Elisa Menezes Duarte (1949 - 1980) performer, bombadeira, travesti boss, murdered

Original July 2023, revised and updated December 2025

During the 1970s travesti sex workers in Brazil became more accepted by some members of the public, if not by the police, and along with that there were two other developments:

1) the injection of silicone rather than the more dangerous oil or paraffin to feminise the body. Such pumping (bombadas) was first done in New York by competent doctors such as Dr David Wesser, but a few years later was being done by non-doctors (such as Jimmy Treetop in New York).

2) A few Brazilian travestis had managed to get to Paris, and returned rich enough to buy not one but two or more apartments. The first was almost always for their mother: a casa da minha mãe. Then greater numbers went. At the peak of the migration there were – for a short while – special charter flights for travestis (although in mufti). It was estimated that of 700 prostitutes in France, 500 were from Brazil – and they had taken over the main prostitution venues in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne. They were treated somewhat better than in Brazil – they were addressed as Madame or Mademoiselle, but they were still living on the margin, subject to violence and having to pay both the police and a travesti boss for a place to stand. The French prostitutes’ union protested their presence, accusing them of unfair competition in that as illegal immigrants they did not pay taxes.

Elisa was from a relatively well-off family in Rio de Janeiro.  She participated in some Carnival balls, and performed in the Săo Paulo stage show Les Girls when it came to Rio

Elisa (in Et il voulut)

.  She had been able to afford to be pumped in New York. She learned how to do it, and after buying silicone in New York, she set up in business in Paris in 1973 as a bombadeira. She did have a gig at Chez Madame Arthur, but mainly controlled the prostitution ‘stands’ and was known as la Reine de Pigalle. If a Brazilian sex worker did not accept her terms, she could get the worker deported, as happened to Jaqueline Welch. 

Elisa was featured in the film  Et il voulut être une femme, about travestis and other trans women in Paris in the 1970s.  The film includes Elisa's surgery.

Competition came from Claudia Tavares, who was also a bombadeira, who sourced her silicone in Paris and had cheaper prices. Elisa put a lot of pressure on Claudia, to get her to leave France. Threats and violence mounted until Claudia killed Elisa.

Claudia in later years,

Claudia was convicted for the killing, served seven years in a men's prison, afterwards obtained completion surgery in France, found a husband and became a celebrity chef providing Brazilian cuisine.  She has written some books, giving her version of things. 

After the murder, many rivalries, envy, scandals, and threats surfaced among the immigrant travesti sex workers themselves. At the same time, the pressure from the French authorities grew: between 1980 and 1984, expulsions were multiplied because of irregularities in their visas. Migration of Brazilian travestis to Italy and other European countries commenced.

• Michel Richaud (dir).  Et il voulut être une femme, with Elisa.  France 76 mins 1978.  IMDB. Part 1 online. 
• “Reavesti brasileiro é assassinado em Paris”. Cidade de Santos, 1.11.1980: 7.
• "Elisa morreu na Praça Pigalle. Mataeam o maior travesti do mundo”. Diário da Manhã, 2.11.1980: 1.  
• Joao S Trevisan translated by Martin Foreman. Perverts in Paradise. Gay Men’s Press, 1986: 165.
• Don Kulíck. Travesti : Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes. Univeristy of Chicago Press. 1998: 178, 217.
• Julieta Vartabedian. Brazilian Travesti Migrations: Gender, Sexualities and Embodiment Palgrave Macmillan, 2018 : 89, 197.
• Igor Danin, research 2025.

A tentative list of Claudia's books:

• Claudia Tavares. A volta da gata. Livaria Editoria, 1983.
• --  La femme inachevée.  Editions R Deforges, 1987. *
• -- Circonstances atténuantes : Récit.  Nicolas Philippe, 2002. *
• -- A Rejeitada. Cia, dos Livros, 2011. 
• -- Claudia.  Faralonn éditions, 2022.
• -- La volonté d'exister. Nombre 7, 2023.

*=discusses Elisa.

-----

No surname is given by either Vartabedian or Kulíck. Vartabedian has no entry in her index for any Elisa. Kulíck has an index entry for a different Elisa, but not this one.

Vartabedian writes: “During the beginning of the 1970s, the first ‘pumped up’ (bombadas) travestis did it in the United States, in New York, with the practitioner Wesser.” Apparently she did not know that Wesser was a doctor, even though I wrote of him two years before her book came out.

The practice of pumping silicone spread across Brazil and south America during the 1980s. In 1983 there was a sort of epidemic in São Paulo where many travestis were dying painfully after industrial silicone was sold as filtered silicone. (Trevisan p165).

Claudia's books are very hard to find.   As is the film, Et il voulut être une femme.

Health warning:   estrogen is far better than silicone for feminisation.

Jae Stevens (1947-1974) performer, murdered

Stevens was born in Fort Worth, Texas, but raised in Concord in the East Bay across from San Francisco. He came out as gay when he was called to the draft board.

In 1966 Jae started a professional career in San Francisco as a female impersonator and comedian, dancer and singer at THE FAN-TASY on Mason Street as part of "Jack & The Giants". He continued to work in the showroom of the P.S. Lounge, appeared on The Cabaret circuit in San Francisco and Los Angeles as one-half of the team of Stevens & [Steve] Miller. Jae also performed in a trio act with his sister, Melissa Stevens, and Miller. They were known as the "Wonder Sisters”.

In 1970, Jae was performing with The New Faces, and appeared at a charity premiere of the film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, IMDB, as Jean Harlow and, taken as a cis woman, was acclaimed best female by audience applause. She then revealed that she was an impersonator – which was to the chagrin of the socially prominent judges.

Jae in The Laughing Policeman

Jae had an uncredited cameo in the 1973 film The Laughing Policeman. IMDB.

June 1974 Jae, age 27, had been performing at Finocchio’s night club. He (in mufti) was seen later on the night of the 24^th in the Cabaret Club in the North Beach, but it was not noticed that he left with anybody. He was feeling good as the next morning the Wonder Sisters were to fly to Boston for a gig. However, on the morning of June 25 Jae's body was found near Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate Park having been stabbed five times, three directly in the heart. It so happened that at 5 am the same morning the police had attempted to pull over a suspicious car in the Hayward area, but the driver raced away, was chased and crashed. The young driver, described as blond with shoulder-length hair, ran and escaped. The car was later identified as that of Jae Stevens.

The crime scene was a secluded area of the park sometimes used for gay encounters. The police assumed that Jae and his killer had gone there together after meeting in a bar.

There had been a similar murder of a gay man five months earlier, and then another on July 7. All were stabbed multiple times. Based on this modus apparandi, mainly the multiple stabbing and secluded locations, the SFPD assumed that they were looking for a homophobic serial killer.

Jae’s murder was, of course, a shock to the family. The youngest sister, Alma, 18, who had a history of instability, sought psychiatric help in late September, but was turned away. In October, she and her mother Mary Stevens, visited family in Texas. They returned late on Thursday 10 October. The father, a real estate agent, was not there as, while they were away, he had been sleeping at his office. After arriving home, Alma attacked and killed her mother with a hammer, dismembered the body and partially destroyed it by burning in the fireplace. The older sister, Melissa, the family member who had also performed as a Wonder Sister, and who had identified Jae’s body for the police, arrived, and was also attacked. She survived and went immediately to the local police, who arrested Alma. 

