Karla Avelar (1978 - ) activist

Avelar was born  in Chalatenango Department, in the north of El Salvador, just before the Civil War,. From an early age, despite being dressed as a boy, she came across as a girl, and most in the neighbourhood called her Karla rather than Carlos.

By the age of 10 she had been raped twice by one cousin, and another would shoot at her, and said that he would kill her as there were only machos in the family. She left without money.

In the capital, San Salvador, she spent the first six months sleeping in the bus station or on the street, begging and finding whatever to eat in the trash. She was taken in by a woman who made her work hard at domestic chores. She was raped by the woman’s son. One of her chores was to buy tortillas, but the tortillería was in a neighbourhood run by the Mara Salvatrucha (MS 13) gang.They decided to gang rape her. After 15 men, she seized an opportunity and was able to escape.

Homeless again she met a trans woman, Diana, who showed her how to survive by sex work. The more established trans whores resented newcomers. They bullied her, they called her la machorra (the dyke) because of her short hair, and they stole her money, until she learned to fight back.

While the civil war raged, the capital was comparatively peaceful. Over 80,000 were killed in the country, the vast majority by the forces of the US-backed Junta. In 1992 the UN brought the two sides together and enforced peace accords. However criminal gangs such as MS-13, reinforced by members deported from the US, tightened control.

Many – including prostitutes – emigrated to the US if they could. The term transgeneros was not yet in use. One of the terms used for trans women was locas (literally: crazy women).

There was a serial killer in San Salvador who would drive by and shoot at trans women. He became named Matalocas. It was said that he had an artificial leg. One night in 1992, 14-year-old Karla was in a john’s car giving head when she realized that he had an artificial leg. He hit her with his gun, but she was able to grab the wheel and forced a crash. She grabbed his gun as she escaped the car and threw it away. However he had a second gun and shot her nine times.

She went into a long coma, but the hospital doctors saved her. They also informed her that she was HIV+. Officials could not find her next of kin while she was unconscious, so a television station broadcast her picture, and her grandmother came to sit with her in the hospital.

Karla was the first of Matalocas’ victims to survive and who could identity him. The police had retrieved the gun which was registered. Further the man, a high-ranking military official, went to reclaim his firearm. However he was never charged with anything.

Karla was approached by William Hernández who had just founded an LGBT rights group, Entre Amigos. Karla was willing to go public. She and Entre Amigos held a press conference and gave the real name of Matalocas. The only result was that they received death threats.

After recovery, Karla returned to sex work. She and Paty Hernández organized a trans-rights group, El Nombre de la Rosa. Those working as prostitutes gave a portion of their earnings – almost like a union. At first the government refused to register the group as a non-profit, saying that its aims were “contrary to morality”.

In 1996 Karla was working near the national monument, Monumento al Divino Salvador del Mundo, when three gay men taunted her and another trans woman. They removed their belts as if to whip her and she stabbed one of them as the other trans woman fled. She alone was arrested, and sent to the notorious Sensuntepeque prison where she was gang-raped on the first day.

While the prison had a Sector 2 for gay and trans prisoners, the gang inmates were free to come and go in Sector 2 as they pleased. They treated Karla and the others as personal slaves for housekeeping tasks and for sex. She was also tortured by the guards.

The first pride march was in 1997 – this was followed by a new wave of violence. Trans women were vanishing. Between the late 1990s and 2003, the number of adult trans women known to Entre Amigos and El Nombre de la Rosa dropped from around 200 to 40. Some emigrated (mainly to the US), some died of AIDS, other were murdered.

Karla was released in 2000, suffering from being HIV+, and having lost a lot of weight. Even so, she went back to sex work. In 2006 she started antiretroviral therapy, but was shot five times for refusing to pay ‘rent’ while working on gang turf. She survived the shooting and also being stabbed twice in the back by the same gang the next year.

Karla’s friend Diane was killed, also in 2007, by her lover, a police officer. El Nombre de la Rosa had evolved into ASPIDH-Arcoiris, but Karla was not welcome, having been too pushy before. She started a new group, COMCAVIS Trans. At first it was funded by sex workers' contributions, but Karla taught herself how to do paperwork to incorporate the organization, and how to do Excel accounting. It got a USAID grant in 2011.

In 2010 COMCAVIS filed a first complaint against Sensuntepeque prison, and then others in 2011 and 2014. They won the trans inmates the right to wear female clothing, and then a partition was put up to separate Section 2, the same year that gang members were removed to a separate prison. Then condoms were made available. Karla visits the prison regularly to speak up for the trans inmates.

