Finocchio’s – a nightclub: Part I: the early years

Original version, January 2010.

Part I: the early years

Part II: post WWII 

Part I: the early years

Joe Finocchio (1897 - 1986) was born in Italy.  His father Bernardo Finocchio emigrated to San Francisco, and at age 14 Joe, the eldest child, joined him. His first job was in the produce market at $2 a week.  He served in the US army during the Great War (March 1918-February 1919).  Alcohol Prohibition came in January 1920, and in August and September that year Joe working in a restaurant was arrested three times in Prohibition raids.  In the third, officers confiscated two truckloads of wine and whisky, as well as liquor from the tables. A search produced more liquor stashed in various places throughout the restaurant.  Joe was bailed at $1,000.   Also that year Bernardo visited Italy and returned with the rest of his children, two girls and a boy.  He now owned the Hotel Maxwelton at 515 Bush Street (near Grant Avenue), and Joe took over the management there. He also worked in a speakeasy owned by his father.

By early 1925 Joe was married, to Marjorie Faxon (1891-1956), a divorcee with a teenage son and an upscale beauty shop.  In 1929 Majorie Faxon Finocchio bought the 201 Club, a speakeasy at 406 Stockton Street in the Tenderloin.  Joe worked there part-time.  The club attracted a mixed gay-straight crowd including writers, artists and thespians.  Some would perform for their friends, and as such for the other customers.  One night a customer in mufti performed an imitation of the legendary Sophie Tucker. This gave Joe and Marge the idea of a nightclub with men performing with all the glitter, sophistication and glamour of sophisticated women.   Initially the show was a female impersonator paired with a exotic dancer – hula or Chinese.  This arrangement attracted a gay clientele.  Harry Hay, the future gay activist, met men there. 

Elsewhere in California: 1932 had been a peak year for pansy revues (which featured female impersonation) with appearances in Los Angeles by Karyl Norman and Jean Malin, and the next year Hollywood made a record number of films with pansy content. However, from 1932 onwards, and especially after the end of Alcohol Prohibition in 1933, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) started busting the pansy clubs. BBB's Cellar and Jimmie's Back Yard were raided repeatedly. The raid on The Big House in fall 1932 met resistance: the patrons fought back and a female impersonator attempted to escape through a window. The bar, renamed Buddy's Rendezvous, reopened, and the police returned eight months later and arrested five transvestites on vagrancy charges. In November 1933 another raid on Jimmie's Back Yard resulted in 90-day sentences for the owner, the mistress of ceremonies and the piano player. Three other female impersonators were each sentenced to six months – the maximum penalty. Harold Brown, arrested on suspicion of posing as a narcotics officer, was discovered to be female bodied and got a suspended 30-day sentence for masquerading. Three pansy bars were shut down in 1936, and another three the next year. Frank Shaw, the Los Angeles Mayor, ran a notably corrupt administration from 1933 until he was recalled in 1938. He was opposed by Clifford Clinton, a restaurateur, who with others filed a grand jury report that led to the recall. Part of Shaw's fight back was to step up the attack on 'sex pervert' bars.

With the repeal of Prohibition, the 201 Club had been able to promote itself more openly, and they hired more dancers and expanded the floor show. Freddie Renault, with experience in ballet and musical comedy joined the cast.

However performers mixed with the customers, and were paid on a percentage basis. This was not permitted by new police regulations.  San Francisco Police Chief William Quinn announced , “Lewd entertainers must be stopped!”  In the early morning of July 20, 1936, the 201 Club was crowded, and five female impersonators were doing a dance routine followed by a ‘vulgar parody’.  A police officer took the microphone and announced: “This place is under arrest. Patrons will not be molested. Those who have nothing to do with this place may leave without fear of arrest.”  120+ patrons quickly left.  10 persons remained, and were taken to the Hall of Justice.  Joe and Marge Finocchio and Jack Peterson the club manager were charged with keeping a disorderly house, selling liquor after 2:00 a.m., and employing entertainers on a percentage basis. However as the raid took place at 1:45 the Finocchios were able to challenge the charge of selling after 2:00.  The performers, Walter Hart (the male Sophie Tucker), Carroll Davis, Eugene Countryman, Jack Lopez, Dick Vasquez, and Frank Korpi were booked on vagrancy charges, a $1,000 fine.  The following day, the municipal judge  sentenced Hart and Davis to 30 days in the county jail.  The arresting officers said that Eugene Countryman took no part in the singing, so he was given a thirty-day suspended sentence. The Judge dismissed charges against the other performing defendants. The Finocchios asked for a jury trial, charging that the undercover police specifically requested songs in contention.  Apparently a settlement was reached in that there were no further reports in the press.

The publicity brought in even more customers.  That November there was a write up in the Chronicle on Joe Finocchio when he flew to South Bend, Indiana via Chicago to purchase a luxurious Studebaker Dictator Coupe, and drove it back to San Francisco, a trip that took six days.

The Finocchios realized that tourist business was the growth portion of their clientele, and, as such, being located in the seedy Tenderloin was a problem. They elsewhere found a suitable nightclub space with a stage and orchestra pit at 506 Broadway above Enrico’s Café.  There was an outside stairway for easy access.  The sign outside was now ‘Finocchio’s’ and the club opened 15 July 1937.  They hired more impersonators, and enlarged the band to five performers. Marjorie planned the entertainment on a grand scale. She booked the finest entertainers, supervised and planned elaborate productions. Joe dealt with the drinks, and negotiated with the police. The club was allowed to exist because it became a tourist attraction, a symbol of the city’s sophistication. Joe had to promise the police that the entertainers would not mingle with the customers. Tourist magazines billed Finocchio’s as ‘America’s most unusual night club’. The club had always included ethnic impersonators, and this continued. Li-Kar did a Geisha dance; Billy Herrero recreated Hedy Lamarr in the film Algiers, 1938;  in 1940 the club developed an Argentine feature; later Juan Jose did a flamenco dance; Reene de Carlo a hula dance; Bobby de Castro did a striptease in a gorilla costume (this was supposed to be Cuban).    Top female impersonators were booked.  They advertised as “Where the entertainment is different, and how”.  That the performers were female impersonators was an open secret, but was not admitted within the show until the end when performers as per tradition removed their wigs.

Herb Caen, who would become a celebrity columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle and was noted for his sarcasm, joined the paper in 1938.  He often referred to Finocchio’s as the Italian-Swish Colony.  His put-downs of the club were taken in good-humor and were after-all publicity for the club.  The February – October 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, a World’s Fair was held on an artificially built island in San Francisco Bay to celebrate the two new bridges, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. Although not part of the Exposition, Finocchio’s benefited by being the main attraction down town. 

In late 1939, a newly hired waiter, George Dasch, was causing disruption in the kitchen by arguing the Nazi cause.  Marge quickly fired him.  (In 1942, he returned to the US as part of the Third Reich’s Operation Pastorius. Dasch betrayed his colleagues and defected to the FBI.  Most of the team were captured, tried and then executed.  Dasch, despite his defection, was sentenced to 30 years, but released and deported after 6.)

Marjorie

The ‘After Dark’ column in the Chronicle declared in January 1941 that Finocchio’s was one of the places that made San Francisco famous. In September 1941, Herb Caen was repeating gossip that the Finocchios had “rifted to the point where they’re discussing property settlement”, and the next day the Chronicle reported “Mrs. Joe Finocchio, soon-to-be-divorced wife of the No. Beach night club operator, fell off her new boat in the bay the other day – and was rescued by a sailor who got to her just in time”.  Joe had been seeing Eva/Eve Filippis, a recent immigrant from Italy, who had given birth to a daughter 1 February 1941 whom she named Concetta Finocchio.  It was claimed that Marjorie had divorced Joe for ‘extreme cruelty’ in 1941 and that then Joe and Eve were married – however recent researchers have failed to find the records.  Joe and Marge continued to live at the same address.  Marjorie made it very clear that Eve Filippis was never to enter the club.

