Transgender Lexicons: Morgan Holleb's The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality

Transgender lexicons:

Virginia Prince
Rose White
Raven Usher
Chris Bartlett
Jack Molay
Raphael Carter
John Money – part 1: gender and transexual

John Money - part II: other words

Morgan Lev Edward Holleb. The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality: From Ace to Ze. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.

Morgan Holleb is an immigrant from Colorado who did degrees at the American International University in London and at the London School of Economics, and currently lives in Glasgow. The Twitter page has the description: “yiddish (((anarchist))), bisexual non-binary trans boy”. No preferred pronoun is given up front, but if you persevere to or happen upon page 135, the entry on Gender Identity, you will find: “I transitioned because I’m drawn to queer boy culture; because after years I still get a thrill being called ‘he’; because my body feels better on testosterone”. So ‘he’ it is.

In his introduction Holleb states:

“This book will only cover English-language terms (with a few exceptions), partly to limit the scope, and mostly because as a white American author with no cultural ties outwith the Anglosphere, I am not qualified to define non-English terms, or to fully understand their contexts. However, I want to stress that other languages and cultures have rich histories and wide spectrums of gender variance and sexuality outside the cisgender heterosexuality that is prized as the ‘default’ in our culture. Many other cultures have a long history of third genders or what we might describe as transgender identities and experiences, from hijra to Two-Spirit to Onnabe. The gender binary as we understand it and its coded gender roles—including strict adherence to heterosexuality under punishment of anti-sodomy laws—were exports of European imperialism. English is a language of the colonizer and this book will implicitly reflect that.”

“I anticipate some resistance from queers who want to keep some of these terms secret. I’m not writing this to let outsiders into our safe spaces (and there will always be undergrounds within undergrounds), but for ‘new’ queers and the people who support them. I appreciate the need for safer spaces and exclusion, but if we are to dismantle straightness and cisness and their inherent oppressions, then we must also expand queerness. But if you’re straight and cis, you need to do the work of undoing your privileges! This book will help illuminate and challenge those privileges.”

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Holleb, despite having said in the Introduction: “My approach to language is post-structural and descriptivist (not prescriptivist); words do not have inherent meaning signifiers of meanings and these meanings shift across time” starts the dictionary with ‘A’ as in LGBTQIA by insisting that the A is not for Ally but for Asexual, Aromantic or Agender. Obviously he would not be saying this unless some other persons did use A to mean Ally. How is he not being prescriptivist here?

While the book title says ‘Gender and Sex’, four of the first six items in the dictionary are African-American Vernacular English (with a list of which words White people are allowed to use), Ableism, Accountability and Activism. There were times when I felt that this is a dictionary of Political Correctness (in the good sense of the term).

The book has some interesting appendices.

Legislation and Government Communications

These are arranged by country. The longest entry is for the UK. It starts with the Buggery Act of 1533 and continues to the Alan Turing Act 2017 which pardoned men prosecuted under anti-gay laws, especially those in force before 1967. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 is of course there, as is Tony Blair’s 2004 Civil Partnership Act and David Cameron’s 2013 Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act. But where is the Gender Recognition Act, also 2004?

Also should not Corbett v Corbett be mentioned given that it banned trans persons from legal gender changes for 35 years?

There is only one entry under Ireland. The Marriage Act of 2015. Where is the Gender Recognition Act of the same year?

How about Argentina? The Same Sex Marriage Act of 2010 is listed, but again no mention of the Ley de Género of 2012.

There is a section for the European Court of Human Rights (incorrectly claimed as an agency of the European Union – it is not, it operates under the auspices of the Council of Europe). However there is mention only of the 1981 ruling on homosexuality which led to decriminalisation in Northern Ireland. No mention at all of the various appeals to the ECHR by trans persons from Britain, France, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Malta etc.

It does seem that Holleb is far more interested in gay rights and marriage than in trans rights.

Events Referenced

A four-page timeline. The only trans items are the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, Stonewall and Trump’s ban on trans in the military. The other items are general history or gay or lesbian.