Tania Vásquez, a trans activist was murdered in 2013, and no one was ever arrested. Karla filed a complaint. The Attorney’s General Office responded with the threat to arrest Karla, a search warrant and a confiscation of the technical equipment of COMCAVIS TRANS.

However that year, Karla became the first trans woman to appear before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and to denounce the State of El Salvador for discrimination and hate crimes. Paty Hernández, emigrated in 2014 after 20 years of activism. In 2015, Karla participated in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, which submitted an alternative report, which resulted in the first UN recommendation to the state of El Salvador on LGBTI matters.

Karla frequently travels abroad to speak for trans rights to international bodies. Now about to turn 40, she is one of only a few trans women in El Salvador over 35. She is constantly receiving death threats, and has had to move seven times in the last two years. In 2017 she was announced as a finalist for the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, quickly followed by extortion attempts to seize whatever prize money she might get.

• J Lester feder & Nicola Chávez Courtright. “Meet The Trans Sex Worker Who Transformed A Gang-Controlled Prison”. BuzzFeed, February 08, 2015. www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/meet-the-trans-sex-worker-who-transformed-an-el-salvadoran-p.
• Brian Dooley. “Karla Avelar's Life Of Constant Threats”. Huffpost, 05/13/2017. www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/karla-avelars-life-of-constant-threats_us_591783b9e4b02d6199b2effe.
• “Karla Avelar, 2017 Finalist”. Martin Ennals Award. www.martinennalsaward.org/hrd/karla-avelar.

________________

In a country where soldiers and death squads working for the junta killed 70,000 people, where serial killers go free, criminal gangs have impunity and young women are regularly raped on the street, an organization to protect trans women is refused registration on the grounds that it is  “contrary to morality”.

Atlanta-Savannah Timeline–Part II 1981-now

Part 1

Part II

1981

Divine and Christine Jorgensen appeared at first annual party of the Limelight disco in Atlanta.

Elvira/Cassandra Peterson, hired to host a Los Angeles horror show, copied look that Atlanta drag performer Lily White had in 1970s.

1982

Lady Bunny moved to Atlanta from Tennessee.

1984

300 subscribers to The Transsexual Voice including Leo Wollman, Rupert Raj and Michelle Hunt. Phoebe mailed packets of transsexual-related material to newspaper editors, television news programs, talk show hosts etc. Very few responded.

Diamond Lil put out a full LP of original material, The Queen of Diamonds/Silver Grill. She was an
acknowledged influence on performers Lady Bunny and RuPaul who started out in Atlanta at this time. However, by then Diamond was losing her fans to AIDS. There were fewer places to perform, and she reduced her performances and concentrated on a new antiques business. She was writing for the bar magazine Etcetera – these articles were often obituaries.



Benjamin Dickerson, blues punk queer drag queen, in Opal Foxx and other bands.

Lady Bunny moves on to New York.

?? unknown years

The Montgomery Medical and Psychological Institute started by trans man Jerry Montgomery and his wife Lynn who had been a nurse at the Georgia Mental Health Institute Gender Clinic. The Institute published a newslatter, trained supportive professionals and liaised with gay and lesbian groups.

1985

• Phoebe Smith. “FMI Forum: The Transsexual Voice”. Female Mimics International, 14,6, 1985 Online. This is a reprint of the 1980 brochure,

Trans performer Bobbie Holliday moved to Atlanta, had gender surgery, and changed her legal name to Jennifer North.

Tina Devore elected Miss Black America.

1986

Michael Hardwick, had been arrested under the sodomy law for fellatio, and the ACLU had challenged the Georgia Sodomy law as unconstitutional. This reached the US Supreme Court where the law was upheld.

1987

Jayne County had not been home for 20 years. She phoned her mother and proposed a visit. She got a gig at Atlanta's Club Rio and attempted to find those she knew from the 1960s, but could find only Diamond Lil. She was introduced to the rising stars RuPaul and Deandra Peak. To visit her parents she really dressed down. She ended up staying the summer.

Film RuPaul Is: Starbooty! , a pastiche of 1960s Blaxploitation films, starring Rupaul and Lady Bunny.

RuPaul left for New York.

Dee Dee Chamblee diagnosed as HIV+

1988

Tina Devore elected Miss Gay South USofA.

