History of TAO: Part 3: aftermath

TAO and Angela Douglas

Angela Douglas (1943 - 2007) musician, activist

History of TAO: part 1: to 1971. USAF, music, GLF

History of TAO: bibliography

History of TAO: Part 2: 1972-80. TAO in Miami Beach

History of TAO: Part 3: aftermath

Kimberley Elliot (1953 - 1980) TAO, Neo-American Church

More on Angela Douglas

In July 2019 a Gender Critical Reddit thread  linked to the original 2007 posting.  Apparently some anti-trans women think that a letter, be it satirical or whatever, from 42 years ago, written by someone who died 12 years earlier, and who never worked well with other trans activists, is a relevant document in discussing trans activism today!!!!                         My Reply.

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Part III: aftermath

1981
Douglas returns to South Miami Beach and lives in the budget Drake Hotel. She dislikes the post-Mariel changes: "the Beach was dying. Cuban refugees by the thousands had moved in and had turned ratty South Miami Beach into a Cuban slum ...Italian and Jewish stores and restaurants had been taken over by Cubans, one by one. Lovely Lincoln Road had been transformed into a pathetic cheap-goods shopping mall run by Cubans. The Beach had deteriorated so badly I was horrified. …. a group of very idiotic, offensive young gays lived there, all prostitutes, and a bunch of Cuban drag queens lived there".

Douglas visits Goudie and has dinner with her and her mother. By now Goudie has had surgery, been to college, and visited Paris and Rome.

1982

Goudie has become a born-again Christian and breaks with Douglas. She tapes the phone calls. Douglas claims to report Goudie and her mother to FBI as Castro agents.

Douglas returns to living as a man.

1983
Douglas' autobiography: Triple Jeopardy. "After getting a copy of the book, Chris Craig of MCA's Lord Tracy did songs advocating violence against transsexuals, and in 89, kin to him, Jean Craig, did a TV commercial having the Daihatsu Charade set fire to a sign for a town named Euphoria, with power to burn." (GuitarSite, 10/15/04)

1986
Douglas accuses the film Top Gun of stealing her life story (although there are no transsexuals in the plot)

Tallahassee Democrat reporter Mark Hinson later reported that Douglas "settled in dinky Grand Ridge near Sneads [north Florida] and lived in impoverished conditions. This made her very bitter and she often lashed out at gays and blacks when she called me with another rant".

The television news magazine Inside Edition does an investigative story on The Worst Doctor in America. Dr John Brown actually co-operates with the film crew. In transsexual circles Brown comes to be known as 'Butcher Brown', but patients still come. After the broadcast of the Inside Edition program, the San Diego District Attorney’s Office launches an investigation that leads to Brown spending 19 months in jail for practicing medicine without a license.

1990
Layla of Birmingham TAO had reverted to living as man and moved to Liverpool. He marries a woman, and drops out of his college course. (Whittle in Ekins & King: 192)

Catherine Millot. Horsexe: Essay on Transsexuality repeats Raymond's selective quotation of Douglas' letter to Sister magazine.

1991
Douglas wins $232,567 in the Fantasy Five lottery game. After taxes, the lottery gives him a check for $186,000. Returns to being Angela. She moves to Key West, buys a guitar and a red Corvette.

Douglas' then landlord comments: "I escorted her on cruises where she loved to gamble. She was more comfortable under the cover of darkness so most of our activities were at night. I remember she still had to shave, would not be caught dead in a dress, and made cat-calls to pretty Latina women on the streets of Miami from the corvette that we cruised in (bought with her lottery winnings)".

1992
Douglas' second book: Hollywood's Obsession. Claims that most representations of transsexuals in the media are plagiarizations of her life.

The lottery money quickly runs out, especially when Douglas suffers a stroke. He returns to living as a man.

Members of the UK TAO group, especially Stephen Whittle, become involved in Press for Change, which would be very involved in achieving the 2004 Gender Recognition Act. (Stryker & Whittle: 6)

Ken Forssi, bass player in the band Love, who had recorded with Doug Delain in 1967, is also living in northern Florida, unemployed and obsessed with political conspiracies.

1996
Arthur Lee, leader of band Love, sentenced to 12 years for negligent discharge of a firearm.

1997
Douglas writes a twisted little novelty song called "Andrew Cunanan" and it ends up on Dr. Demento's nationally syndicated radio show.

