Essays on trans, intersex, cis and other persons and topics from a trans perspective.......All human life is here.
This site is the most comprehensive on the web devoted to trans history and biography. Well over 1400 persons worthy of note, both famous and obscure, are discussed in detail, and many more are mentioned in passing.
There is a detailedIndexarranged by vocation, doctor, activist group etc. There is also a Place Index arranged by City etc. This is still evolving.
In addition to this most articles have one or more labels at the bottom. Click one to go to similar persons. There is a full list of labels at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar. There is also a search box at the top left. Enjoy exploring!
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.
Joseph Touchette, often known as Tish, was raised the eldest of seven
children in Dayville, Connecticut, in a French Catholic family.
Soon after World War II, Joe met Norman Kerouac, a first cousin of Jack
Kerouac the beat writer. They decided to have a wedding in Providence, Rhode
Island – despite there being no gay marriage at the time. A minister officiated,
friends who worked in a bridal salon provided outfits for the bridesmaids, and a
lacy white wedding gown for Joe – the first time that he was ever in drag. He
liked it, and someone said that he should be a female impersonator.
He was working in a factory, but took dance and singing lessons in Providence.
He then performed in local clubs. When Joe and Norman broke up in the early
1950s, he moved to New York City.
For forty years Tish worked as a female impersonator, sang and danced across
New York and along the East Coast, often in Mafia-owned establishments. In
particular he performed at the Moroccan Village at 23 West 8th
Street (owned by the Genovese family).
In the late 1960s he had a long-running show at the Crazy Horse. He was
also in the 1960’s travelling act, French Box Revue.
Tish, on the right, at Crazy Horse. Supplied by Queer Musical Heritage
Tish was one of the few performers who sometimes left the club dressed as
female. Once a club where he was performing was raided by the police, but they
shooed him away assuming that he was a woman. Joe would be refused admission to
the Stonewall Tavern when in costume, although he was so admitted at some uptown
straight clubs, where his artistry was recognized. It was to Joe’s apartment
that Tammy
Novak ran after escaping from a police paddy wagon on the first night of the
Stonewall riots; however Tish was performing in upstate New York.
In the 1970s one of Joe’s lovers, being of the next generation, went beyond
stage performance, and transitioned as Eve. Tish was not keen that she should do
so, but he continued to take care of her. She was a sex worker and died during
the Aids epidemic. Tish still has her urn.
He continued doing drag shows after retirement, even performing at retirement
homes, living until 97.
Martin B Duberman. Stonewall. Plume, 1994: 188,197, 290n.
Rodney Arsenault was raised in a trailer park in Beamesville,
Ontario, where he identified with beautiful women. He gained two masters degrees
and became an instructor in acting at Toronto’s York University.
Arsenault started having plastic surgery during holiday breaks and reading
weeks, and became Nina. At a staff Christmas party, a grad student
proclaimed:
“Aren’t you victimizing yourself by constructing your new identity out of the
oppressive misogynistic values that you were socialized with as a male?”
Nina conceded the point, but embraced the image anyway.
Early on, Nina dated Eric Newman, the future Luka Magnotta, who later
became a porn actor, and had plastic surgery such that when he was a contestant on
COVERguy on OUTtv and Nina was a
judge, she failed to recognise him.
In 2003, she had a small part in the film Soldier’s Girl.
In 2005,
Nina’s talent agent was Eugene Pichler, who was also advocating against funding
for transgender surgery at the same time.
After nine years, 60 cosmetic surgeries and $160,000, financed mainly from
working in the actual sex trade, working as a cyber-whore, and writing a
‘t-girl’ column in Fab
magazine, Nina was chosen for one of eight Unstoppable awards, that year’s
theme in the 2007 Toronto Pride
Gala.
Sky Gilbert, drag queen and playwright, wrote a play, Ladylike, around
her persona, and it opened in November 2007. In 2010, she starred in the solo
piece, I Was Barbie. In 2012, Nina’s play in seven monologues, The
Silicone Diaries, was professionally produced. She has also done performance
pieces in art galleries.
In May 2012, Luka
Magnotta murdered Lín Jùn, 林俊, a student at Concordia University, posted
videos of the crime online and physically posted body parts to politicians and
to schools. He fled to Paris and Berlin, but was arrested, returned to Canada,
tried and sentenced to life in prison. His earlier relationship with Nina
attracted press attention.
Later that year, the book TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable
Body of Work, a series of essays on her work, was published.
In 2013, while on a flight to Edmonton with fellow performer Lexi
Sanfino, a flight attendant asked for makeup advice “because you used to be
guys, right?” In response, Sanfino decided to strut topless down the aisle. She
was arrested when the plane landed, and Nina who filmed the arrest was also
arrested, but released without charges. They were addressed as male based on
the ‘M’ in their passports, and Nina was questioned about whether she had had
genital surgery. They pointed out that it was not illegal for a legal male to
remove his top. Lexi was charged with causing a disturbance.
René Goupil started out as a window-dresser, and then, from 1932, became a
minor music-hall performer in Paris.
Late in 1933, he became director of the cabaret Le Fiacre, rue Notre-Dame de
Lorette, where he also performed as clown and prankster, and evolved his act as
a transformiste (female impersonator), a dame act featuring a character called
Odette, and then O’dett.
A year later, he bought the theatre L'Abbaye
de Thélème, place Pigalle, and turned it into a cabaret which he called 'La
noce (The wedding)'. Goupil’s act mocked celebrities, and featured an old woman
taking pratfalls, losing her glasses etc. O’dett became one of France’s best
known transformistes. Mistinguett, friend of showbiz transvestites, was also a friend of
O’dett.
O'dett and Charpini
Goupil was as out as a gay performer could be in the 1930s. In 1936, he
recorded Le Tsoin-tsoin. The song was a play on the name of the town Bouffémont, in the Val
d'Oise. The song kept returning to lines ending in the nonsense term
tsoin-tsoin: “Il passe ses journées entières à Bouffémont - tsoin-tsoin”
“Son seul plaisir dans la vie, c'est Bouffémont-tsoin-tsoin”. (See below.)