1989

• Rupert Raj. “Tribute to Phoebe Smith”. Twenty Minutes, August 1989:3.  Online.

Dallas Denny living in Tennessee, “I chanced across a copy of IFGE’s TV-TS Tapestry magazine and saw a listing for a TS support group in Atlanta. It was exactly what I had been searching for—for years. I phoned daily for several months, at all hours. I left message after message, but none were returned. Finally, someone answered the phone. It was Lynn and Jerry’s nephew, Scott. Several weeks later I drove to Atlanta for an intake interview and my first support group meeting.” Lynn & Jerry of the Montgomery Medical and Psychological Institute, that is.

December: Dallas Denny, recruited to work at the Montgomery Medical and Psychological Institute, moved to live in Atlanta.

Jennifer North died of complications from Aids.

1990

Dallas Denny found a full-time professional job as a behavior specialist working for DeKalb County.
Tension developed with the Montgomeries. Dallas moved out of their house and launched the nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service and launched the groundbreaking publication Chrysalis Quarterly.

The Sigma Epsilon Chapter of the Society for the Second Self, hesitant to risk exposure of its mostly Atlanta-based members, had been meeting on alternate months in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Charlotte, North Carolina. The chapter began to meet in Atlanta. Under the leadership of Linda Peacock, a wife of a crossdresser, the weekend-long meetings were open to transpeople of all types.

Sabrina Marcus, on a trip to Boston, asked the International Foundation for Gender Education to start a trans conference in the South. IFGE said no, but agreed to send a team to Atlanta to show the locals how to put one together. In the early fall of 1990 IFGE’s Merissa Sherrill Lynn and Yvonne Cook-Riley flew to Atlanta and met with representatives from every group in the South at the La Quinta Inn on Piedmont. There were representatives from AEGIS, AGE, Sigma Epsilon, The Montgomery Foundation, Asheville’s Phoenix Transgender Support Group, and groups from Florida, Virginia, Louisiana, and as far away as Texas. This consortium planned and held the first Southern Comfort Conference the next year.

RuPaul became known on Atlanta club scene.

Murdered in Atlanta: Edna Brown, shot dead.

1991

First Southern Comfort Conference. It was the held annually in Atlanta until 2014.

Amber Richards elected Miss Continental, and Miss Gay Georgia USofA.

Murdered in Atlanta: Huriell Lockett, shot; Rhonda Star, shot; unknown person, blow to head; Jean Powell, shot.

1992

Benjamin Dickerson co-founder of band Smoke.

Sophia Pastel died after silicone injection. Fred Kennedy Glenn later charged.

Murdered in Atlanta: Anthony Swain, shot; unknown person, shot; Derry Glenn, shot.

At least 12 trans women of color, mainly sex workers, were murdered over a few years. Dallas Denny appeared on local TV after each discovery. She urged the police to admit that there was a serial killer, but they never admitted to it.

1993

The Sigma Epsilon Chapter acquired a new leader who enforced Tri-Ess National’s xenophobic no-gays no-transsexuals rule.

Unsuccessful attempt to repeal the sodomy law.

Tina Devore elected Miss gay Georgia USofA,

1994

Lady Chablis featured as a major character in John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, set in Savannah.

• Lynn & Jerry Montgomery. Transition to Completion: The TS Journey. Montgomery Institute, 1994. 
• John Berendt. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story. Random House,1994.

1995

Because of family health problems taking her time and energy, Phoebe discontinued The Transsexual Voice.

++Erica Kay's marriage was invalidated as a same sex marriage in Georgia and since she was no longer legally married she was convicted of theft by taking of the family auto. Erica spent 4 years in prison.
The political group Trans=Action and LaGender, started by black transwoman DeeDee Chamble.

• Jayne County with Rupert Smith. Man Enough to be a Woman. Serpent's Tail, 1995.

Murdered in Atlanta: Quincy Taylor, shot.

1996

1996 Olympics held in Atlanta. Brazilian judoka Edinanci Fernandes da Silva and 7 others fail the new Y-region sex test, but allowed to compete anyway after further examination. 3 had Complete AIS, and 4 had Partial AIS. 29 GLBT competitors, 15 win medals.

Maxwell Anderson, lecturer and tax expert moved to Atlanta area.

Erin Swenson, Presbyterian minister, transitioned and retained ordination. First known mainstream Protestant minister in US to make an open gender transition while remaining in ordained office.