1998
"I showed up at a music festival in Blountstown, FL with two guitarists I'd met who thought I was a man, told them I am 'Lee Douglas,' did a dozen songs-first real performance since 1968! Went over great, and I then fooled around at some redneck bars around Panama City with them and others, got standing ovations" Performed as Last Drop Douglas.

Ken Forssi, dies of a brain tumor at age 54.

1999
Dr John Brown, out of prison, lives and works in Tijuana. He removes the healthy leg of an apotemnophiliac who desired to have it removed. The man dies two days later of gangrene in a motel in California. Brown is arrested and tried by the San Diego authorities, even though the operation had been done in Tijuana. He is tried and convicted of malice murder. He is sentenced to 15 years to life.

2001
Arthur Lee, leader of band Love released from prison. Douglas maintains he was released because Douglas lobbied the new President George Bush, POTUS 43.

2003
Last Drop Douglas. Solo CD Cosmo Alley.

2006
Arthur Lee dies in Memphis of myelois leukemia.

2007
Douglas dies of complications from heart trouble. Obituary by Mark Hinsen in the Tallahassee Democrat.

2010
Dr John Brown, still in prison, aged 87, dies of health problems including pneumonia.

2015
Death of Douglas' ex-wife, Norma Czinki.

History of TAO: Part 2: 1972-80. TAO in Miami Beach

TAO and Angela Douglas

Angela Douglas (1943 - 2007) musician, activist

History of TAO: part 1: to 1971. USAF, music, GLF

History of TAO: bibliography

History of TAO: Part 2: 1972-80. TAO in Miami Beach

History of TAO: Part 3: aftermath

Kimberley Elliot (1953 - 1980) TAO, Neo-American Church

More on Angela Douglas

In July 2019 a Gender Critical Reddit thread  linked to the original 2007 posting.  Apparently some anti-trans women think that a letter, be it satirical or whatever, from 42 years ago, written by someone who died 12 years earlier, and who never worked well with other trans activists, is a relevant document in discussing trans activism today!!!!                         My Reply.

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Part II. 1972-82. TAO in Miami Beach

1972
Douglas and TAO move to Miami Beach. Publishes Moonshadow and later Mirage Magazine over next three years. Douglas: "Year of the Transsexual in Miami Beach: hundreds were there, from all over the nation, and many Puerto Ricans and Cubans. … the cha-chas became as thick as tourists; the Latin transsexuals were referred to as 'cha-chas'."

Transvestites are still no longer welcome as members.

Douglas and Colette Goudie meet during the protests against the Presidential conventions in Miami Beach.

Kilo, 22 and pre-op, is a TAO member and also a popular performer who had appeared at the Stonewall club in a production of Wild Side Story.

Miami Beach's anti-cross-dressing ordinance is declared unconstitutional and police threaten to rewrite it. Kilo calls for street protests. The police continue to enforce the old ordinance nevertheless.

Canary Conn has stage-one surgery with Dr Barbosa in Tijuana (named as Dr Lopez in her autobiography).

1973
Collette Goudie joins TAO, as do Kimberly Barreiro and Tara Carn, Puerto Rican-born, New York-raised. Douglas: Goudie and Carn were ‘both very beautiful and wild and hated each other with a hot passion. Getting them to work together was nearly impossible’.

Kimberly fully transitions with surgery in less than a year. She marries Steve Elliot and they became involved in Art Kleps' psychedelic Neo-American Church at Millbrook, New York.

Goudie & Carn are arrested on Twenty-first Street beach for disorderly conduct. Surprisingly they are well treated by the police.

TAO sets up a 'security force' to stop police and public abuse of 'transsexuals and gays'.

After a raid and arrests at the Stonewall Club on Twenty-first Street, Douglas files suit for discrimination.

Article in Mirage objects to the emphasis in mainstream media on the medical aspects of transsexuality. There are more severe problems including exploitation by surgeons, psychiatrists and gender identity clinics, as well as extortion and persecution by the police.

After the American Psychiatric Association announced that homosexuality would no longer be considered a mental illness, TAO called for transsexualism to be likewise removed (although technically it was not even added until the 1980 version of the DSM).

1974
Douglas steps down as president. Barbara Rosello becomes president of TAO: "Tao is an organization for transexuals only … We have many goals which can only be accomplished by our own efforts."

Rosella resigns due to family pressures and nerves. Goudie becomes 3^rd president in September.

Carn was to have her photograph in Mirage. Her boyfriend was terrified. Carn: 'I'm proud of what I am, and I want to help anyway I can.' She is also quoted saying that that she is lesbian, and likes girls and other transsexuals.