Other than that, there was a little trouble at the club during the war years.  Many civilians moved to San Francisco to take jobs in the shipyards.  Accommodation was available in the Fillmore district from which the Japanese-Americans had been interned. The still underage Tony Midnight, who was working in munitions during the war, snuck into Finocchio’s using fake ID.

In 1942 military authorities declared Finocchio's "off limits" for selling liquor to WWII military personnel outside of authorized hours. That temporary sanction was lifted New Year's Eve 1943 after Joe Finocchio and other bar owners signed an agreement to limit liquor sales to military personnel to between 5 pm and midnight. Beer could, however, be sold between 10 am and midnight.

Despite the growing rift between Joe and Marjorie, they continued to collaborate and in March 1943 opened a new lounge adjacent to the main auditorium.

Harvey Goodwin moved to San Francisco and became a performer at Finocchio's night club.

Rae Bourbon had been arrested during a police raid while broadcasting live from Tait’s in San Francisoco in 1933.  A decade later she was back in town and headlining at Finocchio’s, as was Karyl Norman, billed as the highest paid female impersonator at the time.

In late 1941 Tex Hendrix from England became the emcee. He wowed the audiences by changing evening gowns for each of his 12 acts.

The ex-tight-rope walker from Barnum and Bailey’s circus, Nicki Gallucci came to sing at Finocchio’s.  Gallucci was a natural soprano, the only male coloratura soprano capable of reaching high D above middle C.

Carol Davis often sang in a tux behind the Theatre Bar.  His act was to look like a woman dressed like a man.

The 1944 program designed by Ki-Lar

In 1945 there was a rumor that Errol Flynn, David Niven and two others had taken Finocchio’s Pussy Katt (then aged 16) and friends back to a hotel suite at the Fairmont for a night of ‘debauchery’. Gossip columnist Louella Parsons heard this, but couldn’t use it. Howard Hughes who had first met Katt when he escorted Ava Gardner to Finocchio’s, returned for another meeting, and became her lover. Later Hughes flew with Katt to Mexico City for an operation that made her America's first surgical transsexual, and she was paid $50,000. Afterwards he installed her in a villa in the new resort of Acapulco, and repeatedly visited her for almost two years.

Pierre Vacher (1892-1990) doctor and sexologist

Vachet was raised in Givry, Saône-et-Loire, and qualified as Docteur en médecine, Paris, 1915. He later became the Director of the École de psychologie and editor of La Revue de psychologie appliquée.

Vachet and the German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld were both active nudists and had first met when German and French nudist groups had joint meetings. It is most likely that it was from Vachet that Hirschfeld learned of the French practice of permissions de travestissement, which dates from November 1800 and continued through into the 20th century - and was also introduced to the French word travestissement which he rendered in German as Transvestismus, and travesti/e which he rendered as Transvestit(in).

In 1927 it was proposed to create a French section of the World League for Sexual Reform. The French branch was called Comité Pro Amore—Ligue de la Régénération Humaine, and was initially under Vachet.

In 1931 Vachet translated and likely edited (for there is no German original) an anthology of writings by Hirschfeld with a few by Felix Abraham, which we have already considered.

Two years later Vachet published Psychologie du Vice : Les Travestis.

Despite the suggestion of the title that Psychologie du Vice would be a series, no other books were published under that rubric.

Synopsis:

The page after the title page tells us: “Eight copies of this work were issued on pure wire velin lafuma, numbered pure wire velin 1 to 5 and i to iii; and sixteen copies on satined outhenin-chalender alfa, numbered alfa 1 to 10 and i to vi.”

Forward

“FOR a long time I have been proposing to publish a series of studies on the Psychology of Vice. Some of my previous works have already dealt with general insights into sexual life and its anomalies. Today I would like to use the material of my clinical observations in more fragmentary and detailed studies. The transvestites will inaugurate the gallery of obsessed and maniacal vice. 

The term ‘vice’, which in its vulgar use fits very well with the system of sexual anomalies, belongs both to the vocabulary of the moralist and to that of the doctor, the former judging and condemning according to social values, the latter limiting himself to explaining by the causes. Freudianism must be given credit for having stripped sexual immorality of that sacrilegious character which still inspired the best alienists of the last century, who had to deal with this subject, with the virtuous accents of bourgeois indignation.

In fact, it is not easy to determine where vice begins and ends, because the distinction between the normal and the abnormal, the natural and the artificial, cannot be a sufficient touchstone for human behaviour.

The origin of perversions is not always easy to determine. Obscure physiological actions may play a part, as in the tendency of the individual to play the role of the opposite sex, or to choose the object of his desire in the same sex as his own. Deficiencies or excesses of glandular secretions may lead to an insufficient differentiation of the morphological characters and instincts of a given sex. But it is in the imagination of the individual that the main source of these vices is to be found, in the attribution of the power of sexual excitation to objects, situations, behaviours, more or less artificially associated with the satisfaction of desire.”

PART ONE: STORY OF PIERRETTE

This is an extended (48 page) case study of one of Vachet’s patients, a 28-year-old with anxiety and despair. A university graduate with a male body and a job that required a male uniform, Pierrette’s one aspiration was to be free to live as female when not at work, and she knew of the sex-change operations that had already been done in Berlin and Vienna and wished for the same in France. Vachet sent for the parents, explained that the condition was harmless, and that their son’s depression and despair could be relieved. They agreed that he should have his own flat. 

“What strikes you first of all about Pierrette's mentality is the contrast between the embarrassment, the inhibition, the anxiety he feels under the male costume and the freedom, the euphoria, the ‘nerve’ that the wearing of female clothing assures him.” 

The operations were not available in France (although this was a couple of years after a Danish artist resident in Paris, Lili Elvenes, had gone to Dresden for such surgery). 

Pierrette was not gynephilic, nor would she consider sex with a man until she had the operation. She had first dressed as a girl for a party when 14, followed by parts in amateur theatre. From age 18 Pierrette explored costume balls and what other opportunities there were to present as female. In 1932 she approached Dr Vachet, although with a major caveat: 

“I have not come to ask you to ‘cure’ me but to help me. To accept the slightest attempt at healing, i.e. to return to my male nature, would be a crime against myself, a mortal sin. I feel like a woman before God, a woman in my soul, and this feeling is infinitely stronger than any reasoning.”

Part Two

This contains three chapters, on D’Éon, de Choisy and Victor Barker.  The first two, D’Eon and de Choisy have been retold many times, and Vachet’s retellings contain anecdotes that later and better researched accounts have debunked. Vachet writing in 1933 mainly summarises Barker’s sensational trial in 1929, with only a passing mention of the British Fascist Party (actually the splinter group, the National Fascisti), and of course nothing about what happened in later years.

Part Three: nature and psychology of transvestites

“Transvestism is one of the most curious sexual anomalies to study, and also the most difficult to explain. It seems that the same explanation is not valid for all cases, that the wearing of the garment of the other sex has different causes according to the individuals, that it constitutes a symptom whose value is essentially variable. I will try to untangle this skein as best I can.”