• Lady Chablis & Theodore Bouloukos. Hiding My Candy: The Autobiography of the Grand Empress of Savannah. Pocket Books, 1996.

Amber Richards died of smoke inhalation when her house caught on fire.

1997

After lobbying for the part, Lady Chablis played herself in Clint Eastwood’s film adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The first major Hollywood film to cast a trans woman, and to not kill the character, pathologize her or laugh at her.

Robert Eads, refused treatment in Florida for ovarian cancer, accepted at Medical College of Georgia.
 
Benjamin Dickerson provided music for film The Shop Below the Busy Road.

1998

Robert Eads filmed for what will become the documentary Southern Comfort. He makes a last
appearance at Southern Comfort Conference and addresses a crowd of 500.






Jamie Roberts, 26, began transition while at law school at the University of Georgia.

Georgia Supreme Court struck down the sodomy law in a case of heterosexual oral sex.

1999

Jamie Roberts joined Atlanta Gender Expressions.

Robert Eads died of cancer in a nursing home in Toccoa, Georgia at age of 53.

Benjamin Dickerson died age 39 of AIDS related problems.

Murdered in Cordele, Georgia: Tracy Thompson, beaten with a baseball bat.

Murdered in Savannah: “Charles” Bolden.

2000

Phoebe Smith retired in in 2000. She had worked for the State of Georgia for almost 30 years.

Maxwell Anderson co-chair 10^th Southern Comfort Convention.

++ Thomas/Dana Bevan married his second wife and moved to Atlanta after finding a job at Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Posthumous film Benjamin Smoke.

Murdered in Savannah: Billy Jean Lavette.

2001

Documentary film Southern Comfort released.

Shelley Emerson announces to boss that will transition.

++Dana Bevan found a therapist experienced in trans issues.

Murdered in Ashburn, Georgia: Robert Martin, severely beaten.

2002

Diamond Lil re-released her 1984 album on CD.

Shelley Emerson starts transition, and is in a small transition group led by the Rev Erin Swenson. She has facial surgery with Dr Suporn in Thailand.

2003

Shelley returns to Dr Suporn for genital surgery.

Diane Schroer, prominent US military person, building up to transition, attended the Southern Comfort Conference . “For the first time in my life I spent an extended period of time as a woman.”

2004

CD by Diamond Lil: Live at the Moonshadow Saloon.

Murdered in Atlanta: Precious Armani, 37, shot.

2005

Shelley Emerson first transgender woman to lead Fourth Tuesday, a lesbian social and community service organization. Emerson is also the first transgender person to be named a Grand Marshall of the annual Atlanta Pride Parade.

++Thomas/Dana Bevan Research VP at KFORCE Government Services in Atlanta, working on artificial intelligence algorithms for Homeland Security. 

2007

CD by Diamond Lil: Verge, Vigor and Vim.

Anderson Toone performed at the Southern Comfort Conference.


++Dana Bevan of Atlanta gave a paper at the IFGE conference held in Philadelphia.
Tristan Skye founded TransAmerica, later renamed TQ Nation.

Cheryl Courtney-Evans founded Transgender Individuals Living Their Truth.

Vandy Glenn, legislative editor at Georgia General Assembly, started transition, fired.

2008

• Wesley Chenault, Stacy Lorraine Braukman, Gay and Lesbian Atlanta, Arcadia Pub 2008. No mention of Phoebe Smith, Dallas Denny or Jayne County.

2009

Dallas Denny retired.

First annual Trans March.

James Parker Sheffield promoted to Executive Director of Atlanta Pride.

Vandy Glenn became first trans person to address a Congressional committee.

2010

Ja’Von Crockett had been a drag performer under the name Mother Cavali. At age 45 he entered a dialogue with Pastor Willis Graham, accepted Christ and was ordained.

Maxwell Anderson dies of brain cancer at age 53.

Judge orders Vandy Glenn to be reinstated in job at Georgia General Assembly.

Atlanta Pride partnered with TransQueer Nation to hold the second annual Trans March.

Tracee McDaniel founded Juxtaposed Center for Transformation, and sits on GLBT Advisory Board for the Atlanta Police Department .

2011

Vandy Glenn won again in the appeal court. Her case became a precedent.

January Ja’Von Crockett was featured on the religious talk show, Atlanta Live.

Dee Dee Chamblee a Grand Marshal for Atlanta Pride, and picked as one of Obama’s nine “Champions of Courage” in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic.