Carn passes well. However the Miami Beach police follow her around and tell men that she is a 'fag in a dress'. "To retaliate, the beautiful Tara sometimes went to a crowded beach, started dancing topless to music from a radio and after a crowd of applauding people surrounded her, would take off her bikini panties, display her male genitals and cause a near riot. Police would arrive and she’d shake her genitals at them, screaming ‘you say I’m a man’ ...She was taken to jail, fined, and sometimes went back and repeated the performance."

Goudie and 2 other TAO members appear on Marsh and Adams Show on WKID in Fort Lauderdale, and discuss housing discrimination, police harassment, difficulties receiving proper medical attention and difficulties with getting identification.

During June, the Miami News published a series on transsexual issues. Four trans women are featured including two TAO members: Tara Carn and Colombian-American Crystal Gresham.

Crystal Gresham is TAO Miami Beach director. She ‘lives fully as a female except when teaching ballroom dance to elderly women in Miami Beach’.

Douglas first meets surgeon Dr John Brown. ‘He wanted to help aid me and came up with several thousand dollars cash to help publish Mirage Magazine. In exchange, I promoted him considerably’.

Canary Conn publishes her autobiography, followed by appearances on television.

TAO had increasingly bad-mouthed the Erickson Educational Foundation, which indeed never mentioned TAO or other militant organizations in its newsletters. Despite this Zelda Suplee on behalf EEF offers $20,000 to 'place the TAO within the EEF's framework'. Douglas declines, in that 'every cent would have strings attached'.

A TAO press release suggests that the CIA is behind the transsexual program at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, and that Donald Laub at Stanford's Gender identity Clinic was connected with a plot to transplant the brains of transsexuals.

1975
In February issue of Mirage Jennifer Otera 'third place winner in the Miss [Gay?] Universe contest held in Caracas’ reports on intense police harassment in Venezuela.

In the same issue, Goudie is asked about transvestites: "I have nothing against them. Some transsexuals say they are transvestites because it’s easier for the world to comprehend. But it’s not the same. A transvestite is a man who dresses up like a woman for a little while and then becomes a man again. A transsexual, like you and me and so many others, live as we are all of the time. It is so different ...I don’t think it’s good for both TVs and TSs to belong to the same groups, as the values are so different, the laws and problems are so different. In some ways the problems overlap, but not completely."

However units or associate memberships were set up for non-transsexual members. Lesbian and transvestite units were created. The police did not observe any distinction between transvestites and transsexuals, and Moonshadow and Mirage continued to report harassment of both groups.

Intersex persons were offered full membership.

"TAO also strongly relates to the problems and efforts of transvestites, gay men and women and feminists. However, we consider transexualist values of paramount importance and are not subject to the values of other sociosexual liberationist movements, such as the feminist and gay liberation movements. We prefer to meet members in person."

Goudie on August cover of Moonshadow. Contains article by Douglas & Goudie on trans Santaria deities, especially Santa Barbara/Shango.

Kilo dies in a house fire.

Gay Action Alliance – Miami sue the police in Miami Beach for brutality, but refuse to include transsexuals in the lawsuit, even though they were more often targeted. This leads to TAO breaking off relations.

A network of UK trans activists loosely affiliate themselves with TAO. The group in Birmingham was run by Brooklyn (ftm) and Leyla (mtf) who were a couple. They urged an "anarcho-transformative, transsexual-separatist agenda" such as protesting a National Front march. Stephen Whittle, for a short while ran a London TAO group. (Whittle in Ekins & King: 192).

Birmingham TAO put out a leaflet: "The T.A.O. is a national organization which is open to all transsexuals (whether they are presently undergoing sex change treatment or not) irrespective of their race, religion, politics or sexual orientation. The T.A.O. has no official membership at present and is not structured. All decisions as to the running of the organization are taken collectively."

Moonshadow reports that TAO has had chapters in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Orlando and Jacksonville as well as Miami Beach. Abroad it has chapters in Canada, England and Northern Ireland. Almost a thousand members in all.

++In this year, trans man Joe Carstairs sells his home, Whale Cay in the Bahamas, and buys a house in Miami.   There is no reason to assume that he ever contacted TAO.

1976
Canary Conn reportedly killed (reported by Douglas, however Kay Brown says that she met Canary at a later date).

TAO disbanded? Douglas travels in California and Hawai'i. Carn also leaves Miami, and has gender surgery. They meet again in Hawai'i, but Carn is unfriendly. Later she is arrested on a prostitution charge.

