Elliot Blackstone (1924 – 2006) police officer, trans ally.

From Chinook, Montana, Elliott Blackstone served in the US Navy during the Second World War. In 1949 he joined the San Francisco Police Department.

In 1961-2 there was a 'gayola' scandal about police taking payoffs from gay bars. One reaction to this was that José Sarria set a precedent by running for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Another was that Blackstone was assigned as the police department's first liaison officer with the homophile community. He worked with the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, he helped to end entrapment in public toilets, he trained police recruits by bringing in gays, lesbians and trans people to talk about themselves.

In 1965 the Society for Individual Rights (SIR) had negotiated with Blackstone so that they could hold a gay New Year's ball; however others in the police force had different ideas and it was raided anyway. Even Mrs Blackstone was taken to be a drag queen and shoved about.

In August 1966 there was a riot at Compton's Cafeteria, and Blackstone attempted to moderate between the queens and the security people. Later Blackstone met Louise Ergestrasse (Durkin), the first transsexual to use that term to him. She got him a copy of Harry Benjamin's The Transsexual Phenomenon, and he began to arrange help. He persuaded the Center for Special Problems, part of the city Department of Public Health, and they began to offer hormones, counseling and referrals. Benjamin came and trained the staff, and worked with Blackstone. Blackstone gave lectures to fellow police officers.

He encouraged transsexuals to organize as Change: Our Goal (COG) and attended their meetings. With Blackstone's support COG dissuaded the police from arresting people for using the 'wrong' toilets or being cross-dressed. He helped to establish an anti-poverty office that employed transsexuals. He collected donations at his church to pay for hormones for transsexuals who could not afford them. The office provided ID cards that enabled trans persons to open bank accounts and obtain employment. After Reed Erickson's EEF funded the National Transsexual Counseling Unit (NTCU) in San Francisco, Blackstone managed its office as part of his police liaison role. EEF provided funds so that he could attend professional development and criminal justice conventions across the US and in Europe to give his views on police mistreatment of transsexual minorities. In the office he worked with individuals who were having problems with the law or their employers. He gave a presentation to every San Francisco Police Academy Class.


However in 1973 a police agent persuaded an NTCU employee to bring cocaine on to the premises, which were then raided. Drugs were also planted in Blackstone's desk. He was then assigned to another job. Within two years Blackstone had retired and NTCU was no more.

Blackstone had been 26 years with the force. He was presented with a plaque: "Many thanks, The Transsexual Community of San Francisco". At age 81 he became the first retired officer to receive a commendation from the Police Commission, and was a grand marshal at the 2006 San Francisco Pride parade. He died a few months later of a stroke.

* Not the mountaineer.

• "Police Liaison". Life, 31 Dec 1971. http://bit.ly/gkBA9p.
  
• Antony Grey. Quest for Justice: Towards Homosexual Emancipation. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992: 144-5.
  
• Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California. “Mtf Transgender Activism in the Tenderloin and Beyond, 1966-1975: Commentary and Interview with Elliot Blackstone”. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. The Transgender Issue edited by Susan Stryker. 4,2 1998: 349-372.
  
• Nan Alamilla Boyd. Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965. University of California Press 2003: 196, 198.
  
• Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge, Ma, London: Harvard University Press. 363 pp 2002: 229-30, 231, 232, 257.
• Kevin Davis.  "Retired SF cop to help lead parade". The Bay Area Reporter, 6/22/206.  www.ebar.com/pride/article.php?sec=pride&article=33.
• Wyatt Buchanan. "Pride parade salute for an unlikely ally: Police officer who reached out in 1960s to be grand marshal". San Francisco Chronicle, June 23, 2006. www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/23/BAG7KJILMR17.DTL.
• Susan Stryker. Transgender History. Berkeley: Seal Press, 2008: 75,76,81,92.
  
• Josh Sides. Erotic City: Sexual Revolutions and the Making of Modern San Francisco. Oxford University Press, 2009: 101.
• Suzan Cooke. "HBS? Count me out". Women Born Transsexual, 8/25/2009.  http://womenborntranssexual.com/2009/08/25/hbs-count-me-out.
• Suzan Cooke. "Compton’s Cafeteria: Transsexual and Transgender People’s Stonewall". Women Born Transsexual, 08/28/2012. http://womenborntranssexual.com/2012/08/28/comptons-cafeteria-transsexual-and-transgender-peoples-stonewall.
  
• Stephen. "Born On this Day – November 30^th … Elliot Blackstone". Post Apocalyptic Bohemian, November 30, 2012. http://nopoboho.blogspot.ca/2012/11/born-on-this-day-november-30th-elliot.html.
  

EN.WIKIPEDIA.
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Joanne Meyerowitz says (p257) that the two trans women arrested in 1973 were Suzan Cooke and Janice Maxwell who were there running NTCU. However Suzan's own account does not say that. Cooke: "Elliott Blackstone remained a constant, a supporter who was too often paternalistic and too often clueless but nonetheless stood by us."

Veronica Vera (1946 - ) teacher of femininity.

Mary Veronica grew up in New Jersey as a Catholic, and has a degree in English.

She worked on Wall Street as a stockbroker and then became a porn actress as Veronica Vera, where she worked with Annie Sprinkle, and was photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe. She was a regular at the Studio 54 disco in New York. Through the 1980s she wrote a column about New York’s sex scene in Adam magazine.

In 1984 she testified on sexual explicit media to a US Senate committee, and argued for the decriminalization of prostitution. In 1986 she attended that year’s World’s Whores Congress in Brussels. In 1989 she helped to reorganize Prostitutes of New York (PONY). Her 1992 video, Portrait of a Sexual Evolutionary, was included in a show about sex work at the University of Michigan Law School and became the centre of a censorship battle.

She founded her Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls in 1992. She has written books on cross-dressing, and many articles on sexuality in general. In 2005 she extended her services to women also, for like men they also need to learn the artificial aspects of being female, especially the art of walking in high heels. She also runs a group for wives of crossdressers.

*Not the character in Shadow Hearts Covenant game, nor the character Veronica Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street.

• Portrait of a Sexual Evolutionary, with Veronica Vera and Annie Sprinkle. US 28 mins 1992.
• Veronica Vera. Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls. Main Street Books 208 pp 1997.
• Veronica Vera. Miss Vera's Cross-Dress for Success: A Resource Guide for Boys Who Want to Be Girls. Villard 240 pp 2002.
• Rachel Kramer Bussel. “ Pump It Up”. Time Out New York. Oct 3, 2007. www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/museums-culture/22770/pump-it-up.
• www.missvera.com.