Mark Angelo Cummings (1964–) Part I: occupational therapist, Latino television personality.

Maritza DelCarmen Perdomo was born in Havana, of partial Taino heritage. From the age of three she was obviously a masculine girl, and constantly had problems with wearing dresses.

The family emigrated to Florida when she was five. She became a crack addict during a stint in the US Army. Afterwards Maritza went wild in the Miami gay scene, and at 24 made a last-ditch attempt to go straight by marrying a 55-year-old Englishman. However the marriage quickly fell apart as did several lesbian affairs. In one case the intention was to start a family, but Maritza was unable to get pregnant.

At age 38 in 2002 Maritza had become a bodybuilder and occupational therapist, where she took up with Violet who worked in the same gym. She was asked if she was transitioning, based on her appearance, but she did not understand the term until she looked it up on the internet.

"The sky just like opened up. There are others like me. It was like a revelation."

Mark Cummings, as he became, went from an initial consultation with a therapist, to hormone therapy, to a full mastectomy and hysterectomy with Dr Harold Reed in Miami, to a legal name and gender change in just five months.

"It was the easiest thing. I don't let grass grow under my feet. I was fulfilling my destiny. This is what I was supposed to be."

He and Violet were then legally married. To Mark's surprise it was his father alone in family who accepted him.

Violet and Mark, 2004

In January 2006 Mark and Violet appeared on the syndicated Maury Povich Show to great success.

"Well, Maury, I want viewers to know that being transgender is not a sin, a crime, or a deviant behavior. What it is, is a birth defect. We are human beings with feelings, and all we ask is the respect... "

Following this, he was contacted by the Anderson family in Florida who were attempting to enrol their trans daughter, Nicole, in school. They were said to be the first US family to support a trans child in this way. Mark immediately agreed to help. He wrote in response to a negative posting:

"My mother did everything within her power to make me a girl, although, I knew other wise. When I met The Andersons, I had only wish they could have been my parents. When I met Nicole, I bonded instantly, and felt, what a lucky girl she is. Gender Dysphoria is real. To tell you the truth, there will be an epidemic of it. You see at 8 weeks time when the brain and central nervous system is being developed, exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals ( pesticide, herbicides, fungicides, and estrogenic compounds such as soy products) alter the typical pathways that hard wires the brain to be a boy or girl brain. The weight of scientific evidence demonstrates that Transsexualism is biologically based."

He also wrote to the school board offering to educate and train teachers himself – an offer that was declined. He persuaded the Andersons to talk to a reporter. They were grateful, but sometimes found him a bit overwhelming.

Mark became a celebrity on US Spanish-language television for his open and outspoken appearances explaining his gender change and wowing the Latino television hosts. Again he explained transgenderism as a birth defect resulting from environmental toxins. Later that year Mark Cummings published his 79 page autobiography wherein he described the anguish he felt living in a female body:

“Being in the wrong body is a crime. Death is appealing to those of us, who are encased in the wrong shell, who are trapped in a flesh of darkness, that ...sickens us to the point of madness” (pp 33).

Mark and Violet opened a wellness center business. He also wrote and performed music and toured with his life story.

Continued in Part II.

_______________________________________________________________________________

It was said at the time that the Anderson family was the first US family to be supportive of a trans kid in this fashion.   However the Wisconsin woman we know by the pseudonym of Sally Barry was supported by her parents in the 1930s/1940s with varying response from the school authorities

Buck Angel (1972 - ) adult film maker.

Susan was a tomboy as a child in San Francisco’s San Fernando Valley.

As a young woman she used the name Laura, and worked as model, but she was uncomfortable as a woman, and did a lot of drugs and alcohol. She hung out with butch lesbians because there was nowhere to go.

Transitioning in his twenties, he had top surgery and hormones, which he supplemented with bodybuilding. He was husband to Ilsa Strix (Karin Winslow), a top dominatrix in Los Angeles, until she left him in 2003 for Lana Wachowshi, one of the two directors of the Matrix films.