WPATH meeting in Atlanta. Aaron Devor made an official announcement that the Rikki Swin Institute archives had been donated to the University of Victoria Library Transgender Archives.


++Dana Bevan gave a presentation at the Southern Comfort Conference

• Tristan Skye. Natural Transitioning: An Ftm Alternative. Lulu Com, 2011.

Trans man Ky Petersen, 20, Americus, Georgia, was assaulted and raped by a stranger, killed in self-defence and is serving 20 years for involuntary manslaughter.

Murdered in Savannah: Akeem Laurel, 27, shot; Rashawn Howard, 26, shot.

2012

++Dana Bevan gave a presentation at the Southern Comfort Conference.

Ashley Diamond, 34, musician, Rome, Georgia, sentenced to 12 years for burglary, sent to men’s prison, repeatedly raped, denied medical attention, filed multiple complaints.

James Parker Sheffield leaves Atlanta Pride to become Director of Organizational Development at the Health Initiative.

Lily White’s home in Rome, Georgia, burnt down. Saved mother and dog but lost wigs and costumes. Heart attack two weeks later. Moved to Atlanta, retired shortly afterwards.

2013

Atlanta adds gender identity to city non-discrimination laws.

• Tracee Macdaniel. "Transitions" Tracee McDaniel. Nephriti Publishng, 2013.
• J.R. Greenwell. Who the Hell is Rachel Wells? Chelsea Stations Editions, 2013. AuthorPage.
• Dana J Bevan.   The Transsexual Scientist: The Causation and Experience of Transgenderism and Transsexualism.  Bevan Industries Inc, 2013.

Ashley Del Valle from New York arrested in Savannah for showing her breasts, jailed with men.
Murdered in Savannah: Konyale Madden, age 34.

Murdered in Atlanta: “Edward” Campbell, 36, shot.

2014

• Phoebe Smith. From Sharecropper's Son to Who's Who in American Women. CreateSpace, 2014.
• Thomas E. (Dana) Bevan. The Psychobiology of Transsexualism and Transgenderism: A New View Based on Scientific Evidence. Praeger, 2014.

Readers of the Georgia Voice newspaper voted Diamond Lil the Best Icon.


Human Rights Campaign (HRC) president Chad Griffin, 'formally apologized' to trans community at the Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta. Transcript. "“HRC has done wrong by the transgender community in the past, and I am here to formally apologize, I am sorry for the times when we stood apart when we should have been standing together.”

Jamie Roberts,Tracee McDaniel & Cheryl Courtney-Evans founded Trans Housing Atlanta Program.
Announced that future Southern Comfort Conferences will be held in Florida.

Long time Atlanta drag performer Kitty Collins, age 60, shot dead - her husband was arrested, and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Murdered in Albany, Georgia: Keymori Shatoya Johnson, 24, shot.

2015

• Dallas Denny. “Creating Community: A History of Early Transgender Support in Atlanta”. dallasdenny.com, Nov 7, 2015. Online.

Atlanta Pride and Touching Up Our Roots honored Diamond Lil in the first ever Our Founding Valentines event.

Tristan Skye withdraws from TQ Nation.

Amiayah Scott in Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Audrey Middleton in Big Brother US.

Lateasha Shuntel, trans performer, died after having silicone injected into her buttocks, hips and lips.

Ashley Diamond released after three years.

2016

• Tristan Skye. Transgender Journey: Real Stories from Around the World. Lulu.com 2016.
• Qwo-Li Driskill. Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory. University of Arizona Press, 2016.
• Thomas E. (Dana)  Bevan, Being Transgender: What You Should Know. Praeger, 2016.

James Parker Sheffield tweets a photograph and comments when he is in North Carolina, he is now
required to use women’s restroom, even perhaps with Governor’s wife. Tweet went viral.









Tracee McDaniel appointed to Atlanta Citizen Review Board.

Rowan Feldhaus refused legal permission to change his name.

Cheryl Courtney-Evans died from cancer at age 64. She was posthumously a grand marshal at Atlanta Pride.

After a struggle with cancer, Diamond Lil was moved into a hospice. She died age 80.

Lady Chablis died from pneumonia at age 59.

Murdered in Macon, Georgia: Candace Towns, 30, shot.

2017

January: Rowan Feldhaus appealed to Georgia Supreme Court re permission to change his name.   The Court unanimously ruled in his favor and overruled the state court judge.
May:  Rowan Feldhaus had a hysterectomy, a few days later went into septic shock and died.