What should I mention as missing? There are so many. The 1870 trial of Stella and Fanny that established that cross-dressing was not illegal in England; the triple whammy 1928/9 of the legal trials of Radclyffe Hall, Victor Barker and Violet Morris; the Pansy Craze 1930-3; the university gender clinics in the late 1960s etc etc.

As expected from the previous Appendix, Corbett v Corbett and its repeal in the Gender Recognition Act 2004 are also not mentioned.

Groups Referenced

Many worthy groups are mentioned: Belfast Gay Liberation Society, Camp Trans, Campaign for Homosexual Equality, Daughters of Bilitis, Gay-Straight Alliance, GLF, Lesbian Avengers, Mattachine, Outrage, Scottish Minorities Group, STAR, Queer Nation. But what about: Queens Liberation Front, Press for Change, SHAFT, Transgender Nation, Tri-Ess, IFGE, Southern Comfort, FACT, l'Association des Transsexuelles du Québec, etc, etc.

Individuals Referenced

42 individuals are listed. The only trans persons are Laverne Cox, Marsha Johnson, Christine Jorgensen, Janet Mock, and Silvia Rivera. All from one country. While Holleb, during his years living in Britain, has learned about British gay notables from Oscar Wilde to Alan Turing to Bob Mellors and even tells us the names of the last two men hanged for sodomy in 1835, he either has not learned anything about British trans notables or chooses to erase them. Even April Ashley and Jan Morris and Juno Dawson are so erased.

Magnus Hirschfeld is not listed here although he is discussed, reasonably, in the Dictionary entry on Sexology. Harry Benjamin is mentioned but in a very peculiar way – only in the entry for Compton’s Cafeteria Riot: “Dr. Harry Benjamin published The Transsexual Phenomenon. He wrote that gender identity was fixed but that the body could be changed, and legitimized the use of hormone replacement therapy and gender reassignment surgery for trans women; several of the queens who frequented Compton’s saw him.”

Selected Dictionary Entries

Obviously I cannot comment on all the dictionary entries. Here are some of the more relevant.

Transracial. “Transracial people are generally adopted children who are raised by parents of a different race. … Transracial does not mean ‘someone born in the wrong race’ or someone who feels ‘dysphoric’ about their racial identity.” Except that other writers are indeed using the second definition (see Wikipedia). Of course the former is valid and more politically correct. But there are two definitions in use.

Transsexual. “A generally out of favor term for someone who is not the gender they were assigned at birth. There is an implication of medical transition (previously, and reductively, referred to as a ‘sex change’). Transgender is now the preferred term, but transsexual is still in use by older trans people who have always used it, and anyone who appreciates the confrontation of the word.”

Transsexualism. “A disease according to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, (Tenth Revision), published by the World Health Organization.” That is the full entry, not an introductory paragraph.

So if not transsexual and transsexualism, what term does he suggest for those who have completed their journey with surgery? A term in distinction from the non-surgical has been required since it became possible in the 1920s, and continues to be needed. This requirement is emphasised by separatist factions like HBS (not mentioned at all) and Truscum, but is hardly limited to them. Holleb – in the Transsexual entry – merely suggests Transgender instead. He does not mention ‘Transsexuality’ at all – which is taken by many to remove the medical implications. ‘Trans Medical’ is also not mentioned, but has become problematic because of its association with Truscum.

Instead of Transsexualism, Holleb seems to prefer Gender Dysphoria. “Many, but not all, trans people experience physical dysphoria. Dysphoria is not a prerequisite for transness: transness is defined by not feeling unambiguously aligned with the sex you were assigned at birth. Gender dysphoria cannot be relieved through conversion therapy, and attempts to make people not-trans, through coercion or otherwise, are abusive.” However he tells us that “Gender dysphoria is a mental health disorder classified in the DSM-5, replacing gender identity disorder (GID).” He goes on to correctly distinguish Gender Dysphoria from GID, but when you look at the GID entry four pages later, it simply refers you to Gender Dysphoria.