O’dett was in the 1937 French film, Cinderella. In
1938, Goupil renamed l’Abbaye de Theleme as 'Chez O’dett '. Edith Piaf performed
here after the murder of her manager and mentor, Louis Leplée.
In January 1940, O'dett appeared as the star of a review at ABC, where he mocked
Adolf Hitler as crazy. With the German occupation a few months later he
prudently withdrew to the Zone libre of southern
France, and when the Germans took over that in November 1942 he moved to Monte
Carlo even though it was occupied by the Italians.
He returned to Paris after the Liberation, and by 1948 was performing again.
In the 1960s he became an antiques dealer.
Martin Pénet. “L'expression homosexuelle dans les chansons françaises de
l'entre-deux-guerres : entre dérision et ambiguïté”. Revue d’histoire
moderne et contemporaine 4, 53-5, 2006: 106-127. Online.
Luc Sante. The Other Paris. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015:134.
Bouffémont is a homonym of ‘bouffé mon’. ‘bouffé’ is to eat extravagantly,
perhaps excessively; ‘mon’ is ‘my’; and ‘tsoin tsoin’ is nonsense like ‘dong’. YouTube
‘Bouffémont-tsoin-tsoin’ thereby becomes ‘ to eat and eat my dong’ - a
suggestion of fellatio.
There does not seem to be any connection between ‘bouffé’ and the English
restaurant word ‘buffet’ which is actually derived from a French word for side
table.
O’dett never became a performer at Madame
Arthurwhich opened in 1945, although he was only 42 at the time. As was
the style between the wars, O’dett’s act was more what we would call cod drag
or dame drag rather than glamour drag, although probably no more so than that of
Floridor or Maslova, the original Madame
Arthur stars. And remember that across the channel, England's most popular female impersonator was Old Mother Riley.Madame Arthur and then Le Carrousel was altered
dramatically in 1951 when Coccinelle
arrived. We should remember that Coccinelle was born in 1931: she was 28 years
younger than O’dett. A new generation was arriving.
From 1929-31 Ossy Gades worked as the transvestite door-host and taxi-dancer
first at the Eldorado nightclub at Lutherstrasse 30, and then at the new and
larger premises at Motzstrasse.
Ossy was probably one of these
By 1933, Ossy was working as a man at the DéDé Bar on Bülowstrasse. It was
part-owned by a Sturmabteilung (SA) Lieutenant and, by 1934 renamed the
Bülow-Krug. Despite this Gades was arrested several times and beaten for having
dressed in women’s clothes. He explained that he was not homosexual, and went
out en-femme only when accompanied by his wife. He was still regarded as
homosexual.
On 25 May 1935 he was arrested again, and sent to Lichtenburg
concentration camp. This camp was one of the first and housed mostly political
prisoners and gay men. He died there a year later.
Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Gesch-lechts. Transvestitismus und
Trans-sexualität in der frühen Sexual-wissenschaft. Giessen:
Psychosozial-Verlag 2005: 159.
C-J Charpentier. Isherwood och Berlin. 2015: 6. PDF
Chris, originally from California, was four and a half years in the US Army,
and then was a merchant seaman. He lived a year in east Asia. He then settled in
New York.
In the mid 1960s, he took up female impersonation, and appeared with Frank
Bennet in the Follies Mantisque. This led to work with the Jewel Box
Revue, at first doing a comedy strip. However it was discovered that he
could impersonate Ethel Merman rather well, and started singing songs from
Gypsy. He then added Marlene Dietriche and Bette Davis to his repertoire.
He used a special heavy makeup to hide the tattoo on his upper arm. He was also
partially blind and required thick glasses.
He met Lee Brewster and Vicky
West in the Mattachine Society, and left with them to found the Queens
Liberation Front. In 1971 Chris won the Most Outstanding Performance at the
April in Paris Ball, and again at Lee's Mardi Gras Ball.
Chris was a constant at QLF parties, but after a few years she was diagnosed
with cancer. She was able to fight it for over five years. Lee Brewster put on a
special ball for Chris so that she could perform and be the star, and Vicky drew
her for the cover of Drag magazine.
"Anyway, Capucine's heart was pierced by a conflict: the ancient sugar-daddy
and luxury, or the young blades and penury? Of course the luxury always won in
the end because Capucine's keeper was a very famous millionaire, enabling Capsy
to compete with and overtake Coxy's mink collection. But unlike Coxy, Capsy
wanted to be 'a lady' as well. This put him into agonising quandries when he
fell for a bricklayer or a road-digger (which was frequently, because Capsy
couldn't resist the boue)."
In 1960, the same year as Bambi and April, Capucine went to Dr Burou
clinic in Casablanca for surgical completion.
In 1961 she starred in the Amsterdam extension of Madame Arthur. In 1963 she
was part of the first Le Carousel tour of Japan. She also performed at
Le Boeuf sur le Toit in Paris.
*Not the French film actress.
Vittorio Sala (dir). I don giovanni della Costa Azzurra. With Curd
Jurgens, Coccinelle and Capucine. Italy 98 mins 1962. IMDB
“Capucine”. Female Mimics,1,6, August 1965: 27-37. Online.
Duncan Fallowell & April Ashley. April Ashley's Odyssey. Jonathan
Cape, 1982: 67-8. Arrow 1983. Online.
_________________
Capucine is the French word for the nasturtium
flower.
Unlike Coccinelle, Bambi and April Ashley, Capucine never published her
autobiography. We don't even know where she came from. Is she Parisian? Nor,
what happened to her after the mid 1960s. The Female Mimics article is
mainly photographs with content-less text. There is an obvious comparison to Hans
Crystal who was in also a star female impersonator at the 82 Club, had her
surgical completion in the mid 1960s, and likewise disappeared from view.
There is a confusing
tradition among drag performers of taking the name of an established cis star.
