Victor Barker: Part II - husband, actor, manager

Part I: origins: daughter, wife, mother
Part II: husband, actor, manager
Part III: the trial
Part IV: reactions and afterwards


Sir Victor Barker DSO settled in at the Grand Hotel, Brighton. He visited a gentleman’s outfitters and purchased two or three suits, including a dress suit for evening wear, shirts, collars ties, etc. The asset sales from the farm and the sale of his mother’s jewellery, and his small annuity would carry him for the time being. His three-year-old son was cared for elsewhere in Brighton. He participated in tennis, swimming and horse riding with the other hotel residents.

Elfrida Haward arrived on the second day. Barker had explained:

“I told Miss Haward that I was not what she thought I was; I told her that I was a man who had been injured in the war; that I was really a man acting as a woman for family reasons. I made some excuse about it being my mother’s wish, and she believed it.”

The son was explained as with a first wife who had died, and the daughter was of Peace Crouch and his wife from whom he was now separated. Barker did concede though that

“I think that she had some doubt as to my being a baronet. I explained that I had dropped the title while living on my farm, but had assumed it again in the hope that it might help me get a job. I don’t think she swallowed this tale, though she never said much.”

Elfrida would later claim that she did not know that he was a woman until the trial and she understood that Victor could not have 'normal relations' because of an abdominal wound received during the war.

However Victor's previous persona, Mrs Peace-Crouch, had patronized the shop. Victor Barker was able to convince Elfrida's father that he had lived much of his life as a woman because his mother had always wanted a girl and had taken advantage of the death of the father to impose this whim. However he had also been an army Colonel, had served with the British Expeditionary Force in France, and had been awarded a DSO.

However, once this tale was digested, a new problem arose. The young man – albeit supposedly a woman – had spent a night with Elfrida in her bedroom. To avoid scandal they must marry. For Elfrida, this was a good match: a tradesman’s daughter and a knighted military man. However her parents, while permitting the marriage did not care for Sir Victor. They cancelled their plans to settle a sum of money on Elfrida at marriage.

Because the parents did not care to wait through the customary reading of banns on three consecutive Sundays, Victor applied for a marriage license. To do this he had to produce both their birth certificates, and make a sworn affidavit that

“he believeth that there is no impediment of any kindred or alliance or of any other lawful cause, or any suit commenced in any Ecclesiastical Court to bar or hinder the proceeding of the said Matrimony according to the Tenor of such licence”.

The impediment of alliance was not mentioned, nor was his biological sex; and a forged birth certificate was produced. Victor and Elfrida were married 14 November 1923 at St Peter’s, the parish church of Brighton. The ceremony was performed by the curate as the vicar collapsed and died while running for a bus that very morning.

From a meeting at the Grand Hotel, Barker became involved in the Brighton Repertory Company where he was paid 10/- a week. However his lifestyle required more. He opened an antiques and second hand furniture shop in Andover, Hampshire. He also bought a .32 Webley pistol and obtained a certificate for it. He sang in the Andover choir and played with the local cricket club. However he did not know much about antiques, they left town owing £457 to a fellow officer.

Barker did have some success as an actor. Using the stage name of Ivor Gauntlet, he obtained parts in touring productions playing against famous actresses such as Mrs Patrick Campbell and Dolores. However his voice broke down after the strain of singing in a low register.

And Ivor Gauntlet soon had creditors. A tailor in Birmingham was claiming £40/13/-. An actor was public and easy to trace. Victor Barker resorted to paid employment: farm manager (3 months), kennel manager (1 month) and labourer in a brick works where he contracted chicken pox. Elfrida nursed him back to health.

However by this time she had had enough and went back to her parents, and working in the chemist shop. Barker took rooms in Soho.

the boxer

Either because of a misdelivered letter, or on the suggestion of a fellow resident, in late 1926 Barker came into contact with Colonel Henry Rippon Seymour, the leader of the National Fascisti, a splinter group from the British Fascists. He became the live-in secretary of the group and gained the flat above their offices at 5a Hogarth Road, Earls Court. At that time the National Fascisti had a membership of less than 400.