1. “pseudo transvestites, those whose disguise is only a means of concealment or masquerade”. Some of these are criminal. Vachet gives an example: “It was a wartime deserter who had found it convenient, in order to escape danger, to pass himself off as killed in action and to lead a life under the guise of the female sex which he knew would never be exposed to the danger of the review boards”. The facts are slightly off but this could be Paul Grappe. For some of these, “it is linked to that well-known mentality which we call mythomania. These are individuals who are more or less unbalanced, fundamentally vain, always on the lookout for anything that might make them interesting, essentially fabulists, inventors of stories.” As an example of this Vacher suggests D’Éon.
2. Homosexual transvestites. “In this case the justification of the instinct of transvestism is confused with that of the tendencies which push them to sexual passivity. But it is very remarkable that even in common homosexuality the taste for transvestism can be discerned as a mobile element, alien in its essence to pure homosexuality. There are homosexuals who enjoy transvestism, there are other homosexuals to whom transvestism is more or less indifferent. When the latter take on the clothing of the opposite sex, it is rather as an accessory.” Vachet gives a seven-page account (p147 – 153) of a gay female impersonator/trans woman whom he refers to as “comtesse de B…” who would seem to be Pauline Bergolet also known as Arthur W. and “la comtesse” although he does not mention her 1874 autobiography The Secret Confessions of a Parisian: The Countess, 1850-1871, which was published in 1895.

Vachet then discusses male-dressing lesbians. Some wear “mixed clothing”, for example “a short skirt and a male-cut blouse. The blouse has the characteristics of a man's shirt and is completed with a collar and tie”. He does not mention that this had been the height of fashion in the 1920s, nor does he name Radclyffe Hall as its most famous exemplar.

There are others who completely dress, work and marry as men. He gives a two-page account (p155-6) of “X …” who did so. Only once did X agree to marry a man – that lasted eight weeks.

Vachet then mentions cases from the newspapers or found in the book by Havelock Ellis: John Coulter, Murray Hall, “Catherine Coome”.

Vachet adds a footnote to this section: “Another Hirschfeld statistic on gay men's occupations is of interest in a transvestism study. Half of the male comedians who imitate women, and half of the women who play male comedians on stage are homosexuals and lesbians.”

3. Fetish. Vachet gives several examples from Krafft-Ebing and Albert Moll of persons (all male) who are sexually aroused by certain items of clothing. “But transvestism can be just a special form of fetishism. For example, a man will dress as a woman in order to put on women's clothes in a more intimate relationship with his own body; to create the illusion of having a woman at hand, to draw his pleasure from a woman by drawing it from himself.”

“Hirschfeld tried to differentiate the transvestism of the fetishists from that of the automonosexuals, the latter being essentially individuals who find in themselves the object of their sexual desires, who like to contemplate themselves clothed or unclothed in mirrors (narcissism) and are therefore often inclined to transvestism and adorn themselves.”

4. Heterosexual transvestites. Vachet gives several anecdotes about men whose affairs or marriages with women are complicated by their cross-dressing.
5. False heterosexual transvestites: “transvestites who have married in some way by mistake, believing themselves capable of normal intercourse, or more often believing that they have found in marriage a remedy for a mania which may be bothering them in some way. These people usually divorce promptly and do not repeat the experience.” He also gives an example from Hirschfeld of a shoemaker who had married believing that this would cure his tendency. After 35 years and two adult daughters, at the age of 62, he felt that he must live full-time as female. This quickly led to divorce.
6. Masochistic transvestites. These particularly like corsets, and as tight as possible. Vachet groups these with metatropists – role reversal, a feminine man with a masculine woman – regarding attraction to “strong, imposing women, especially authoritative ones” as a form of masochism. He also mentions cases of ‘involuntary suicide’ where either the corset was too tight or by autoerotic asphyxiation. 
7. Pure forms of transvestism. [This resembles what was later called transsexuality]. “The wearing of the garment is only one element of a very curious overall psychological attitude. The subject feels completely alienated from his true sex. He experiences feelings, even sensations, peculiar to the other sex. He is not necessarily attracted to homosexuality; often he even abhors it. The case of Pierrette, which we reported at the beginning of this book, illustrates this anomaly perfectly.” (p182)

“Very often the transvestite begins by indulging in his mania in the secrecy of the flat, in the evening after work. Then, little by little, the idea imposes itself on him to go out in transvestism, to mingle under his disguise with public life. The transvestite does work corresponding to the sex he would like to have. The male transvestite does housework, cleans the flat, shops, cooks, sews, washes, mends clothes and even makes clothes for his transvestism. He embroiders, makes cushions and doilies. He likes music, has delicate tastes, abstains from smoking and drinking. On the contrary, the transvestite woman disdains housework, is fond of good food, drinks dry and smokes a lot, especially cigars and pipes. Housework is a real pleasure for the male transvestite, so he makes the most industrious and devoted servant. Hirschfeld states that in his Institute he frequently employed transvestites as housekeepers.” (p183)

He then gives some examples of trans men (women soldiers as Vachet calls them). Marie-Antoinette Lix/Michaël le Sombro who rallied the Polish troops in the 1863 rising against Russia. (p185-6); Antonio de Erauso, a nun who became a soldier in South America (p187-9).

He then gives a 20-page account (p191-210) of the doctor patient of Krafft-Ebing, actually Case 129, who married and had children, never transitioned but “observed in myself since my complete effeminacy” including “periodicity of monthly disorders” and “constant sensation of being a woman from head to foot”. This is followed by a 5-page account (p210-15), Krafft-Ebing’s Case 130, of a masculine woman, a tomboy who married at age 21, but remained indifferent to men. She submitted to marital duties and bore six children. At age 36, she suffered stroke and had to stay in bed for two years. Afterwards she found disgust in the femaleness of her body and her life, and her features became masculine, and finally she grew a beard.

8. “Advanced transvestites always push to the extreme their desire to assimilate to the opposite sex. They regularly ask the doctor to remove the specific organs of their sex and, if possible, to create more or less approximate organs for the opposite sex. Women ask for the removal of their breasts and even more so for the suppression of the female function par excellence of menstruation; they want their ovaries removed or at least suppressed by radiotherapy. Men ask for castration, or the removal of the penis; often even the creation of an artificial vagina among the partitions of the perineum. Such operations have been performed in Germany, particularly at the Institute for Sexual Sciences which Magnus Hirschfeld founded in Berlin and which was recently destroyed from top to bottom under the impulse of Hitler's moralism and anti-Semitism. Hirschfeld repeatedly tried to justify his interventions by citing cases of suicide of transvestites who had been denied this sex change. Here are two observations, one relating to a man, the other to a woman, who underwent operations of this kind. These were homosexual transvestites.”

Vachet then tells two success stories (p216-9), those of Hirshfeld’s patient who worked as a maid in his Institute, Dorchen Richter, and of Gerd Katter, then only 23, but who had already obtained a double mastectomy and a Transvestitenschein.

-----------

Vachet sums up (p223-232):

“Transvestism can be dissociated from other sexual anomalies, that it can even occur in its pure state outside of any erotic preoccupation in individuals who are above all concerned with leading a public life in the clothing and with the occupations of the other sex. What then is at the root of this singular anomaly? The various explanations that have been given by authors can be roughly reduced to two modalities.”

1. “For some, Hirschfeld for example, the transvestite obeys a physiological determinism. He is a "constitutional". In favour of this explanation is the precocity of these manifestations. Also, in many cases, the transvestite presents some morphological characteristics which deviate from the template of his sex: proportions of the larynx and voice, skin texture, hair system, gracility or coarseness of the forms. It cannot be denied that in certain cases the transvestite represents an intermediate morphological type.”
2. “… according to Havelock-Ellis, the transvestite is basically a heterosexual preoccupied with the desire for complete assimilation to the sex he loves and envies. For this explanation to be valid, the subject must manifest in some way his attraction to the opposite sex.”

“I think that the factors of transvestism are not simple. Various determinisms can interfere. A glandular physiological determinism is admissible in certain cases; but in other cases, psycho-pathological mechanisms must be considered.”

Vachet died at the age of 98.

*not the film director

-------------

From a modern perspective this is an awkward text. Sometimes Vachet is helpful and supportive. At other times he repeats transphobic assumptions. His typology is not precise. In “7. Pure forms of transvestism” he appears to be giving examples of persons who would be regarded as transsexual if alive in later generations, including some who transitioned without the aid of 20^th century science. But then he gives the two case studies from Krafft-Ebing of persons who made no attempt to live in their preferred gender.