1977
Douglas has vaginoplasty with Butcher John Brown and paid around $600. She describes him as one who "fed, housed, paid and helped hundreds, and gave free or nearly free surgery to at least two hundred of us". Brown has his California license revoked later that year. Later Douglas claimed that she "helped get him arrested twice".

Goudie joins Douglas in Berkeley, they fall out, and Douglas sends Goudie back to Miami on a plane.

Angela Douglas in San Francisco becomes upset at the vitriolic, absurd, and transphobic comments broadcast on listener sponsored station KPFA and letters published in the feminist journal Sister. Especially the attack on trans woman Sandy Stone donating her skills at the feminist Olivia Records.

Douglas meets Kay Brown who is with her when she writes a letter. Brown attempts without success to dissuade her from sending it. It is published in Sister Aug-Sep, p7. As quoted by Raymond p xvii it goes: "Free from the chains of menstruation and child-bearing, transsexual women are obviously far superior to Gennys in many ways .... Genetic women are becoming quite obsolete, which is obvious, and the future belongs to transsexual women. We know this and, and perhaps some of you suspect it. All you have left is your 'ability' to bear children, and in a world which will groan to feed 6 billion by the year 2000, that's a negative asset."

The letter is generally regarded as satire, but in her 1997 email to Kay Brown, Douglas insisted: "The l997 letter as for women becoming obsolete is valid, not whimsical or tongue in cheek, women are becoming obsolete as evidenced by Islamic treatment of women, etc. The future of humanity is male homosexual. Women are becoming irrelevant. I despise all lesbians anyway, and applaud when they get killed. I don't give a shit about feminists."

photo by Kay Brown

Next day Brown and Douglas march in the SF Pride Parade, where leaders had demanded that 'drags should stay home'. They are welcomed to ride with the Mattachine Society. Douglas writes up the event for the Berkeley Barb.

1978
Douglas appears in a porn mag with pre- and post-op photographs of her genitals.

TAO formally dissolved.

Douglas reported to be participating in US Nazi politics.

1979
Janice Raymond. The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-male: xvii quotes part of the letter to Sister out of context attributing it to 'one transsexual' and giving Douglas' name only in the end notes. Douglas later claimed that the 13 direct interviews cited in the book were actually quotes from a letter that Douglas had written to her.

1980
Dave Potter, formerly of Euphoria, (and 86 others) dies in fire at MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.

Kim Elliot is found dead at Miami Beach’s Midtown Plaza due to a drug overdose.  She is buried in North Miami Beach, and TAO people attend her funeral.

The Mariel Boatlift exodus from Cuba adds many trans women to the Miami population.

History of TAO: bibliography

TAO and Angela Douglas

Angela Douglas (1943 - 2007) musician, activist

History of TAO: part 1: to 1971. USAF, music, GLF

History of TAO: bibliography

History of TAO: Part 2: 1972-80. TAO in Miami Beach

History of TAO: Part 3: aftermath

Kimberley Elliot (1953 - 1980) TAO, Neo-American Church

More on Angela Douglas

In July 2019 a Gender Critical Reddit thread  linked to the original 2007 posting.  Apparently some anti-trans women think that a letter, be it satirical or whatever, from 42 years ago, written by someone who died 12 years earlier, and who never worked well with other trans activists, is a relevant document in discussing trans activism today!!!!                         My Reply.

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

Bibliography

The two major sources that I have used for this are Joanne Meyerowitz and Susana Pena, both of whom read the two inaccessible books by Angela Douglas and the various issues of Moonshadow and Mirage, the TAO publications. Quotes via these two are not individually cited because of their unavailability. See Meyerowitz' and Pena's end notes for page references.

Mark Hinson's obituary was very useful for the later years.

The fourth major source are the emails and postings, some would say rants, by Angela Lee Douglas. These are URL linked, although only a few are still online. I did keep copies from eight years ago.

There were also a lot of articles written by Douglas for community papers.  With only a few exceptions, I was not able to find these.

• Sleevenotes on Euphoria. A Gift From Euphoria (LP) with William D. Lincoln (bass, vocals), Hamilton Wesley Watt (vocals), Doug Delain (guitar), Dave Potter (drums). 1967
  
• Angela Douglas. "Panthers Still Biased Against Gays, Women". The Advocate, November 11-24, 1970.
  
• Donn Teal. The Gay Militants. Stein & Day, 1971: 210, 212.
  
• Angela Douglas (ed). Transsexual Action Organization Publications 1972-5.
  
• R. Fabricio. "Suit Charges Beach Harassment of Homosexuality". Miami Herald, 27 May 1973.
  
