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!

15 July 2013

Tony Barreto-Neto (1945 - ) musician, activist, cop.

Barreto-Neto, raised in Tampa, Florida, knew he was a boy by age 5.

After puberty, Barreto-Neto ran off to New Orleans where, sometimes as a man, sometimes as a lesbian, s/he did a degree at Louisiana State University Medical Center while being openly gay, dropped out of graduate school, ran a gay disco, played drums in several bands, especially Original Bleus, became active on lesbian issues, was the first female co-chair of the Louisiana Gay Political Action Coalition (LAGPAC) and spent time in Colorado, Belgium and California. He was arrested many times in the 1960s and ‘70s for being ‘disguised’ in male clothing.

In his 40s Barreto-Neto became a cop back in Hillsborough, Florida and became a decorated police officer with numerous awards. He transitioned to Tony on the job. Hillsborough Sheriff Cal Henderson told the St. Petersburg Times: "This deputy was good as a female, and I'm sure will be just as good as a male". He completed this with phalloplasty from Dr Dan Greenwald in Tampa in 1995.

Tony founded and was Director of TOPS (Transgender Officers Protect and Serve), was a director of IFGE, and chair of Gender PAC. He is also a Eucharistic minister in the Catholic Church. He lobbied in Washington, protested outside courthouses, appeared in a documentary film and on ABC's "20/20." He attempted to visit the Michigan Women’s Music Festival on the grounds that if trans women are excluded, trans men should be welcomed. But he was asked to leave.

Some of his fellow officers became hostile after his transition, and his home was shot at. In 2002, Tony moved to Vermont with his wife and adopted daughter. He joined the Hardwick, Vermont, Police Department.

However the Town Manager became aware of a website that described Tony as transsexual following
an anonymous phone call from Tampa, and urged a newly hired police chief to harass Barreto-Neto until he quit. The newly hired chief quit after two weeks. However no-one talked to Tony any more. Other officers did not respond to his calls for backup. He sued. The Attorney General’s Office found the complaints credible, and in 2004 Hardwick settled, paying Tony $90,000, and requiring that the town adopt a formal policy of non-discrimination and train its employees on transgender issues. This established for the first time that trans persons are protected under Vermont law.

Tony was thereafter unable to obtain work as a police officer until 2012.

++He has since been working internationally as a rights activist.  He currently lives in England with his British wife.
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11 July 2013

Giorgia O’Brien (1928 - 2004) singer, actor.

Giorgio Montana, born in Palermo, Sicily, was keen on singing and spent eight years in amateur choirs. He had the unusual ability to switch between baritone and soprano. He was almost accepted at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, but a man who could sing soprano did not have the respectability then required.

He worked in Germany and France, often en travesti. One of his co-workers was Coccinelle. On return to Italy he became a star of the avanspettacolo, and performed at Rome's Teatro Ambra Jovinelli, singing both pop and opera.

In 1970 Giorgia completed transition with De Burou in Casablanca. She changed her surname to O'Brien in homage to Margaret O'Brien who played Beth in the 1949 version of Little Women.

Giorgia worked three years at Milan's Teatro Piccolo, and collaborated with Franco Zeffirelli and Guiseppe Bertolucci. The latter cast her in his 1979 film, Oggetti smarriti. Giorgia was noted for her rendition of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries wherein she sang both Brunnhilde (soprano) and Wotan (bass).

In 1985 she and Christine Jorgensen were featured in the Danish documentary about transsexuals, Paradiset er ikke til salg. 

In 1991 she was cast as the wife of the minister in Johnny Stecchino in 1991. In real life she became the wife of Georges Argand.

In 1998 she revived her half-man-half-woman act.

Giorgia died at the age of 76 after a short illness. Her husband died shortly afterwards.
IT.WIKIPEDIA    IMDB


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08 July 2013

Gloria Greaves (1932 – ?2015) sex worker

++ added some data from Gloria's niece, and cuttings in Digital Transgender Archive..

++Robinson, originally from Liverpool,  the third of ten children, had a confrontation with father over wanting a gender change, and moved to London in 1955.