Germaine Lefebvre was an
established French film star from the early 1950s using the name Capucine. Other
drag performers to take an established name include Lynne Carter who
took his name from the 1940s actress;Murry
Pickford , was not Mary Pickford);
Gloria
Swanson (who was a big name in Chicago and New York drag circles in in
1920s, but not the Hollywood
actress): Jean
Malin who performed drag under the name of Imogene Wilson, one of the most
famous of the Zeigfeld Follies showgirls otherwise known as Mary Nolan; Helen
Morgan who used the name of the famous torch song singer; Brenda
Lee the Brazilian activist who was not the country singer; and Bibíana
Fernández, the transgender actress who used to be known as Bibí Andersen,
only two letters away from the name of the Swedish actress Bibi Andersson.
Both IMDB
and EN.Wikipedia claim that
the Capucine in I don giovanni della Costa Azzurra (Beach Casanova) is
the other Capucine, Germaine Lefebvre (1928 – 1990). This conflation went so far
that after Lefebre took her life in 1990 by jumping from her eighth-floor
Lausanne apartment, some actually said that she did so because she was
transsexual. !!!
For some reason, Capucine is not mentioned at all in April Ashley's second
autobiography, The First Lady.
Modesto Mangas Mateos was born the youngest of three in Villavieja de
Yeltes, Salamanca, Castile y León. When he was 12 the family moved to
Madrid, where he worked in a café. The customers were unsure whether he was a
boy or a girl.
Sonrisas de España, a travelling company that took song and dance to Spanish
villages, played in the café, heard him singing and invited him to join. He
dressed as a man but was often taken as a woman. His mother begged him to stop,
and also the Civil War started.
After the war he worked as valet for seven years to the Minister of the
Interior, Blas Pérez
González. Pérez was apparently not aware of Modesto's past as a
singer-dancer, but his wife and children were, and encouraged Perez to choose
Modesto. Pérez took his entourage to Barcelona, and rented a villa there. A
conflict at work triggered resignation, and Modesto rejoined show business.
He started as a presenter at the cabaret Cambrinus. Soon he was performing as
a woman, bravely dodging censorship, the only female impersonator in Fascist
Spain. He took the name Madame Arthur from the new exciting nightclub
in Paris. The show was a great success with aristocrats and bankers who came
from across Spain. A show like this was unthinkable in Madrid. Madame Arthur
sang, danced and mingled with the audience. He moved on to other Barcelona
clubs.
Federico Fellini, the Italian film director, came in 1959 for the Barcelona
Sant
Jordi film awards where his film, which had already been recognised at the
Cannes Festival and at the Academy Awards, won further. Madame Arthur dedicated
a song to Fellini's winner, Nights of Cabiria,
and he came backstage to visit.
Madam Arthur organised Incognito, a company of 30 men dressed en femme, and
toured.
However he was stopped one Christmas Eve while walking in costume to another
club. He was charged under the Ley de Vagos y
Maleantes (Vagrancy Law) with disorderly conduct by being drunk and Modesto
was three months in the Burgos prison.
Nevertheless the Caudillo Francisco Franco himself presented Modesto with the
Medalla del Mérito al Trabajo (Meritorious Work Medal) – Modesto turned up for
the ceremony in jewellery and furs.
In 1962 Modesto had a small part in the Italian film, Totò di Notte n. 1, as a transvestite.
Madame Arthur continued performing beyond the death of Franco in 1972, and
into the more liberal age that followed. He sometimes stayed in role off stage
and worked out details of what would be Madame Arthur's family life.
While a pioneer, and as openly gay as it possible to be under the Franco
dictatorship, he had difficulty adjusting to the new generation that grew up
after the Franco years. He found them ostentatious and did not understand the
request for gay marriage, hormones and transgender surgery. He described himself
to El Pais in 1983 as a Catholic and rather conservative.
He had also become a Barcelonian. He declined invitations to perform or to
open cabarets in Madrid. In 1981, Modesto, as Madame Arthur, returned to
Villavieja de Yeltes to a reception in his honour.
Other than that, he never
returned to Salamanca.
He died at age 77.
Pierrot, the Spanish writer, featured Madame Arthur in his 2006 book,
Memorias Trans: Transexuales, Travestis, Transformistas, which
inspired Eduardo Gion to make his 2011 documentary.
Maria Amendola (dir) Totòdi
Notte n. 1, with Totò as Nini, Erminio Macario as Mimi and Madame Arthur.
Italy 100 mins 1962. IMDB
Despite the 1981 reception, Modesto Mangas is not included among the Villaviejenses
ilustres on the ES.Wikipedia page for Villavieja de Yeltes.
El Pais does not tell us which Interior Minister Modesto was valet to.
Armaris Oberts opts for Camilo Alonso Vega
who was Interior Minister 1957-69 and notoriously supervised the concentration
camps. However I opt for his predecesor Blas Pérez
González who was Interior Minister 1942 – 57. The El Pais article does say
“nos situamos en los años cuarenta (we are in the 1940s)” re being a valet, and
Modesto has to complete seven years and still be in Barcelona to meet Federico
Fellini in 1959. Pérez was later charged with crimes against humanity.
Leonhard Meisjes was raised in Amsterdam with three sisters.
At age 19 Leonhard was sent to a psychiatric hospital after being found by mother in bed with a Jamaican dancer, but escaped and fled to Paris, where, known as Nanny, she found work as a performer in Le Carrousel, and elsewhere. She became known for her Marlene Dietrich impersonation.
After more wandering in Nice, Berlin and Antwerp, Aaïcha returned to Amsterdam, acquired black-market female hormones and made a living as a prostitute, despite police harassment. They would confiscate the clothes that she was wearing, even underwear, even trousers without a fly, on the grounds that such clothes were forbidden to men, and send her home naked. She had repeatedly to buy replacement clothing and to pay fines.
Nanny had confirmation surgery in 1972.
“Veel later zag ik foto's van een dergelijke operatie. Ze joegen me de stuipen op het lijf.” (Much later I saw pictures of such an operation. They filled me with fear.)
She closed up after the first operation in Amsterdam, and was operated on again in England two years later. She then changed her name to Aaïcha Bergamin.
She went on to marry four times, the last, when she was in her 60s, the husband being a Moroccan 42 years younger.