At her trial in February 1975, Alma was found innocent by reason of insanity, based on psychiatric reports, and she was committed to Napa State Hospital for an indefinite period.

Shortly afterwards, the father died in fire at his office. Melissa trained as a nurse and left the Bay Area. She returned only after Alma’s death in 2004.

We should also mention that San Francisco police at that time recently had dealt with the Zodiac (1968-9) and the Zebra (also 1971-4) serial killings of straight persons, and the overall homicide rate in San Francisco was more than double what it is today. Despite this there were apparently only four San Francisco murders in 1974 that can be designated as homophobic, the three later attributed to what became called the Doodler, and another killed in his apartment. In 1975 there was a surge in the number of such murders, including that of two trans women, Barbella and Yancy both killed in their own apartments. There was a gay community meeting in April concerned about the murders, but they continued. 

Three men, including a well-known entertainer and a diplomat, had survived a stabbing encounter in Fox Plaza and described the suspect, a black man, who was mentioned as making contact by sketching his mark. The police suspected that this ‘doodler’ could be the person who did the stabbing murders the year before. They put out a police sketch based on the three witness statements. The police listed five murders, 1974-5, as done by the Doodler, and suggested that the black man wanted for the Fox Plaza stabbing might be the Doodler.

A few months later there was a gruesome murder, again at the Fox Plaza, and in December-January two murders on Turk Street including one of a trans woman, Demott.

In late 1975, a psychiatrist phoned the police and claimed that one of his patients had confessed to the murderers during therapy. The police did not get the name of the psychiatrist straight, and never called him back. The therapy patient named was brought in for questioning in 1976, several times. The three men who had survived being stabbed identified the suspect. However, as homosexuality was still illegal at that time and San Francisco, like most US cities, had a police unit whose sole pupose was to entrap and arrest gay men, and to be outed as gay would destroy their lives and careers, the three survivors refused to testify against him. The suspect did not confess, charges were not pressed, and he was released. Murders of gay men in San Francisco continued, but no further murders were said to be done by the Doodler.

A rumor was put about that the Doodler had fled to New Orleans.

• Bill Kane & Jerry Carpenter. “Show Bars” California Scene, October 1971: 12. Online.
• “News”, Drag Magazine, 1,1, 1971: 16, 31. Online.
• Donald McLean. “Entertainer Jae Stevens Slain!”. Bay Area Reporter, 4, 13, 6/26/1974. Reprinted as “In Memoriam: Jay Stevens 1947-1974”. Drag Magazine, 4, 16, 1974: 34. Online.
• Wendy Heard. “The Doodler”. com. Online.
• Kevin Fagan. “The Doodler”. Com, March 16, 2021. Online.
• Gian J Quaser. “The DOODLER Serial Killer Theory”. Questersite, August 30, 2021. Online.
• Gian J Quaser. “Murder By Forgotten: The Gay Murders of San Francisco 1968-1982”. Questersite, February 6, 2022. Online.
• The Doodler: Unsolved, But Not Forgotten”. The Bloody Truth, December 17, 2023. Online.

Alma Stevens:

• “Body found in Concord fireplace: Mother missing, daughter held”. Concord Transcript, Oct 11, 1974:1.
• “A tragic psychiatric rejection”. The San Francisco Examiner, Oct 16, 1974:46.
• “Alma Stevens committed to a hospital”, Concord Transcript, Feb 26, 1975:1.

En.Wikipedia(Doodler) Find a Grave

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Jian J Quaser questions whether there was indeed a Doodler. The murders, of course were real, and significantly more than the five or six attributed to the Doodler. One of the Doodler victims was not stabbed, but beaten with a rock. Also, the man who stole Jae’s car and then ran off was described as ‘blond’ not black. 

Quaser:

The DOODLER concept then goes public in 1976, but the concept was presented to us vaguely. I have repeated it a number of times on here. To belabor the point, we are basically told there possibly had been some black guy known now as The DOODLER who might be connected with 14 other murders, names unspecified, over 1974-1975. In retrospect we are given five names of potential victims: they are, of course, Gerald Cavanaugh (January 1974), Jae Stevens (June 1974), Klaus Christmann (July 1974), Fred Capin (May 1975), and Harald Gullberg (May/June 1975). After this, The DOODLER concept rather fizzles away.

From our point of view today, however, there is a problem. A closer look at these cases, for the most part, doesn’t reveal much of a connection except they occurred out-of-doors and in the western districts of San Francisco. In retrospect there seems little reason these 5 were made tokens. Poor Harald Gullberg probably wasn’t even murdered. He certainly wasn’t knifed, and the coroner wasn’t sure if his death was an accident. Why then were these 5 names presented to the public in 1976 and strung to a black guy who had attacked in Mid Market and whose known victims had survived?

Quaser is almost alone in questioning the Doodler as a police construction. I am however inclined to go with his interpretation. The search for a mythical Doodler resulted in the murders not being properly investigated, and the real murderers not being apprehended.

Tara O’Hara (195? – 198?) performer.

Original June 2011, revised November 2023.

Tara's male persona was raised by a Jehovah's Witness family in New Orleans. In the early 80s, he was working in Berlin as an English teacher.

Tara and Jayne, from Jayne's book.

When he discovered Romy Haag's drag club he came back again and again, and started wearing drag to the club. This lead to a part in the show and Tara gave up both teaching and the Jehovah's Witnesses.

She was in Rosa von Praunheim's 1983 film, Stadt Der Verlorenen Seelen (City of Lost Souls) along with Jayne County and Angie Stardust where they all play versions of themselves.

Some sites including IMDB say that Tara was murdered in 1983, but some say that she was encountered later than that. 

Jayne County writing in 1995 said:

 "Ten years later [after 1983] I heard the tragic story of Tara's passing on. Tara was found in the ladies' room in the Berlin Tiergarten area with her head bashed in. They took her to the hospital and she lay there for weeks and weeks in a coma. Finally the doctors decided that enough was enough and pulled the plug on her. I guess they thought that Tara would never recover, but they should have consulted someone. It caused a stink in the Berlin press. She was dying slowly anyway, but leave it to Tara to go out with a bang!" (p155-6)

However there was in the 2010s another Tara O'Hara  resident in Berlin.  She lived with Edeltraut P., and they were gay and community activists.

• Jayne County with Rupert Smith. Man Enough to be a Woman. London: Serpent's Tail, 1995: 148-9, 151-2, 155-6, 183-4.  The book is dedicated "In memory of Tara O'Hara". 
• " City of Lost Souls". Ntlworld. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/shaun.morris/City%20Of%20Lost%20Souls/city.htm.
• Charlotte Cooper. "Remembering". The Skinny, 07 Nov 2007. http://www.theskinny.co.uk/article/40744-remembering.
• “Tara O’Hara”. Remembering Our Dead. www.gender.org/remember/people/taraohara.html.
• "Neukölln ist nicht so schlimm, wie es dargestellt wird“. Queer Berlin. www.jackwerth-verlag.de/specials/neukoelln-ist-nicht-so-schlimm-wie-es-dargestellt-wird.html?PHPSESSID=e46a83d3208405ad149c6c15f3680b4b.
• "Rund um die Karl-Marx-Strasse". Queer Berlin. www.siegessaeule.de/specials/neukoelln-ist-nicht-so-schlimm-wie-es-dargestellt-wird/rund-um-die-karl-marx-strasse.html.
• Nora Eckert. "Hungrig nach Wirklichkeit –  meine hedonistischen 70er Jahre.  Erinnerungen einer Transfrau" in Westberlin – ein sexuelles Porträt.  in Heinz-Jürgen Voß (ed). Westberlin – ein sexuelles Porträt.  Psychosozial-Verlag, 2021: 227-30.
• Nora Eckert. Wie Alle, Nur Anders: ein transsexuelles Leben in Berlin. Verlag C H Beck, 2021. Translated into Portuguese by Virginia Maza as Flores Particulares. Transito, 2022: 81-2.

