Jamie Clayton (1978 - ) actress

Clayton was raised in San Diego, with a defense attorney and an event planner as parents. At age 19 she moved to New York to transition and to work as a make-up artist. She had completion surgery with Dr Toby Meltzer in Scottsdale in 2003, one of his first patients after he moved from Oregon.

In August 2008 Jamie was dating a man who knew a columnist at the New York Observer. This led to her coming out to the columnist and story was repeated in Gawker, and then elsewhere on the web. She became an internet sensation and got emails from all over. She was invited to go on The Tyra Banks Show, and CBS News’ Logo Channel did a segment on her. After a few months of acting classes, and meeting Laverne Cox, they co-hosted VH1's first makeover show TRANSform Me, where three transsexual fashion professionals came to the aid of cis women.

For a while Jamie had a problem in that known as trans, she could not get cis parts, and yet when she went to auditions for transgender roles she would be rejected in that she did not look the part. In December 2010 she was featured in an article in the New York Times about an acting class for gay actors. This led to her being cast as a secondary character in Hung, 2011, which was primarily about a male prostitute.

She played the role of "Michelle" in the interactive web series Dirty Work. Clayton is also a member of the performance art–rock group Roma! She now works regularly in movies and television, and was featured in Sense8, 2015-now (directed by the Wachowskis) and the Neon Demon, 2016.

• Spencer Morgan. "Has Fame Changed Jamie Clayton?" New York Observer, 7/20/10. http://observer.com/2010/07/has-fame-changed-jamie-clayton.
• Erik Piepenburg. “Helping Gay Actors Find Themselves Onstage” The New York Times, December 12, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/theater/13actout.html?_r=1&ref=arts.
• Jillian T Weiss. “Why I'm Impressed By Jamie Clayton”. The Bilerico Project, November 07, 2011. http://bilerico.lgbtqnation.com/2011/11/why_im_impressed_by_jamie_clayton.php.
• Laverne Cox. "Hung Up on Our Bullies: Internalized Transphobia ". Huffington Post, 11/08/11. www.huffingtonpost.com/laverne-cox/hung-up-on-our-bullies-in_b_1079271.html.

IMDB      EN.WIKIPEDIA

Gayle Sherman (1940 - 2019) performer.

Original September 2010; revised September 2013.  My original version was based simply on a reading of Gayle's autobiography.   Since then more information has emerged, particularly in the Chicago Whispers book and on Queer Music Heritage.

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Gary Paradis, from Ohio, was raised by an aunt after both parents died in a car crash. At age 16, Gary went to live with relatives in New York, and based on appearance alone was able to get a job, using the name Gayle Sherman, in the chorus line at the Jewel Box Revue.

Later she worked at the 82 Club and then at a small club in Toledo featuring 4 strippers and 2 female impersonators, but the club did not say which was which. A customer fell in love with Gayle, and then killed himself in a car accident when he finally realized that that she was one of the female impersonators.

Gayle moved to Chicago and became a star at the Nite Life, Chicago's longest-running drag bar (early 1940s – 1981). She was mentored by Tony Midnite. Nightlife magazine ran with a cover photograph of Gayle in July 1963 advertising the show at the Nite Life with Vicki Marlane. She was said to be a twin for Sophia Loren.

In 1963 the National Insider ran a 4-part series on her life that was reprinted as a Novel paperback the next year. 

Gayle replaced Tony at the Blue Dahlia, a straight club. She was able to charge $100 just to

accompany business men on dates and no more. On her own time she dated women. She was working off the books and therefore could not have a bank account. She always paid cash, even when on one occasion she bought $2,400 of furniture.

After surgery Gayle was not allowed to work any more as a female impersonator, and so changed her name to Brandy Alexander and became a stripper. With implants her breast measurement was 48" (122 cm) and she performed as Alexandra 'The Great 48'.  She often worked between films in porn cinemas, but when Chicago Mayor Richard Daley pulled their licenses, she got a gig in Hawai'i, and was featured in Confidential Magazine three years later.

She retired from performing at age 48.

She became a cosmetologist.

Gayle died in 2019 at age 79.