Barker was in his element. He often wore his medals (actually those of Pearce-Crough), gave fencing and boxing lessons to the young recruits, and advised them of the folly of getting mixed up with women.

On 8 March 1927 a small group of fascisti, mainly from the Croydon branch, dissatisfied with Seymour’s usurpation of leadership, burst into the offices. Seymour grabbed his sword, and the Webley pistol from the drawer of the desk and threatened to shoot the first man.

The police arrived. They took possession of the pistol. Seymour appeared at the West London Police Court the next day and pleaded guilty to common assault and possessing a firearm. However the magistrate directed that the second plea be withdrawn when it was clarified that the gun was Barker’s. It was a Webley pistol, but not the same one as on Barker’s certificate from Andover. He was charged with “uttering a forged firearm certificate”.

At the trial in July Barker presented with his eyes swathed. His counsel explained that ‘temporary blindness owing to war wounds’ had flared up. He was found not guilty and discharged.

His firearms certificate was cancelled; he quit the National Fascisti; the Public Prosecution Office wrote to the War Office to ascertain Colonel Barker’s war record; they discovered rumours from Andover about a woman masquerading as a man. However the Prosecutor’s Office dismissed the rumours about a woman, and did not proceed.

Also in July 1927, Tom Barker died of tuberculosis, age 28. He left £1,000 to his sister Valerie. This enabled Barker, and a second Mrs Barker, to rent an expensive flat (£295 per annum) in Mayfair, and employed a valet. His son came to visit regularly, but the current Mrs Barker was always sent away on these occasions.

Barker often held dinner parties for officers whom he had met while in the National Fascisti. From this grew the idea of a fellowship for the British survivors of the Battle of Mons, August 1914. The inaugural dinner was held in Barker’s flat 17 December 1927 with fourteen veterans. However the events proved so successful, that they had to be moved to a hotel.

This was done in association with Colonel Neave, who in fact had been present at Valerie's wedding to Harold Arkell-Smith, but who was completely convinced by Colonel Barker's knowledge of military manoeuvres. Some thought that Barker looked a bit odd, but when he talked about his experiences in the war, he was completely convincing.

With of the success of the Mons dinners, Barker felt that he could run a restaurant. In February 1928, he found one to lease just off Charing Cross Rd, and renamed it Mascot Café. The Daily Sketch received an anonymous tipoff that Colonel Barker was really a woman, and sent a reporter. Twice he engaged Barker in conversation, but was unable to fault his manhood.


However the café did not thrive. He owed a considerable sum in back-rent and the landlady was losing patience. He surrendered the café, moved to cheaper accommodation and found a job as reception clerk at the Regent Palace Hotel.


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Rose Collis' biography of Barker, the most reliable source, definitely states that the two guns were Webleys.   However the EN.Wikipedia on the National Fascisti insists it was a colt,   It does not cite Collis at all, but relies on Martin Pugh's Hurrah For The Blackshirts!: Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the Wars, 2006, but this merely says 'revolver'.  (Pugh, for some reason refuses to be polite, and uses female pronouns throughout). This EN.Wikipedia article summarizes Barker's involvement:  "In 1927 a leading member was "Colonel Victor Barker", who was actually a cross-dresser by the name Valerie Arkell-Smith. Her fellow National Fascisti members did not know she was a woman and treated her as a man and she became secretary to Rippon-Seymour as well as training members in the boxing and fencing clubs."  This of course distorts the issue and misses the point.

Surely Seymour could have pleaded self-defence.

The EN.Wikipedia page on English Fascists includes Valerie Arkell-Smith but not Victor Barker.

Rachel Harlow (1948–) pageant winner, model, nightclub hostess, restaurateur

See also: Flawless Sabrina, Rachel Harlow and 'The Queen'


Richard Finocchio was raised in South Philadelphia, and bullied at school for being too pretty. A friend of the family was a gay man who introduced young Finocchio to the gay subculture, where acceptance was found.

