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 1800 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!
Kia Sladeski from Pine Bush, New York was arrested in Pine Bush in 1977 for offering sexual services to a police officer for $10. She was charged under her birth name of Paul Sladeski.
In 1984 Kia was declared 'Rookie Cowgirl of the Year' by the American Rodeo Association for her performance in barrel racing, the only rodeo event expressly for women. Unfortunately the folks in her home town remembered Paul. The ARA announced that if Kia had completed a sex-change operation, there would be no problem. Either way she would be allowed to keep her rodeo earnings.
An example of how the press gives the beginning of a story but not the conclusion. The link above is the only web item about Kia. Was she post-operative? Did she get to keep the award? What has she done since?
The ARA attitude was quite progressive compared to other sporting associations in the 1980s.
Kia's achievement is one that is usually left off lists of wins by transgender sportspersons.
Greg Lankton was the third child of a Presbyterian minister in Flint, Michigan. As a child, Greg made dolls, played dress-up and was like other girls. He was also raped by his grandfather.
His family preferred a daughter to a gay son, and proposed a sex change. Greer was rejected by several sex-change doctors, but his mother found a surgeon who would do it. It was paid for with financial help from the father’s church congregation. However within a year Greer regretted the surgery and attempted suicide, although after recovery she did continue as female.
In 1987 she married her long-time boyfriend, Paul Monroe, also an artist, with her father as the minister, and Teri Toye as the bridesmaid. She and Paul experimented with drugs. She was a successful New York artist making dolls, sculptures and drawings. She worked with Jim Henson of Sesame Street. She was featured in the Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennial of 1995.
Her last showing was in “It’s all about ME, Not You” at the Andy Warhol Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh. Among her works is a sad-faced bust of Candy Darling; a sculpture of a toddler-hermaphrodite giving birth to twins, and an emaciated near-life-sized Sissy Boy.
She was raped during the preparation for the Pittsburgh show, and died of a drug overdose shortly afterwards.
James Lawrence Slattery, Jr. was raised in Massapequa Park, Long Island, New York by his divorced mother, who worked as a bookkeeper at Manhattan’s Jockey Club, and later at the local telephone company.
He won a ‘Most Beautiful Baby’ contest - but, because of a mistake by his mother, as a girl. For a while he ran a Kim Novak Fan Club. When he was 17, his mother confronted him with the rumors that he had been seen in a local gay bar in drag. He left the room and returned en femme.
Her first drag name was Hope Slattery, and then Hope Dahl, Candy Dahl, Candy Cane. By the age of twenty, James had become Candy Darling and moved to Greenwich Village. Through Jackie Curtis, (then 15) who wrote a part for her in Glamour, Glory and Gold, she was introduced to Andy Warhol, and she and Jackie had a small roles in Flesh, 1968, babbling on about glamour advertisements and other such topics while Joe Dallesandro is being blown by an old girl friend.
With Jackie and Holly Woodlawn, she also appeared in Paul Morrissey/Andy Warhol’s Women in Revolt, 1972 – sometimes referred to as Blonde on a Bum Trip, in reference to Candy’s character.
She was immortalized by the Rolling Stones in “Citadel” on Their Satanic Majesties Request: “Candy and Taffy, hope we both are well/Please come see me in the citadel”, and in two Lou Reed songs, Candy Says: “Candy says I've come to hate my body/ and all that it requires in this world”; and Walk on the Wild Side: “Candy came from out on the Island/ In the backroom she was everybody's darlin'”.
She also appeared in Jackie Curtis plays: Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit, 1969, and Vain Victory: The Vicissitudes of the Damned, 1971. She was in Tennessee William's play Small Craft Warnings after impressing Tennessee at his birthday party.
She played minor parts in major films with Jane Fonda (Klute, 1971) and Sophia Loren (La Mortadella, 1972) . Her best role was as Karen in Some of My Best Friends Are ..., 1971 which features a group of sad people in a mafia-run gay bar, on Christmas Eve. She (and other transy actors) campaigned without success to play the lead in Myra Breckinridge, 1970. She was also in the films: Brand X, 1970, Der Tod der Maria Malibran, 1972, Silent Night, Bloody Night, 1974.
She died in 1974, some say as a side effect of the particular hormones that she was taking; others say of leukemia.
Transgender artist Greer Lankton made a bust of Candy in 1995.
The 1996 film I Shot Andy Warhol, although mainly about Valerie Solanas is in effect also a biography of Candy Darling, played remarkably by tough-guy actor, Stephen Dorff. It is co-written by Candy’s friend, Jeremiah Newton.
Mary Harron (dir & scr). I Shot Andy Warhol. Scr: Danile Minahan & Jeremiah Newton, Lili Taylor as Valerie Solanas, Jared Harris as Andy Warhol, Stephen Dorff as Candy Darling. US 103 mins 1996.