While he writes that Transsexualism is a disease and Gender Dysphoria a mental health disorder, he releases his inner rebel in the entry on Gender Identity where he complains that “Trans people are expected to justify their gender not only with academic texts on feminism, on queer theory, on sexuality and patriarchy and performance and power, but also with psycho-medical material on hormones, surgery, depression, trauma, autism, childhood anxiety, and a catalogue of every single violence we have suffered which has “made us” trans. Fuck that. … Gender identity is personal and should not need to be explained; it’s an issue of bodily autonomy and social respect.”

The entry on Gender is good, combining ideas about social construction and as a system of oppression, and as performance and how gender signalling can fail. Yet in the middle he writes “In addition to performance, gender is an interior sense of self, aligning with or against cultural norms of gender”. And in Gender Identity he writes that it “could also be called ‘gender’. As I have written elsewhere a transgender person is one who changes aer gender to align it with aer gender identity. Otherwise ae would not be transgender. Many today conflate gender and gender identity, and this usually leads to confusion.

There is an entry for Gender Recognition, but it says nothing about the various Gender Recognition Acts – as expected from the erasure of such acts from the Legislation appendix.

In his Transgender entry, Holleb reminds us that “non-binary people feel that they aren’t trans even though they aren’t cis either”. He closes the entry with: “There is no wrong way to be trans. Some trans people have body dysphoria, some don’t; some see transness as mental illness or disability, many don’t. Medicalization is a path to legitimacy but we shouldn’t need that. While some of the language to describe ourselves is new, transgender people have always existed.”

Tranny. No mention of the ‘Transy’ variant. He sees ‘tranny’ as part of the “conflation between gender and sexuality”, not as an umbrella word for transsexual, transvestite and drag as is usually said. The honourable history of ‘tranny’ as a self-designation is erased, and most of the entry is a condemnation of non-trannys who dare to use the word. (More on Tranny)

Trans, Trans*. Holleb sees ‘Trans’ as short for ‘Transgender’ or maybe ‘Transsexual’. ‘Trans*’ he admits can ‘sometimes’ include cross-dressers and drag performers. He erases the common usage that both words are replacements that mean exactly what ‘Tranny’ used to mean.

Transvestite. Holleb says: “There is a great deal of historical overlap between cross-dressers, drag performers, LGBQ+ people, and trans people.” And then refers us to Cross-Dresser. There is no entry for Transvestism or Tranvestity.

Cross-Dressing.

For Holleb, cross-dressers are not transgender – cross-dressing is a gender expression, not a gender identity. He does a small bit of cross-dressing history – mainly about sex workers in the California gold rush. On the other hand the mainstream of US cross-dressing – Virginia Prince, Transvestia, FPE, Tri-Ess, IFGE etc – is totally not mentioned. As is all British cross-dressing – so no word of Charlotte Bach or the Beaumont Society or of Havelock Ellis’ Eonism.

Gender movements totally missing

There is no mention in this book of Cross-Dreaming, as explicated by Jack Molay or otherwise. I have quoted Holleb in that “non-binary people feel that they aren’t trans even though they aren’t cis either”. This is also true of Cross-Dreamers.

Other movements totally not mentioned: HBS, Tri-Ess, Transkids and other self-designated HSTS, self-designated Autogynephiles.

Conclusion

In the entry on Transgender, Holleb says:

“Transness is often reduced to either an illusion of choice, or the ‘born this way,’ ‘trapped in the wrong body’ narrative. Both are overly simplistic and neither is right.”

That I totally endorse.

I suspect that part of our different approaches is generational. This is a book by a Millennial, for his own generation. However that is not an excuse for leaving out chunks of our history. If you are an older person, reading this book may be useful to understand what Millennial trans persons are thinking. If you are a Millennial you may identify with the book and consider me an old fogey. However our history is what it is, and to cut out chunks of it will damage us all.

Another good book for the Millennial outlook is Juno Dawson’s The Gender Games: The Problem With Men and Women, From Someone Who Has Been Both.