Finocchio started winning drag contests. The Hotel Philadelphia (now demolished) at Broad and Vine Streets was the site of the annual Miss Philadelphia contest. The contest was organized by Sabrina (Jack Doroshow). The big winner in 1967 was Finocchio using the name Harlow (in homage to Jean Harlow, the 1930s movie star). Harlow did a few times visit The Stonewall Inn when in New York, but preferred the straight uptown scene.

Harlow won the Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant held in New York in 1967 (again organized by Sabrina). This was filmed, and released as The Queen, 1968. The contestants are shown chatting in their hotel rooms, discussing how they were not called in the draft, their boyfriends, why they would never have a sex change. Harlow throws a fit because he does not have a suitable wig (although her own hair is quite feminine enough). The other standout among the contestants is Miss Manhattan (Crystal LaBeija, who later founded the House of LaBeija) who stages a tantrum when Harlow wins. The film includes shots of only Harlow arriving and departing, and on stage she gets longer and better-lit close-ups than the other contestants.

She went to Cannes International Film Festival with the film and was a center of attention. David Bowie, in his androgynous phase, cited her influence. A few other minor film roles followed, and, especially in Philadelphia, she became a night-life personality. Bar owner Stanley Rosenbleeth opened Harlow's in the Old City area in 1970, with Rachel as hostess. The place was an immediate sensation. A short time later, a second Harlow's was opened in Atlantic City. There were also interviews, endorsements, modeling jobs and television appearances.

Rachel Harlow completed gender correction in 1972.

The Philadelphia disco-nightclub was a place that attracted celebrities, and one person who came was John B. Kelly Jr., brother of Grace Kelly, film star and Monaco princess. In his own right Kelly was an accomplished rower, a four-time Olympian, and an Olympic medal winner. He was also a businessman and was 12 years on Philadelphia council. He separated from his first wife in 1969. In 1975 he began a well-publicized affair with Rachel. He ran to be the Democratic candidate but his mother publicly and financially supported his opponent. This combined with the publicity over his affair led to his dropping out. He claimed that he intended to marry Rachel, but a year later, after his mother threatened to disinherit him, he ended the relationship.

Rachel was having problems finding her identity. She dropped out of the night-life business and the gay subculture. She did continue to work as a model in New York, but avoided publicity.

"I was burned out. I was tired of being on all the time. I began to dread meeting new people, having to talk about my life.  Even now, the only way I can talk about my life is to think of it as just a story. It's as if it all happened to somebody else, and I'm just telling about it."

One night in 1979, she and a woman friend stopped for a drink in a small bistro, got into conversation with two men, and a year later Rachel and Gerard Billebault were married. On the wedding day:

“I came out of my mother's South Philadelphia house and there were 500 to 600 people waiting in the street for me to leave the house. It wasn't the neighbors, it was the neighborhood. I turned to my mother and said `Look mom, it's all the neighbors - I guess they have forgotten, too' ''.

Rachel in 1989

Billebault was a chef and had founded a bakery. After a trip to Paris Mr & Mrs Billebault opened
Harlow's, a restaurant, in 1988, with Mrs Billebault as the hostess.

However later both the marriage and the restaurant failed.   They were divorced in 1993.   Rachel has stayed out of the news since.

• Frank Simon (dir). The Queen. Hosted by Jack Doroshow (Sabrina), with Rachel Harlow Crystal Labeija, International Chrysis, Kim Christy. US 68 mins 1968.
  
• Arthur H. Lewis. Those Philadelphia Kellys, With a Touch of Grace. William Morrow, 1977: 175-7, 233-5, 249.
  
• John Carr. "Different, Yet The Same: Philadelphia's Famous Transsexual Started Life As Richard Finocchio, But Became Famous As Rachel Harlow. After Years Of Shunning Publicity, She's Back In The Spotlight. Her Restaurant Is Harlow's - And She's Still Rachel". Philly.com, April 18, 1989.
  