She worked in De Wallen, Amsterdam's red-light area, but initially the police refused to let her hire a window, despite her anatomy, in that she was registered as a man. After several appearances in court, she was examined by a sexologist, Dr Van Emde Boas who said:
“Wat ze van tevoren had, gaat ons niet aan. Ik raad u aan deze mevrouw als vrouw te beschouwen.” (What she was before, does not concern us. I advise you regard this lady as a woman.)
With this and her passport finally changed, the vice squad finally left her alone to practice her profession. She became the first trans madam in the city.
Later she opened a club, initially called the Bar Oporto, but then Madame Arthur, at de Warmoesstraat 131 at the corner of de St. Annastraat ( map), where she repeated her Marlene Dietrich act. But after two years the building was demolished.
A Chilean trans woman, who had danced in her club, fixed it for her to smuggle cocaine from Brazil.
“De eerste keer smokkelde ik zes kilo. Dat ging goed, dus ik vroeg of ik wat meer kon meenemen, want ik kreeg per kilo betaald. Twee jaar lang landde ik om de paar maanden op Schiphol met 45 kilo coke. Ik had een peperdure nertsmantel aan, zo een waarin Wilhelmina heeft gelopen. Dan loop je niet direct in de armen van de douane.” (The first time I smuggled six kilos. That went well, so I asked if I could bring some more because I got paid per kilo. For two years I landed every few months at Schiphol with 45 kilos of cocaine. I had an expensive mink coat on, such as [Princess] Wilhelmina would wear. Then I walked directly into the arms of customs.)
Aaïcha spent five years in prison.
Afterwards she lived in her parents' home in Amsterdam Oud-West. In 1991 she published her autobiography, Aaïcha: het bizarre conflict van een als man geboren vrouw.
She died age 82 of lung cancer, and was buried anonymously. However trans activists raised funds to buy her a tombstone.
Ab Pruis & Aaïcha Bergamin. Aaïcha: het bizarre conflict van een als man geboren vrouw. (The bizarre conflict of a man born a woman) Amsterdam: Stichting Vrije Kommunikatie, 1991.
"Much later I saw pictures of such an operation. They filled me with fear." Just as well that Aaïchadid not go to Dr Burou. April Ashley tells us that he showed such photographs of previous patients as part of deciding whether a prospective patient was serious.
Do not confuse Aaïcha's Madame Arthur with that of the same name, also in Amsterdam but at Korte Leidsedwarsstraat nr. 45 whuch was opened in 1961 by Marcel Oudjman, the owner of the Paris Madame Arthur and Le Carrousel.
Wayne debuted at London's Roxy in March 1977, and renamed the band to The Electric Chairs. New Musical Express journalist Julie Burchill (who in later years would express anti-trans opinions) was very supportive of the band. They were the only punk act at the Reading Festival that year and played to an antagonistic audience.
Safari Records signed the group who put out their first album, although the more controversial tracks were kept apart for a special EP, Blatantly Offenzive. Wayne's transition can be seen on the album covers of the first three albums. On The Electric Chairs, 1978, Wayne has a masculine appearance; on Man Enough to be a Woman, 1978, the two personae are juxtaposed; on Things Your Mother Never Told You, 1979, there is only a feminine version.
The second album, which was also issued under the name Storm the Gates of Heaven, contains "Man enough to be a Woman" but also songs against organized religion as well as a statement about County's belief in a god.
"When we recorded the second album, I was beginning to feel very strongly that I wanted to take the transsexual thing a lot further; I'd stopped doing hormones for a while and really toned down my appearance, but I wasn't happy with that. I'd got a lot of attention with the Electric Chairs, and I decided it was time to come out and be the first up-front transsexual in a rock band. The music press was really interested and supportive for a while; they'd never had this before, and they could see me changing right before their very eyes."(p126)
After a European tour for the second album, County stopped in West Berlin for a fortnight before returning to London for a nose job. However she ran into the wrong immigration official, was detained overnight and returned to West Berlin.
There, she was introduced to Romy Haag and her club. She had her nose done by a doctor on the Kurfürstendamm, who had worked on several trans women. When County returned to England at the end of Summer 1978, press reports suggested that she had had the full sex change, but she tired of explaining and let people assume as they liked.
"It bothered people. There was a distinct cooling of attitude, even among the fans; underneath that liberal attitude exterior, a lot of punk fans were really straight-down-the-line conservatives, and they hated the fact that I was actually living out the implications of my songs. Some of them even said 'You've betrayed your sex'." (p131)
Late in the year the band went to a farm in Wales to write the third album. Things Your Mother Never Told You came out to good reviews and was followed by a gruelling tour of Europe.
In Late summer 1979, Wayne fled to New York and decided that it was time to change her name to Jayne. She founded a new band, played CBGBs and toured. She also toned down her appearance.
Early 1980 Jayne returned to West Berlin to be in a play with Romy Haag. The play was a success, but Jayne and Romy fell out and remained so for many years. Jayne lived with PJ from San Francisco who had been in the Angels of Light before moving to West Berlin. However PJ decided not to continue as a woman and after being sacked by Romy returned to living as a male, and then her Turkish boyfriend did not want her any more.
"It was during my time in Berlin that I came closest to the idea of having a full sex change; it certainly would have been easy enough to arrange, and it's what everyone expected me to do. … The only reason that I can see for having the full change is so that you can move to a different town and marry a man and live completely as a woman, without anyone ever knowing what you are. But I don't think I could do that. Let's face it, if people know you're a sex change you'll never be accepted as a woman. … I'm happy in between the sexes; I'm comfortable and I actually like the idea. … I certainly wouldn't be happy with idea of being a man, and I don't consider myself a man, but I'm not going to try and convince myself that I'm really a woman." (p138-9)
Jayne was friends with Zazie de Paris (Solange Dymenzstein). She starred in Rock & Roll Peepshow. She also did a St Patricks Day concert at a US Army Base.
Jayne was introduced to the Latvian-born director Rosa von Praunheim and was cast in the film Stadt der Verlorenen Seele (City of Lost Souls) 1982 with Angie Stardust and Tara O'Hara.
Then Jayne returned to Germany for the City of Lost Souls tour, which was followed bt time in London where she was booked at the Fridge in Brixton, and she encountered Alan/Lanah Pelley during his transsexual phase.