I could not find any information about what happened to Pierrette after 1933.

Vachet gives no citations at all, and no bibliography.

I obtained the book via Abe Books.

Psychologie du Vice : Les Travestis was published 1 January 1934, which is why I refer to it as being written in 1933.

Vachet mentions the issuing of Transvestitenscheinen in Germany but surprising does not mention that France had been issuing permissions de travestissement since 1800, 110 years earlier.

• Pierre Vachet (ed). Perversions sexuelles, d’après l’enseignement du docteur Magnus Hirschfeld, par son premier assistant le docteur Félix Abraham. Paris: François Aldor, 1931.
• Pierre Vachet. Psychologie du Vice : Les Travestis. Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1934.

• Sylvie Chaperon. “The Revival of Sexuality Studies in France in the Late 1950s”. in Gert Hekma & Alain Giami (eds). Sexual Revolutions. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014: 142
• Gonzague de Larocque-Latour. “Girl or Boy? The French Birth of the Word Sexologie (1901-1912)”. In Alain Giami & Sharman Levinson (eds). Histories of Sexology: Between Science and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021: 200.

BnF

Jeanne Hoff (1938 – 2023) psychiatrist

++original September 2013, revised February 2019 to include extra detail from Gill-Peterson's book, and December 2023 to acknowledge Jeanne's passing.

Eugene Hoff  was born in in St Louis.  Hoff did an MD at Columbia University, College of Physicians And Surgeons 1963 followed by a doctorate in solid state chemistry at University College, London (where he also converted to Catholicism), followed by training and a residency as a psychiatrist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.

Hoffinitially thought of himself as homosexual, but in exploring homosexuality found out that he was not. He was introduced to the Harry Benjamin practice, possibly by Wardell Pomeroy of the Kinsey Institute.

Hoff was a guest on the NBC television program Not for Women Only where he (as she was still) explained transsexualism from a medical viewpoint referring to trans women as 'men' as was the then practice.

"You can say that you know that you are a woman, therefore you want to be one. But no woman I have ever asked has been able to tell me what that means, and I doubt that transsexuals will be the first to define it."

Harry Benjamin's successor Charles Ihlenfeld resigned the practice in 1976 to begin a psychiatric residency in the Bronx, and Hoff took over.  This was Hoff's first clinical practice other than the residency in St Louis.  The practice was being managed under the aegis of the Orentreich Medical Group, a dermatology and hair restoration practice, which was located at in the same building as the Benjamin practice at 1 East 72nd St. It was then still administered by Benjamin's office manager and assistant Virginia Allen.

Hoff fired Virginia, the nurse, Mary Ryan, and the physician, Agnes Nagy, and pleased Dr Orentreich by moving the practice downtown to a townhouse behind the Chelsea Hotel, at 223 West 22nd Street.

In this period Dr Hoff confronted the homophobic psychiatrist Charles Socarides in a television debate and challenged his reactionary views that homosexuality can be cured by psychoanalysis. 

Hoff was starting her own transition.

 
Her best known patient was the punk musician Jayne County, who wrote in her autobiography: 

"When I walked into the consulting room for my appointment, I nearly fainted: Dr Jean Hoff was a man who was going through the sex change himself. She looked like a woman in man's clothes, she wore men's clothes and no make-up, and she had short hair that was just beginning to grow out. Later on she went through the full change, changed her name to Janine Hoffand got her own practice.   

The best thing about Dr Hoff was that she kept asking me questions about myself over and over again, to make sure that I really knew what I wanted. She'd say things like, 'Do you think you'd ever go back to wearing men's clothes?' and I'd say, Yeah, sometimes I see a jacket I like and think it might be fun to wear.'  At the time I was talking to her about the full sex change, but I was really quite afraid, and I thought it would cut me offfrom all my folks. She said to me, 'Look, there are different degrees of transsexualism. You are a transsexual, but not all transsexuals have a full sex change. Some people are better offjust taking hormones and dressing as a woman. There are some transsexuals who go back to dressing as men. There are so many different degrees, and you shouldn't just assume that because you are transsexual you have to have a sex change. You should only get a sex change if you are one hundred and twenty five per cent sure about it. If you have the least hesitation about it, don't do it.'  That was one of the best pieces of advice anyone ever gave me. Dr Hoff also said that, given the kind of circles I was moving in, there really wasn't much need for me to have a sex change." 

Becoming Jeanne, 1979

Hoff completed her transition to Jeanne with surgery with Dr Granato in 1977. She was interviewed at home by Lynn Redgrave and Frank Fields immediately before surgery and two months afterwards. The resulting television program "Becoming Jeanne" won the prestigious Ohio State Broadcasting award in 1979.

It was now the case that for the first time a trans psychiatrist was in charge of a practice for trans persons. Gill-Peterson comments:

"Though the medical model was still based in gatekeeping and an unacknowledged racialization of gender, Hoff cared deeply about the well-being of her clients to a degree that is viscerally embedded in the archive she gifted to the Kinsey Institute. Her work demonstrates a level of empathy entirely absent from transsexual medicine since its advent—not to mention its predecessors in the early twentieth century— an ethic of care that, although greatly constrained by the material circumstances and history of psychiatry and endocrinology, was also entangled with her situated perspective as a trans woman. It is important to underline that Hoff represents yet another trans person who took an active and complicated role in medicine, rather than being its object."

Gill-Peterson has read Hoff's interview notes in her archive papers at the Kinsey Institute, and comments:

"Because she took the time to interview them without only reducing what they said to standard diagnostic biographies, her notes offer comparatively richer glimpses into trans boyhood than those of her predecessors." 

 

In 1978 Hoff became aware of a young black trans woman, then 30, who had been committed to a psychiatric Institution in New Jersey for 15 years.  Initially labeled  ‘schizophrenic’, her gender identity issues were taken as evidence of ‘delusion’, ‘mental retardation’ and ‘sexual perversion’. Hoff interviewed her, and petitioned for her release.

“Through all the florid language of the [psychiatric] reports there is an unmistakable moralistic disapproval of her effeminacy and homosexuality but not the slightest hint that the diagnosis of transsexualism was suspected, even though it was quite evident from the details provided. . . . She should be placed in the community, preferably living by herself” and “she should be permitted to explore the various problems that arise from cross-gender living, hormonal therapy, and surgical gender reassignment.” (quoted in Gill-Peterson)

However by 1980 there were few patients left in the practice, and Hoff had already taken a job in a psych ward in Brooklyn. The next year she sold the building on West 22nd St and moved away, first to Massachusetts and then California.

She became a psychiatrist at San Quentin prison. She was in the news in April-May 1998 when she was the only one of three psychiatrists to testify that murderer Horace Kelly might be competent to be executed, and the defense attorney attempted to impeach Hoff.

She retired after being assaulted during a counseling session by a death-row inmate.

In 2013 she donated her archives to the Kinsey Institute.

Jeanne Hoff died at age 85. 

• "Masculine, Feminine or Androgynous?" Not for Women Only. WNBC 1976  hosted by Polly Bergen and Frank Fields, produced by Madeline Amgott.  Archive 
  
• Becoming Jeanne…A Search for Sexual Identity. NBC 30 June 1978. Jeanne Hoff interviewed by Lynn Redgrave and Frank Fields.
  
• Kathleen Casey.  "Gay Catholics Hear Transsexual's Story".  Asbury Park Press, October 10, 1978: 23. 
• Jeanne Hoff. "Multiple personality disorder?" The Journal of clinical psychiatry, 48(4), Apr 1987. 
• Jayne County with Rupert Smith. Man Enough to be a Woman. London: Serpent's Tail, 1995: 99-100.
• Michael Dougan. "Killer's mental records turn up". SFGate, April 17, 1998. Online,
  
• Maria L LaGanga. "Killer Understands He Faces Execution, Prosecutor Says". Los Angeles Times, May 01, 1998. Online.
  