Derek Easterling, Mayor of Kennesaw, Georgia, an exurb of Atlanta, did a drag show for a charity event that raised $250,000 to help Alzheimer's patients.

Murdered in Atlanta: TeeTee Dangerfield, 32, shot multiple times; Scout Schultz, 21, shot by Georgia Tech campus police.

Murdered in Athens, Georgia: Ava Le’Ray Barrin, 17,shot.

These publications were consulted in compiling this timeline:

• Jayne County with Rupert Smith. Man Enough to be a Woman. Serpent's Tail, 1995.
• Wesley Chenault. "The Unspoken Past: Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History". www.historians.org, December 2006. Online.
• Wesley Chenault, Stacy Lorraine Braukman, Gay and Lesbian Atlanta, Arcadia Pub 2008. How could such a book totally ignore Phoebe Smith, Jayne County, Dallas Denny.
• Dyana Bagby. "Trans Atlanta: A look inside an evolving community". The Georgia Voice, November 12, 2010. No longer available.
• “Out in Atlanta: Atlanta’s Gay and Lesbian Communities Since Stonewall: A Chronology, 1969-2012”. http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/atlanta-since-stonewall/out_in_atlanta
• Phoebe Smith. From Sharecropper's Son to Who's Who in American Women. CreateSpace, 2014.
• Tracee McDaniel & Jamie Roberts. ``Being transgender in Atlanta``. Creative Loafing, June 26, 2014. Online.
• Dallas Denny. “Creating Community: A History of Early Transgender Support in Atlanta”. dallasdenny.com, Nov 7, 2015. Online.
• TGEU. Trans Respect Versus Transphobia. Murder Monitoring. http://transrespect.org/en/trans-murder-monitoring/tmm-resources
• “Unsolved Murders”. TransFM. Online.

EN.Wikipedia(LGBT history in Georgia (U.S. state)) – contains no trans events at all, and in its Notable LGBT Georgians section, all the above persons are ignored with the sole exception of RuPaul.


Gay History Wiki(Georgia Chronology of LGBT historical events) – lists many of the trans who were murdered, but no other persons.

Nicole Murray Ramirez (194? - ) sex worker, changeback, LGBT and Latino activist

Ramirez was a Catholic alter boy, and initially wanted to be a priest. But being gay did not become so.

She was a sex worker in Los Angeles under the name Lolita, and then was working towards transgender surgery as Nicole. However she realized that she was not a female trapped in a male body, and became a drag queen instead. While hooking in San Diego she was picked up by a serial killer who had killed hookers and trans women, and was left for dead, and escaped only in that she was on Quaaludes.

Most of her boyfriends were marines who were bottoms. Ramirez changed his legal name to Nicole even though he did not proceed to a gender change.

In 1972 Nicole organized a successful boycott of local bars that refuse to admit trans women.

In 1974 he founded Teddy Roosevelt Republican Club, and his drag persona, the Empress of the Imperial Court de San Diego, rode in San Diego’s first Pride parade in an open vehicle amid jeers from hostile spectators. He was among the few to take the microphone and speak at the rally in the park immediately following. Regarding that day he said:

“It was a scary and lonely march down Broadway … nobody applauded. And most gay people didn’t come out to the sidelines because they were afraid".

In 1977 he was active against Anita Bryant-led Save Our Children which was really an attempt to reverse gay rights to non-discrimination, and in 1978 against the Briggs Initiative in California which would have banned gay and lesbian teachers, and was a friend and co-activist with Harvey Milk before his assassination in 1978.

On July 14 1990 Nicole became Empress de San Diego XIX in the Imperial Court Coronation.

Nicole knew Andrew Cunanan who went on a murder spree in 1997, and is quoted in most accounts of the spree.

In 1993 Nicole was on the national executive and emcee for the April 26 gay and lesbian March on Washington. In 1998 he was co-chair of National Latino/a Lesbian and Gay Organization.

In 2003 Nicole was appointed to San Diego Human Relations Commission. In 2004 Nicole was the Pride Grand Marshall for the 30^th anniversary Pride March. In 2006 he was appointed a City Commissioner.

In 2007 at a Coronation Ball in Seattle, on Feb. 17, José Sarria formally handed leadership of the Imperial Court System over to Nicole, and she assumed the title “Queen Mother of the Americas”.