• Canary Conn. Canary: The Story of a Transsexual. Nash, 1974: 202
  
• Angela Douglas. "Gays March in S.F". Berkeley Barb, August 1977.
  
• Angela Douglas. Letter. Sister Aug-Sep 1977: 7.
  
• Janice G. Raymond. The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-male. Boston: Beacon Press. 1979: xvii.
  
• Angela Douglas. Triple Jeopardy: The Autobiography of Angela Lynn Douglas. Sneeds, Floria: Angela Lynn Douglas, 1983.
  
• Catherine Millot translated into English by Kenneth Hylton. Horsexe: Essay on Transsexuality. Paris: Point Hors Logne, 1983. NY:Autonomedia, 1990: .
  
• Angela Douglas. Hollywood's Obsession. Angela Lynn Douglas, 1992.
  
• Vernon Joynson. Fuzz, Acid And Flowers. "Euphoria". Borderline Productions, 1993.
  
• Art Kleps. A Narrative of the Early Years of American Psychedelianism. Neo-American Church of Texas, 1994. Kimberley Elliot and her husband appear under as Kim & Steve Newall.       Turns out to be a different Kimberly. 
  
• Pat Califia. Sex changes : the politics of transgenderism. San Francisco: Cleis Press 1997. Second edition by Patrick Califia 2003: 98-9.
  
• Kay Brown. "Angela Keyes Douglas". Transsexual, Transgender, and Intersex History. 1998.    Archive. 
  
• Douglas Carl Czinki email to Kay Brown- no date - included on Brown's site.
  
• A.L. Douglas posting on Sympathy on Milli Vanilli, Jul 7, 2000.
  
• Rodger Stretmatter. Voices of Revolution: The Dissident Press in America. Colombia University Press, 2001: 250.
  
• James T. Sears. Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones: Queering Space in the Stonewall South. Rutgers University Press, 2001: 129.
  
• Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States.  Harvard University Press. 2002: 236, 237-241, 257, 271, 333.
  
• Angela Lynn Douglas posting on dev.greenspun.com November 10, 2002.
  
• Last Drop Douglas. Cosmo Alley (CD) 2003.
  
• Angela Douglas 2 postings on "Transsexuals allowed in Olympics" Amorous Propensities May 21, 2004 and October 21, 2004.
  
• A.L. posting on band family tree.com 5/28/2005.
  
• Angela Douglas (Tanglehead) posting on Messageboard for Love Fans 16/11/2005.
  
• Angela Douglas posting on Arthur Lee Tribute June 27, 2006.
  
• Angela Douglas (Tanglehead) posting on Yellow Swordfish>>Arthur Lee and Love 2006-08-26.
  
• Angela Douglas posting on the Cindi Lauper web page. 14 March 2007.
  
• Angela Douglas (Tanglehead) posting on ufowatch no date.
  
• Mark Hinson. "Angela's ashes: Farewell to a wild pen pal". Tallahassee Democrat, August 24, 2007. Reproduced.
  
• Stephen Whittle in Richard Ekins & Dave King. The Transgender Phenomenon. London: Thousand Oaks; California: Sage. 2006: 192-3.
  
• Susan Stryker & Stephen Whittle. The Transgender Studies Reader. Routledge, 2006: 6.
  
• Susan Stryker. Transgender History. Seal Press, 2008: 88-9
  
• Suzan Cooke."Early Frauds, Predators and Self-Agrandizers". Women Born Transsexual, 05/27/2009. http://womenborntranssexual.com/2009/05/27/early-frauds-predators-and-self-agrandizers.
  
• Susana Pena. "Gender and Sexuality in Latina/o Miami: Documenting Latina Transsexual Activists". Kevin P. Murphy & Jennifer M. Spear (eds). Historicising Gender and Sexuality. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011: 755-772.
  
• Tom De Simone, Teresa Wang, Melissa Lopez, Diem Tran, Andy Sacher, Kersu Dalal, Justin Emerick. Lavender Los Angeles. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Pub, 2011: 118.
  
• Philip Zonkel. "Gay History: Los Angeles’ pioneering transgender activists to be discussed Sunday at ONE Gay & Lesbian Archives". Out in the 562, April 11, 2014. http://blogs.presstelegram.com/outinthe562/2014/04/11/gay-history-los-angeles-pioneering-transgender-activists-to-be-discussed-sunday-at-one-gay-lesbian-archives.
  