• Michael Dougan. "Sanity trial outcome rests with minutiae". SFGate, May 5, 1998. Online.
  
• Sara Catania. "The Alienists: Where experts divide, jury must decide". LAWeekly, May 13 1998.  Archive.
  
• Andy Humm. "Socarides, Leading Anti-Gay Shrink, Dies". Gay City, 4,52 Dec 29-Jan 4, 2005. 
  
• "Jeanne Hoff Archive". The Kinsey Institute. Online. 
  
• SJ Parker. Emails to Zagria, 15,17 September 2013.
• Julian Gill-Peterson. Histories of the Trangender Child. University of Minnesota Press, 2018: 159-160, 171, 174, 192-3, 248n105, 251n32, 252n45, 253n79-82, 254n84-5.
• Andy Humm.  "Jeanne Hoff, first trans psychiatrist to serve trans people, dies at 85".  Gay City News, December 5, 2023.  Online. 

____________________________________________________________________________

Although Horace Kelly's lawyer subpoenaed Hoff's prison personnel file in an attempt to impeach her, he presumably hadn't heard rumours that she was transsexual, didn't find it in the file and didn't read her.   Otherwise he probably would have used it to defame her.   She had been in the 1978 television special under the same name, but that was 20 years earlier.   Before the Internet it was much more difficult to make connections.

Jeanne was also, in effect, outed in Jayne County's 1995 autobiography, but presumably the lawyer didn't read punk biographies.  

+++ Other sources led me to write that Hoff left New York in 1981, having sold her building at 223 West 22nd Street.  Gill-Peterson writes that she stayed in practice through the 1980s.  ??

Jenny O. Hushler (1862 - 1953) embroiderer, book seller.

(this article was previously of Jenny O.   However the discovery of her obituary gave us her surname.  Originally post 4/2/2015)

Hushler was born in Vorarlberg, Austria. Hushlet's father, a gamekeeper and horn player, died when Hushler was 5, of consumption, and his mother 1½ years later. Hushler was still wearing a dress after his brother, two years younger, had switched to trousers. The aunts who took in the orphan did not permit him girls' clothing except at Shrovetide (Mardi Gras).

After a few years in an orphanage of the Sisters of Mercy, Hushler stole some clothes from a girl of the same size and took her certificate of domicile and ran off to Switzerland, where she found work as a nanny, and taught herself embroidery. When she was 16, a man tried to force himself on her and denounced her as a 'hermaphrodite'.

Hushler moved to France and found work as an embroiderer. She also worked for a while as a man after a friend's boyfriend threatened to report her to the police. In 1882 Hushler emigrated to New York, and again worked as an embroiderer. A co-worker forced himself on her, and discovering her body, used threats of calling the police to make her an involuntary sex partner. One day when he was away Hushler dressed as a man and fled to Milwaukee and worked in a timber-yard and as a cook.

In 1885 Hushler arrived in San Francisco, where cross-dressing had been a crime since 1863. As a man Hushler became an itinerant bookseller using the name John, invested in property and began traveling for German newspapers. Indoors Hushler, as a woman, helped with children, and provided accommodation for dance-hall women.

In 1905 Hushler  wrote to the new German magazine Mutterschutz (Mother Protection) enclosing an article re feminine boys and men:

"If he is raised as a girl, then he will lose all doubt and will be more stable in his girlishness, so that he will then never will ever want to become a man; if he forced to behave as a boy, then he will feel destroyed and will yearn for the time when he can make a living as maid or something like that".

Despite that Mutterschutz advocated the equality of illegitimate children, legalization of abortion, and sexual education, it was not ready for this, and did not reply. Hushler then wrote to Magnus Hirschfeld enclosing the rejected article. They corresponded.  Jenny is Case 13 in the 1910 Die Transvestiten.  She provided photographs for the 1912 supplement to Die Transvestiten.

++ In 1922 Jenny moved to Mississippi, to the village of Waynesboro, population 700, 30% white.   She was quite accepted, her gender unquestioned, regarded as a spinster recluse.   She died there 31 years later at the age of 91, and only in preparation for burial was her gender history revealed.

• Magnus Hirschfeld. Die Transvestiten; ein Untersuchung uber den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb: mit umfangreichem casuistischen und historischen Material. Berlin: Pulvermacher, 1910. English translation by Michael A Lombardi-Nash. Tranvestites: The Erotic urge to Crossdress. Buffalo: Prometheus Books.  1991: s. 1991: Case 13: 83-93.
• Magnus Hirschfeld & Max Tilke. Der erotische Verkleidungstrieb (Die Transvestiten). Illustrierter Teil. A. Pulvermacher, 1912: plate XXII.
• "Lived as Woman; Buried as One".  Humboldt Standard, March 23, 1953. 
• Clare Sears. Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. Duke University Press, 2014: 74, 76, 78-80.

lili-elbe.de   

Thanks to researcher Kyle Phalen for finding the obituary.

_________________________________________________________________________________

If born a century later Jenny would, quite likely, have been an early transitioner. She did as much as she did without estrogens, and probably had no way to find out that there were cities others than San Francisco that did not have such anti-cross-dressing laws.

Lucy Salani (1924-2023) upholsterer, concentration camp survivor

Salani was born in Fassano in Piedmont, and raised in Bologna with the name Luciano. As a teenager Salani was unsure of what she was, information about Hirschfeld’s clinic and what it achieved being unavailable in Mussolini’s Italy. Salani adopted the self description of homosexual, even though it did not properly fit. Homosexuality as a crime had been removed from the 1889 Italian criminal code, although the Fascisti often acted as if it were still illegal. This self description led to estrangement from her family. 

In August 1943 the 19-year-old Salani was called to be conscripted into the army. As homosexuals were prohibited from the army Salani admitted being such, but this was ignored as many claimed the same to avoid being drafted. Salani was assigned to an artillery unit. A month later Italy surrendered to the Allies – the Armistice of Cassible. Germany quickly occupied most of Italy and set up a puppet state, Repubblica Sociale Italiana, also known as Repubblica di Salò. Salani, not wanting to fight for Germany, changed to civilian clothes and walked home to Bologna. The family was fearful of reprisals and Salani hid with another deserter. However they were found and beaten and Salani was inducted into the Wehrmacht, and was assigned to an anti-aircraft unit in a suburb of Bologna. After a bout of bronchitis, Salani was hospitalised and deserted again, and survived in Bologna as a sex worker with even German officers as clients. However she was recognised. Salani was sentenced to a forced labour camp over the border in Bernau am Chiemsee, working on parts for the V-1 rockets. With another inmate, Salani escaped. However they got on the wrong train and ended up in Berlin rather than Italy. When they were recaptured the friend ran and was shot dead: Salani was this time, October 1944, deported to the Dachau concentration camp, and had to wear a Pink Triangle. Salani had the task of marking corpses with number plates and transporting them to the crematorium or mass grave on carts. The camp was liberated by US troops 29 April 1945. While many inmates were compelled into death marches away from the camp as US troops approached, Salani was in a group that was lined up and machine-gunned. Salani was hit in the leg but was found alive under some dead inmates. 

The Salani family was amazed at her return and actually threw a party in celebration, but the estrangement over her gender continued. She left Bologna, worked for a while in a drag show, and worked as a prostitute. In Turin she managed to find work in an upholstery shop that employed women – unusual at that time. Lucy made trips to Paris and met trans women there. In the 1980s she accompanied two trans friends to London where they had transgender surgery, and later she also had the operation. However she was left with no sensation in the genital area.

At the end of the 1980s, Lucy returned to Bologna to look after her elderly parents. By the 2010s she was living alone, until discovered by LGBT groups, Movimento Identità Trans and Arcigay. She became an advocate for concentration camp survivors criticising how they were ignored and forgotten. She did receive 5 million lira (less than €3000) compensation. She applied to enter retirement homes but was rejected in that she did not have a male body to use male toilets, and could not use the female ones in that it said ‘male’ on her identity papers.