IMDB  

Edward Wilson (?1672 – 1694) kept man, murdered

Edward Wilson from Leicestershire served under his uncle in Flanders during the Nine-years war against France, 1688-97. However he was dismissed and sent home to London with 10 guineas (about £2,300 in modern money). This was soon spent. However by 1693 Wilson was living with the equipage and garb of nobility, had redeemed his father’s estate and gave portions to his sister – all this without any visible means of income. It was estimated that he was living at a rate of £4,000 per annum (over three quarters of £1 million in modern money). There was much speculation in the coffee-houses and in clubs as to the source of his income. Had he stolen diamonds, was he passing information to the French, had he discovered the philosopher’s stone, or sold his soul to the devil? Was he a kept man? 

There was only one lady who was said to have enough resources, the intrigante Mistress Elizabeth Villiers (1657-1733) then 36 and the favourite of the then King, William of Orange. It was later said that Wilson and Villiers had been lovers and she was curious to know of a rival. In any case it irked her that she was being mentioned. She engaged one John Law, a card sharper down from Edinburgh to spy on Wilson. He quickly ascertained that most evenings at around 10, Wilson would dismiss his servants and take a sedan chair to a house near Hyde Park Corner. He did not return until 5am. On a later evening Law realised that the house went through to the next street, and a hour after Wilson's arrival a lady left by chair from the back door and proceeded to a nobleman’s house. Some hours later she emerged and the journey was reversed. After some days of watching this, Law contrived to have the lady arrested and taken to a sponging house on charges of an outstanding debt. There he was able to confirm that the lady was Wilson, and was impressed by her gait and demeanour which were consistent with her appearance. Wilson offered money and Law changed sides. It was arranged that Law should burst into the nobleman’s house and discover Wilson with the naked daughter of the French steward. This was reported back to Mistress Villiers.

It so happened that both Wilson’s sister and Law’s mistress, a Mrs Lawrence, lodged at the same abode in St Giles in the Fields. After a spat between the two, Wilson removed his sister elsewhere. Law took the attitude that aspersions had thereby been cast upon the residence, and letters concerning matters of honour were exchanged. On the 9^th April 1694, Wilson was drinking with a friend, Captain Wightman at the Fountain Inn in the Strand, when Law arrived and words were exchanged. Law then left. Wilson and Wightman took a carriage to Bloomsbury Square, where they encountered Law again. Law and Wilson drew swords, and after only one pass, Law punctured Wilson fatally to the depth of two inches in the upper part of the stomach. Law remained and was immediately arrested. Wightman went immediately to Wilson’s house, but reported that there were no papers, except for a suggested cure for toothache.

While their encounter did not have the formality of a duel (formal challenge, seconds, a surgeon in attendance etc), it is described so in many accounts. Duelling was illegal, but survivors of duels were almost never arraigned. Law was found guilty of murder on 20^th April, sentenced to death. This was then commuted to a fine, but Wilson’s brother lodged an “appeal of murder”, a private prosecution following an acquittal for murder, and Law continued to be imprisoned. On the 6^th January 1695 with the help of bribes and drugs to subdue the guards, law escaped to a waiting coach, which took him to a waiting ship and thence to Flanders.

Prior to this period, much of what banking there was had been done by goldsmiths.  John Law (1671-1729) was the son of a Scottish goldsmith and was thus acquainted with the practices and the theory.  He was also good at numbers and odds and at remembering which cards had already been played, and thus was able to win at the game of faro.  After his prison escape he wandered around Europe, living by his wits and his abilities as a card sharper.  He also became an advocate for central banking and paper currency. He published a text entitled Money and Trade Considered: with a Proposal for Supplying the Nation with Money, 1705. Law was in Scotland and participated in the debates leading to the Act of Union with England, 1707. However with the passing of that act he had to leave as he was an escaped felon in England. His propositions of creating a national bank in Scotland were ultimately rejected. In France he was mentored by the Duke of Orleans. The wars of Louis XIV had left the country completely wasted, both economically and financially. The resultant shortage of precious metals led to a shortage of coins in circulation, which in turn limited the production of new coins. After Louis XIV died, and Orleans became regent, Law proposed that the economy be stimulated by replacing gold with paper credit and a centralised bank.  He was the architect of the Mississippi Company which became the Mississippi Bubble in 1720, and the bubble in turn was aggravated by an outbreak of plague in the Marseilles region. People quickly returned to gold and silver currency and there was no further monetary reform until after the Revolution. Law's properties were confiscated. He had been granted a British pardon in 1719, and returned to London in 1723. He died in poverty in Venice in 1729 age 57.

The nobleman lover of Edward Wilson is taken by most writers to be Charles Spencer (1675-1722). He became the heir to the Earldom of Sunderland when his elder brother died in 1688. After the death of Edward Wilson, he became Member of Parliament for Tiverton in 1695 and married the heiress Arabella Cavendish. She gave him one daughter and died in 1698 age 24. He married a second heiress, Anne Churchill in 1700. They had six children and she died in 1716 age 33. Spencer married a third heiress, Judith Tichborne in 1717. They had three children who all died very young. Spencer became the Third Earl in 1702, and he served in several major political offices. In 1718 he became First Lord of the Treasury (in effect Prime Minister). This was at the same time as John Law held the corresponding position in France. The British South Sea Bubble was also in 1720, and Spencer resigned over it in 1721. He died a year later. Love-Letters Between a Certain Late Nobleman and the Famous Mr. Wilson: Discovering the True History of the Rise and Surprising Grandeur of that Celebrated Beau which almost identified him as Edward Wilson’s lover was published a year after that.

Netta Murray Goldsmith points out that neither Spencer nor Villiers was that rich that they could provide for Wilson’s spending. Spencer was still dependent on an allowance from his father. She makes a good case that William of Orange was also Wilson’s lover. Two other attractive young men were raised by William III to wealth and titles: William Bentinck and Arnold van Keppel. All three were regarded as part of a sodomical circle at court.

The suspicious removal of all Wilson's papers, and the arranged escape of Law from prison suggest a conspiracy.  Law would seem to have been a hitman, but who ordered Wilson's death and why?  Had he become over-demanding, or an embarrassment? Had he suggested that he would spill secrets?   

Some historians suggest that the 1723 published Love Letters were among the documents removed from Wilson's house when he was killed.  This detail, like most of the details here is advocated by some and dismissed by others. 

