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 detailed Index arranged 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!

28 January 2014

Susan Kimberly (1941–) politician

After a journalism degree at the University of Minnesota and a stint in India for the Peace Corps, by 1968 Robert Sylvester was the editor of a small-town Minnesota newspaper, which led to meeting Mae, the women who became his wife. He told her that he was a transvestite, and later that he felt that he was a transsexual.

In 1970 he consulted a psychiatrist was told told that quitting was like quitting smoking. So he purged his female wardrobe, and Bob and Mae were married. Bob became a city councilor in St Paul, Minnesota, and then president of the council. Later he worked in investment banking.

In 1977 he told a female therapist that he wanted to be a girl, and she said: "Well, then, why don't you get on with it?" Susan started going out as female, and in January 1980 she committed to the gender change. Bob and Mae divorced in 1981. On 1 January 1983, Susan and Mae held a ceremony for invited friends including the mayor, to "commemorate the departure of Bob Sylvester and arrival of Susan Kimberly". Transition was completed in 1984 courtesy of Dr Biber.

After a few years of unemployment, she was back in City Hall working for the mayor. She ran unsuccessfully for City Council and County Board. In 1998 Susan was appointed deputy mayor of St Paul under Norm Coleman, they both having switched their allegiance to the Republican Party.
"I lost more friends becoming a Republican than I did becoming a woman".
She also worked for Coleman when he was elected as a US Senator after Democratic incumbent Paul Wellstone, the most prominent senator to vote against congressional authorization for US invasion of Iraq, died in a plane crash (perhaps assassination) eleven days before the election.

Later Susan was vice president of economic development for the St Paul Chamber of Commerce. In 2007 she flew to Florida to speak on behalf of Susan Stanton who was being fired from her job as city manager after announcing a coming transition.

She retired in 2010.
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25 January 2014

Harry Gorman (186? - ?) cook

Harry Gorman was an athletic heavily-built man who worked as a cook for the New York Central Railway. He drank liquors, smoked strong cigars, frequented saloons and dance houses most nights.

In 1903 he broke a limb and was hospitalized in Buffalo. There he was discovered to have female genitals. A clergyman came and pestered him that a 'relapse towards female apparel and demeanor' would be appropriate. Gorman refused to grant the gentleman any more interviews.

He did mention that he knew at least 10 other men who had the same condition as himself and who worked for the same railway company.
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22 January 2014

Roberta Penelope Kelly (1918 - 1993) postal worker, soldier, artist

Robert Percy Kelly was born in Workington, Cumbria, a twin and one of seven children. His mother was Scottish and his father a Manx carpenter. He was drawing by the age of two. He grew up a keen footballer (he played for Workington Town FC), cyclist and hiker.

In 1932 he won a national handwriting competition organized by the Royal Mail. His first job was as a Post Office telegraph boy. He bought paints with his first pay packet. He then moved to Kendal as a telegraph officer, where he joined the Kendal Art Society.

During the war he served first with the Royal Border Regiment,  but then transferred to the Royal Corp of Signals when his talent for drawing was recognized.  He was assigned to GHQ in Whitehall, where he sat next to Winston Churchill during an air-raid. Churchill admired his draughtsmanship and suggested a visit to the National Gallery. He had never been to an art gallery before, and the visits to the National Gallery did leave a mark on his paintings.  Three of his watercolours were accepted for a forces exhibition at the National Gallery and he was presented to King George VI on its opening.
"Drawing is as natural as walking, A piece of charcoal or chalk is like an extension of my forefinger."
He later served in France. He married for the first time in 1942. After the war Percy and his wife Audrey ran the Post Office in Great Broughton, Cumbria, where he had an easel set up behind the counter. He managed to exhibit at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Arts.  Percy and Audrey had one son, Brian. In the 1950s Percy suffered several nervous breakdowns, and in 1958 relinquished the position of sub-postmaster. Supported by Audrey, Percy in his 40s studied art at Carlisle College from 1961-5.

At the end of the 1960s he seemed to be on the cusp of fame. He was admired by royalty and written up in the The Guardian. At age 48, he was exhibited in Workington, London and Kings Lynn. But he couldn't co-operate with dealers, and especially he could not bring himself to sell his work.
"I cannot paint for monetary gain. I would rather starve than sell one piece of my work but I know when I depart this world people will stop and wonder at the beauty and truth that I have portrayed."
Audrey came home to find her husband dressed in her clothes, which confirmed her disappointment that he had not turned out to be a football-playing breadwinner. They divorced in in 1970.

The next year Percy married Christine, a mother of three and the now ex-wife of his eye specialist. This was a scandal, and they fled to St Davids, Pembrokeshire, where Kelly attempted to come out as a cross-dresser, but this was not well received. His paintings changed also: more colour, lighter, more flowers. In the early 1980s they moved to Rockland St Peter, Norfolk. Christine finally ran out of patience and left in 1983. A private exhibition of Kelly’s paintings was arranged the next year specifically to pay the alimony.