In 2009 Gabriella Romano published Lucy’s biography in book form, and two years later as a documentary film. Lucy was featured in two other films: Felice chi è diverso and C'è un soffio di vita soltanto, and appeared on various television programs.

On 2020 Lucy was awarded the Turrita di Bronzo from the city of Bologna.

She died in 2023, at the age of 98.

• Gabriella Romano. Il mio nome è Lucy: L’Italia del XX secolo nei ricordi di una transessuale. Donzelli Editore, 2009 .
• Gabriella Romano (dir) Essere Lucy with Lucy Salani, Italy 2011.
• Gianna Amelio (dir). Felice chi è diverso, with Lucy Salani. Italy 93 mins 2014. IMDB 
  
  
  
• Matteo Botrugno & Daniele Coluccini (dir). C'è un soffio di vita soltanto, with Lucy Salani. Italy 95 mins 2021. IMDB.
• Noemi di Leonardo. “Addio a Lucy Salani, unica transessuale sopravvissuta al lager di Dachau”. Bologna Today, 22 Marzo 2023. Online.

IT.Wikipedia           DE.Wikipedia

Toni Simon (1887 - 1979) cafe owner, high voltage tester, pornography smuggler

Simon was raised in Thuringia with the name of Anton. Father was a blacksmith. Even as a child Simon wore girls’ clothes whenever possible, and was pleased to do housework for mother. At age 17 Simon volunteered for the cavalry to avoid service in the infantry where his ‘girlish’ gait would be mocked, but was mocked anyway. After three years of service, Simon became a machinist in a bicycle factory. A marriage to a woman in 1908 resulted in five children. Simon worked in breweries and tanneries, went to sea as a stoker and herring fisherman, and worked as a bridge builder in northern cities such as Kiel, Wilhelmshaven and Bremen. When the war started in August 1914 Simon was running a business selling newspapers and maps – which was taken over by his wife when he was conscripted. After 1918 Simon opened a restaurant in the Ruhr area, and in 1923 opened Café 4711 in Essen's Segerothstraße, which also acted as a “neuer Damenklub” for Essen’s transvestites. Herr and Frau Simon separated in 1927 and their divorce was finalised in 1932. 

Simon was arrested several times for illegal beer sales from the secret bottle cellar of Café 4711. In August 1929, Simon was summoned to appear before the Essen district court, and appeared in women's clothes. The judge found this "improper", and imposed an administrative fine of 100 marks. Simon's appearance caused a stir not only in the Ruhr press, but also in the Berlin transvestite scene. Simon wrote an account which appeared in the magazine Die Freundin (The Girlfriend – a lesbian magazine with trans content) asking whether he should appear again "als Dame (as a lady)" at the next trial. A reader from Upper Bavaria, who would also "rather be a woman", expressed indignation at the judgement of the Essen district court and recommended that Simon obtain official permission to wear female clothing, a Transvestitenschein.

Toni Simon in the 1930s

In June 1930 Simon had written to the Friedrich Radszuweit (1876-1932) publishing house advising against a new magazine especially for transvestites in that "A transvestite doesn't read a transvestite magazine, because he'd rather spend his money on nice stockings". 

By then Simon was undergoing a deep personal crisis, and turned to Elsbeth Ebertin (more) (1880-1944) the most prominent of the first female astrologers and a prolific author who had achieved fame after she drew up a horoscope on an unnamed person who was later revealed to be Adolf Hitler, and who had published a book on homosexuality in 1909 (Auf Irrwegen der Liebe) where she counted transvestites among a sixth group of homosexuals: those who are "all too in need of love", and who only stray into "sexual aberrations" out of the "exuberance of their feelings" or out of "sexual need".

Simon told Ebertin how she had wanted to be a girl since early childhood, had often had thoughts of suicide, transvested on the street, and how having been in love only three times, always with a woman, but often fantasized about love with men. Simon claimed to have been the editor of a transvestite magazine (but which one was not specified). The actual editors of Die Freundin had been incensed by the letter to Radszuweit, but otherwise supported Simon who was open about transvesting, freely used her name and provided photographs. 

By 1932 Simon was completely impoverished and had had to close Café 4711. At the Essen criminal court 19 January 1932 Simon als Dame presented a Transvestitenschein. The charges of serving alcohol without permission, organising public dances and "insulting public officials in a way that was dangerous to the public" were upheld, but the charge of “groben Unfugs (gross mischief)” was dropped given that the accused had a Transvestitenschein. Simon was fined 25 marks. 

Based on the letters and newspaper articles that Simon had provided, Elsbeth Ebertin wrote a pamphlet Mann oder Frau! Das Schicksal einer Abenteurer-Natur (Man or Woman:The Fate of an Adventurer's Nature) which told of Simon and included two photographs and was published in Hamburg.

After the Nazi takeover in 1933, Simon’s Transvestitenschein was cancelled. After a short prison sentence, Simon emigrated to Spain, but returned after the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, and obtained work as a fitter.

23 October 1937 Anton Simon was charged by the Special Court of Stuttgart with “Heimtücke (insidiousness - political insult according to § 2 paras. 1 and 2 of the Nazi law of 20 December 1934)” having been denounced for criticizing the then government as idiots and rascals. Simon was sentenced to one year in prison – this was served in the Rottenburg am Neckar prison. 11 May 1938 Simon was granted amnesty on the basis of the "Law on Obtaining Immunity from Punishment" of 30 April 1938 and the remaining sentence was commuted to three years' probation. After release, Simon worked in a metal processing company.

Simon was convicted again and imprisoned for six months in the Welzheim police prison/concentration camp at the end of 1939.

Toni Simon in the 1950s

In 1949 Simon was living in a caravan in Swabia and applied for reparations under the 1949 compensation law for the time in the Rottenburg prison and in the Welzheim police prison as well as for the three years spent in Spanish exile. The proceedings dragged on into 1952, with repeated appeals against the court decisions. Simon’s lawyer repeatedly obtained freeze periods during which the proceedings were suspended, while Simon was to produce new evidence, but was unable to do so. The previous convictions, especially the pre-1933 ones counted against her application.

Simon worked as a tester of high-voltage pylons. In this, and in the applications for reparations, she was referred to as Anton and Herr Simon. At the same time she was considered as a survivor of the pre-war queer scene in Stuttgart, and worked with the gay group Kameradschaft die runde which met in Stuttgart pubs. She arranged meetings and dances, and ‘Toni Simon’ was mentioned in advertisements in the local press. Her Transvestitenschein had been restored in 1951.

She supplemented her pension in the 1950s by smuggling in queer pornography from Denmark which at that time had a more liberal attitude to such publications.

Toni Simon died age 92.

• Toni Simon. „Angeklagter in Frauenkleidern. Die Welt der Transvestiten“. Die Freundin, 5,13, 1929.
• Elsbeth Ebertin. Mann oder Frau! Das Schicksal einer Abenteurer-Natur. Dreizack-Verlag, 1933.
• Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts: Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft. Psychosozial-Verlag, 2005: 140, 144.
• Raimund Wolfert: „Zu schön, um wahr zu sein: Toni Simon als ‚schwule Schmugglerin‘ im dänisch-deutschen Grenzverkehr“ Lambda Nachrichten 32, 133, 2010: 36–39. Online.
• Katie Sutton. “ ‘We Too Deserve a Place in the Sun’: The Politics of Transvestite Identity in Weimar Germany”. German Studies Review, 35,2, 2012.
• Julia Noah Munier & Karl-Heinz Steinle. “Wiedergutmachung von Transvestiten und Damenimitatoren nach 1945”. LSBTTIQ in Baden und Württemberg: Lebenswelten, Repression und Verfolgung im Nationalsozialismus und in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 21. Dezember 2017. Online.
• Karl-Heinz Steinle. “Toni Simon, geb. als Anton Simon”. Sie machen Geschichte: Lesbische, Schwule, Bisexuelle, Transsexuelle, Transgender, Intersexuelle, Queere, Menschen in Baden Württemberg.:22-3. Online.