• William Grimes. "'The Queen' on the Runway Again". The New York Times, March 27, 1993. www.nytimes.com/1993/03/27/movies/the-queen-on-the-runway-again.html.
  
• Martin B Duberman. Stonewall. New York: Dutton, c1993. New York: Plume, 1994: 186.
  
• April Adamson. "It's Harlow! City's Best-known Transsexual Recalls Her Rise From S. Philly To A Life Of Glitz And Glamor". Philly.com, November 16, 1998.
  
• Thom Nickels. Gay and Lesbian Philadelphia. Arcadia Publishing, 2002: 37, 52, 56.
  
• Marc Stein. City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves: Lesbian and Gay Philadelphia, 1945-1972. Temple University Press, 2004: 81-2, 269.
  
• Wendy Leigh. True Grace: The Life and Death of an American Princess. New York: St Martin’s Press 307 pp 2007: 9, 219-20.
  
• Gail Gerber & Tom Lisanti. Trippin' with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2009: 81-4.
  

EN.WIKIPEDIA(John B Kelly)     IMDB
___________________________________________________________

There was a famous nightclub in San Francisco owned by another Finocchio.   There is no evidence of them being relatives.

John B Kelly, Jr, died in 1985 at age 57 of a heart attack.  His mother lived till 1990.  So, as fate would have it, he didn't inherit after all.

The IMDB, entry for a long time, was in Rachel’s boy name.  In fact, in the cast list for The Queen, it said: “Richard Finnochio as Harlow” rather than "Harlow as Herself".   It now says Rachel Harlow plays Harlow (as Richard Finnochio)

kaitlyn Bogas (1959 - ) chef

Ken Bogas was raised in Vancouver. By age 5 he was dressing in his sisters' clothes, wondering why his body was different, and feeling left out when mother made dresses for the others. He set a 100-metres B.C. Peewee Boys record of 13.3 seconds "on cinders" in 1971.

He married at 19, they had a daughter and divorced after six years. A year later he married again, and they had three children. He built a reputation as a chef. From 1991 he was co-owner of two restaurants with his brother-in-law, and hosting a cooking show on cable television. His signature dish was pink scallops with black beans. He had a reputation as a ladies' man, and for being frequently angry. However he hired more women than men, and felt that he worked best with women.

In 2005 he went bankrupt and lost his life savings. In 2008, after a decade of feeling suicidal, Bogas had an epiphany that transition was the right thing to do. kaitlyn quickly found a supportive
psychologist, and started transition. She was outed by an online food columnist who referred to the gossip as “either malicious rumour, bizarre publicity stunt” or “unfortunate joke”. kaitlyn was accused of ruining the lives of her children, was shunned by the restaurant community, her marriage ended, she couldn't get a job as a chef, but took work landscaping.

kaitlyn completed transition with surgery in Montréal, paid for by the BC Medical Services Plan. She sent out hundreds of applications for chef positions, to no effect: “I couldn’t even get an interview in places I consulted on”. In 2012 she got a position as head chef at a fishing lodge in northern BC.

• Malcolm Parry. "Restaurateur turns to landscaping". Vancouver Sun, October 9, 2008. www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=103f876b-7b8e-45fd-8436-e6a304b07008.
  
• "In Their Own Words: kaitlyn Bogas ". CityFood Magazine, October 19, 2009. www.cityfood.com/people/chefs/default.
  
• Denise Ryan. "From inside a man, a woman blooms: Ken Bogas's journey to Kaitlyn". The Vancouver Sun, March 12, 2012. www.vancouversun.com/life/From+inside+woman+blooms/6286017/story.html.
  
• kaitlyn Bogas. "Foreword" in Lisa Salazar. Transparently: Behind the scenes of a good life. Lisa S. Salazar, 2011.
  

Chef and Restaurant Database

Charles Kane (1960 - ) executive.