• Unknown Lady’s Pocquet of Letters, 1708
• Love-Letters Between a Certain Late Nobleman and the Famous Mr. Wilson: Discovering the True History of the Rise and Surprising Grandeur of that Celebrated Beau. A Moore, 1723.
• Adolphe Thiers translated by Frank S Fiske. The Mississippi Bubble: A memoir of John Law. W A Townsend & Company, 1859: 29-33. 
• H Montgomery Hyde. John Law: the history of an honest adventurer. W H Allen, 1948, 1969: 24-33.
• Rictor Norton. Mother Clap’s Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England 1700-1830. GMP, 1992: 35-43.
• Antoin E Murphy. John Law: Economic Theorist and Policy-Maker. Clarenden Press, 1997: 20-34.
• Netta Murray Goldsmith. The Secret: Edward Wilson And The Government Conspiracy. Kindle, 2012.
• Antoin Murphy. “Two Bubbles and a Plague”. Center for the Study of Economic Liberty, Online.

Michelle Confait (1945 – 1972) sex worker

Confait, born in the Seychelles, but living in London, had been raised with the name Maxwell but preferred Michelle.

Michelle

In the early 1970s she was working as a trans prostitute, and in 1971 was arrested for importuning and served five months in HMP Wormwood Scrubs (a men's prison) where she was protected by and provided sexual favours to Douglas Franklin.

On release she frequented the Black Bull Pub (later the Fox and Firkin) in Lewisham High Street where she met Winston Goode, an occasional transvestite. Goode had broken up with his wife although she and their children still lived in the same house in Doggett Road, Catford. Michelle became a lodger in the house at £2.50 a week.

A fire started in the early morning of 22 April 1971. Goode awoke, evacuated his wife and children and ran to Catford Bridge railway station, almost next door, to dial 999. The Fire Brigade arrived and extinguished the fire within ten minutes. They also found a body, later identified as Michelle Confait. Unusually the police surgeon did not take a rectal temperature to establish time of death as the senior policeman remarked that the body was a ‘possible homosexual’ and he did not wish to destroy any evidence of recent sexual activity. It was established that Confait had been strangled and there was no struggle.

The first suspect was Goode – for example why was he in his day clothes rather than his night clothes when he ran to ring the fire brigade? He was held at the police station all day and medically examined. He mentioned that Confait planned to move out, and admitted jealousy, but also denied that they were lovers. The Detective Chief Superintendent later commented that he was such a weak individual that he would have confessed under interrogation if guilty. A few days later Goode was admitted to Bexley Psychiatric Hospital, apparently unable to remember the previous few days.

There were a few other fires in the area in the next few days. An 18-year old with the mental age of eight, and two younger boys were arrested and interrogated without either their parents or a social worker being present. They were tried at the Old Bailey. Mr Justice Chapman described the victim as “an odd creature, and indeed it may be your view that he has been no great loss to this world”. The three boys were found guilty of manslaughter, despite having alibis for the estimated time of death, and claims of being hit by the police. Nor was it explained why they would kill Confait, and having done so, then wait several hours before setting the house on fire.

In May 1974 Goode swallowed cyanide and died – several publications had hinted that he was involved in the crimes. The next year Mrs Goode was quoted in the media that her husband had once tried to kill her, and she was certain that he had started the fire and murdered Confait.

Also in 1975 the new Labour Home Secretary Roy Jenkins referred the case to the Court of Appeal with the result that all three boys were found not guilty and freed. The judge particularly criticised the police for not putting more emphasis on the fact that there had been no struggle.

The house in Murder Houses of South London

In 1976 Douglas Franklin and Paul Pooley were sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment, partly as a result of Franklin informing on Pooley. Pooley attempted to appeal but Franklin declined to give evidence. The two men were increasingly at odds, and other inmates said that Franklin was fearful of being incriminated for the Confait murder. Pooley was later quoted (with typical misgenderings):

“I tagged around with Doug and he took me down to Confait’s house in Catford. We both had a lot to drink by the time we got there and Doug was fooling around with Confait. Max put a record on and Doug started dancing with him. He was twisting a scarf around his neck. I Don’t know where it came from but suddenly I realised that a bit of fun was ceasing to be a joke. Max went blue in the face and fell to the ground.” 

In 1980 a high-level police report identified Franklin as the killer. It also confirmed that the time of death was 48 hours earlier than stated at trial. It had been assumed that rigor mortis started after the discovery of the fire. In fact, Confait had been dead for 48 hours and rigor was wearing off. The report concluded that had the boys not been arrested, Douglas Franklin would probably have become a suspect at an early stage of the original murder enquiry. Franklin committed suicide shortly afterwards.

27 Doggett Rd in Google St View

In the late 1970s and early 1980s there were other flagrant miscarriage of justice cases, Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, Cardiff Three etc, and following a report by a former High Court Judge, the government set up the Royal Commission of Criminal Procedure which ultimately led to Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), 1984,  and the Crown Prosecution Service under the Prosecution of Offenders Act 1985 – which decides independently of the police whether a prosecution will proceed.

• Satish Sekar. “Failure”. Fitted In: Social Justice, Legal Issues, July 2, 2014. Online.
• Satish Sekar. “Douglas Franklin”. Fitted In: Social Justice, Legal Issues, July 1, 2014. Online.
• Satish Sekar. “Paul Pooley”. Fitted In: Social Justice, Legal Issues, July 1, 2014. Online.
• Jan Bondeson. Murder Houses of South London. Troubador Publishing, 2015: 171-7.
• Kate More. “Testimonies of HIV Activism” in Kate More & Stephen Whittle (eds) . Reclaiming Genders: Transsexual Grammars at the Fin de Siecle. Routledge, 2016: 137.
• “The Maxwell Confait Muder”. Lewisham Heritage, 25 August 2018. Online.
• Jon Rogers. “INJUSTICE FIGHT What happened to Maxwell Confait and was his murder case ever solved?”. The Sun, 23 Oct 2019. Online.
• Jon Robbins. “Cases that changed us : Maxwell Confait”.  Justice Gap, 21 November 2019. Online.
• Paul Rock. The Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales: Volume II: Institution-Building. Routledge, 2019: 253-308, 290nn88, 94.

EN.Wikipedia       LGBTArchive

Edward Dolan (1880-1937) murdered

Associated Press version May 28 1937

Associated Press version May 28 1937

In 1937, Edward Dolan (we have only her male name) was living with her husband, Kenneth Reese, a hospital orderly, at an apartment building on Ludlow Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side (in fact only three blocks away from where Marsha P Johnson would live 30 years later). The Building was known as ‘the house of all nations’ because of the variety of its tenants.

Neighbors reported that Dolan “sometimes went out dressed in the attire of a woman”, and when questioned claimed that he worked as a female impersonator, and “preferred to dress at home”.

In late May 1937, the neighbours complained about much noise and commotion in Dolan’s apartment, and some hours later Dolan was found dead, strangled.