*Not Gayle Sherman the 1990s stuntwoman, nor the harpist, nor the wife of Pastor Paul Sherman.

Not the Brandy Alexander of New York, also a drag performer, and mentioned on p157-8 of Randy Shilts' And the Band Played On.

• Gayle Sherman. "I Want to be a Woman". National Insider, 3,17, Oct 27, 1963. Reprinted in I Want to be a Woman!: The True Autobiography of Female Impersonator Gayle Sherman. Chicago: Novel Books 1964. 
•  Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States.  Harvard University Press. 363 pp 2002: 184, 199, 323, 325.
• Sukie de la Croix. " Talking to Viki St. John about the 1960s Part 6". Windy City Media, 2001-01-10. www.windycitymediagroup.com/m/APParticle.php?AID=24378&i=22&s=News.
• Sukie de la Croix. "Whispers". Windy City Times, 2001-04-04 and 2001-04-25. www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=32850.    www.windycitytimes.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=24912.
• St. Sukie De la Croix. Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago Before Stonewall. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2012: 240-2.

 BURLESK    QUEER MUSIC HERITAGE
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Gayle’s autobiography is only 36 pages long.  She was not even 20 when she wrote it.  The book also contains a similarly short account by a British trans man, and an essay ‘As the Experts See It’, by the then ubiquitous hack writer Carlson Wade, which will strike modern readers as particularly badly informed.  The next year, 1965, Novel Books put out a similar collection, I Was Male: two autobiographical accounts by trans women, one in regret, and an ‘expert’ essay by Carlson Wade and George Griffith.

I obtained I Want to be a Woman through interlibrary loan.  The copy is stamped IFGE on the title page and the side, although it is now owned by a university library.

Joanne Meyerowitz (How Sex Changed:184) mentions Gayle merely to quote her as an example of transsexual separation: ‘I wasn’t then and I’m not now a transvestite. I don’t get sexual pleasure out of dressing as a woman.’   This has been repeated (e.g. Robert Hill, ‘As a man I exist; as a woman I live’: 141).  Whatever Gayle’s opinions may have been later in life, it is a bit much for academics to build generalizations on casual comments by persons hardly out of teenage.

Not to question Gayle’s narrative, but the tale of a parviscient punter at a drag revue who falls in love with a drag performer and comes to a bad end is an old tale.  The classic telling is Honoré de Balzac’s Sarrasine, 1830.  This of course was over-analyzed to death by Roland Barth in S/Z, 1970.

$2,400 in the mid 1960s would be $17,000 today.   To pay that amount in cash today would probably initiate a criminal investigation.

Thank you  Morgan Stevens.

Fatine Bahari (1973 - ) make-up artist

Mohammed Fazdil Min Bahari of Kuala Lumpur became Fatine at the age of 17. She made a living as a make-up artist.

Ian Young (1979 - ) of Derby, UK, worked a contract as a security guard in Kuala Lumpur in 2006 where he met and fell in love with Fatine. She followed him to the UK on a six-month tourist visa. They were joined in civil union in 2009, and settled in Ian’s home town of Derby.

This became a media scandal in Malaysia, where it is claimed that she has shamed Malaysia. She faces jail for homosexuality if she returns, especially if she returns as a woman. As Mrs Young she applied to the UK Border Agency to stay in the UK but was rejected due to an incorrect photograph, then because her visa had expired, and then because she was supposed to apply from her own country. To support her visa applications, she included the death threats against her on a Malaysian web site.

Ian, who worked as a school caretaker, was hounded out of jobs at three Derby schools by intolerant
parents. He spent £12,000, more than his annual income, on his wife’s visa applications and legal fees. The struggle made him depressed, and while on anti-depressants, he attempted suicide. Fatine was granted her visa in April 2011.

Two weeks later Fatine, after a row, left and tried to get work in Blackpool as a showgirl. They are now separated.