Sam Hashimi was born and raised in Zofaranaya, a suburb to the south of Baghdad. When the family was out, he would dress in his sister’s clothes, until caught by his brother. His one masculine interest at school was football. However he was perceived as feminine by the other boys, and started having sex with them in the passive role.

At age 16, he moved to England, took an National Diploma in engineering, in Swindon. He financed it by selling hot food at night from a van. He met a woman in a disco, and eventually married her in 1984 in a Anglican church in a village outside Swindon. They soon had two children. He launched two companies: one importing fruit and vegetables, and the other making computers.

He later met an Arabian sheikh and they created a property and investment company. This company thrived. Hashimi became known for negotiating on behalf of wealthy Arabs. He also ran a club and a restaurant in Mayfair. In 1990 he had the opportunity of investing in Manchester United Football Club, but was unable to raise the required ₤10 million in the specified 24 hours. Later the same year he launched an unsuccessful takeover bid for Sheffield United FC, at a time when foreign ownership of British football clubs was not done. The bid resulted in much publicity. It was discussed in the House of Commons, and the Saudi King expressed his disapproval. Coincidentally it came out that a Sheffield company was supplying materials for Iraq to build a ‘supergun’, and then Iraq invaded Kuwait. The deal was off; his major investor pulled out; Hashimi was bankrupt.

For the first time he told his wife that he was a woman trapped in a man’s body. She was at first sympathetic and helped him to cross-dress, but quickly segued to divorce, and, once she found another rich man to keep her, ousted Sam from the family home, and obtained injunctions to keep him from seeing the children. In violation of those injunctions he was arrested and served a few months in HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

During a subsequent period of depression and living at the Ealing YMCA, he started going to gay and trans clubs and was told how great it was to be a woman. He applied through his doctor to be evaluated by the Gender Identity Clinic at the Charing Cross Hospital. However the wait would be over a year, and if he were to become a woman he needed money.

Through his old contacts he was able to get restarted as a property refurbisher. In the course of that work he met an Israeli divorcee, and they became both business partners and spouses. However that was short lived, and a second divorce ensued.

He then contacted Dr Russell Reid and was accepted as a private transsexual patient.

"First of all, I thought I would I would do my nose to make it look more feminine. I had eye correction surgery to get rid of my glasses. Then I did my teeth to give me a better smile and I had electrolysis all round my face to remove the masculine beard. I had my Adam's apple removed and my vocal chords tightened. I had breast implants, all before the sex change surgery to remodel my genitalia".

Six months after first seeing Dr Reid, in December 1997 Samantha Kane had genital surgery with Michael Royle. She spent over £100,000 in total.

She had not seen her family for 10 years. She contacted them and, because of the situation in Iraq, they arranged to meet in Amman, Jordan. They did not know about her change until they actually met at Amman airport, but they did accept her.

Samantha wrote an autobiography in her first year, when she was trying to launch a football magazine to take advantage of the 1998 World Cup. She was even considered as chief executive at Sheffield United FC because of the possibility that she could attract supporters in Asia and the Middle East who would watch on subscription television. She built a new career in interior design, and lived an expensive life in London and Spain.

Within four years he regretted the mistake, as he missed being one of the boys talking football, business and girls.

"In fact, I found being a woman rather shallow and limiting. So much depends on your appearance, at the expense of everything else. I wasn't interested in shopping. My female friends would spend hours shopping for clothes, trying on different outfits. But having been a man I knew exactly what would suit me and appeal to men. I could walk into a shop and be out again in five minutes with the right dress. Nor have I ever been interested in celebrity magazines or the things that interest other women, but when I tried to talk to men about blokey things they didn't take me seriously.”

In 2004, after the collapse of her engagement to a wealthy landowner when it became apparent that he did not regard her as a ‘real’ woman, Kane decided that it had been a mistake, and as Charles Kane reverted to male. He complained, at the time that the Gender Recognition Bill was going through Parliament, to the General Medical Council that Russell Reid had been too easy in accepting him. Charles was referred to the Charing Cross Hospital Gender Identity Clinic, and as a private patient spent a further £25,000 on breast removal and phalloplasty.