Buck moved to New Orleans to be with his second wife, body piercer, tattooer and body modification enthusiast Elayne Angel - he took her name, and became Buck Angel. He then sought work as a trans-porn actor.

In 2005, Buck was the first trans man in an all-male porn film, and he was in another film where he had sex with trans woman Allanah Starr. For the latter he was nominated for Transsexual Performer of the Year and Most Outrageous Sex Scene. In January 2007, Buck won Transsexual Performer of the Year at the Adult Video News Awards.

In 2008 he and Allanah  were sculpted life-size by London artist Marc Quinn.

Buck is the best-known and best-paid FTM porn star. He is billed as ‘a real man, with a real pussy’.

He frequently appears on talk shows and at sex conventions.

“I do believe that people need to recognize this as a real medical condition. I do also believe that a lot of people don't take it as seriously as it needs to be taken. It's kind of become a trendy thing. They're playing with their gender, and maybe they don't really want to be male. Which is fine, but as a real transsexual person, I don't consider myself a transsexual, I consider myself a man.”

• Mark Miller. “Matrix Revelations: The Wachowski Brothers FAQ”. Wired 11.11 Nov 2003. www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/matrix_pr.html.
• “Buck Angel”. Bizarre. Nov 2004. www.bizarremag.com/sleaze/interviews/1472/buck_angel.html?xc=1.
• Gerry Visco. “Man? Or Woman? You Decide: Porn Actor Buck Angel’s Body is a sexual confusion”. New York Press, March 29, 2006. www.nypress.com/article-13179-man-or-woman-you-decide.html
• Joanne Cachapero. “Porn Star XXXposure - Buck Angel”. Good Vibrations Magazine, May 23rd, 2007. http://magazine.goodvibes.com/2007/05/23/porn-star-xxxposure-buck-angel/
• Dan Hunt (dir).  Mr Angel, with Buck Angel, Elayne Angel, Tyra Banks, Dan Savage. US/Canada/Germany/Mexico 68 mins 2013. 
   

 EN.WIKIPEDIA    Website.

Bev Francis (1955 - ) shot-putter, powerlifter, bodybuilder, gym owner.

Bev Francis was born in Geelong, Victoria, and did a degree at the University of Melbourne in physical education. In 1977 she broke the Australian shot-put record.

She became a world champion power lifter each year from 1980-5, breaking more than 40 records. She retired undefeated.

She then became a body builder, and has taken body building much farther than other female body builders do. In doing this she has demolished many of the assumptions about what defines a woman. Her strength and her body size are such that she looks much like a man and is often accused of being either a man or a transsexual.

She was featured in the 1985 film Pumping Iron II: The Women where she was persuaded to enter a female body building contest in Las Vegas specially created and paid for by the film makers. She came in eighth despite obviously having the best developed muscles, because she was scored low on the criterion of 'femininity'.

A similar situation happened at her final competition: Ms Olympia, 1991 where she was declared to be second.

She met her husband on the set of Pumping Iron II, and they now have two daughters and run a gym in Long Island, New York.

She was inducted into the body-building Hall of Fame in 2000.

• Charles Gaines & George Butler. Pumping Iron II: The Unprecedented Woman. Simon & Schuster. 1984.
• George Butler (dir & scr). Pumping Iron II: The Women. Scr: Charles Gaines from the book: Pumping Iron II: The Unprecedented Woman, with Bev Francis. US 107 mins 1985.
• Laurie Schulze. “On the Muscle”. In Jane Gaines & Charlotte Herzog (eds). Fabrications: Costume and the Female Body. Routledge. 1990
• “Bev Francis”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bev_Francis.
• www.bevfrancis.com.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

There is no suggestion that Bev is male, transgender, intersex, nor that she took male hormones. Given her achievements in developing her body and lifting weights, I see no reason to be suspicious of Tamara Press a generation earlier.