• “Female Impersonator Slain in New York,” Baltimore Sun, 28 May 1937, 4.
• “Dancer Found Slain in His Apartment,” New York Times, 28 May 1937, 3.
• James Polchin. Indecent Advances: A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice Before Stonewall. Counterpoint, 2019:

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Two unanswered questions:

1) Was Dolan a professional female impersonator? There is no statement about a bar or nightclub where she was appearing. Perhaps she felt that she needed an excuse to wear female clothes when the neighbors had noticed her. It was actually quite unusual for professional female impersonators to dress female outside work at that time. Artists in the 1950s are considered pioneers for doing so: Mrs Shufflewick, Ron Storme, the performers at Le Carrousel, Hotcha Hinton. We might also consider the police raid on New York's Black Parrot Tea Shoppe Hobo-Hemia 14 years earlier when Ruby Bernhammer (non-professional) and Rosebud (professional) were nabbed. Variety and the New York Times disagreed as to whether Rosebud was in mufti or in female dress.

2) WhoDunnit? Was it the husband Kenneth or a third party? I could find no record of any arrest in the case. Nor any mention of Kenneth - did he stay or flee?

Diana Sacayán (1975 – 2015) activist.

Amancay Diana Sacayán, one of 16 siblings of aboriginal Diaguita descent, was born in Tucumán in northwest Argentina at a time of a state emergency in the province declared by President Isabel Perón.

Later the family moved to Gregorio de Laferrère, a suburb of Buenos Aires.

Diana came out as trans at age 17. She was arrested several times for being herself and in jail joined the Partido Comunista de la Argentina. In 2011 she left the Party and founded the Movimiento Antidiscriminatorio de Liberación (MAL) which was particularly concerned with human rights for LGBTI persons.

She worked with the health services of La Matanza Partido (which contains Gregorio de Laferrère) so that trans persons could access health care. She also made trans persons, aboriginals and the prison population aware of their rights – in particular she pushed for the state to recognize a person’s declared gender identity. She also got Buenos Aires to introduce a work quota whereby one percent of jobs in public administration are reserved for trans persons. She worked with other persons to lobby the Argentine state, a process that led to the Ley de Identidad de Genero in 2012.

Sacayán was the first trans activist to get a female ID card, and was given it personally by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

In 2012 she ran for the post of Ombudsman on behalf of the La Matanza party, and was one of three finalists – the first trans person in Argentina to achieve this level of recognition. In 2014 she was elected Trans Alternate Secretary of the ILGA Council at its World Conference in Mexico City.

In October 2015 she was brutally stabbed to death in her apartment while bound hand and foot, and gagged.

This created an outcry among human rights and LGBTI activists. The Comisión de Familiares y Compañeros de Justicia por Diana Sacayán- Basta de Travesticidio was created and the word

‘Travesticidio’ put into common use. In May 2016 the Amancay Festival was held in La Matanza in her memory, and 28 June 2016 the First National March against Transvesticidio was held in Buenos Aires.

Gabriel David Marino was arrested and charged with the murder of Diana Sacayán. He was convicted of transvesticidio "aggravated homicide due to gender violence and hatred of gender identity" - first person to be sentenced under a legal provision specifically targeting anti-transgender crimes.

Police believe there may have been a second person involved in the murder, but he has never been identified.

Marino was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2018.

• “Argentina transgender killings spark outcry”. BBC News, 15 October 2015. Online.
• Frances Jenner. “Man who killed Diana Sacayán receives a life sentence for ‘travesticidio’ for the first time in Argentine history”. Argentina Reports, Jun 18, 2016. Online.
• Nick Duffy. “Man who murdered Argentina transgender activist Diana Sacayán jailed for life on hate crime charge”. Pink News, 19^th June 2018. Online.

ES.Wikipedia        EN.Wikipedia

Leynon (192? – 195?) performer

Leynon, from Mexico, was a well-known performer in US female-impersonation nightclubs in the 1950s. When Perry Desmond was hired for a first chance as a performer at New Orleans’ My-O-My Club in 1956, Leynon stepped in to help Desmond with make-up and costume.

Desmond records that she was viciously murdered in a transphobic hate crime in Mexico a few years later.

• Perry Desmond & Dr. R. L. Hymers. Perry: A Transformed Transsexual. Impact Christian Books. 2004: 31-2.

Queer Music Heritage.

Terri Williams (Moore) (1941 – 1976) dancer, wife, murdered

Frank Felice, from Detroit, moved to Lansing, Michigan in 1972, where she became Terri Williams.

She first came to police attention when a murder investigation led to a gay bar and she was able to be a witness. In 1974 Williams told the police about a man who had stayed in her apartment and spoke of a triple murder in Florida as part of a jewel robbery. Williams, in his male persona, was flown to Florida to testify, and a conviction and death penalty followed.

However by that time, Terri was ready for surgery and had a series of transgender operations 1974-5 in Lansing, Michigan performed by a professor at Michigan State University. Terri was then outed by a local television reporter under the impression that penile inversion was a new development. A Michigan state legislator brought up the issue and questioned the use of public funds for such procedures. This became a furore when the appropriations bill for the state medical school came up.

The same reporter later found her engaged to be married, but this broke up and Terri moved to Denver late 1975 to start over.

She had few job prospects and became a topless dancer. While working at that job she met Richard Moore, and they were married May 14, 1976. Apparently Terri did not discuss her history with Richard, but Mr and Mrs Moore briefly visited Lansing, and met Terri’s friends.

It was noted that Richard’s mood changed rapidly, and he even spoke of killing his wife. Mr and Mrs Moore left early to return to Denver.

Terri’s body was found on June 1 close to Interstate 80 outside Newton, Iowa with her two dogs, only one of them alive. Terri had been shot. In her purse they found her marriage license, and her note book listed friends in Lansing and in Denver, and the make, red Mercury, and license number of Richard’s car.

The police quickly put the story together and watched for the car to turn up at Richard’s address in Denver. He was arrested and charged with murder. During jury selection he suddenly attempted to confess and plead guilty. A competency proceeding was conducted and he was found competent to stand trial.

At the trial, Richard Moore denied that his wife was transsexual, but said that she had had her tubes tied. He also said that he was the country singer, Johnny Cash, that the police had bugged his car, and that the key policemen were imposters. His father testified that Richard had become mentally ill years before, and had spent two months in a mental hospital in Pueblo, Colorado.

He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He appealed on the grounds that his removal from the courtroom after several verbal outbursts violated his constitutional right of confrontation. He also claims trial court abused its discretion in admitting murder scene and autopsy photographs and should have instructed, on its own motion, on diminished capacity. The appeal court affirmed the original conviction.

Nobody claimed Terri’s body, and so she was buried in Newton.

• Eddie Krell, “Honeymoon Murder of the Transsexual Bride” Inside Detective, September, 1976: 40. PDF
  
• “STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Richard A. MOORE, Appellant“. March 21, 1979. Leagle
  
• Katrina Rose. “The Honeymoons That Will Murder Transsexuals’ Rights” ENDABlog, 24 July 2011 https://endablog.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/the-honeymoons-that-will-murder-transsexuals-rights/

Transas City
__________________________

The surgery at Michigan State was pioneering, and Terri was one of the first transsexuals in Michigan. I do not understand why she is not included in this LGBT Heritage Timeline for the state, especially as it is hosted by Lynn Conway’s university.

Penile inversion was new in Michigan in 1975, but had been developed by Georges Burou 20 years earlier, and Stanley Biber in Trinidad, Colorado had been doing such operations since 1968.

Daya Rani (1959 – 2015) electoral candidate

Daya was born and has always lived in Dasna, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. She lived with other kinnars in a shared bungalow.

