sex, or gender as we would now say, was merely implicit from the person's honorific: Lord, Lady, Sir, Dame, Mr, Mrs, Miss.   Despite the ruling in Corbett v. Corbett, the UK Passport Office dealt with transsexuals by simply not putting a honorific.   Incidentally doctors (PhD or MD) were issued passports that said Dr and were therefore gender neutral if the person's name and photograph permitted.  This is a much better solution than the new fashion in the 2010s of issuing a passport with gender=X.

Nana (1939 - ) sex worker, performer. housewife, Place Blanche , Paris circa 1960

Nana was raised in Oran, Algeria. In 1955 she met Bambi and others in the Le Carrousel cast who were on tour. Nana realized instantly that was what she wanted to do.

There was a roundup of the queers in Oran in August 1957. However Nana had already left as her brother had told her that their parents had intended to have her locked up with the Ain Sefrah White Fathers, a Catholic order.

Nana arrived in Paris 5 August 1957, presenting as male but having already started female hormones. Nana and a friend took a room at the hotel Fairyland. The friend knew Fetiche who was a performer at Chez Madame Arthur, and Nana sewed for her in addition to working in a travel agency.

Nana's mother turned up in 1958 and took a room in the same hotel. She intended to take her son back to have him locked up by the White Fathers. However a flare-up in the ongoing War for Independence closed all the Algerian airports. Mother was able to get herself home by phoning the secretary of a minister whom she knew. Only one seat was available.

Nana was increasingly dressing as female. She left the travel-agency job, and met the Swedish photographer  Christer Strömholm.

She started to solicit in the Place Pigalle. The pimps at that time left the trans women alone for they would lose status as a man by pimping them. The police frequently arrested the trans women and charged them with being dressed as a woman outside the carnival period. As she was from Algeria she was called a 'dirty Arab'.

One summer Nana and a friend went to the South. Nana was arrested in that her ID card said that she was a man. The policeman even paid for a barber to cut her hair, and then she had to hitchhike back to Paris looking like a man in women`s clothes as those were the only clothes that she had.

In 1959 Nana created an act and obtained work at le Fifty, a cabaret on rue Fontaine. She worked in Cabarets until she was 45, but also kept working the streets.

One time a pimp slapped her and claimed that she owed 5,000 Fr for working on 'his' territory. Nana had to go and see the local godfather, and argue that she was not a woman.

Through Christer Strömholm, Nana was introduced to several artists. In 1970 Nana moved to Luxembourg to live with a boyfriend. In 1972 she had surgery with Dr Burou in Casablanca; in 1977 she met a lawyer in Lyon who was able to effect her change of Civil Status, and her name became Eva. She and her boyfriend were married in 1980.

• Hélène Hazera interviews Nana. "Aujord'hui Nana Se Raconts". In Christer Strömholm. Les Amies De Place Blanche. Stockport: Dewi Lewis, 2011: 50-9.

Nana 1959

Marcella Di Folco (1943 - 2010) film actor, activist, councillor

Marcello was raised in Rome. After school he worked as a porter at the Hotel Rivoli, and then from 1965 at the Piper Club.

In 1969 Di Folco had to deliver a letter to the Cinecitta film studios, where he was spotted by director Frederico Fellini and given a part in Fellini Satyricon. From then till 1980 Di Folca appeared in several more Fellini films, and even more films by other directors. He was credited as Marcello Di Falco (actually the originally spelling of the family name).

Cross-acting as the Prince in Amarcord, 1973

In 1980 Di Folco did what she had wanted for many years and had transgender surgery with Dr Burou in Casablanca. On return Marcella worked as an intercontinental operator for Italcable.

Marcella 1999

She became an active participant in the newly founded Movimento Italiano Transessuali which achieved legal recognition of changed gender two years later. In 1986 Marcella moved to Bologna where MIT had its headquarters, and two years later became its president. In 1990 Marcella was elected to the Bologna City Council, and again from 1995-9.

In 1994 MIT opened in Bologna the world's first gender identity clinic managed by transsexuals. In 2000 she persuaded the Equal Opportunities Minister to set up a Gender Identity Commission.

In 2001 she was a Girasole (Sunflower, ie Green) list candidate. In 2004 she was Communist candidate for the European Parliament and for the Provincial Council of Bologna. In 2006 she was a Green Candidate for the Senate.

Marcella died aged 67 of a tumour.

A Bologna street has been named in her honour.