• Brendan Zachariah O'Donnell. Definition and Redefinition: Alliance and Antagonism in Homosexual and Trans Communities in the U.S. BA thesis, Wesleyan University, 2014: 61-2, 69. PDF
  

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History of TAO: Part 1: to 1971. USAF, music, GLF

A History of the Transsexual Action Organization (TAO) and some associates

TAO and Angela Douglas

Angela Douglas (1943 - 2007) musician, activist

History of TAO: part 1: to 1971. USAF, music, GLF

History of TAO: bibliography

History of TAO: Part 2: 1972-80. TAO in Miami Beach

History of TAO: Part 3: aftermath

Kimberley Elliot (1953 - 1980) TAO, Neo-American Church

More on Angela Douglas

In July 2019 a Gender Critical Reddit thread  linked to the original 2007 posting.  Apparently some anti-trans women think that a letter, be it satirical or whatever, from 42 years ago, written by someone who died 12 years earlier, and who never worked well with other trans activists, is a relevant document in discussing trans activism today!!!!                         My Reply.

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

Douglas Carl Czinki became Angela Douglas. Therefore when I write 'Douglas' alone there is ambiguity whether that is his forename or her surname. Up to 1969 it is the former. Douglas is not the only trans woman to use her boy name as her new surname, but I will not name the others.

While Angela Douglas is the dominant and central character in this history, there are several others who contribute significantly to trans history.

In quoting Douglas I have corrected spelling and punctuation, and sometimes added [words] to make it more readable.

Part I: to 1971. USAF, music, GLF

1943
Douglas Carl Czinki born in Detroit, of Hungarian descent. Raised on USAF bases. Father was in AFOSI, Air Force Intelligence; mother employed by AEC, CIA and DEA.

1947
Colette Tisha Goudie, born in France of French-Cuban descent.

1949
Danny O'Connor born in San Antonio, Texas.

1953
Kimberly Barreiro born in Cuba.

1957
The Czinki family moves to South Florida neighborhood of Hialeah, which had a large Latino population. Douglas meets Norma Rodriguez.

1959-61
Douglas at high school in Japan.

1962
Against his family's opposition, Douglas marries Norma

1962-4
Douglas plays in Charades, a roadhouse band in Oklahoma City; he also says that he was in USAF in this period.

1965
As Doug Delain, Czinki plays guitar with band Euphoria with William D. Lincoln (bass, vocals), Hamilton Wesley Watt (vocals), Dave Potter (drums).

1966
Virginia Prince rents a house in Laurel Canyon around the same time as Frank Zappa and many other musicians. There is no recorded interaction of Prince with the musicians.

1967
Delain tries to form a band, Motorcycle Abilene, with Warren Zevon, and records songs with Love's Ken Forssi and Alban Pfisterer. Releases LPs: Trapped, C'est Dommage.

LP cover

LP A Gift From Euphoria - but without Doug Delain on guitar, although he is mentioned on the
sleeve.

Delain has a cameo in Roger Corman's LSD film The Trip in Laurel Canyon. "There are two scenes in The Trip filmed there. [Peter]Fonda, [Bruce] Dern drive up, bikers in front including Roland God Barnett of The Barons, I painted "LOVE" on the street, did some of the art on the film. [Dennis] Hopper is passing joints around. I am in that scene, so is young future billionaire Paul Allen, a wanna be bass player then, hung out now and then there, helped me set up Hendrix's gear for a promo film Hendrix made there in 68."

Czinki's wife, Norma Rodriguez, pregnant, leaves him for a woman.

Danny O'Connor marries and they have a child.

1968
Delain plays last music gig as a boat party for Steppenwolf in Hawai'i.

Jimmy Hendrix television special is filmed at Delain's home in Laurel Canyon.

Danny O'Connor wins nationwide contest "Super Teen: The Sounds of '68".

1969
Czinki becomes Angela Douglas, and is active in LA GLF. There is no indication that she even considered Virginia Prince's FPE. "I was not gay and knew nothing of them prior to l969. I became a writer for The LA Image and communists and gays sought me out to promote their actions. I did, and got involved with the Gay Liberation Front, took part in a few protests, then formed the Transsexual Action organization with Canary Conn." (email to Kay Brown)

Lavender Los Angeles p118

Colette Tisha Goudie starts living as female.

Singer Danny O'Connor releases two 45 rpm singles: "If I Am Not Free" and "Can You Imagine." (Click to listen).