"After what I've been through, I now think that sex-change operations shouldn't be allowed. They should be banned. We live today in a consumerist society where we all believe we can have everything we want, but too much choice can be a dangerous thing."

Charles has prospered again in the property market, and is now living in a £2.6 million property in west London, and had recently announced his engagement to a 28-year-old woman. His son, now 25, has reconciled with his father. Charles has completed a novel, and is seeking funding for a

documentary on the “the Sex Change Delusion”.

“In many ways I see myself a victim of the medical profession. Even with the glamour of Samantha Kane and the £100,000 I spent on myself, I had people shouting abuse at me and builders throwing stones at me from rooftops.”

As Charles he was featured in a BBC documentary, 2004, and an ABC "Primetime Nightline" documentary in 2011.

++ In March 2017, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Kane announced a return to being a woman, and a change of name to Sam Kane,

"The reversal operation did not return me to the man I once was, just an approximation.  With the exception of Victoria, I was rejected by both men and women. The original surgery was effectively irreversible. You can’t turn back into a man because whatever defines the male has been completely removed, so how can you bring it back?

‘I discovered to my detriment that there is only so far medical science can go.  As Charles, I still sometimes wanted to wear a blouse or a pretty ring, and wear my hair long.  Having become Samantha, I should have stayed Samantha. When I told Victoria how I was feeling, it effectively ended the relationship.  She said she preferred men and did not want to live with a woman, but we are still friends."

*Not the romance novelist, Samantha Kane, nor Charles Kane the protagonist in Citizen Kane, 1941, nor the character in Tomb Raider, nor the boxer, nor the President of One Laptop Per Child.

• Samantha Kane edited by Sarah Harding. Two-Tiered Existence. London: Writers and Artists. 130 pp. 1998.
• Jack O’Sullivan. “Cold Call: Jack O'Sullivan rings Samantha Kane”. The Guardian, 24 Oct 1998. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/cold-call-jack-osullivan-rings-samantha-kane-1180166.html.
• Todd Austin (dir) One Life: Make me a Man Again. UK BBC1 2004.
• David Batty. “Sex-change patient complains to GMC “. The Guardian, 18 Feb 2004. http://society.guardian.co.uk/mentalhealth/story/0,,1150426,00.html.
• ”Sex Reassignment : Make me a Man Again”. Stranger Than Fiction. www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/stranger-than-fiction/sex-reassignment.html.
• Helen Weathers. “A British tycoon and father of two has been a man and a woman ... and a man again ... and knows which sex he'd rather be”. Daily Mail, June 14, 2008. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1026392/A-British-tycoon-father-man-woman---man---knows-sex-hed-be.html.
• Helen Weathers. “A VERY peculiar engagement: Charles had a sex change - then hated being Samantha so became a man again. Now he's getting married. So is his fiancée barmy, brave... or just in love?”. Daily Mail, 7th Dec 2010. www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1327554/Charles-Kane-sex-change--hated-Samantha-man-Now-hes-getting-married-So-fiancee-crazy.html.
• Helen Weathers.  "The top London lawyer who's changed gender THREE times: Extraordinary tale of transgender career woman, 57, who's spent more than £100,000 switching sex - and why she believes life's easier for men than women".  The Daily Mail, 21 March 2017.   www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4369636/The-London-lawyer-s-changed-gender-THREE-times.html.

____________________________________________________________

I also had the surgery only six months after first meeting Russell Reid, but unlike
Hashimi/Kane I had by that point been on female hormones for some years, was living full-time as female and working as female.

Why is it that these who change back, then feel that they want to ban the operation for everyone?

What a pity that Samantha did not discover ways of being female, ways that are less shallow and consumer oriented. Nor did she figure out that being glamourous and passing are not the same thing.

Jacquie Grant (1943 - ) merchant sailor, nightclub owner, councillor, foster mother, museum owner, business woman.