• "È morta Marcella Di Folco. Il principe di «Amarcord», icona dei trans: Scoperta da Fellini, che la rese indimenticabile nella scena della Gradisca. Attivista politica, fu la prima consigliere comunale transessuale". Corriere di Bologna, 07 settembre 2010. http://corrieredibologna.corriere.it/bologna/notizie/cronaca/2010/7-settembre-2010/morta-marcella-folco-principe-amarcord-icona-trans--1703715074389.shtml
  
• "R.I.P. Marcella Di Folco". The Wild Eye, September 9, 2010. www.thewildeye.co.uk/blog/latest-news/r-i-p-marcella-di-folco.
  
• "In ricordo di Marcella di Folco: Auguri Marcella!". LaMetamorfosi. www.lametamorfosiftm.com/2011/03/in-ricordo-di-marcella-di-folco-auguri.html.
  
• "Sel e Pd: 'A Bologna una via dedicata a Marcella di Folco'". gay.it, 7 Settembre 2011. www.gay.it/channel/attualita/32376/Sel-e-Pd-A-Bologna-una-via-dedicata-a-Marcella-di-Folco.html.
  

LIBEROCINEMA     IT.WIKIPEDIA    IMDB     WIKIPINK

The Italian sites claim that Marcella was the first open trans person elected to a city council.  Not to diminish her achievement, but Rachel Webb was elected to Lambeth Council in 1986, and Mark Rees to Tunbridge Wells Borough Council in 1994.

Giorgia O’Brien (1928 - 2004) singer, actor.

Giorgio Montana, born in Palermo, Sicily, was keen on singing and spent eight years in amateur choirs. He had the unusual ability to switch between baritone and soprano. He was almost accepted at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, but a man who could sing soprano did not have the respectability then required.

He worked in Germany and France, often en travesti. One of his co-workers was Coccinelle. On return to Italy he became a star of the avanspettacolo, and performed at Rome's Teatro Ambra Jovinelli, singing both pop and opera.

In 1970 Giorgia completed transition with De Burou in Casablanca. She changed her surname to O'Brien in homage to Margaret O'Brien who played Beth in the 1949 version of Little Women.

Giorgia worked three years at Milan's Teatro Piccolo, and collaborated with Franco Zeffirelli and Guiseppe Bertolucci. The latter cast her in his 1979 film, Oggetti smarriti. Giorgia was noted for her rendition of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries wherein she sang both Brunnhilde (soprano) and Wotan (bass).

In 1985 she and Christine Jorgensen were featured in the Danish documentary about transsexuals, Paradiset er ikke til salg. 

In 1991 she was cast as the wife of the minister in Johnny Stecchino in 1991. In real life she became the wife of Georges Argand.

In 1998 she revived her half-man-half-woman act.

Giorgia died at the age of 76 after a short illness. Her husband died shortly afterwards.

• Teit Ritzau (dir). Paradiset er ikke til salg (Paradise Is Not for Sale). With Giorgia O’Brien and Christine Jorgensen. Denmark 60 mins 1985.
  
• Gianfranco Mingozzi (dir). Giorgio/a Una storia di Transessualsimo attraverso una diva dello spettacolo. With Giorgia O’Brien. Italy 2004.
  
• "Giorgia O'Brien, Uomo dalla voce d'angelo". ANSA. www.ansa.it/opencms/export/site/notizie/rubriche/daassociare/visualizza_new.html_790972343.html.
  
• "Giorgia O'Brien" MaleSoulMakeUp: Queer Culture Blog, 7 giugno 2011. http://malesoulmakeup.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/giorgia-obrien.
  

IT.WIKIPEDIA    IMDB

Jean Lessenich (1942 - ) artist

Lessenich, from Remagen, was educated in graphic design in Cologne. After a failed marriage and a period as a prostitute, she completed transition in 1973 with surgery from Dr Burou in Casablanca.

This was at a time when advertising was trendy and sexy and Jean obtained work as art director for advertising agencies in Dusseldorf and Frankfurt, and later as a freelance illustrator for magazines in Hamburg and Munich.

Through friends she was able to make extended trips to Japan and to visit Native Americans. In 1985 she returned to living as a man so that she could marry her Japanese lover and obtain for her permanent residency in West Germany. Her lover died in 1996.

Jean returned to being female. Now in her seventies, she continues to participate in art exhibits.

She does not identify with the idea of a female soul in a male body, or say that she always was a woman, although she did want to be a girl when young. She chose Jean as a name in that it is male in French and female in English.

• Jean Lessenich. Nun bin ich die ewig junge Hirschkuh oder der Ajilee Mann. Edition Suhrkamp 1988.
• Jean Lessenich. Mit den Zähnen am Zweig. Selbstverlag 200.
• Jean Lessenich.Die transzendierte Frau. Eine Autobiografie. Gießen 2012, Psychosozial-Verlag.
  