Frankie Jaxon (1895 – 1953) female impersonator, singer, actor

Frank Devera Jackson was born in Montgomery, Alabama,. He and his sister were orphaned. They were then raised by a widowed aunt in Kansas City, Missouri. At age 19, the aunt died, and the rest of the family moved to Chicago.

From age 15 Frankie Jaxon, as he became, toured as a singer and as such joined the Henry McDaniel Minstrel Show. He worked in medicine shows in Texas and then worked regularly in Atlantic City and Chicago. He did a stint in the army 1918-19, and was promoted to sergeant before being honorably discharged.

Within months he was starring; he sang, danced, and performed as a female impersonator in Atlantic City. He returned to his family in Bronzeville (more), Chicago’s  African-American district, which he made his home base. He supplemented successful home-town shows with short tours by small companies of black performers. In 1925 he joined Mae Dix (1895 – 1958) and her Chicago Harmonaders. He was the only black and the only known queer man in the troupe. When they played in southern US states, he had to be escorted to and from the theater and whenever he needed to leave the hotel. Despite this he won rave reviews. This publicity translated into major bookings in Chicago. His appearance at the faltering Grande Theater on South Slate Street is said to have saved the owners from bankruptcy.

He was known as “Half-Pint” because he was only 5’2” (1.57m). At the same time he was a jazz singer appearing with King Oliver, Tampa Red and Thomas Dorsey. He had a small part in the Duke Ellington film, Black and Tan, and in King Vidor’s Hallelujah, both 1929. He had been signed to play a female role in The Mortage Man as a target of an unscrupulous banker – but the film was never made in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash.

The Pansy Craze 1930-1933 suited his act perfectly, but it ceased to be acceptable after Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Jaxon however was on the bill for the opening ceremonies of the Chicago World Fair 27 May 1933.

Through the 30s, he was often on radio with his band, the Quarts of Joy. The shows included bawdy humor, and Jaxon often played the women’s roles in the songs – usually about sexual topics. He had a convincing female voice. It was these radio appearances that made him a household name. Some of his songs were originals, but others were cover versions with more risqué lyrics – such as “My Daddy Rocks Me with One Steady Roll”, previously recorded by Trixie Smith. Jaxon’s last recording was “be Your Natural Self” in April 1940. This was just after the Chicago Defender had repeated rumors insinuating that the Rev Clarence Cobbs was gay, and Cobbs had sued for libel. The song warns [gay men] to "Watch your step" and "Be careful what you say”. Yet despite being cautious, they should still be "your natural self".

Shortly afterwards he walked away from his show-biz career. In the spring of 1941 he moved to Washington, DC. He found government work, some say for the Pentagon.

It in unclear when he died. Most accounts have him dying in a veterans' hospital in 1944. Elledge however dates this as happening in 1953.

• Jim Elledge. “Play It, Whip It, Pat It, Bang It”. In The Boys of Fairy Town: Sodomites, Female Impersonators, Third-Sexers, Pansies, Queers and Sex Morons in Chicago's First Century. Chicago Revew Press, 2018 : 159-172.

 Red Hot Jazz.    EN.Wikipedia      Discogs    Allmusic    QueerMusicHeritage    

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Unfortunately we have no photographs of Frankie in drag.

Some say that Jaxon’s version of “My Daddy Rocks Me with One Steady Roll” gave its name to the genre Rock and Roll which emerged over a decade later. Anyway it is the first known recording to include an orgasm.

Henry McDaniel Minstrel Show was not black-face minstrelsy. The troupe were real black people. I was unable to find an account of Henry McDaniel to link to. He was a remarkable man, born a slave, fought in the US Civil War, a Baptist minister, a carpenter, banjo player and ran his own minstrel troupe. His is remembered today only as the father of Hattie McDaniel, the first black actor to win an Oscar.