In 2010 Nicole completed an unprecedented 4^th one-year term as chair of San Diego Human Right Commission. He has also been a national board member of the Harvey Milk Foundation, and has served a four year term on the board of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

He has a column in the San Diego LGBT Weekly.

• "Nicole Murray Ramirez named LGBT person of the year". San Diego LGBT Weekly, June 20^th, 2011. http://lgbtweekly.com/2011/06/20/nicole-murray-ramirez-named-lgbt-person-of-the-year.
  
• "Local legend celebrates unknown anniversary of birth". San Diego LGBT Weekly, December 5^th 2011. http://lgbtweekly.com/2011/12/05/local-legend-celebrates-unknown-anniversary-of-birth.
  
• LamdaArchive San Diego: Timeline. www.lambdaarchives.us/timelines/lgbt/timeline1970.htm.
  

  IMPERIAL COURT TRANS HEROES.

The Wikipedia article on Nicole says that he was born in 1921, which would make him 91 years old, and also that he was 40+ going on 50 when he was a trans sex worker in Los Angeles. If so he must have a youth elixar to stay so young.

Andréia de Maio (1950 – 2000) club manager, activist.

Andréia (who was born in May and died in May) ran a trash-cult nightclub, Prohibidus, near the centre of São Paulo.

She was also an activist for travesty and gay causes, and was particularly active against Afanásio Jazadji who campaigned for GLBT persons to lose their civil rights. She also organized the Paulistana trans prostitutes, enabled them to stand up to the drug dealers and pickpockets, and be respected by the police. She maintained two apartments crammed with bunk beds where travesties could stay at a low cost; she also helped to distribute free food. Very little was being done about the serial killings of trans prostitutes, but in 1993 she complained to the police anyway.

Andréia was well-known in the Paulistina art scene, and is featured in Pierre-Alain Meier’s documentary on São Paulo trans persons, along with Brenda Lee and Claudia Wonder.

Andréia died in a plastic-surgery clinic after having silicone in her thighs and buttocks removed, probably of an embolism.

• Pierre-Alain Meier & Matthias Kälin (dir). Dores de Amor. With Andréia de Maio. Brazil/Switzerland 59 mins 1987.
• “Extermination Group Killing Transvestites in Sao Paulo”. El diario/La Prensa, 3/2//93. www.qrd.org/qrd/world/americas/brazil/transvestites.killed.
• Lino Bocchini. “Poderosa Chefona: Andréia de Maio, morta há dez anos, foi a última cafetina-travesti romântica de São Paulo”. Trip, 07.07.2010. http://revistatrip.uol.com.br/revista/190/reportagens/poderosa-chefona.html#3

PT.Wikipedia.

Jamie Lee Hamilton (1955 - 2019) sex worker, activist, political candidate.

James Arthur Hamilton was raised in Vancouver. His father, an immigrant from the US, was a foundry worker and union organizer until he developed silicosis of the lungs. His mother was a Chippewa native, originally from Montana, and a founder of the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre. Together they co-founded the Unemployed Citizens Welfare Improvement Council (UCWIC), and were among the first members of the Downtown Eastside Residents' Association (DERA).

However they did not understand about transsexuality, although their child became a patient of William Maurice at the University of British Columbia Health Centre, and as such the first teenager in Canada to be accepted as transsexual. James was taunted at school and left at 15.

She turned tricks both as male and as female and worked in bars as a female impersonator. She became Jamie Lee in 1975. Her father, who had been reading up on transsexuality, gave his blessing though on his death bed in 1979. Jamie Lee completed her transition with surgery in 1983.

In 1984, a residents' movement in Vancouver's West End obtained an injunction in the BC Supreme Court that completed the pushing of sex workers and deinstitutionalized psychiatric patients into the industrial no-man's land of Downtown Eastside. Jamie Lee became an activist for her local community, for sex workers, for aboriginals, for transsexuals and gays.

She held various positions in Downtown Eastside Residents' Association (DERA). She organized DERA demonstrations when long-term residents were evicted for Expo 86. She was elected the 10^th Native Princess, 1988, and the same year was the founding president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) sub local 15, which is still going. She was Ms Gay Vancouver, 1991, which led to her performing with the New York travelling cast of A Chorus Line. In 1993 she started a hot meal and food bank program for trans sex workers from the First United Church. From 1993-7 she ran a clothing boutique, food bank and drop-in for sex workers.