She stayed in England until 1987. She recorded a couple of albums but they were not promoted.
On return to New York, Jayne took up with drag performer Constance Cooper, who introduced her to Sally's Hideaway off Times Square.
Jayne had not been home for 20 years. She phoned her mother and proposed a visit. She got a gig at Atlanta's Club Rio and attempted to find those she knew from the 1960s, but could find only Diamond Lil. She was introduced to the rising stars RuPaul and Deandra Peak.
To visit her parents she really dressed down. She ended up staying the summer.
"However much I may be Jayne County, my old personality, Wayne, is still there; it never goes away. … Jayne County is the one who's out there hustling and trying to do something with her career. But when I get home alone I can't wait to get the wig and make-up off, to put on an old t-shirt and my reading glasses and read my religious books or my history books or a horror novel, to eat cookies and drink tea." (p164-5)
Afterwards Jayne did a gig in Tel Aviv, and then returned to London for another four years. She became a regular at the Apollo Club in Wardour Street, where she met met old-time transvestites such as Francis Bacon, the painter.
She returned to New York at the end of 1992, and was in the Wigstockfilm, 1995. Her autobiography Man Enough to be a Woman came out the same year.
In 2014 Jayne was banned from Facebook for using the word 'tranny' a word that she has been using for 40 years. She spoke back in an article in Queerty:
"Tranny is not a slur word and I resent anyone trying to make it one. It’s the intent behind the word, rather than the word itself, that can be sometimes offensive. It may be a silly word, but it’s certainly not worthy enough to be banned. That is censorship, pure and simple and no better than right-wing Christian extremists or any other tyrants, who want to force their narrow-minded, conservative opinions on others."
Jayne has also been posting controversial opinions on FaceBook and on her blog, rockandrollantirepublikkkanleague. An article in Haaretz interprets them as simple support for Israel, but they are also anti-Republican.
"Rock on the Wayne!". Melody Maker, 6 October 1973.
Pete Silverton. “A Self-Made Woman”. Sounds. 2 June 1979
Jayne County with Rupert Smith. Man Enough to be a Woman. London: Serpent's Tail, 1995.
After a spell living at the YMCA, Wayne met the aspiring photographer Leee Childers (1945 - 2014) who invited him to share a coldwater walkup on 13th St. Wayne hung out at the Sewer club on West 18th St where he encountered members of Charles Ludlum's Ridiculous Theatrical Company, and also Holly Woodlawn, a friend of Tammy Novak. Leee had already photographed Holly and Tammy.
On the night of June 27 1969 Wayne was on his way to the Stonewall when he met Miss Peaches and Marsha P Johnson and realized that a riot was in progress. He joined an impromptu march up and down Christopher Street shouting "Gay Power!".
Through Leee, Wayne came to know Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling, and the Andy Warhol crowd. After falling out with Warhol's screenwriter, John Vaccaro, Jackie moved into Leee's flat. Shortly afterwards, Holly also moved in. After Leee and Wayne had been to Woodstock, Wayne started going to Max's Kansas City at 213 Park Avenue.
Wayne's first on-stage performance was in Jackie Curtis' Femme Fatal, a women-in-prison play. He wanted a stage name and took Wayne County, from where Detroit is located, in homage to Iggy and the Stooges. He was cast as a psychotic southern lesbian. Patti Smith played a mafia dyke, and Bunny Eisenhower was also in it.
Wayne wrote a play World – Birth of a Nation that had lots of sex and fetishes in it. It was produced, and one of the stars was Cherry Vanilla. Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey came to the opening night, and The Village Voice gave it a rave review.
Andy Warhol had been taping private telephone conversations, and he arranged for them to be transcribed and arranged into a play, that became called Pork. Wayne was to play a character based on Warhol Superstar Viva. The play got a big write-up in The New York Times, and it was taken to England, where it opened, August 1971, at the Roundhouse in Camden Town. This was the same time as the Oz Magazine trial for obscenity. The reviews in the British Press were completely negative, but crowds came anyway. Rod Stewart and Ron Wood came more than once. As did David and Angie Bowie.
Back in New York Wayne got a gig as the house DJ at Max's Kansas City, and did some more theatre. While playing a transvestite revolutionary in a play, Wayne thought about forming a band, which became Queen Elizabeth, which took a lot of ideas from the Ridiculous Theatrical Company and Jackie Curtis, and put them to music. They played with the New York Dolls and at Max's. David Bowie's manager Tony Defries put Wayne on a retainer, but never recorded the band.
In October 1973 Wayne was on the cover of Melody Maker, and was in David Bowie's 1980 Floor Show with Amanda Lear and Marianne Faithful. In 1974 Wayne started doing shows at the 82 Club.
At this time Wayne read Canary Conn's autobiography, and felt that she wanted to be more transsexual than drag queen. She was referred to Eugene/Jeanne Hoff (who herself was starting transition) at what had been the Harry Benjamin practice. Hoff advised
"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".(p100)
After starting on female hormones, early in 1976, Wayne resumed being the DJ at Max's, and working with the new band, The Back Street Boys, and wrote the song 'Man Enough to be a Woman'. A proposed album with ESP records fell through, but they were included on the compilation album Max's Kansas City: New York New Wave.
While mainly a Max's performer, Wayne did a gig at the competing nightclub, CBGBs where she was heckled by ex-wrestler Dick Manitoba, singer in the band, The Dictators, shouting homophobic taunts. Manitoba then climbed on the stage holding a beer-mug, and County hit him with the microphone stand. County cut his hair short and wore a false beard, but was arrested for assault some days later and spent one night in jail. Other musicians and performers including the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, The New York Dolls, Jackie Curtis, Holly Woodlawn, Divine put on a benefit to meet County’s legal costs. Three times Manitoba failed to show in court and therefore the charges were dropped.
Leee Childers was working in London, and phoned that Wayne should be also.
Viviane K.Namaste. " 'A Gang of Trannies': Gender Discourse and Punk Culture". Chp 4 in Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Viviane Namaste doesn't seem to have a feel for how trans and punk interact. She takes the Dick Manitoba episode and attempts to deform it to fit her theoretical position. This attempt is not helped by her getting most of the facts wrong, nor by her disinterest: "Yet I remain uninterested in a type of historical inquiry that would
establish the presence of MTF transsexuals in punk culture”.