As Gloria she completed surgical transition in the 1960s, 1964, became the wife of Brian Greaves, and for 20 years had been recognised as a female for national insurance purposes.

In 1982 Gloria Greaves was working as a dominatrix offering humiliation, flagellation, bondage and torture accompanied by masturbation, but not sexual intercourse, at 15 Calendon Street in Belgravia, London, and subletting 89b Warwick Way to Moira Tan who offered similar services.

Both Tan and Greaves were arrested and convicted of keeping a disorderly house under the Disorderly Houses Act of 1751. Furthermore Mrs Greaves was convicted under the Sexual Offences Act 1956 of living on the earnings of prostitution in that she was Tan's landlady, and her husband of living on the earnings of male prostitution (that is of his wife's).

The wording of the 1956 Act is:
1; It is an offence for a man knowingly to live wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution.
2 For the purposes of this section a man who lives with or is habitually in the company of a prostitute, or who exercises control, direction, or influence over a prostitute's movements in a way which shows he is aiding, abetting or compelling her prostitution with others, shall be presumed to be knowingly living on the earnings of prostitution, unless he proves to the contrary.
Thus only a man can commit the offence.

Mr Greaves, ++who was disabled++, was convicted of both living on the earnings of prostitution (implicitly that of a female) and of living on the earnings of male prostitution. Tan was sentenced to six months and "deprived of property rights in apparatus found at such premises"; Mrs Greaves was sentenced to 18 months, the same deprivation of property rights and a fine of £10,000; Mr Greaves was sentenced to 12 months – Mrs Greaves to serve her time in a women's prison. All were released pending appeal which took place in December 1982 and February 1983.

The appeal court quashed Mr Greaves' conviction of living on the earnings of (female) prostitution. However all other appeals against conviction were dismissed, but appeals against sentence were upheld and the custodial sentences were suspended for two years. The judges agreed that the convictions of Mr and Mrs Greaves depended on the assertion that Gloria was still a man. They cited the precedent of Corbett v. Corbett (1970), and considered but rejected the contention that
"for the purposes of s 30 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 and s 5 of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 another test should be applied; that, if the person had become philosophically or psychologically or socially female, that person should be held not to be a man for the purposes of the sections and that, on this basis, the evidence was inconclusive and the counts ought to have been withdrawn from the jury".
They continued:
“It would in our view create an unacceptable situation if the law were such that a marriage between Gloria Greaves and another man was a nullity, on the ground that Gloria Greaves was a man; that buggery to which he consented with such other person was not an offence for the same reason; but that Gloria Greaves could live on the earnings of a female prostitute without offending against section 30 of the Act of 1956 because for that purpose he/she was not a man and that the like position would arise in the case of someone charged with living on his earnings as a male prostitute.”

 

Gloria in later years


++added May 2020, more bibliography

  • "Gloria the 'Vice Girl' is a man".  The Sun, 23 September 1982.  Online.
  • " 'Madam Stern' of vice racket is convicted by a jury as a man".  Daily Mail, 29 September 1982.   Online.
  • "Jail Dilemma on Sex-Change Prostitute".  Daily Telegraph, 29 September 1982.  Online.  
  • Linda Avery."The legal labyrinth that faces the transsexual".  The Guardian, 4 October 1982.  Online
  • "Sex-change Gloria 'must stay a man' ".  The Sun, 11 February 1983.  Online
  • James Morton.  "The Transexual and the Law".  New Law Journal, 27 July 1984.  Online. 
  • David W Selfe & Vincent Burke.  Perspectives on Sex, Crime and Society.  Cavendish Publishing Ltd, 2001: 261-2, 271. 
  • Paul Kavanagh.  "Slipping Quietly into the Crowd - UK Transsexuals Finally out of Exile".  Mountbatten Journal of Legal Studies, 9,1,2005:22, 24-5, 40.  Online.
  • Robert E Rains.  "Legal Recognition of Gender Change for Transsexual Persons in the United Kingdom:  The Human Rights Act 1998 and 'Comaptibility' with European Human Rights Law".  Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, 33,2, 2005: 344-6,401. Online.