Did Jaxon have a wife? A census taker visited 5149 Calmut Avenue and Evelyn, a white woman, listed herself as Jaxon’s wife. They also had two lodgers: a white woman and a black man. In 1933, the Chicago Defender announced that “Mr. and Mrs. Frankie (Half Pint) Jaxon are expecting a blessed event”. Jim Elledge searched marriage and birth records in Illinois, New York and New Jersey and failed to find any confirmation at all. He suggests that there was a male couple and a female couple living at 5149 Calmut Avenue - and that all the rest was camouflage. In which case we can name Frankie’s husband as Cliff Oliver. Neither Evelyn nor Clifford, nor any child accompanied Frankie to Washington in 1942.

Two mafiosi

Giovanni Arrivoli (1975 - 2016) 

Post-transition Giovanna Arrivole was arrested with 17 others for drug dealing, and was released in 2012. He still owned a café bar, the Blue Moon in Campania, which was said to be a meeting place for the Pagano Amato crime family – although others say that he refused to be involved with Amato Pagano, and still others say that he wanted to become a Camorrista boss.

In 2016 he went missing, and three days later was found partially buried and face-down near Melito di Napoli. He had been shot three times.

So far nobody has been tried for the murder.

• Chris Summers. “Transsexual mafia boss who had a sex-change op to become a man is found tortured and killed near Naples”. Daily Mail, 13 May 2016. Online.
• Dario del Porto. “La vera storia di Giò, eliminata per un rifiuto ai narcos. Non volle mettersi in affari con loro”. Napoli Republia, 17 maggio 2016. Online. Translation.
• Jean-Philippe Savry. “Napoli: la Camorra dézingue aussi 38 bis”, “ Napoli : la Camorra dézingue aussi 56”, “La Camorra en Espagne partie 6”.  jean-philippe.savry.over-blog.com/search/arrivoli/.

Lucia Aviello (19?? - ) 

Aviello had been raised as Luciano. Luciano and brother Antonio were involved with the Camorra, and in 2007 they were living in Perugia in Umbria.

On 1 November 2007 Meredith Kercher, an exchange student from the University of Leeds was studying in Perugia, and was murdered. Her US flatmate, Amanda Knox and Knox’ boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were charged with the killing, and Rudy Guede, whose fingerprints were found at the scene of the crime was tried separately and found guilty.

Meanwhile Luciano was convicted and in jail, and was Raffaele’s cell-mate. Antonio had been killed. Luciano sent letters to the authorities saying that Antonio with an unnamed Albanian had planned a robbery but went to the wrong address, that of Kercher who was killed when she screamed. Aviello’s testimony was contradicted by other cell-mates who claimed that Aviello boasted about being paid to make the claim. Also he has eight previous convictions for slander.

Aviello was called to testify at the Supreme Court of Cassation on 4 October 2013. By then she had started transition, and asked to be referred to as Lucia. She repeated that her brother had committed the murder, and denied receiving any payments. She said that she knew where the murder weapon and Kercher’s keys were hidden, having been given them to hide. Other cell-mates were called and repeated her boasts of having been paid. Because she was not considered credible, the police did not search for the weapon and keys – another knife, believed to be the murder weapon, had already been submitted for forensic analysis.

Aviello was convicted and sentenced to 10 months in May 2014 for oltraggio (offending the judiciary – similar to contempt of court), and was also charged with slander against her brother.

• Tom Kington. “Amanda Knox retrial: mafia gangster claims brother was killer” The Guardian, 4 Oct 2013.  Online.
•  Egle Priolo. “Omicidio Meredith, la verità del pentito: «Confermo, è stato mio fratello»” Il Gazzettino, 4 Ottobro 2013. Online. Translation.

Themurderofmeredithkercher(The Prison Informants)

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

Kimberly's story is told from two sources: Susanna Pena's history of TAO and Art Kleps' history of the early years of psychedelism.   Putting the two together we get the following.   However see also the discussion below.



Along with Colette Goudie and Tara Carn, Kimberly Barreiro – originally from Cuba – was one of the original members of the Transsexual Action Organization after Angela Douglas moved it to Miami. They joined in 1973, became officers of TAO and were a major part of its public face. Kimberly served as director for the town of Miami Beach.