Although illiterate, in 2004, 2009 and 2014 Daya Rani contested the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha constituency in the General Election as an independent. In 2007 she ran for the Uttar Pradesh assembly. She stressed her gender identity:

"Why are people with me? Because other politicians fill their homes and cupboards. And I have no children, husband, wife or heirs. Whatever family I have is these people and I live off these people and I will fight for these people with the politicians who have not delivered on their promises."

However in 2014 the District Magistrate cancelled her nomination.

On the morning of 4 July 2015, Daya Rani was found dead in her room. She had been shot through a hole cut in the wire mesh over her window, and the gun fired as a train passed so as not to be heard.

Two days later the police arrested Waris and one other at the Ghaziabad bus stand, and found a country-made pistol and a knife. The accused had the idea that by murdering Rani, they could obtain her wealth, said to be 1,00,00,000 rupees or more. In addition, Waris, was married to Rani's niece, Geeta, against Rani's wishes. Later Rani had provided accommodation for Geeta and her child, but not for Waris.

• "A very different glass ceiling to break". The National, March 9, 2009. www.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/a-very-different-glass-ceiling-to-break.
  
• "Transsexual runs for Indian presidency". Russia Today, 16 Apr, 2009. www.rt.com/news/transsexual-runs-for-indian-presidency.
  
• Purusharth Aradhak. "Kinnar set to take on 'outsiders' Singh, Ilmi". The Times of India, Mar 24, 2014. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/Kinnar-set-to-take-on-outsiders-Singh-Ilmi/articleshow/32568773.cms.
  
• "Photos :: Daya Rani files nomination". Prokeraia, Mar 24 2014. www.prokerala.com/news/photos/independent-candidate-for-upcoming-2014-general-169484.html.
  
• "Daya Rani Kinnar's murder case cracked, two held". Zeenews, July 6, 2015. http://zeenews.india.com/news/uttar-pradesh/daya-rani-kinnars-murder-case-cracked-two-held_1625794.html.
  
• Darren Wee. "India transgender politician who ran for president shot dead: Two men have confessed to her murder". Gay Star News, 30 July 2015. www.gaystarnews.com/article/india-transgender-politician-who-ran-for-president-shot-dead.
  
  ____________________________________________________________________________
  
  Most of the news articles refer to Daya Rani as "Daya Rani Kinnar".   However 'kinnar' is a local word for 'hijra'.   Thus it is like referring to "Sylvia Rivera Transgender".   Not a good practice. Not at all!
  
  
  

Tommy Vasu (191? - 1965) bar owner

Tommy Vasu was the first known lesbian to legally own a bar in San Francisco, possibly using the money she made managing the sex work of a number of her girlfriends.

She ran Tommy's Joint at 299 Broadway from 1948 to 1951. Tommy usually dressed in men's double-breasted suits, ties and a fedora hat. She kept her hair short and went with hookers. She also ran the parking lot across the street, ran around with gangsters and drove a Cadillac convertible. Prostitutes and lesbians, artists, bohemians and queers mixed in the bar. In June 1949 the police raided and eight women were charged with vagrancy.

Later she ran Tommy's Place at 529 Broadway from 1952 to 1954, across from the then new City Lights Bookstore. In 1954 the bar was closed by the vice Squad. Two of the bartenders were charged with serving minors, and then some heroin, probably planted, was found in the ladies' toilets. Tommy lost her license and one of the bartenders was convicted.

She still ran the parking concession. In the late 1960s she had a expensive blond girlfriend who was on heroin. And Tommy became a dealer to supply her needs. She was busted in 1969 and served five years in the California Correctional Institution at Tehachapi.

She was murdered shortly afterward.

• Nan Alamilla.Boyd. Wide-Open Town A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965. University of California Press, 2003: 66-7, 82, 88, 90-2, 95, 133, 173n155.
  
• Dick Boyd. "Before the Castro: North Beach, a Gay Mecca". The Semaphore, 189, Winter 2010. http://www.thd.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Winter-2010-Semaphore-Edition-189.pdf or http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Before_the_Castro:_North_Beach,_a_Gay_Mecca.
  

Grayce Baxter (1966 – 1992) sex worker, murdered.

Grayce Baxter from British Columbia completed transition in 1985 at a clinic in the US. Her parents had understood her gender dyssonance, and helped with the arrangements.

Grayce moved to Toronto in 1988, nominally to find a computer job, but known to many as Candace, she soon became a successful call girl with a roster of 100 clients. She specialized as a dominatrix. She acquired an expensive lake-front condo filled with fine antiques, a BMW, and designer clothing, and told her parents that she had become an executive in computing. However she always carried a stun gun and a can of mace when working. In December 1992 she had sent plane tickets to her parents to arrive for Christmas.

On 7 December Grayce worked a stag party with another prostitute and left after midnight. At 2 am she received a call at the number in her advertisement in Now weekly. The caller was 23-year-old Patrick Johnson, from Abbotsford, BC, a weightlifter and a part-time guard at Toronto's Don Jail. They agreed $200 for a 45-minute encounter. However Johnson had difficulty performing, and when his time was up, be became enraged. Grayce attempted to spray him with mace, but he overwhelmed her and choked her to death. He then cut her body into pieces, put them into garbage bags and dumped then in the apartment garbage bins.

Two days later Baxter's BMW was found. Mr & Mrs Baxter arrived in Toronto to meet a double shock of finding out how their daughter made her living combined with the fact that she was missing. Johnson pawned her diamond ring and Rolex on Dec. 21 for $1,650. The police tracked him from his cellphone records.

After it was mentioned in the press that Baxter had been born male, Johnson wrote a six-page letter to the Toronto Sun in which he admitted having seen Baxter on the night in question. He described himself as a “big, tough weightlifter, the womanizer, the loudmouth and joker” and insisted: : “I want to let the guys at the Don know I never knew she was once a he ... so quit the jokes”.  Charged with first-degree murder, Johnson opted to plead guilty to second degree on the eve of his trial. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but could apply for parole after a decade.

After nine years in a BC prison, he was granted day parole on condition that he stay away from sex workers. However he did not, and was returned to prison. In 2004 he had another chance, but was seen by the police as a prostitute entered his car. A third attempt at parole lasted two and a half years, but ended in June 2013 when a girlfriend reported him for alcohol abuse and attending to sex workers. However he took full responsibility for Baxter's murder, and has found Aboriginal spirituality. In 2014 he was released on parole a fourth time.

No trace of Grayce's body was ever found.

• Michele Mandel. "Where is Grayce?: The baffling case of missing call girl". Toronto Sun, December 27, 1992. Online at: www.walnet.org/csis/news/toronto_92/torsun-921227.html.
  
• John Schmied. "Jailer held in call-girl death". Toronto Sun, January 9, 1993. Online at: www.walnet.org/csis/news/toronto_93/torsun-930109.html.
  
• Kevin Hann. "Murder accused writes to Sun". Toronto Sun, January 12, 1993. Online at: www.walnet.org/csis/news/toronto_93/torsun-930112.html.
  
• Andrew Sorfleet. Letter to Xtra, February 5, 1993. Online at: www.walnet.org/csis/people/grayce_baxter.
  