In 1985 Kelly changed her name by deed poll to Roberta Penelope. She continued to live in the house in Rockland St Peter which became increasingly cluttered both with Kelly's paintings and various junk that she scavenged. By this time Roberta was dressed as female almost all the time.

During her last few years she sent lavishly illustrated letters to her few friends, which are now considered an important part of her oeuvre. Her paintings for the first time included a human figure, usually Roberta herself.
"I cannot stand the male species. I find them quite pitiful. They have brought me so much misery."
She did start taking female hormones, but never considered the operation. Apart from the cost, she thought it superfluous.
"I now feel I am a woman first and not the other way around."
Roberta died aged 75.

She died intestate, and her estranged son Brian inherited by default. The paintings in his house were sold in five sell-out exhibitions in Cockermouth, Cumbria. Brian died during the fifth, aged 47. Other collections of Kelly's work were discovered stashed with friends and forgotten. She had been afraid of losing his supplementary benefit.
Messum's      www.percykelly.co.uk
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20 January 2014

Hans Crystal (194?–) performer

Hans Crystal performed at the 82 Club in the 1960s and is regarded as one of the great drag performers of that era.

Her departure by surgery was announced in a 1965 issue of Female Mimics, after which she presumably changed her name (Hans not being unisex), and was not heard of again, except that she had a a small part in the 1967 film, She-Man.
IMDB
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17 January 2014

Nikki Sinclaire (1968 - ) Member of European Parliament

Sinclaire was raised an Irish Catholic in South London. When aged seven Sinclaire saw father almost murdered when he was pushed over a balcony. Nikki completed transition in 1991 with surgery on the NHS. She had medical complications and was bedridden for a year afterwards.

However she then completed an LLB at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Nikki worked for Lloyds of London, as a supermarket manager and in Cyprus with tourists.

She was an early member of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) being Head Office Manager, member of the National Executive Committee and Party Secretary.

In 1999 she was raped while walking home. While it had been established in R V, John Matthews that the rape of a trans woman was legally recognized, this was not widely known and the rape of Nikki was classified as assault. The experience reinforced Nikki's existing inclination to identify as lesbian.

In the 2001 UK election Nikki was the UKIP candidate in Medway, Kent.

In 2004 she wrote to The Pink Paper coming out as lesbian, but declined to lead a LGBT group within UKIP.

In the 2005 UK election she was the UKIP candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, in the west Midlands. She turned up at a Queer Question Time, where representatives of only the three biggest parties had been invited, as an open lesbian and UKIP candidate, but was arrested when she refused to leave.

In 2006 Nikki met a woman and they have been in a relationship since.


In 2008 Nikki met ex-Prime Minister Thatcher who told her to "never give up" (which became the title of her autobiography). She also campaigned in California for US Representative Susan Davis and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In the 2009 European Elections, Sinclaire, the UKIP candidate was elected a Member of the European Parliament to represent the five million people in the West Midlands. Later that year, when UKIP leader Nigel Farage temporarily stood down, she entered the leadership election and came third.

In 2010 Sinclaire resigned from the right-wing Europe of Freedom and Democracy grouping in the European Parliament, of which UKIP is the UK component. She was also having increasing problems with leader Nigel Farage. For this she lost the UKIP whip. Nikki submitted a complaint to the Exeter Employment Tribunal that UKIP had discriminated against her on the basis of sexual orientation, and cited that fellow MEP Godfrey Bloom had called her a queer. UKIP failed to offer a defence at the Tribunal and she won by default.

She sat as an independent, and then as the only member of the We Demand a Referendum party. She campaigned vigorously for a UK referendum on leaving the European Union, and after collecting a petition with 100,000 signatures was able to secure a debate in the UK Parliament.  She has also campaigned against high-speed rail and against Roma encampments.
Delivering the petition to 10 Downing St


In early 2012 Sinclaire and three others were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud the European Parliament via allowances and expenses. She remains out on bail.

In the US 2012 elections Nikki campaigned for Democrat Tim Kaine to become a Senator and for Barack Obama for President.

In November 2013 Nikki published her autobiography in which she discussed her gender change, partially because others had threatened to out her.

++She lost her seat in the May 2014 European elections.
EN.WIKIPEDIA     European Parliament/MEPs




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UKIP is of course a right wing political party which has been thriving as ex-members of the Conservative Party have joined in protest against the Conservative Party having introduced gay marriage.  While there have been other LGBT members in UKIP their position is not easy.  See more, more.  I have not found any statement by Sinclaire re why trans voters should support either UKIP or herself as an independent.