• Andrea Bronstering. "Die transzendierte Frau: Eine Autobiografie: Amazon.de". Transgenderradio Berlin, 2012. http://am-toerichten-bach.de/blog-2/index.html.
  
• I Am a Woman Now. Michiel van Erp (dir) with April Ashley, Marie-Pierre Pruvot, Colette Berends, Jean Lessenich, Corinne van Tongerloo. Netherlands 80 mins 2011.
  
• Am törichten Bach: Die Stimme des Tales ist Buddhas weite und lange Zunge. http://am-toerichten-bach.de.
  

DE.WIKIPEDIA

Rex/Gloria (190? -1970) businessman

Rex, of Clarion, Pennsylvania, became a millionaire early in life. He married several times, and had a large alimony bill. He was 6'4" (1.9 m). In the early 1960s a stroke partially immobilized his face.

 A keen cross-dresser, he felt that he was too old for surgery, but enjoyed the presence of younger trans women. As Gloria, he networked through Transvestia, and was featured in the February 1963 issue. Katherine Cummings recorded her visit to his estate later that year.

From that time until his death, Gloria sponsored young trans women, took them into his house, paid for them to go to Dr Burou's clinic in Casablanca, and other expenses. Gloria called this his Girl Factory. He also had a home in the Hollywood Hills, California, and networked with the trans scene there.

• Lillian Faderman & Stuart Timmons. Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians. New York: Basic Books, 2006: 114-5. 
• Robert S. Hill. ‘As a man I exist; as a woman I live’: Heterosexual Transvestism and the Contours of Gender and Sexuality in Postwar America. PhD Dissertation. University of Michigan. 2007: 157, 415.
• Kate Cummings. Katherine's Diary - the Story of a Transsexual. William Heinemann Australia 1992. Revised and updated 2008: 154-6.
  

Colette Berends (1934 - 2012) performer, beautician, fabric artist.

Berends was raised in Zwolle, Overijssel, Netherlands. After a few years of window dresser, she went to Amsterdam and found work in a nightclub as a travestie, and later appeared at Madame Arthur in Amsterdam and Paris.

She had breast augmentation in 1956, and made the transition to regular night clubs, and sang and danced in clubs all over Europe and North Africa. She completed transition to Colette with surgery from Georges Burou in 1971. Two Moroccan gynaecologists certified that she had all the external characteristics of a woman. Three months later, with the help of the noted endocrinologist, Dr O de Vaal, she was able to have her birth certificate re-issued.

“Some people said: the most remarkable fact is that you remained precisely the same person, but now it looks more natural. Indeed, I remained the same. Some transsexuals totally reject their past. They tear apart old photo albums in order not to be reminded by the past. However, I have also lived before my surgery and in some way I was happy too. This is not bothering me too much. I am as I am, I do not impose anything on myself. Sometimes they say: as a woman you have to behave such and such. Nonsense. Even should I have a male characteristic. I don’t know if I have one - then it is like that and that makes me not unhappy.”.

She continued as a performer until she was 48. This gave her the money and the time to take holidays all around the world. Colette then returned to Zwolle, despite the fact that she and her past were known there. At first she opened a beauty salon, but became known for her artistic work with tapestries, for which she has won many awards.

She spent the last 30 years of her life with the same boyfriend, Ton. She died at age 77.

• Colette Berends. "Van jongen tot vrouw met allure". Zwolsche Courant, 21 maart 1986. Online at: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/Colette/Web%20Files/Van%20jongen%20tot%20vrouw%20met%20allure.htm. English translation: “From boy to women with style”. http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/Colette/Article1/Article1-English.html.
• Jolanda Jansen. “Colette houdt ons voor het lapje”. Telgraaf, 9 februari 1991. Online at: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/Colette/Web%20Files/Colette%20houdt%20ons%20voor%20het%20lapje.htm. English translation by Puck Berends: “Colette creates unexpected delights”. http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/Colette/Article2/Article2-English.html.
• Taarna. “Fiber art - Colette Berends”. Pinterest. http://pinterest.com/taarna/fiber-art-colette-berends.
• “Colette Berends - Textielkunst van Colette Berends “. www.coletteberends.exto.nl.
• I Am a Woman Now. Michiel van Erp (dir) with April Ashley, Marie-Pierre Pruvot, Colette Berends, Jean Lessenich, Corinne van Tongerloo. Netherlands 80 mins 2011.
• Berthi Smith-Sanders. “Colette Berends 13.10.1934 – 23.4.2012”. Berthi’s Weblog, 11-05-2012. http://berthi.textile-collection.nl/2012/05/10/colette-berends-13-10-1934-23-4-2012.

TS Successes