• Bruce Demara & Wendy Darroch. "Guard gets life term for killing prostitute". Toronto Star, April 20, 1994. Online at: www.walnet.org/csis/news/toronto_94/torstar-940420.html.
  
• Viviane K. Namaste. "Interview with Mirha-Soleil Ross". Chp 7 in Viviane K. Namaste. Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism. Women's Press, 2005: 92.
  
• Michele Mandel. "Call girl killer gets fourth chance at parole". Toronto Sun, June 07, 2014. www.torontosun.com/2014/06/07/call-girl-killer-gets-fourth-chance-parole.
  
  __________________________________________________________________________

Mirha-Soleil Ross takes issue with the fact that the Transgender Day of Remembrance includes Grayce in that she was a passing woman and murdered by a john who did not know that she was trans.

Emmon Bodfish (1943 – 1999) druid, plumber, investment advisor

Originally from Ohio, Emmon Bodfish was active in the Reformed Druids of North America. He produced the Druid Missal-Any Magazine 1983-1991, some of which was reprinted in A Reformed Druid Anthology, 2nd Edition, Volume 3: The Magazine Volume. At this time he corresponded with trans woman Tadhg MacCrossan, in the period before she wrote The Sacred Cauldron. His wisdom is still quoted on Druid sites.

As his prior identity, Margaret, Bodfish ran a pool maintenance and plumbing business, The Blue Lagoon. Later he worked as an investment advisor. He owned a simple home in the affluent Orinda area outside San Francisco. He also owned a town-house in Marin County. In the late nineties he was apparently isolated and depressed, and occasionally reverted to being a woman.

In June 1999 Emmon was found bludgeoned to death. The next day his son Max Wills was found, an apparent suicide in a Santa Monica hotel room. Max was known to have suffered from long term depression but was reluctant to kill himself while his mother was alive.

Later the police discovered a floor safe containing $60,000 in gold and coins. A drill had been found at the same spot but there was no sign that it was used to pry out the safe. In addition a police investigator apparently contracted Q fever in the Bodfish home.

• Samhain 1986. "Samhain: The Other World". Reposted at: www.opednews.com/articles/Samhain-The-Other-World-by-Emmon-Bodfish-081029-130.html.
  
• Isaac Bonewits & Michael Scharding (eds).A Reformed Druid Anthology, 2nd Edition, Volume 3: The Magazine Volume. Online at: http://orgs.carleton.edu/druids/arda.
  
• Ed Walsh. " Bodfish likely struggled with killer, report says". Bay Area Reporter, 28/08/99. Online at: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.true-crime/_QyBWhoc5SE.
  
• Ed Walsh. "Reclusive Bodfish had stash of herbal remedies, vitamins: Report says liver was normal". Bay Area Reporter, 10/29/99. Online at: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.true-crime/OpbPg1-y3ds.
  
• Ed Walsh. "Bodfish investigator may have gotten rare disease from Orinda home". Bay Area Reporter, 2/4/00. Online at: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.true-crime/E9-N8dH6ixw.
  
• Charlie Goodyear. "Diary Prompts Theories in Orinda Slaying / Police suspect mother-son death pact". SFGate, March 31, 2000. www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Diary-Prompts-Theories-in-Orinda-Slaying-Police-2766298.php.
   

_____________________________________________________________________________

The murder remains unsolved.  Different possibilities have been suggested including transphobia, family involvement, a fustrated robbery and even, based on an entry in his diary, that Emmon contracted his own death.   

 The Druid sites do not mention the murder.  

Cam Lyman (1932 – 1987) aristocrat, dog breeder.

Camilla Lyman was born to an old and rich Boston family. Her father, Arthur T. Lyman was well-connected and served as Massachusetts commissioner of corrections and commissioner of conservation at different times. Camilla’s mother, Susan Cabot Lyman, let her know that she was an unwanted child.  Camilla was a breeder of champion Clumber spaniels, and had a professional handler’s license, but usually showed only her own dogs and those of a few friends.

Lyman's father died in 1968, and as Cam he started dressing male. He grew a thin mustache and his hair started thinning. It is assumed that he was taking steroids prescribed for the dogs. He legally changed his name to ‘Cam’ in 1985. He also became more erratic, and became infamous for outbursts at dog shows, especially when his dogs lost. The care of the kennels slipped.

He disappeared in 1987, presumably murdered, the dogs simply abandoned. George O’Neil who had power-of-attorney and handled his every-day business later reported that a phone call with him ended abruptly, and that he later found the phone ripped from the wall and the doors open.

However Lyman’s disappearance was unreported to the police for over a year. For nine years after that, the only police involvement was a missing-person report. The estate was never searched, no-one was questioned. The family hired a Boston private eye who concluded that Lyman had been dead since his disappearance. This was used in probate court to enable the estate to be sold.

Cam’s body was found in 1997 in the septic tank on his estate on Rhode Island by the new owners. He left behind 58 dogs and a $1.9 million trust fund. O’Neil was later charged with illegally draining the trust.

• Elizabeth Mehren. “Mystery Shrouds Millionaire's Disappearance : Enigma: Cam Lyman looked and acted like a man. To some, she vanished as a cover for a sex change. But her sisters think she's dead” Los Angeles Times, Dec 30, 1994. http://articles.latimes.com/1994-12-30/news/ls-14698_1_cam-lyman.
• Terrence Petty. “TV show yields possible clues in case of the murdered Boston heiress”. Associated Press, 07/09/99. www.boston.com/news/daily/09/heiress.htm.
• Katie Mulvaney. “’Tons’ of Evidence, No Arrest in Millionaire’s Slaying”. The Providence Journal. Aug 11, 2003. www.projo.com/cgi-bin/bi/gold_print.cgi.
• Deborah Wood. “Cam Lyman”. Missing Cold Case File. www.caninechronicle.com/features/wood/lyman_404.html.

Brenda Lee (1948 – 1996) sex worker, business woman, Aids activist.

Cicero Caetano was born in Bodocó, Pernambuco, Brazil (map)and moved to Bexiga in São Paulo at the age of 14. Using the name Brenda Lee, she was one of the first travesties to work in Paris in the late 1970s as a prostitute.


She returned to São Paulo in 1984 and bought a house in the Bixiga neighbourhood at rua Major Diogo, 779, which she decorated in gold and white, inside and out. Her car was also done in the same colours. She turned the building into a Casa de Apoio to care for those with HIV who were rejected by their relatives, as many were after a series of murders of travesties in the South Zone of Sao Paulo in 1985.

It started with three patients and in 1988 an agreement was signed with the São Paulo Ministry of Health, and in 1992 was legally incorporated. She worked with the Emilio Ribas Hospital which took those who needed hospitalization. Brenda also had a car repair business and a hairdressers in the building.

In 1987 she was featured in Pierre-Alain Meier’s documentary about São Paulo trans women.

In 1996 she was brutally murdered and her body found in an abandoned VW van, after she went to sort out a cheque that had been altered after she signed it. She was given a full Catholic funeral with representation from the Cardinal-Archbishop.

A Brazilian award for defending human rights was named the Brenda Lee Award.

* Not the Country singer.