Jayne County's account of Stonewall has been added as a comment to that posting.
There were two members of the Cockettes, the early 1970s San Francisco psychedelic drag troupe, who completed the journey to womanhood. We have already discussed Bobbi Cameron.
The other was Dahlia McGowan who looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor. She won a scholarship to study acting at the American Conservatory Theater. Bambi Lake describes her as funny and sweet.
After surgery she worked as a stripper in the sailor bars in San Diego.
In the 1980s Dahlia married, but her husband died in a bike accident.
Later she returned to Hawai'i to live with her mother.
Bambi Lake with Alvin Orloff. The Unsinkable Bambi Lake: A Fairy Tale Containing the Dish on Cockettes, Punks, and Angels. San Francisco: Manic D Press, 1996: 48-9.
"When I was 13 I heard about April Ashley's sex change and I thought 'Bloody hell, that's what I have to do', 'cos I was really enjoying putting on make- up and stuff. But after a while I realised you didn't have to be a 'she' to do it".
At 14 he dropped out of Catholic school after it was clarified that his appearance/actions were not in line with the rules. Shortly afterwards Pete met hairdresser Lynne whom he married in 1980.
"The only thing that spoiled it was that the man in the registry office had to go and make a feeble joke by asking which one of us was the bride".
They remained married until 2006.
After working in a Liverpool record shop, Burns was able to perform with a band, and after personnel changes they became Dead or Alive, who had a number one single with a cover of "You Spin Me Round" in 1985. Pete fronted the group and was known for his androgynous look.
After his friend InternationalChrysis died in 1990, he put out a cover version of David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel" under her name in 1994:
"You've got your mother in a whirl /She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl ".
Burns became a media personality, swearing on the BBC, a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother. He became famous for his feminizing plastic surgeries, and appeared on television programs on the subject.
In 2006 Pete and Lynne were divorced; shortly afterwards he entered a civil union with Michael Simpson.
He published an autobiography in 2007. In 2010, Burns won £450,000 in damages from cosmetic surgeon Dr Maurizio Viel, who, the singer claims, left him 'suicidal' after his lip implant operations went wrong.
However by 2015, and more plastic surgery, he was bankrupt.
Pete died of cardiac arrest, aged 57.
Kris Kirk & Ed Heath. Men In Frocks. London: Gay Men's Press, 1984: 114-5.
Sharon Walker & Rebecca Woodward (dir). Pete Burns's Cosmetic Surgery Nightmares. With Pete Burns and Michael Simpson. UK ITV 46 mins 2 Nov 2006.
Pete Burns and Ian Cranna. Freak Unique: My Autobiography. London: John Blake. 2007.
Mike Goudreau & Paul Tinelle (scr). VH1 News Presents: Plastic Surgery Obsession. With Pate Burns. UK VH1 2010.
Jill Cumberbach (dir). 50 Greatest Plastic Surgery Shockers. With Pete Burns. UK Channel 4 120 mins 2 Dec 2010.
Jennifer Fox, a Las Vegas stripper and showgirl, was preparing for genital surgery in 1968. She was advertised as “The Myra Breckinridge of Burlesque” and “Isn’t He or Isn’t She?"
Surgery over, Fox opened at the Gay 90s Club in North Las Vegas on October 5, 1970. The advertisements were sensational and exploited Jennifer’s surgery—which was a marketing ploy Fox herself approved: "I didn't let the public know about it at first. I continued to build my name as a stripper. ... We decided to advertise [my surgery] as a special attraction. And it worked. It's been good for business."
Two years later, Jennifer opened at the Hippodrome Theatre in Circus Circus in Ann Corio’s Best of Burlesque.
In the late 1920s, in the city of Jacobabad, in present-day Pakistan, the famous local personality Pir Abul Hasan, developed a serious interest in Sago, a hijra who acted in local theatre. In May 1929 Pir Hasan died mysteriously while watching Sago perform. This triggered Hindu-Muslim riots, and 10 Hindus were killed. The British government appointed a Parsi, Sukhia to do an imperial inquiry and he unearthed a conspiracy by local feudal lords and religious leaders.
Akhter Hussain Balouch. A study of sociology of trans-sexuals of Sindh. ? 2010:?
Several newspapers repeated this anecdote in April 2010. The problem is that Balouch’s book has either completely disappeared or never existed. There is no entry for it in WorldCat or in Amazon.
After her father's death in the 1990s, Filipino Juarez was the family breadwinner and did drag shows in Japan, and started taking female hormones. She continued performing on returning to Manila.
Mimi was included in Janice Villarosa's documentary Shunned about Philippino trans women, but that film was shown only at film festivals.
Following that she was chosen for the lead role in Quick Change, 2013, as a trans woman who makes a living injecting other trans women with silicone, but is traumatized when her boyfriend leaves her for a younger trans woman. Director Eduardo Roy Jr. commented: “Luckily, he was a good actor to begin with. We only had a two-day workshop before the shoot”.
At the 2014 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival, Mimi won the Best Actor award. She took this in good grace and when asked if she had wanted to win the Best Actress award instead: “Best actor, best actress … whatever, for as long as they show their appreciation for my work, I don’t mind".
She has since been in South Korea filming a romantic comedy Seoul Mates, where she plays a Filipino trans who goes to Korea to see her boyfriend, but finds that he has a new life.
It is depressing that the Philippino news sources and the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival insist on addressing Mimi as 'he'. Of particular concern is the director Eduardo Roy Jr who researched trans lives and wrote the script. He must know better, but insists on male pronouns.
In February 1923 the Charles Street Police Station in Manhattan was paying special attention to Greenwich Village. Deputy Inspector Joseph A. Howard and Captain Edward J. Dempsey of the Charles Street Station, and a party of ten detectives visited each tearoom and cabaret.
Detectives Joseph Massie and Dewey Hughes of the Special Service Squad were assigned to the Black Parrot Tea Shoppe Hobo-Hemia, 46 Charles Street, to witness what they had been informed would be a “circus", and arrested five women and eight men.