Thus it was possible to be sent to a women’s prison convicted of a crime that only a man could commit.

Gloria transitioned and married many years before Corbett v. Corbett, and thus until 1970 was accepted as a legal woman.   It is not stated whether of not she had her birth certificate amended, nor whether the marriage of the Greaves was nullified in 1983.

I am presuming that Gloria went to Dr Burou, as there were few other options at the time.    See comment below.

There is no record of the Greaves after 1983.
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05 July 2013

Shoshanna Gillick (1943 - 1999) psychiatrist

Marvin Gillick was trained as a psychiatrist at Georgetown University, and had board certifications in General Psychiatry, Child/Adolescent Psychiatry and Forensic Psychiatry. He served as a Lieutenant Commander/ psychiatrist/ drug counselor in the US Navy, and was later an associate professor at the University of Southern California School of Medicine for more than a decade. He and his wife had a daughter.

He worked with anorexic, autistic and emotionally disturbed children. He also counseled trans patients and gave workshops to gay and lesbian care providers.
Gillick was working for Cigna Corp in 1993 as a staff psychiatrist when she started transition as Shoshanna, and was fired on the pretext of violating the dress code.

She moved to San Francisco, partially to be closer to her daughter, and opened a private practice.
"I am a developmental child psychiatrist trained and experienced in evaluating children and adolescents. As both a child and an adolescent with GID, I was seriously leaking gender, and can recall on a daily basis festering and suppurating while attempting to construct a workable core gender identity. Before there was a GID diagnosis I experienced a gender identity disorder which made for one confused and extremely unhappy little boy.
My article strongly differentiated between "gender non-conforming" children and adolescents who displayed variant gender behavior but did not present with the emotional distress and functional impairment of a psychiatric disorder. Unfortunately, most of my psychiatric colleagues are either or both insensitive or ignorant of gender developmental issues, and lump all individuals who display crossgender identification or behavior as sick, weird or psychotic. …
Rather than abolish GID, I suggest a more accurate picture of the diversity of gender presentations. Under the heading of "gender variants" I include non-pathological phenomena such as healthy gender independence, healthy gender-blending, and healthy gender-questioning in youth and adults. Variants means simply different presentations, which are not better or worse than the "normal" masculine or feminine flavors. My concept of "gender deviants" implies a symptomatic, painful, jumping off the track of the gender train. I have introduced a clinical syndrome of anatomical rejection/disgust with the genitalia of birth or "genital dysphoria." A separate condition which I term "gender dysphoria" is a rejection of the gender role and behavior associated with the genitalia at birth. When these two serious clinical syndromes combine that is what I am calling gender identity disorder. I got it, and its no fun."

In 1998, apparently again as Marvin although still considering surgery, she became employed at an outpatient clinic in San Mateo. However in August 1999 Marvin was found hanged in the foyer of the clinic.

Sarah Seton (Rachel Tortolini) dedicated her book to Shoshanna.



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03 July 2013

Rikki Swin (1947 - ) chemical engineer, executive

Swin was born in Chicago, and did a degree in chemical engineering. Swin became an expert in polymer construction and design, and at 23 founded Tec Air, Inc. in Willow Springs. Illinois. Swin conceived a method – which was patented - of balancing fans by inserting adjustable screws into hollowed-out sections of the mold insert that is used to form the fan hub. Tec Air grew to annual revenues of over $20m.

In 1990 the US arm of Denso Corporation (株式会社デンソ) approached Tec Air to submit a quote on manufacturing fans, which revealed to Tec Air that its patents were being infringed. From 1992-9 Tec Air won a series of lawsuits and was awarded $25m.