• Moira Ashford. “Escaping Manhood”. New Internationalist. 175, September 1987. www.newint.org/issue175/queer.htm.
• Pierre-Alain Meier & Matthias Kalin (dir). Douleur D’Amour. With Brenda Lee and others. Brazil/Switzerland 59 mins 1987.
• Frederick L. Whitam “Culturally Universal Aspects of Male Homosexual Transvestites and Transsexuals”. In Bonnie Bullough, Vern Bullough & James Elias (eds). Gender Blending. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. 1997:199.
• “Brenda Lee“. Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre. pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Lee.
• Confissões agridoces [de uma sereia trans]. 09 Janeiro 2009. aquariodasereia.blogspot.com/2009/01/biografias-trans-da-cplp-brenda-lee.html.
• Rita Colaço. “Trans in Memorian: Brenda Lee, O anjo de guarda des Travestis”. Astra Rio: Associacao des Travestis e Transexuais do estado do RJ. 22 Janeiro 2010. associacaodastravestisetransexuaisrj.blogspot.com/2010/01/trans-in-memorian-brenda-lee-o-anjo-da.html.

Destiny Lauren (1979 – 2009) sex work, IRA bombings, miscarriages of justice and US royalty.

++ updated August 2013.

On 5th November 2009, Destiny Lauren aged 29, was found strangled in her flat in Kentish Town in northern London.   She was rushed to hospital but died shortly afterwards.

She was pre-op and worked as a prostitute.  Whether we classify her as a transsexual or as a prostitute, deaths like this are far too common.

Destiny had an interesting although rather sad family nexus, that most newspapers, with the exception of the Hampstead and Highgate Express, her local newspaper, did not pay any attention to.


Elizabeth and Paul Hill, brother and sister, were raised in Belfast, but moved to London.

On 5 October 1974 The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated two bombs at two pubs, The Horse and Groom and The Seven Stars, both in Guildford, Surrey, and both popular with British Army soldiers.  Four soldiers and one civilian were killed; a further sixty-five were wounded.  Under pressure to come up with results, the police arrested Paul Hill and three others (Gerry Conlon, Patrick Armstrong, Carole Richardson).  They were convicted and imprisoned.   Elizabeth Hill was also questioned and held at the police station for a week.

Elizabeth married a Mr Samuels, and they had four sons, including Justin who felt that he should have been a girl, and grew up to be Destiny.  Elizabeth endured the strain of campaigning for 15 years for her brother’s release.

In 1990, The Guildford Four were released.   Their convictions were overturned on appeal in that they were based on confessions extracted by torture, and evidence of innocence had been held back by the police.  In addition, at the trial of the Balcombe Street Four, the IRA men instructed their lawyers to draw attention to the fact that innocent people were serving time for the Guildford bombings.

The movie, In the Name of the Father, 1993, based on the autobiography by Gerry Conlon, is the story of the Guildford Four.

After release, in 1993,  Paul Hill married Mary Courtney Kennedy, the fifth child of Robert and Ethel Kennedy of Massachusetts.  They legally separated in 2006.

Elizabeth committed suicide in November 2005, at the flat that she shared with her daughter, Destiny.  Destiny, was well-known in London’s transsexual scene, and was an acquaintance of Boy George.  She continued to live in her mother’s flat, until she was found strangled.

Leon Fyle, 23, was convicted for the murder and jailed for 21 years in September 2010, but the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction the next April,  and he was again found guilty at the retrial.  He had stolen £350 found on her and spent £250 of it on two sex workers at a brothel in Kings Cross the same night.  Det Insp Liz Baker pointed out that Fyle never showed any remorse.

• “Tragic story of murdered transsexual, whose uncle was one of the Guildford Four”. Hampstead and Highgate Express. 26 November 2009. www.hamhigh.co.uk/content/camden/hamhigh/news/story.aspx?brand=NorthLondon24&category=Newshamhigh&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newshamhigh&itemid=WeED26%20Nov%202009%2016%3A32%3A18%3A477. 
• "Man Jailed for "Brutal and Pre-Meditated" Murder".  LBC, 3/6/11.  www.lbc.co.uk/man-jailed-for-brutal-and-pre-meditated-murder-30611.
• "Man guilty of Destiny Lauren murder in Kentish Town".  BBC News, 21 Sepember 2011.  www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15010132.

Marsha P. Johnson (1944 - 1992) activist, drag mother.

Malcolm Michaels, Jr. grew up in Hoboken and Elizabeth, both in New Jersey. Malcolm would transform to Marsha on the commuter train into New York.


In 1966, Marsha moved to Manhattan for good. She was well-known in New York drag and arts scenes from the 1960s to the 90s. Sometimes she worked as a waitress, but usually she worked the streets. She was known for helping other transvestites and street people, was regarded as a drag mother, and in particular was a mentor to the young Sylvia Rivera. She panhandled and was often on roller skates. She was deeply religious and had visions.

In the early days she was known as Black Marsha, but then dropped the ‘Black’, and became Marsha P. Johnson. The P. as she loved to explain, including on one occasion to a judge, stood for “Pay it no mind”. The judge laughed and let her go.

She participated in the Stonewall riots in 1969, where she was observed dropping a heavy weight onto a police car. She was co-founder with Sylvia of STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) and was active in STAR House which attempted to feed the homeless and the street transies.


She was also a performer and a member of Hot Peaches, and did a London tour with them. She never got a female passport, and had to do male drag to go through immigration. She was photographed by Andy Warhol.

By 1979 she acknowledged several attempts on her life by johns, eight nervous breakdowns and innumerable arrests – after one hundred she stopped counting.

Marsha was rightly regarded as generous through the decades, but when Malcolm took over he could be quite nasty, and might even pick a fight with someone who said hello to him.

Marsha was probably murdered: her body was found floating in the Hudson River shortly after the 1992 Pride March, but the police declined to investigate.

Antony Hegarty’s band, Antony and the Johnsons, is named in tribute to Marsha.

• • Bob Kohler. “Rapping with a Street Transvestite Revolutionary: An Interview with Marcia [sic] Johnson” in Karla Jay and Allen Young. Out of the closets: voices of gay liberation. New York, Douglas Book Corp. 1972. New York : Pyramid Books, c1974. New York: Jove Publications, 1977.
  • Martin B Duberman. Stonewall. New York : Dutton, c1993. New York: Plume, xix,330 pp. 1994: 67-8,188,190,191,192, 204,235,237,251-5,259. 
  • Julian Fleisher. The Drag Queens of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide. New York: Riverhead Book. 1996: 35-6, 39,59-62. 
  • Leslie Feinberg. Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Rupaul. Beacon Press, 1996: 130-1.
  • David Carter. Stonewall : the riots that sparked the gay revolution. New York : St. Martin's Press 2004. New York: Griffin 2005: 61, 65-6,162,188, 261.
  • Susan Stryker. Transgender History. Seal Press. 190 pp 2008: 86.
  • Amy Coleman. “The legendary Marsha P.Johnson…The Queen Mother”. www.amy-coleman.com/cab.htm#marshap.
  • “Marsha” TransyHouse. www.transyhouse.org/Marsha.htm. 
  • Michael Kasino (dir).   Pay It No Mind: Marsha P. Johnson, with Marsha P. Johnson, David Carter.  US 54 mins 2012.

 EN.Wikipedia      IMPERIAL COURT TRANS HERO     TRANS.ILGA