Toni Ebel (1881 – 1961) artist.

++Original January 2015; revised February 2022, to incorporate information about Charlotte Charlaque, and August 2022 to incorporate more information from Wolfert's book.

Hugo Otto Arno Ebel was raised in Berlin, the eldest of eleven children, of a merchant and his wife.  The child was noticed for being 'girlish' and for liking domestic work.  After secondary school, Arno completed apprenticeships first as a merchant and then as a decorator, but lacked aptitude in both cases.  At age 19 Ebel bought a wig and some female clothes.  However the parents discovered them, and they ended up in the fire.

A year or so later Ebel had an affair with a man.  This was taken to be homosexuality, and consequent arguments with father and brothers led to Ebel leaving home.  After some travel in Germany, Austria and Italy, Ebel worked, as a woman, in a women's dress shop while studying painting in Munich. She then travelled abroad with an older man, an American by birth, who kept her for a few years. Afterwards Ebel travelled alone through Italy, Spain, France and North Africa, but returned to Germany around 1908, and had reverted to being male  It is said that, as 'Arno Ehe', Ebel joined the circle of noted artist Käthe Kollwitz, and produced paintings that were noted.

Arno met Olga Boralewski (1873-1928).  They married in 1911 and had a son – however Arno was not comfortable in this role and attempted suicide several times, and once was admitted to a mental asylum. He was able to cross-dress only in private. Arno Ebel was drafted into the Army in 1916,  and at the 2nd Battle of Champagne (25 September - 6 November 1915), was ambushed and finally suffered a severe nervous breakdown, and thereupon was assigned to a reserve hospital before being discharged with a 30 per cent pension. 

After the war Ebel was recognised as "severely disabled" and obtained a position as a draughtsman in a Berlin electricity firm.   Ebel became involved with the workers' movement, painted and made a living as a commercial artist.  In 1925 Ebel joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). However Olga Ebel became seriously ill and bedridden, and Toni was left to care for her.  At home, Toni put on women's clothes, cooked the food, looked after the wife, cleaned the flat and did the laundry.

Olga died in January 1928. Ebel, despite another nervous breakdown, became Toni again. Trans woman Charlotte Charlaque introduced Toni to Magnus Hirschfeld, and Toni was assessed by Felix Abraham who had replaced Arthur Kronfeld as the transvestism specialist at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft:

"The case of A. E., painter, born 10 November 1881 in Berlin. The patient was referred to me (at first he came in male clothes) because from his youth he has been inclined to wear female clothes; moreover, he felt completely female and consequently wanted to take a female name. The patient was 47 years old at the first consultation. He was outwardly very agitated, but this calmed down and almost disappeared when, at my request, he came to the next consultation in female clothing. He then confessed to me that he felt so uncomfortable in male clothing that the result was a physical and nervous agitation which gave way to absolute calm when he put on female clothing. His aversion to men's clothing is so great that he had only one suit, which, moreover, was in very poor condition." (1931, last page of Transvestitisme chapter)

Abraham wrote an expert opinion so that Toni was able to obtain a Transvestitenschein in spring 1928 so that she could be a woman in public.  Toni made a formal application for a legal name change - but it was not approved until 1929. The five surgeries by Drs Erwin Gohrbandt, Felix Abraham and Ludwig L. Lenz took only two years (compared to the seven years for Dörchen Richter) and were complete in 1931.  Felix Abraham wrote up an account of the operations on Dora and Toni for the Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik, where he referred to Toni as "Arno (Toni) E." .

From 1930-32 Toni lived in the basement and supplemented the domestic staff at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft as she was too poor to pay for treatment.  She was paid 24 Reichsmarks a month, plus room and board.

She did sell some paintings and donated others to the Institut.  Adelheid Schulz (1909-2008) then 19,  who had just become housekeeper at the Institute,  paid twelve Reichsmarks for a painting by Toni Ebel that reminded her of her mother - more than half her weekly wage. Hirschfeld and Ludwig Levy-Lenz also bought paintings from her. 

Surgeon Ludwig Levy-Lenz wrote of the trans maids at the Institut: 

"I will never forget the sight that met my eyes when I was once whisked away to the kitchen of the house after work: there the five 'girls' sat knitting and sewing peacefully next to each other and singing old folk songs together. Anyway, they were the best, most diligent and most conscientious household staff we have ever had. Never once did a stranger who visited us notice." 

The French doctor, Pierre Najac, who did an internship at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, wrote about Charlotte and Toni.   

Toni lived awhile at Wolliner Straße 47 in Berlin-Mitte. But because Charlotte Charlaque was called a Jew by the neighbours when she came to visit, Ebel moved in with her in Berlin-Schöneberg. The Swedish journalist Ragnar Ahlstedt visited them at their flat at Nollendorfstraße 24, and wrote about them in his Män som blivit kvinnor, 1933. They lived cheaply: Charlotte said that she was an actress and Toni was able to sell some paintings and drawings.  Ahlstedt incorrectly claimed that after the death of Lili Elbe "Frau Toni" and "Fräulein Lola" (Charlotte) were "the only operated transvestites in the whole of Europe" („die einzigen operierten Transvestiten in ganz Europa").

Toni and Charlotte had become lovers, although both spoke about men-friends when the topic came up.  In August 1932 Toni - using the pseudonym 'Wally E.' - was interviewed by a journalist L. Rhan for Das 12-Uhr-Blatt which was printed under the headline: "Conversation with a woman who was once a man".  There was also an anonymous article in  Die Geburtenregelung titled "Surgical transformation of men into women succeeded" ( "Operative Umwandlung von Männern in Frauen gelungen"), which discussed Dora, Toni and Charlotte.  

6 November 1932:  Federal election: the NSDAP (Nazi Party) won 196 seats out of 584 and became the largest party.

30 January 1933:  New Cabinet sworn in, with Adolf Hitler as Chancellor.  Hermann Goering ordered the closure of the queer bars.

In Lothar Golte's 1933 Austrian film, Mysterium des Geschlechts, advertised as a "foray through the night life of sexual abnormals" two medical students, one male, one female, learn about "most interesting questions of sexology" and fall in love in the process. This is intercut with documentary sequences which show sex reassignment surgery and transplants of animal testicles and explanations about abortion and contraception. Toni, Charlotte and Dora Richter can be seen in the sex-change scenes which are presumably film archives from Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.  The premiere was in Vienna 27 April 1933, but due to massive protests it was removed by police intervention after only a few days. In Germany, it was not even shown in public, as it was banned by the censors.

A couple of  trans women were associating with Charlotte and Toni at their flat: Fritz, the nephew of a German-American writer, and Felicitas, who as Felix had worked as a police officer.   In the March 1933 elections, following the Reischstag fire, Toni voted for the Communist Party (KPD), but the NSDAP (Nazi) got the most seats and that was the last multi-party election until 1945.  

10 May: The library and archives of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of the Opernplatz.  Between 12,000 to 20,000 books and journals, and an even larger number of images and sex objects, were destroyed.  This included paintings by Toni Ebel. 

Toni had converted to Charlotte's Jewish faith.   Toni was warned that they were under surveillance, and in 1934, with the help of the Berlin Jewish community, Toni and Charlotte fled to Czechoslovakia.  They settled in Karlsbad/Karlovy Vary where Toni painted pictures for spa guests and Charlotte gave English and French lessons. Toni still received her war pension from the Reichsversicherungsanstalt and life in Czechoslovakia was comparatively cheap, they were able to live in relative peace for a while.