• "Trans woman facing deportation to Malaysia". Pink News, 7 Dec 2009. www.pinknews.co.uk/2009/12/07/trans-woman-facing-deportation-to-malaysia.
• "School caretaker left jobless and broke after spending £12,000 on visa for Malaysian transsexual wife who then left him ". Daily Mail, 11^th April 2011. Online at: http://skypeassholes.com/node/10165.
• Claire Ellicott. " 'He was ignoring me, it's horrible when a man you love treats you like that': Malaysian transsexual wife hits back at why she left caretaker husband after he paid £12,000 for visa". Daily Mail, 12^th April 2011. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1375710/Transsexual-wife-dumped-husband-got-visa-defends-actions.html.
• Murray Wardrop. "Malaysian transsexual 'dumped British husband fortnight after getting visa’ ". Daily Telegraph, 12 Apr 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8445258/Malaysian-transsexual-dumped-British-husband-fortnight-after-getting-visa.html.

Cindy Thái Tài (1981 - ) make-up artist, singer.

The family of Nguyen Thái Tài wanted him to become a tailor. Instead he became a well-known make-up artist.

Finally Thái Tài announced a desire to be a woman. She travelled to the Yanhee Hospital in Bangkok, between 1999 and 2005 for surgical transition. As Cindy she is one of the very few Vietnamese transsexuals to speak on the topic.

She is still a well-known make-up artist, and released her first singing album, Noi long co don, in 2006, and then Tinh yeu da mat a year later. Both were commercial successes. She has also appeared in the films Saigon tinh ca and Trai nhay where she was cast as a transsexual singer.

In 2008 there was a scandal when a pornographic item appeared on her web site, but apparently was placed by her former manager.

Her boy friend is a German businessman. She is working on an autobiography.

• Nhu Lich. “Transgender journey”. Thanh Nien News. 22 October 2008. www.thanhniennews.com/print.php?catid=6&newsid=43075.
• www.cindythaitai.net.

  VI.Wikipedia.

Claudia Wonder (1954 – 2010) activist, performer, writer.

Marco Antonio Abram was raised in São Paulo. She knew as a teenager that she was trans, and as Claudia began performing in nightclubs and in experimental theatre and several pornochanchada films. She also appeared as a model in men's magazines. She was regularly arrested as the police frequently raided the gay clubs. In addition, she trained as a hairdresser and makeup artist.

In 1980 she was the lyricist and singer in the punk band, Jardins das Delícias. She became an AIDS activist, and to tackle prejudice against AIDS, she developed the show, O Vomito do Mito, which she regularly staged at the legendary club, Madame Satã, in which she stripped naked in a bath full of fake blood. She and many other artists protested against the then military dictatorship which ended in 1985.

In 1988 she moved to Switzerland and stayed for eleven years, working both in clubs and as a makeup artist.

On return to São Paulo she put out two major CDs: Melopéia and Sonetos do poeta Glauco Mattoso. She also recorded electronic music and FunkyDisco. She was honoured by leading the São Paulo gay pride parade, and at the Festival Mix Brasil de Cinema e Vídeo da Diversidade Sexual. She co-ordinated Flor do Asfalto, a study group of gender identity, and wrote for G Magazine.
 
In 2008 she published Olhares de Claudia Wonder – Crônicas e Outras Histórias. In 2009 the documentary of her life, Meu Amigo Claudia, was made by Dácio Pinheiro, and premiered at the Frameline Lesbian and Gay Festival in San Francisco.

Claudia died in 2010, of cryptococcosis, brought on by AIDS.

• Claudia Wonder. Olhares de Claudia Wonder – Crônicas e Outras Histórias. Edições GLS, 2008.
• Dácio Pinheiro (dir). Meu Amigo Claudia. With Claudia Wonder. Brazil 86 mins 2009.
• skruff. "Brasil’s Claudia Wonder Dies at 55". Jonty Skrufff's Blog. Nov 26, 2010. http://skrufff.com/2010/11/brasils-claudia-wonder-dies-at-55.
• scruff. "Claudia Wonder: Sao Paulo’s First Queen Of Club Culture (R.I.P.) (interview)". Jonty Skrufff's Blog, Dec 1, 2010. http://skrufff.com/2010/12/claudia-wonder-sao-paulos-first-queen-of-club-culture-r-i-p.

PT.Wikipedia      http://meublog.meuamigoclaudia.com.br.