She first ran for a seat on Vancouver City council in 1996, the first trans person in Canada to run for public office. She came 14^th out of 58, the first 10 being elected. Xtra West awarded her their Community Hero Award. From 1996 to 2001 she ran Grandma's House, a non-profit centre for sex workers, and agitated to bring attention to the missing women in the period before the arrest of serial killer Robert Pickton.

She dumped 67 pairs of stiletto shoes on the steps of City Hall to symbolize 67 missing women. In 2000 she was arrested and charged with running a bawdy house. Her release was conditional that she close Grandma's house. She is the founder of Change the Code, a national lobby group advocating legal reforms re prostitution. She ran for member of Parliament for the Green Party in 2000. In 2006 she campaigned successfully against an attempt to trademark the word 'Pride'. In 2008 she attempted to run as a parks board candidate, but was dropped as a candidate as being too controversial. In 2009 she was one of many refused service at Lu's women-only pharmacy.

She is again running a community centre for sex workers. She is doing a thesis at the University of British Columbia: "The Expulsion of Sex Workers from Vancouver's West End, 1975-1985".  She has a list of over 25 women who have disappeared since Pickton was arrested, and argues that there is at least one other similar killer.

++ Jamie died at age 64 after a battle with cancer.

• Elizabeth Aird. "Transsexual stands out in municipal race". The Vancouver Sun, Oct 7, 1996: B1.
• Barbara Daniel. She’s No Lady: The Story of Jamie Lee Hamilton. Toronto: Cormorant Books Inc 300 pp 2005.
• "Transsexual says Vancouver civic party rejected her over sex issues: Wanted to run for parks board on behalf of Non-Partisan Association". CBC News. August 31, 2008. www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/08/31/bc-transsexual-parks-election.html.
• Charlie Smith. "Lu's Pharmacy rejects transgender customer". Straight.com. July 15, 2009. www.straight.com/article-240560/lus-pharmacy-rejects-transgender-customer.
• Michael Harris. "The Unrepentant Whore: How Jamie Lee Hamilton changed the way we look at Canada’s underclass". The Walrus. June 2010. www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2010.06-society-the-unrepentant-whore.
• Jamie Lee Hamilton. "How we can honour murdered and missing women in the wake of Pickton's conviction". Straight.com. August 12, 2010. http://www.straight.com/article-338534/vancouver/jamie-lee-hamilton-how-we-can-honour-murdered-and-missing-women-wake-picktons-conviction. 
• Jamie Lee Hamilton.  "The Golden Age of Prostitution: One Woman's Personal Account of an Outdoor Brothel in Vancouver, 1975-1984".  In Dan Irving & Rupert Raj (eds). Trans Activism in Canada: A Reader. Women's Press, 2014.

EN.WIKIPEDIA     www.downtowneastside.blogspot.co    www.queenoftheparks.com   

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“Hamilton is, famously, 'an unrepentant whore.'  Is she also an unrepentant madam? Sitting with her recently, I ask point-blank, 'So, were you running a bawdy house?'  She looks nonplussed: 'Well, yeah.' A hand flicks at some imaginary dirt on a cushion. 'But so is every five-star hotel in this country.'

'And you know what I really resented? They called it a common bawdy house. Listen, there was nothing common about it.'"

The Unrepentant Whore: How Jamie Lee Hamilton

changed the way we look at Canada’s underclass.

The biography of Jamie Lee Hamilton by Barbra Daniel seems to be totally unobtainable.  Neither Amazon, nor any other retailer, has a copy.  I tried and failed to get it through interlibrary loan.  As it was published in Canada, there should be a copy in the National Library of Canada, but there is not.

Alexandra Selyaninova (? - ) police captain

Alexandra Selyaninova (? - ). Male name: Alexander Selyaninov. Alexander served in the Red Army, and then trained as a miner, but was offered work in the police service. One of his tasks as a policeman was to disguise as a woman to act as bait to catch a serial killer – which he found comfortable. After being transferred to the Perm Region as a Police Captain, far away from relatives and old friends, he began to wear female clothing.

Realizing that he really wanted to be a woman, he applied for a medical examination. Doctors from Moscow diagnosed him as transsexual. There were two operations in 1991, and Alexandra was issued with a new passport and birth certificate. She has stayed in Perm and runs her own business. She is also active in the town politics, and has been selected for a trip to Cuba.

Not the author of a book on Freemasonry.

• Lilia Subin (translated by Maria Gousseva). “Transsexual police officer wants to meet Fidel Castro and find love in Cuba”. Pravda 07.09.2006. http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/84311-0.