Late Summer 1934 they moved to Prague where they made contact with the "Emigrants Committee" of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), but the city was swarming with German emigrants and they returned to Karlovy Vary.   In November 1936  they moved on to Brünn/Brno.  Toni was  using the professional name of Antonia Ebelová.    There, they were in contact with Karl Giese, Hirschfeld’s lover and archivist at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft,  who had fled to Brno after being expelled from France for the wrong kind of sexual activity.  He had been bequeathed considerable money from Hirschfeld's estate, but was depressed and after the Anschluss, the German occupation of Austria 16 March 1938, he took his own life. 

The Wehrmacht occupied Czechoslovakia and established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the spring of 1939.  Toni's German passport had expired and they were to report to the police every fortnight.  Their accommodation was searched and they were advised to leave.  However an employee of the German Consulate was taking English lessons from Charlotte, and he was able to arrange a new passport for Toni at the end of 1938.  It was initially valid for one year only, but was later extended until 1943.   Toni was designated therein as Protestant, which given the circumstances she let stand.  

In March 1939 they returned to Prague which they saw as more "Czech" and less "German" than Brno.  They found a flat at Velkoprevorské nämésti 7, and aided Jews with English and documents needed for emigration. 

Portrait by Josef Brück, 1952.

In March 1942 Charlotte was arrested by the Czechoslovak Aliens Police and jailed for being a Jew. Toni managed to persuade the Swiss consul that Charlotte was a US citizen.  Charlotte was interned and then deported to New York via Lisbon.  They continued to correspond, but apparently never met again.

Toni was summoned by the Gestapo several times in 1943-4, but was not arrested.  However after the war in Europe ended, VE Day, 7 May 1945, Toni like other Germans in Czechoslovakia had to leave the country, leaving her belongings behind. Toni was taken to the German border, walked from there to Cottbus and finally got permission to travel to Berlin on a coal train. On the way she had to beg. On 22 June 1945, she reached Berlin. By this time the Opfer des Faschismus (OdF - Victims of Fascism) was beginning to be organised, and Toni was one of the first victims to be recognised.    Later she was able to claim compensation from the German Democratic Republic. 

She rebuilt her life as an artist.  From around the mid-1950s, she lived in a studio flat on Strausberger Platz (Friedrichshain), and it was here that she also received a visit at least once from Adelheid Schulz, who had been housekeeper at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.

Portrait by Rudolph Kramer

Charlotte and Toni corresponded after 1945, but they never met again. 

She was recognized at the Akademie der Künste in East Berlin.  In articles about her in the East German press on the occasion of her birthdays or her exhibitions, she was often described as a spirited woman who was "mischievous" and "tomboyish" - and spoke in a deep voice. Her femininity was never questioned.

She died at age 80.

 

• Felix Abraham. "Genitalumwandlungen an zwei männlichen Transvestiten". Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik, 18, 1931: 223-226. Translated as "Genital Reassignment on Two Male Transvestites". The International Journal of Transgenderism, 2,1, Jan-March 1998. Archive.
• Félix  Abraham, translated by Pierre Vachet. Les perversions sexuelles. Romainville (Seine): impr. Tessier, 1931: the last page of the Transvestitisme chapter. 
• Pierre Najac.  "L'Institute de la Science Sexuelle à Berlin" in Janine Merlet.  Venus et Mercure.  Editions de la Vie Modern, 1931: 165-192. 
• L. Rhan.  "Gesprach mit riner Frau, die einmal ein Mann war". Das 12-Uhr-Blatt, 2.8.1932. 
• Ragnar Ahlstedt. Män som blivit kvinnor. Två fall av könsväxling på operative väg. En study of transvestitism. Tranås: mountain, 1933.
• Anon. "Operative Umwandlung von Männern in Frauen gelungen. Die Erfahrungen aus drei Berliner Fällen".  Die Geburtenregelung,1, 4, 1933: 33.
• F. E. "Das Portrait, Toni Ebel".  Berliner Zeitung, 19.1.1952: 16.
• Ludwig Levy-Lenz.  Diskretes und Indiskretes: Erinnerungen eines Sexualarztes.  Wissen & Fortschritt, 1953: 204. 
• Sander L. Gilman. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999: 276.
• Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft. Giessen: Psychosozial-Verlag 2005: 203-4.
  
• Ralf Dose. "Ralf Dose, Magnus Hirschfeld Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany: Thirty Years of Collecting Our History - Or: How to Find Treasure Troves". LGBTI ALMS 2012: The Future of LGBTI Histories, 2012.06/18. http://lgbtialms2012.blogspot.com/2012/06/thirty-years-of-collecting-our-history.html.
  
• Julie Nero. Hannah Höch, Til Brugman, Lesbianism, and Weimar Sexual Subculture. PhD Thesis, Department of Art History and Art, Case Western Reserve University, 2013: 269. PDF.
  
• Ralf Dose. Magnus Hirschfeld: The Origins of the Gay Liberation Movement. 2014: 55.
  
• Přehled Historických Událostí Vztahujících Se K Tématu. (Overview historical events related to the topic) [Czechoslovakian Artists]:101. PDF.
  
• Raimund Wolfert. “ ‘Sage, Toni, denkt man so bei euch drüben?’ Auf den Spuren von Curt Scharlach alias Charlotte Charlaque (1892 -?) und Toni Ebel (1881-1961)”. Lesbengeschichte, 3/2015. Online. And also at issuu.com   Online.
• Raimund Wolfert. Charlotte Charlaque: Transfrau, Laienschauspielerin, „Königin der Brooklyn Heights Promenade“. Hentrich & Hentrich, 2021: 59-62.

Kunst in der DDR      Deutsche Digitale Bibiothek      DE.Wikipedia     

__________________________________________________________

Wolfert says "To all appearances, Olga was suffering from syphilis" (Allem Anschein nach litt Olga an der Syphilis).   But says no more.  There is no mention of Toni being syphilitic.   Did Toni bring it from a previous relationship? Did Olga bring it from a previous marriage?  Olga was 38 when she entered this marriage - it is very likely that she had a previous marriage.  If Olga was in the latent and then tertiary stages, she may not have been infectious, but her son may have had congenital syphilis. 

In any case there is no information about what happened to the son.

Neither the Gestapo nor the Statsi nor the East German press nor the West German Press seems to have questioned Toni's femininity.

The document on Czechoslovak artists is not sure whether Toni was Jewish or Protestant.  

The French for the paragraph from Felix Abraham's book:

"Voici le cas de A. E., artiste peintre, né le 10 novembre 1881 à Berlin. Le malade vient chez moi (en costume masculin) pour avoir eu dès sa jeunesse un penchant à porter le costume féminin; d’ailleurs il se sent complètement femme et veut, en conséquence, prendre un nom de femme. Le malade a 47 ans à la première consultation. 11 présentait extérieurement une agitation très forte qui se calma et n’existait presque plus quand, sur ma demande, il vint àla consultation suivante en costume féminin. 11 m’avoua alors qu’en costume masculin il se sent si mal à son aise que le résultat en est une agitation corporelle et nerveuse qui fait place à un calme absolu quand il revêt un costume féminin. Son aversmn contre le vêtement masculin est si grande qu’il ne possède qu’un seul complet qui, d’ailleurs, est en très mauvais état."

The German  for the quote from Ludwig Levy-Lenz:

" ich werde den Anblick nie vergessen, der sich mir bot, als ich einmal nach Feierabend in die Küche des Hauses verschlagen wurde: da saßen die fünf ,Mädchen‘ strickend und nähend friedlich nebeneinander und sangen gemeinsam alte Volkslieder. Jedenfalls war es das beste, fleißigste und gewissenhafteste Hauspersonal, das wir je gehabt haben. Niemals hat ein Fremder, der uns besuchte, etwas davon gemerkt."