1970
Douglas and trans singer attacked when supposed to perform at LA gay lib dance.

Frustrated by 'antitransvestic' attitudes of some gay men, and that GLF ignored the push for a clinic in Los Angeles, Douglas founds Transvestite/Transsexual Action Organization (TAO).

Douglas and one other demonstrate at a showing of the newly released Myra Breckinridge, denouncing it as exploitative and objecting that a non-transsexual, Raquel Welsh, played Myra.

TAO protests when Los Angeles welfare officials discontinue aid to 'men' who dress as women.

TAO persuades the Californian Peace and Freedom Party to include in its platform "The right to determine the uses of one's body, as in sex changes operations and others" and gets the Socialist Party to call for an end to arrests for 'cross-dressing'.

Douglas writes to Harry Benjamin: "As I progress as a transsexual, I find myself more attuned to Women's Liberation, in particular, the demands and ideas of gay women".

In a published letter to Playboy, Douglas explains that TAO supported "both gay liberation and women's liberation: we believe that all victims of prejudice and discrimination must work together to change this society".

Czinki senior murdered in Maryland.

Douglas on a visit to New York as part of investigating father's death, meets with Zelda Suplee of the Erickson Educational Foundation, and passes on a leaflet for a demonstration in Sheridan Square for 'transvestite and transexual liberation'. However only Suplee and one organizer turned up.

1971
TAO is renamed to Transsexual Action Organization. Transvestites no longer welcome.

Danny O'Connor, who has left wife and child and become Canary Conn, answers an ad in the Los Angeles Free Press for TAO and attends: "The TAO advertised itself as 'a transsexual action organization' but turned out to be a gathering place for a bunch of drag queens who were mostly interested in running pink flags up poles and picketing college campuses as well as having sex with anyone who walked by, male or female. It was a fiasco." (Conn: 202)

____________________________________________________________

There is an excellent book on the Los Angeles music scene in the 1960s: Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon, Headpress, 2013 by David McGowan. It points out that most of the noted musicians associated with Laurel Canyon had fathers in either the military or in intelligence: Frank Zappa, Papa John Philips, Stephen Stills, Gram Parsons. Jim Morrison's father, George Morrison, commanded the US warships in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 in the incident, false flag or not, that led to the escalation of the US-Vietnamese war.

Carl Douglas Czinki/Doug Delain fits right into this pattern, but is missing from McGowan's book.

There is an idea that Jim Morrison of the Doors survived his death and became Angela Douglas. Yeah right. Douglas commented on this in 2004: "Never even met The Doors, but they got signed with Electra by Arthur Lee. I am not James Douglas Morrison who apparently died in Paris in l97l (not l969.) The Doors, family think he faked his death. Incredibly, we were both born in 43, he in Florida, me in Michigan, I grew up mostly in Florida in the Air Force, he in the Navy, he left Tallahassee in 63-64 for LA he had attended FSU, I left Miami in 65 for LA and got Lee's new band hired at Bido Lito's (see on web), a club helped get open, sang with him a bit, cut two of my songs later with Love members. I was born Douglas Carl Czinki, he was born James Douglas Morrison, so there are some incredible similarities with our lives I can't explain, supernatural. I can sound very much like him when I sing, however, despite the sex change." (Amorous Propensities May 21, 2004 and October 21, 2004.)

Douglas says, GuitarSite 10/15/04: "I found out that Jim Fouratt (now an A and R man with Mercury NYC in a 1993 gay history book, Stonewall, falsely claims he removed firebombs I planted at NYU in 70 and is a big fucking hero. I was briefly in NYC in 70 and he assaulted me and a TV news team interviewing me, stalked me later in Miami and may have been involved in many tries to kill me". I checked Martin Duberman's Stonewall, 1993. There is no entry for Douglas, Czinki or Delain in the index. Fouratt is in the book, but I could not find anything resembling this claim.

Douglas married a woman, was later sexually attracted to other members of TAO, and in 1991 is reported as cat-calling pretty women on the street. In short was gynephilic, and could be said to be a heterosexual male who temporarily became a woman. Thus it is reasonable to ask why he did not simply join Virginia Prince's FPE, which was active in Los Angeles in 1969, before starting a new group? There would have course have been ego-conflicts.

Gift from Euphoria is on sale at Amazon. I cannot find the other albums for sale.

Douglas claims Canary Conn as a TAO co-founder because of her fame as a singer, while, according to her book, she attended only once and was horrified.   Compare her attitude to that of Lili Elvenes (Elbe) who was equally horrified when she met the other trans women at Hirschfeld's Institute.  

John Hathaway (1892–?) fraudster.