Grant was born in Gippsland, and raised in a children’s home in Melbourne. In 1964 Grant fled to New Zealand to avoid imprisonment for dressing as female: New Zealand being the one place that Australians could go without a passport.

After being in the merchant navy for several years, and then being a restaurant/ nightclub owner, in 1970 Grant transitioned and became Jacquie. She married, and with her Maori husband adopted and fostered over 70 children for the Dept of Welfare.

For 15 years she managed the Moana Zoo and Wildlife park at Lake Brunner.

She served for two terms on the Greymouth District Council.

She has collected circular sock machines for over 30 years, she owns about 200 and owns a manufacturing business that makes them, and also a museum.

She also runs a motor camp at Hokitika.

Her husband died in 1992.

She was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit in 1998 for her fostering services. She has been a sitting member of the NZ Human Rights Review Tribunal since 2004. In 2007 she sat as a member of the local High Court bench.

• “ ‘Tranny Granny’ Jacquie Grant”. GayNZ. 16 Nov 2004. www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/34/article_482.php.
• “ ‘'Tranny Granny' stays on human rights panel”. GayNZ. 7 Nov 2009. www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/2/article_8126.php.
• “Jacquie Grant”. Matt & Andrej Koymasky. http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biog3/grant05.html.
• “Jacquie Grant”. Jacquie Grant's New Zealand Auto Knitter. www.autoknitter.com/JGVSKMM/About.htm.

____________________________________________________________

Jacquie is the first transsexual NZ Order of Merit, Human Rights Review member, zoo manager  and the first to foster over 70 children. 

What a role model. 

She is not the first transgender museum keeper – that would be Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.

José Sarria (1922 - 2013) caterer, drag performer, activist.

José was born in San Francisco, the child of unmarried Columbian and Nicaraguan immigrants. He was raised by his mother and then by his godmother for whom his mother worked as a live-in domestic. They combined their households and moved to Redwood City during the Depression of the 1930s.

They both indulged his fondness for dressing in their clothes, and encouraged his singing. He took lessons from a retired opera singer. In addition to English and his native Spanish, he also learned French and German.

His first lover was Paul Kolish, an Austrian refugee whom he tutored.


Sarria enlisted in the US Army during World War II, despite his short height, by seducing the major at the recruiting station. He was assigned to the Signals Corps. He was rejected for Intelligence for unstated reasons (probably for being fey), and was trained as a cook. He became a major’s orderly, and after the occupation of Berlin he managed an officers’ mess hall. He was discharged at the rank of Staff Sergeant.

Back in San Francisco Kolish was killed by a drunken driver on Christmas Day 1947. José enrolled in teacher training, but after being arrested for solicitation in a police sting in a hotel, he was now ineligible for certification as a teacher.

He found a lover, Jimmy Moore, who worked as a waiter and greeter at The Black Cat Bar, in San Francisco’s North Beach. José subbed for his lover at the bar. From there he started singing, moved onto the stage, and performed camp versions of operatic arias in drag. He continued performing until the bar closed in 1963. He would close the evening with a singing of “God save us Nelly Queens”.

In the 1950s, when cross-dressing was still illegal he distributed badges stating “I am a boy”, so that fellow drag queens could not be accused of “intent to deceive”. The police regularly raided gay bars and charged everyone found inside. José urged that they plead not guilty which overloaded the courts and judges started demanding actual evidence.

In 1961 he ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, winning nearly 6,000 votes. This makes him the first openly transgender, and the first openly gay person to run for public office. His campaign helped later gay campaigns, in particular that of Harvey Milk.

He was a co-founder of the League for Civil Education (LCE) which provided educational programs and support for those caught in police raids; of the Society for Individual Rights (SIR) which organized both social and political events; and of the Tavern Guild, the first gay business association which helped co-ordinate bar owners against police harassment.

José was crowned Queen of the Beaux Arts Ball in 1964, and took the name the Widow Norton (a reference to Joshua Norton, the self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States in San Francisco,1859). This led to the founding of the Imperial Court System which now has chapters across North America and puts on balls and raises money for charity.