However on closer inspection, Ruby Bernhammer 21 from West Hoboken, New Jersey, did not meet their definition of a woman. Bernhammer was charged with disorderly conduct for giving an indecent dance, and they gave her name as 'Harry'.
Another arrested was Arthur C. Budd also 21 who worked as a female impersonator in “The Lady in Ermine” at The Century Theater under the name Rosebud.
The next day the local magistrate dismissed charges against all but the proprietors of the Black Parrot. Rosebud lost his job at The Century Theatre, but was working again the next year.
"Village Raid Nets 4 Women and 9 Men: Detectives Thought They Had Five Females, but Misjudged One Person by Clothing”. New York Times, February 5, 1923: 17.
"Board Ship to Get Big Liquor Agent". New York Times, February 6, 1923: 23.
"Cabaret" column. Variety, February 15, 1923: 30.
C. J. Bulliet. Venus Castina: Famous Female Impersonators Celestial and Human. Covici 308 pp 1928. Bonanza Books. 1956: 252.
Chad Heap Slumming Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife, 1885-1940. University of Chicago Press,2009: 353.
Juan Atum from Gualeguaychú, Entre Rios, descended from a family of clowns, became famous on Argentinian television as Pequeña P. She competed with Florencia de la Vega for boyfriends, appeared in the show at El Angel, and had a small part in the film Fantasma de Buenos Aires.
From 2003 she lived with Miguel, a taxi-driver, and was also having an affair with a policeman.
At the age of 27 her body was found hanging by her boyfriend. He was initially charged but the case was dismissed for a lack of evidence, and Pequeña was ruled to be a suicide who should be interred without an autopsy. However Juan's mother did not accept this verdict, and registered a complaint.
This resulted in a forensic investigation which found that Juan had been struck in the face and stomach before death, and that neither the electrical cord nor the scarf that it was proposed that she had used to hang herself would have borne her weight. There were also calls on her phone after she had been found dead, one to a nephew of a former president.
A few weeks later the Gualeguaychú police found the decomposed remains of Ramón "Rony" Galante who also was a travestie using the name Gisela, and also cleaned house for Atum.
Three years later when her sister and mother attempted to retrieve her body from the Gualeguaychú Judicial Morgue, it was found to be missing. The sister Alejandra Atum was threatened by phone several times for persisting in her inquiries.
As with International Chrysis and Sir Lady Java, we have a male name and a performance name but not a female name. This could be a defect of reporting, although I consulted more than the 5 articles listed above. It could be that Pequeña P. thought of herself more as gay than as female, as was common until fairly recently.
Annie Toone ran away at 16 and played drums and harmonica in New York, and then at 19 in San Francisco for blues legend Mike Bloomfield and beat poet Bob Kaufman.
At 21, she moved to New York, and in partnership with Jordy Mark performed the review Sex & Drag & Rock n Role at the 1stWomen's One World (WOW) Festival. They sang as both men and women, switching gender onstage. This led to meetings with Adele Bertei and Kathy Rey and the founding of postpunk group The Bloods, an all-butch cross-dressed band. The Bloods, along with Jayne County and Phranc, were the only out queer acts in New York at that time. Adele and Toone, as men in tuxedos, performed as dancers at CBGBs and other New York clubs. They opened for The Clash, and played with Richard Hell and most of the 1980s New Wave musicians. After a European tour, they played at the 2nd WOW Festival. In 1982 The Bloods fell apart while in Amsterdam.
Toone formed Idiotsavant with German drummer Leroi Pink who also passed as a man, and they were much featured in the European press for their gender play. The Dutch magazine Homologie ran a comic strip for two years based on Toone in real life. In 1985 Toone moved to London and was in Chain Reaction with Della Disgrace, Sophie Moorcock and Billy Goodfellow. They mainly performed genderfuck for lesbian audiences. Toone was then in the Well-Oiled Sisters. In 1990 Toone was featured in The Observer, and described as a cross-dressing gender bender, trans and a top.
By 1992 Toone was in San Francisco, with a band called The Bucktooth Varmints, and singing dyke-a-billy songs from a passing perspective. In late 1993 Toone and Elvis Herselvis (Leigh Crow) began working together. In 1995 he was featured in a SF Weekly cover story on drag kings, and produced an all-drag Queer Ole Opry. Leigh Crow and Toone were the first drag kings to appear at Wigstock and Trannyshack, and also at the first FTM Conference of the Americas. In 1996 the all-drag musical Hillbillies on the Moon, starring Toone and Leigh Crow, opened in San Francisco, and was featured on the cover of the San Francisco Bay Times.
In 1996 Toone taught himself web coding and created the Toone in Space, and later Madkats, "where drag is king". The Drag King Book, 1998, acknowledged Toone as a founding father, but does not otherwise feature him.
In 2001 he created the trans-art website, and the first version of The Drag King Timeline. He acted as Drag Dad to Carlos & Ken Las Vegas who invited him into the Las Vegas chapter of the Imperial Court. He wrote for and was features editor of Kingdom magazine, where he notably wrote a profile of singer Gladys Bentley, and later an overview of what he dubbed the SF dragcore. In 2002 he gave the keynote address at the International Drag King Extravaganza (IDKE) conference.
In 2003 Toone, after years of contemplation, decided to medically transition. His first name Anderson contains the German 'anders' for different, and is the Swedish form of Andrew which means manly.
In New York in 2004 Anderson performed as the Very Reverend Buck Shot, store-front preacher of the Gospel of Transensual Love. In 2007 he was featured in the film Riot Acts, a documentary about trans music, and presented and performed at the Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta.
Yvonne Roberts. "A whip away from plain old vanilla". The Observer, 5 August 1990.
Amy Linn. "Drag King: Sometimes girls will be boys". SF Weekly, 27 September 1995.
Del Lagrace Volcano & Judith Halberstam. The Drag King Book. London: Serpent's Tail, 1999: 7, 22.
Jacob Anderson Minahull. "Genre Fluid Performer Marches To Own Toone". San Francisco Bay Times, July 12, 2007.