One-time student nurse at Carney Hospital, Boston, Ethel Kimball was arrested several times after 1904 on forgery charges.

By 1919 he had become John Hathaway. He posed as the nephew of a wealthy manufacturer, and another time as the Boston manager of financier J.P. Morgan. Otherwise he posed as a technology graduate.

For two years he lived opposite a family in Somerville. He courted Louise of that family, and they were wed in November 1921 at Boston's Union Congregational Church.

Just over two weeks later Hathaway approached an automobile salesman about a purchase. The salesman became suspicious and reported the matter to the police, who arrested him.

Further examination determined that Hathaway was female-bodied. He was offered women's clothing, which he refused. An alienist who examined him found that he was sane but abnormal. The 'disillusioned bride' disappeared quickly. The accused was quoted:

'I wore men's clothes because I wanted to approach life's problems from a man's viewpoint, especially the problem of unemployment'.

Hathaway told the court that the bride knew well what she was doing, but he pleaded guilty to 'falsifying the record' when applying for a marriage license.

• "Girl posed as man 2 years and married". The New York Times, Dec 15, 1921. PDF
  
• Jonathan Ned Katz. Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary, Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. 1983, Carrol & Graf Publishers, Inc. 1994: 404.
  

Dahlia McGowan (195?–) performer

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.
  

Viktor Kalnberz, Виктор Калнберз (1928 - ) trauma surgeon

Viktor Kalnberz, of Latvian descent, was born in Moscow. Both his parents graduated from the Medical Faculty of the Moscow State University. They were sent to practice in Kyzyl, the capital of the Tuva People's Republic.

They returned to Moscow in 1936, and in 1941 to Riga, Latvia as the Great Patriotic War opened. The parents worked in an evacuation hospital. Despite these disruptions Viktor graduated high school and studied at the Medical Faculty of the University of Latvia 1945-51. From 1951 Kalnberz worked at and then led the Riga Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedics.

He became internationally famous for transplanting fingers from dead persons onto live persons who needed them. He pioneered penis prosthesis technology at a time when Soviet orthodoxy was at best disinterested in treating impotence. He was a deputy of the Riga City Council 1963-7.

He had already performed four sex correction operations on intersex patients, when in the winter of 1968 he was approached by a 29-year-old trans man, an engineer who had already attempted suicide three times, whom we know only by his female name of Inna. Kalnberz treated him over the next four years.

“A medical council was convened; there was an endocrinologist, a sexopathologist, a gynaecologist, and a psychiatrist on the panel. They all agreed that conservative treatment methods were very unlikely to succeed in this case. The head of the Latvian republic’s health ministry had the last word. He gave us the permission, but did not actually sign any papers."

In September 1970 the operation was approved, and it was done in stages.

“He was very afraid that people would learn about the operation. That is why when they gave him his new ID and other documents, I asked him not to give me his surname or address. I don’t even know his phone number. The only thing I asked of him was to give me a ring every now and then, and tell me about his condition. The last time I heard from him was more than five years ago. He was just under 70 at the time."

Inna continued as an engineer. He married twice, and explained his scars to his wives as resulting from a car accident. Dr Kalnberz was summoned to several inquiries, but got off with a stern reprimand. The surgery on Inna was kept secret for 20 years.

In 1974 Kalnberz was issued a US patent for his penile implant using polyethylene plastic rods – in all he held 23 patents in different countries. He did a further five sex-change operations. He was a member of the Supreme Soviet 1975 – 1990. He treated Soviet cosmonauts, made a women's shortened leg longer by 60 cm, was a consultant to trauma teams across the USSR, in Tokyo, Munich, Moscow and at the Montreal Olympics. He worked with the army in Afghanistan where he developed an external fixation device to treat complex gunshot fractures.

He became a Hero of Socialist Labour and an Academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1988 and was given many other rewards.

He retired at age 80.

• "Fingers from the dead". Time, 6/10/1966, 87,23: 55. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,942022,00.html.
  
• Hoag Levins. American Sex Machines: The Hidden History of Sex at the US Patent Office. Adams Media Corp, 1993: 132-2, 136.
  
• Anastasiya Gnedinskaya. "A Soviet doctor pioneered the first sex change operation". Russia Beyond the Headlines, January 20, 2014. http://rbth.com/society/2014/01/20/a_soviet_doctor_pioneered_the_first_sex_change_operation_33351.html.
  

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Kalnberz is admirable enough as is.  Why does Gnedinskaya spoil it with the false claim of Inna's operation being a world's first?