Also in 1964 José went into partnership with restaurateur Pierre Parker who held the French food concession for the World’s Fairs. They worked the fairs in New York, 1964, Montreal, 1967, San Antonio, 1968, and Spokane 1974. Then they both retired to Phoenix, Arizona.

José returned to San Francisco in 1977 to endorse Harvey Milk running for the Board of Supervisors.

Mama José and other of the Court appear in the opening of the 1995 film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.
 
Sarria's lifetime of activism was commemorated when the city of San Francisco renamed a section of 16th Street in the Castro "José Sarria Court".

He died at age 90.

• Randy Schilts. The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. New York: St Martin’s Press. Xvii, 388 pp 1982. London: Penguin 1993: 51-7.
• “Interview with Jose Sarria, A.K.A. the Widow Norton, the first Empress of San Francisco and founder of the Imperial Court System”. Seattle Gay News, 2/21/92.
• José Sarria as told to Michael Robert Gorman. The Empress Is a Man: Stories from the Life of José Sarria. New York: Haworth Press. xvi, 278 pp 1998.
• José Sarria. “Oral History” in Nan Alamilla Boyd. Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965. University of California Press 2005: 20-4, 57-62, 210-12, 220-2.
•  Christine Sismondo.  "The Queen of San Francisco:The first openly gay U.S. political candidate works to save a slice of gay history".  The Atlantic, November 2011.  www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/the-queen-of-san-francisco/308660.
• “Empress I Jose”. International Court System. www.impcourt.org/icis/who/founder.html. 

EN.WIKIPEDIA   QUEER MUSIC HERITAGE  IMDB  OUTHISTORY   GLBTQ   IMPERIAL COURT TRANS HEROES

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It seems to me that José Sarria parallells Virginia Prince. They were both active in the 1960s, one in each of the two major California cities, they were both persecuted by the prudish legal system, they both founded a system of social groups for transgender expression, neither became post-operative, both groups came to be seen as slightly embarrassing by more out transgenders of later generations. Both are still living.

Both Susan Stryker's Transgender History and Joanne Meyerowitz' How Sex Changed talk about Virginia Prince and are totally silent about José Sarria. Why is this? Is José Sarria not transgender enough? Are we discriminating on such a basis?

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A US company had a concession for French food at the World's Fairs! I wonder what the real French though about that. For some reason, all the World's Fairs 1964-74 were held in only two countries: the US and Canada.

Frenchy Vosbaugh (1827 - 1907) bank clerk, restaurateur, ranch hand.

Katherine Vosbaugh was born in France to a well-off father who gave her an excellent business education. He died when she was twenty, but by that point she was an expert accountant and spoke four languages.

She assumed male guise when she moved to the United States with the ostensible reason of securing employment - although he stayed in the male role for the rest of his life.

After working in various cities, Frenchy settled in Joplin, Missouri where he worked for fifteen years as a bank clerk. He took a wife at this time. At least part of the reason was to save her good name for she was pregnant. However the child died after a few months.

After the child died, the couple moved to Trinidad, Colorado where they opened a restaurant.

The wife drifted off and Frenchy took a job as cook on a big sheep ranch, sleeping the same room as the other men.

At the age of 78 he contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized. The medical treatment led to the discovery that he was a woman. However he was allowed to remain in the hospital, working as a man, for what turned out to be the last two years of his life.

• “Woman Who Posed as Man 60 Years, Dead/Born in France/Only Reason Was to Secure man’s Work”. The Trinidad Advestiser. Nov 11, 1907. In Jonathan Ned Katz. Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary, Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. 1983, Carrol & Graf Publishers, Inc. 1994: 323-4
• Louis Sullivan. Information for the female to male cross dresser and transsexual. Seattle: Ingersoll Gender Center. 1^st Ed Janus Information Facility. 20 pp1980.2nd ed 48 pp 1985. 3rd ed.. iii, 123 pp1990: 10.