Diane Torr & Stephen J. Bottoms. Sex, Drag, and Male Roles: Investigating Gender As Performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010: 27, 66, 67, 129.
Kate Davy. Lady Dicks and Lesbian Brothers: Staging the Unimaginable at the WOW Café Theatre. University of Michigan Press, 2011: viii, 17, 18, 27, 35, 52, 61, 66, 67, 71, 178, 185, 187, 204, 210.
Ross was raised in a poor francophone family on the south shore of Montréal with lots of cats and dogs, an illiterate but resourceful father in construction work and a Métis mother.
"In the mid '80s, when I was about 16 years old, I watched a TV documentary about fur that included footage of animals caught in snares and leg-hold traps. It changed my life forever. I was so traumatized by what I witnessed that the next day I ran to an anti-fur protest. That's when I met a whole bunch of animal rights activists. I had lots of questions; they had good answers and by 6pm that same night, I had stopped eating meat, stopped wearing leather, and was eager to learn and do a whole lot more."
She settled in Toronto, and made a living as a sex worker.
"...from the early to mid-1990s, there were a bunch of us who had visions of transsexual and transgender spaces – of a parallel trans culture – operating independently of the queer community. … I was hoping that we, as a community, could develop a sense of ourselves that wouldn't be narrowly framed through a queer lens or bogged down in lesbian cultural references. … But unfortunately, this has been a complete failure. Those trans cultural spaces we attempted to create throughout the 1990s have all either disappeared or been absorbed by the lesbian-transgender community."
"But my main request is for transgender activists to stop their sinister appropriation of the abuse and violence that transsexual and transvestite prostitutes endure on every continent. … Trans activists use their deaths as fuel in their crusade for 'transgender rights'. Their campaigns have everything to do with supporting their own political agendas … but absolutely nothing to do with improving the the working conditions or lives of transsexual and transgender prostitutes. The most shameful of this type of political appropriation is the 'Transgender Day of Remembrance'."
From 1993-5 Mirha-Soleil worked with Xanthra Mackay to publish GenderTrash, a political and arts magazine for trans people. From 1995 and for five years, she conducted educational workshops for Toronto social service and health care agencies, and served as a consultant for researchers into trans experience.
In 1996 and for four years she hosted a weekly animal rights radio show on CUIT FM, and was also involved in other radio shows on topics such as lesbian sexuality and disability, AIDS, and transsexuals and immigration.
In 1997 she took up with and became the life partner of film-maker and animal-rights activist, Mark Karbusicky.
Also that year and for three years she, Mark, Xanthra and others ran Counting Past 2, a trans arts Meal-Trans, which included a weekly vegan meal drop-in. She was appalled when, after she left, Meal-Trans started serving meat.
festival. And she developed the first publicly funded social services program for low-income and street trans people,
Mirha-Soleil has worked to raise consciousness of animals’ rights in the queer communities, and of prostitutes' rights in the animal rights community.
In 2000 Mirha-Soleil and Mark made a film G-SprOuT (not in IMDB) about love between vegans contrasted with factory farming which has been shown at over 25 queer and other film festivals.
Mirha-Soleil was Grand Marshall of the 2001 Toronto Pride Parade, and was able to place animal liberation activists at the front of the parade.
In 2001 Mirha-Soleil developed her performance piece, Yapping Out Loud: Contagious Thought from an Unrepentant Whore,which drew parallels between animal rights and prostitutes' rights. Later it was presented at the first Transgender Theater Festival in New York.
Mark unexpectedly committed suicide in 2007, and was later memorialised in a documentary by Mike Hoolboom.
Mirha-Soleil continues to agitate on behalf of sex workers, transsexuals, non-human animals, Canada’s missing and murdered aboriginal women, and much more.
Viviane K. Namaste. Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000: 41-2, 44-6, 57, 58, 62, 66, 178-9, 239, 274n2, 280n33, 285.
Viviane K. Namaste. "Interview with Mirha-Soleil Ross". Chp 7 in Sex Change, Social Change: 86-102.
Viviane K. Namaste. Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism. Women's Press, 2005: 44, 53, 54-7, 82-5, 86-102.
Thomas Waugh. The Romance of Transgression: Queer Sexualities, Nations, Cinéma. Carleton University Press, 2006: 159, 330, 343, 345, 353, 394.
Mike Hoolboom (dir). Mark. With Mark Karbusicky & Mirha-Soleil Ross. Canada 70 mins 2009.
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. 
Sky Gilbert, drag queen and playwright, wrote a play, Ladylike, around
her persona, and it opened in November 2007. In 2010, she starred in the solo
piece, I Was Barbie. In 2012, Nina’s play in seven monologues, The
Silicone Diaries, was professionally produced. She has also done performance
pieces in art galleries.
In the mid 1960s, he took up female impersonation, and appeared with Frank
Bennet in the Follies Mantisque. This led to work with the Jewel Box
Revue, at first doing a comedy strip. However it was discovered that he
could impersonate Ethel Merman rather well, and started singing songs from
Gypsy. He then added Marlene Dietriche and Bette Davis to his repertoire.
He used a special heavy makeup to hide the tattoo on his upper arm. He was also
partially blind and required thick glasses.
Chris was a constant at QLF parties, but after a few years she was diagnosed
with cancer. She was able to fight it for over five years. Lee Brewster put on a
special ball for Chris so that she could perform and be the star, and Vicky drew
her for the cover of Drag magazine.
While a pioneer, and as openly gay as it possible to be under the Franco
dictatorship, he had difficulty adjusting to the new generation that grew up
after the Franco years. He found them ostentatious and did not understand the
request for gay marriage, hormones and transgender surgery. He described himself
to El Pais in 1983 as a Catholic and rather conservative.
In October 1973 Wayne was on the cover of Melody Maker, and was in David Bowie's 1980 Floor Show with Amanda Lear and Marianne Faithful. In 1974 Wayne started doing shows at the 82 Club. 
Jennifer Fox, a Las Vegas stripper and showgirl, was preparing for genital surgery in 1968. She was advertised as “The Myra Breckinridge of Burlesque” and “Isn’t He or Isn’t She?" 