Johnny Science (1955 - 2007) musician, activist, make-up artist

Suzie started dressing as a boy when still a child. She did theatrical make-up with friends, and even then was mainly making girls look like guys. Growing up, she hardly menstruated at all.

In the late 1970s/early 1980s Suzie Science was the lead singer in the band Science, which played the New York club, Max's Kansas City, Women's One World (WOW),and elsewhere. She was art director at Max’s, and as an advocate of lesbian S&M made occasional performance with leather implements.

As a man he used different names: John Grant, Johnny Armstrong, John Austen. By the mid 1980s Johnny was being taken as a man, and was doing live S&M shows with his girlfriend at Belle de Jour, a professional dungeon located in a loft in Chelsea. In 1986 he made serious enquiries about hormonal and surgical transition, and began taking testosterone.

He then founded his F2M Fraternity for both cross-dressers and decided transsexuals. He also invited curious doctors and writers. There was no other such group in New York at that time, Mario Martino's group of the late 1960s being long forgotten. A Gender Identity project was founded in 1989 at the New York Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Community Center, but it was primarily for MTF clients. The new group met at Kit Rachlin's apartment, and Johnny picked up most of the expense for advertising. He went on the Howard Stern radio show even though he knew that he would be presented as a freak, but it would get the word out.

Annie Sprinkle had met Johnny at an S&M show at Plato's retreat, and although not herself in transition, she loved the people, and started an affair with Les Nichols whom she met at the group. Johnny shot and co-directed and wrote the music for the film about them.

Johnny evolved from a butch dyke into a gay man. He moved from the lesbian S&M scene into a male sub/dom netherworld. He once went home with a man he met in a bar who tied him to a bed for days on end with a gun pointed at his head. The man finally ejaculated when Johnny gave him permission to shoot.

Dianne Torr met both Annie and Johnny when Johnny made her up for before and after photographs. Dianne credits Johnny with giving her the extra push that she needed to develop a male persona that could pass in public, by teaching her the necessary make-up. He claimed that he had coined the term 'drag king', and in 1990 he started the Drag King workshops, where he did the make-up on the participants and also gave lectures on phalloplasty. Dianne joined him to give instruction on body positions, gestures and attitudes. They also performed together at the 10^th anniversary of WOW later that year. His demi-monde adventures made him unreliable, and Dianne had to take over doing the make-up as well.

In 1992 Johnny and several drag kings were on the Joan Rivers Show, and he organized two Drag King Balls that same year, with the first formally judged drag king contest (although the voguing ball houses had been doing much the same for some time and the film Paris is Burning had come out in 1990).

However his increasing desire was to pass as a gay man, and not be known as transsexual. But in 1998 he hosted a low-budget cable television show where he stated that he was not a drag king, but a regular guy. After that he returned to his private life.

He died in 2007.

• Annie Sprinkle interviews Johnny Science. "Inside a Female Gender-Bender". Adam, 33, 1989: 29-30.
• Annie Sprinkle & Johnny Science (dir). Linda/Les and Annie. With Les Nichols and Annie Sprinkle. Music and photography by Johnny Science. US 32 mins 1992.
• Lauren Wells Hasten. Gender Pretenders: A Drag King Ethnography. Columbia University. 1999. www.laurenhasten.com/genderpretenders.htm.
• Gabriel Baur (dir). Venus Boyz. With Dianne Torr, Johnny Science and others. Switzerland/US/Germany 102 mins 2002.
• Dianne Torr & Stephen Bottoms. Sex, Drag, and Male Roles. The University of Michigan Press, 2010: 2, 26, 27, 30, 89, 90, 92-4, 97-9, 101-5, 113-4, 118, 122-4, 143, 149, 206.
• Veronica Vera, Kit Rachlin, Diane Torr & Annie Sprinkle. "Johnny Science". Transgender Tapestry, 114, 2007.

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Leigh Crow (Elvis Herselvis) also coined the term Drag King in San Francisco around 1990.  She was impersonating ‘the king’ and doing an inversion of what a drag queen does.  There is no reason to assume that either Science or Crow borrowed the term from the other.  Like the word transgender, drag king was an obvious term that would be coined sooner or later, and it is no surprise that two persons coined it independently.