In 1999 Swin sold the business, and transitioned as Rikki. She founded an Institute, originally called Gender Education Research and Library, but then renamed for herself when the original acronym was spelt out, endowed it with $5m and purchased archives from Virginia Prince, Ariadne Kane, Merissa Sherrill Lynn, Betty Ann Lind and the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE). It opened on March 22, 2001 to coincide with the 15th Annual Conference of IFGE which was held that year in Chicago. Swin had co-sponsored the Conference but was not present at it. She provided charter buses to ferry the Conferencees to the Institute's $2m building in down-town Chicago for a catered reception, but the actual collections were not on view. Swin said that the Institute was "primarily designed to help the mainstream world understand the transgender one, to break down Jerry Springer-like portrayals of transsexuals, and to show the community in a positive, productive light" and "that the transgender population represents an underused research pool that can help conduct anecdotal or scientific research" on gender differences. Trans activist Alison Laing was hired to work on the collection, and academics Ken Dollarhide and Susan Stryker were allowed to access the unorganized material.

The RSI took out full-page adverts in Transgender Tapestry, but then disappeared in 2002. The building was reportedly empty. The phone number was out of service. Many people wondered where the archives had gone to.

Rikki Swin had moved to Vancouver Island and in 2007 she donated the Rikki Swin Institute archives to the University of Victoria Library Transgender Archives, but this was not announced until 2010. Aaron Devor made an official announcement at the WPATH meeting in Atlanta in September 2011.
____________________________________________________________

Dallas Denny’s quite reasonable "Where's Our History?" was written for Transgender Tapestry in 2004, but was repeatedly delayed by Executive Director Denise Leclair for three years.  This was the “biggest factor” in Dallas resigning as editor.

The University of Victoria Library Transgender Archives has now also acquired the UK Trans-Gender archives from Richard Ekins. 
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30 June 2013

Alicia Liu/ Lui Xun' Ai 刘熏爱 (1986 - ) model.

Lui Zihua, in Taiwan, transitioned to Xun'Ai at age 18 with surgery paid for by her then boyfriend.

As Alicia Liu she participated in 2006 in a fashion contest on Taiwan TVBS. In 2008 she became a professional model and appeared on television.

She was outed in 2010 when a schoolmate put a photograph of her as she had been on the internet. Xun'ai called a press conference and stated: "As far as I can remember, I love being a woman. The past is not important".




* not the web builder
TOP 10 TRANSSEXUAL ENTERTAINERS IN ASIA EN.WIKIPEDIA        ZH.WIKIPEDIA
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28 June 2013

East New Jersey in the 1960s


Vito Russo, who would later write the ground-breaking The Celluloid Closet, was raised in East Harlem, Manhattan.  In 1961 when he was 15, to his chagrin, his parents bought a house in Lodi, New Jersey.  Therefore the teenager perforce explored the gay scene in Lodi and nearby towns such as Hackensack, Bloomfield, Garfield etc.  Given that this was the sticks and not Manhattan, there was a lot more drag/trans activity than you might expect for that period.

“Vito’s first drag-queen contemporary was a a fellow student …. Standing six feet two inches [1.89 m] under a bleached-blond man, Billy knew how to make a striking entrance – particularly when bombing around Lodi in his pink Cadillac convertible.  Contact with Billy meant automatic social ostracism.  … Billy invited Vito to a New Year’s Eve party held at the home of ‘the most outrageous drag queen in Bergen County’.  …
Billy’s friends were working-class drag queens from Lodi and the nearby towns…. Like Billy, these men were wildly out of the closet, almost unwittingly so: they were ‘identifiable on the street whether they liked it or not.  They couldn’t hide it even it they tried.‘  From them, Vito got his first lessons in gay survival.  He listened attentively to their tutorials on ‘how to take care of himself on the street and be funny and get out of a raid and go through a window in a bathroom and all that stuff you had to know in the ‘60s.  …
Another favorite haunt was Danny’s in Fort Lee, where the group went to see ‘Bella from the Bronx’, a drag queen whose act consisted of traditional Italian families’ reactions to the revelations of their gay children.  …  He was also enamored of the headliner at Fran Bell’s in Nyack, New York.  Fran herself … donned a tuxedo and top hat  and crooned ‘Just a Gigolo’ à la Dietrich.  Then there were the drag balls at Newark’s Robert Treat Hotel.”

See also New York City in the 1960s.
  • Michael Schiavi. Celluloid Activist: The Life and Times of Vito Russo.  The University of Wisconsin Press, 2011:  43-4.
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