Natacha Kennedy explains  Why she thinks that Nikki is not a role model.
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15 January 2014

Ginza Rose (192?–) performer.

Ginza Rose (who took her name from the popular shopping area in Tokyo) worked as a show dancer for the US occupation forces in the 1950s.

She wished to marry her boy friend, and gender surgery was arranged in 1962 so that this could happen.

However her husband was officially entered in the family register as her adopted younger brother.

This was prior to Carrousel Maki's first surgery, and the 1965 prosecution of a surgeon who had removed male sex organs. The trial led to a 1969 ruling that made transgender surgery illegal: a situation that would continue until 1998.

Ginza Rose's name in private life is not known, nor was she heard of again after her transition.
  • Mark McLelland. "Living more 'Like Oneself': Transgender Identities and Sexualities in Japan". In Jonathan Alexander & Karen Yescavage. Bisexuality and Transgenderism: InterSEXions of the Others. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 2003: 213.
  • Mark McLelland. Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age. Lanham Md & Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield 2005: 113.
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11 January 2014

Kim Christy (1950 - ) performer, editor, adult film producer

Kim was raised in the Bronx, New York. By age 14 he was going out in semi-drag. He took up with the young Billy Schumacher (later to become International Chrysis). They were photographed fooling around outside the Astor in Manhattan when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were staying there, and the picture appeared in a Life Magazine article on teenage delinquents.


The photograph in Life Magazine: Kim with back to camera, Chrysis at front
Kim and Chrysis each left home and shared a tiny apartment in the area that later became New York's SoHo. They met sex magazine pioneer and editor of Exotique magazine, Lenny Burtman who arranged photo-shoots and other favors. Kim had a boyfriend who worked with her to soften her Bronx accent. She got to know New York female impersonators such as Tammy Novak, and performed at Club 82 as a stripper and as a showgirl. Her song was the theme music from A Man and a Woman. She toured North America as a female impersonator.


Kim and Chrysis had uncredited roles in the chorus line in the 1967 contest that became the film, The Queen. In 1968 a photograph of Kim and Chrysis appeared in Female Mimics. By 1969 Kim was being kept by an oil tycoon.

Kim with her mother
She also starting doing photography for Eros Publishing Company, which published Eros, Mode Avantgarde, Hooker and Exposé. When Female Mimics was relaunched in 1973, the first issue featured Kim winning a Los Angeles beauty contest. In 1979 Kim became editor of Female Mimics,which was owned by Jennifer Jordan, one of Lenny Burtman's ex-wives, and the name was changed to International Female Mimics. The transsexual content was increased and eventually explicit photographs were introduced. Kim also became editor of Exotique, a revival of Burtman's pioneering fetish magazine from the 1950s.

Also in 1979 Kim was in Los Angeles doing a photo-shoot when he discovered Sulka in the audience. The next year he put her in the film Dream Lovers, and then after her surgery, in The Transformation of Sulka, 1981, and Sulka's Wedding, 1983. He became a major producer of she-male and fetish porn – spanning 8mm, VHS and DVD. He also made straight porn.
In FMI, 11,1, 1980

++Kim had reverted to male as Ken Olsen.  He met and married a woman. Their marriage has lasted: they now have grandchildren.

In 1998 Kim/Ken won an award as Best Fetish Producer. The same year he edited the original run of Exotique in book form. In 2001 he edited The Christy Report, a historical survey of sex and fetish images. He was inducted into Adult Video News (AVN) Hall Of Fame in 2004, the first transgender person to be so.
“I am married to my wife. I am with her. Something I learned from all my years working with clients all over the world: Men and women can both be very fluid in their sexuality. Plus things like certain sexual scenarios can engage a person deeply for a time. Sometimes it’s same-sex activity. Some people stay attracted to one gender or another all their lives. I was with men — when I lived as a woman — who never would have called themselves gay, but they were not unhappy about my extra parts at all. Like I said, back then we did not name things so much. I never thought of any of the things I did as who I was. They were things I liked. Things I did.”
*Not the horse exhibitor.  Not Ken Olsen the sound engineer.
IMDB   IAFD
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The Internet Adult Film Database (IAFD) entry on Kim is a bit dubious.   See Jim Beaux’ comments.  The image supposedly of Kim is actually of Carnal Candy in a 1984 film.  It lists Kim’s years active as performer: 1984-2001 – except that Kim never performed in any adult films.

Ms Bob wrote a 3-part history of Female Mimics for TG Forum.  Bob lists Kim as appearing in the magazine, but says nothing at all about Kim becoming the editor.

I couldn’t find any photographs of Kim after the early 1970s. 

In the Advocate  article, Kim says that her aunt and then her mother recognized her in the Life Magazine photograph.  As she has her back turned, how could they be sure?
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