Candy Darling, edited by Francesca Passalacqua & D.E. Hardy. My Face for the World to See: The Diaries, Letters, and Drawings of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar. Honolulu: Hardy Marks Publications 127 pp 1997.
Ricardo was a Cuban émigré, who migrated to the US on the Mariel boat lift in 1980.
He became a transy prostitute in New York, using the name Sara, living with other, mainly Hispanic, transy prostitutes in the city salt-storage site.
She regretted her move to the US and longed to return to Cuba. Sara and others spent their nights trolling in Manhattan’s meat district near West 14th Street, and spent much of their earnings on crack cocaine.
In the early 1990s, already HIV+, Sara was contacted by a born-again Christian organization, and Ricardo went to live in Dallas, Texas, as a man, with a heterosexual wife and a job.
He repeatedly appeared as a witness in evangelical gatherings discussing and showing photographs of what he was before. Later Ricardo returned to New York to attempt to convert his old companions, but with no success.
Dying from AIDS-related illnesses, he reflected that if he were to live his life over, he would still want to be a woman.
Susana Aikin & Carlos Aparico (dir) The Salt Mines US 47 mins 1990.
Susana Aikin & Carlos Aparico (dir) The Transformation. US 58 mins 1995.
" 'P.O.V.': From cross-dressing to the Cross". New York Daily News, July 9, 1996.
Robert McRuer & Michael Berube. Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York: NYU Press 283 pp 2006: 117-131.
_______________
The DVD and VHS of the two documentaries are priced high to discourage individual purchase. Worse than that, despite their short length, they are separate DVDs when they could easily be combined on one disc.
Thanks to researcher Kyle Phalen for finding the Daily News obituary.
Denis Bird was raised in south London. He was first convicted at the age of 16.
At this time he decided to become Pamela. She worked as a bus conductress, a barmaid and as a cook. She had a good voice and sang as a crooner with more than one band where she attracted male admirers. She dressed in the height of fashion, in furs and in the New Look of the late 1940s.
She also did domestic work through an agency. While doing such work in 1949, she stole clothes from Mr Roberts, and three nights later broke into the house dressed in Robert’s clothes while it was unoccupied. She discarded the male clothing, and changed into Mrs Robert’s clothes, including her best underwear, and also took other property worth £800.
One evening she was read by a police sergeant on the street and escorted to the police station. She was charged under her male name and when tried was sentenced to 18 months in Wandsworth Gaol.
“Barmaid Crooner was a Man: Wearing the New Look and Nylons on Night of Arrest”. News of the World. 3 July 1949. Reprinted in Richard Ekins. Male femaling: a grounded theory approach to cross-dressing and sex-changing. London & New York: Routledge. 1997: 13-4.
Connable was born in Chicago and educated at Albion College in Michigan. He moved to Toronto in 1915 to be Chairman of the Canadian division of the F.W. Woolworth retailing chain. He expanded the number of stores in Canada from 10 to 100.
He was also ‘father’ of the Sigma Chi fraternity at Canadian universities – Connable had facilitated the first chapter at Toronto University in 1922.
He employed Ernest Hemingway as a companion for his lame son, and gave Hemingway his start as a writer by introducing him to the Toronto Star.
Ralph was something of a joker: 'His favorite escapade was to dress like a woman and walk into the men's locker room of the staid Lambton Golf Club. While men shouted and tried to hide behind doors, Connable would whisper, "I'm looking for my gentleman friend." '
Donald Jones. “Built by a wealthy practical joker, house once was Hemingway’s home”. Toronto Star June 11, 1977.
Ernst-Johann Reinhardt was born in Celle, Lower Saxony.
He became involved with gay theatre at Breman University. He was one of the founders of the famous Schmidt-Theater in Hamburg in 1988. There he developed the persona of Lilo Wanders.
Lilo had a successful program on VOX television from 1994-2004, Wa(h)re Liebe(an equivocation between true love/commercial love) where she hosted segments on all aspects of sex. She has appeared in theatre and in 10 cinema films.
She proclaims herself as gay, but has a wife, two children and a foster child, although for a while she and her wife lived in a threesome with a man.
Lilo Wanders. Tja, meine Lieben (Yes, my loves). Econ 1997.
Lilo Wanders. Wa(h)re Liebe – A-Z (True love for sale – A-Z). Heel 2001.
Lilo Wanders. Erotische Scharfmacher (Erotic Agitator). Europa Verlag Hamburg.
. Madras: Hanuman Books 144 pp 1992. Her diaries.
. London & New York: Routledge. 1997: 13-4.
(Yes, my loves). Econ 1997.