Douglas described Kimberly in 1974 when she was 21 as “tiny, bubbly”. She was one of the first in the group to have transgender surgery, and apparently did a full transition in less than a year. In the TAO newsletter Mirage for Autumn 1974, Kimberley is quoted: ‘I don’t regret it all. But the pain was incredible. I don’t know if I could go through it again’.

She married Steve Elliot, and took his surname.

They were both into psychedelic drugs, and having heard of Art Kleps and his drug-based Neo-American Church, decided to drive up to New York state to visit. In his book, Kleps refers to Kimberly Harrison and Stove (“Ah is all stoved in, man”).

Kleps: “Stove and Kimberly had a strange story to tell. They were both from Miami, where Kimberly, a classic blonde beauty, plied her trade as a Miami Beach hooker. She had met Stove after he had freaked out on the most colossal and one of the weirdest bummers I had heard about up to the time. It involved hordes of fleas appearing in his house on some crazy but exact schedule, not being able to take a shower because the water wouldn’t touch his skin, and aimless wanderings during which he was pursued by flocks of blackbirds and was picked up on the road by kindly spades driving white cars who knew all about him even though he had never seen any of them before in his life. 

Kimberly …, had driven Stove up to be cooled out, paying all the bills along the way, in the ancient and honorable tradition of the whore with a heart of gold. She loved every variety of psychedelic drug, and never had anything but splendid and happy experiences while stoned.”

Kleps regarded Stove as as a “well-defended” paranoid in that he did not, “most of the time, do anything particularly bizarre or fail to handle the routines of ordinary life in an acceptable manner”.

Kimberly had to sell the air-conditioner and the radio out of her car for the journey back to Miami. She stopped for a few days in Millbrook and intrigued Timothy Leary who wanted to know more about her.

In 1980 Kimberly was found dead from a drug overdose at Miami Beach’s Midtown Plaza. Angela Douglas considered her death as suspicious. Several of the old TAO people attended her funeral.

• Susana Pena. "Gender and Sexuality in Latina/o Miami: Documenting Latina Transsexual Activists". Gender & History, 22,3,2010: 763. Reprinted in Kevin P. Murphy & Jennifer M. Spear (eds). Historicising Gender and Sexuality. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
• Art Kleps. Millbrook: A Narrative of the Early Years of American Psychedelianism. Original Klepian Neo-American Chuch, 1975: 85-91. Chp 13 Online.  

Is this True?

Pena says in her footnote 50: “Reportedly Kimberly Elliot and her husband are mentioned in Art Kelps’s Millbrook: A Narrative of the Early Years of American Psychedelianism ... under the pseudonyms Kim and Steve Newell.” Which is why I included a mention of Kleps and the Neo-American Church in my History of TAO: Part 2.

Pena is wrong in identifying Steve Newell with Steve Elliot.  Kleps introduces Kimberly thus: “Then Kimberly Harrison and Stove (“Ah is all stoved in, man.”) arrived, followed by Steve Newell and then Mike and Gai Duncan. It was an entertaining group.” Therefore Kimberly is with her man Stove who is not the same as Steve Newell. Kimberly Harrison and Stove do appear to be Kimberly and Steve Elliot in that both couples are from Miami Beach, both are into drugs. Pena, following Angela Douglas, does not say how Kimberly made a living, but sex work in the context of TAO does seem plausible.

There is no mention in Kleps of Kimberly being trans. Good we say – it is good not to be read. However on page 87 he says: “I had a private trip with Kimberly a couple nights later, or at least she had a trip and I just smoked a lot of hashish while she told me the story of her life, which hadn’t been all that bad, really”. So she told the story of her life while on LSD and did not mention her transition and the painful surgery. Indeed!  The CIA had pioneered LSD as a truth drug.

Kleps is not good at giving dates – at least not in the book version. What jarred for me was the mention of Kimberly stopping in at Millbrook to see Timothy Leary.  I quickly assertained that he was not there after 1968 when LSD was made illegal. In the online version of the book, the section about Kimberly is in Chapter 13, and the Contents Page specifies that Chapter 13 is 1965-6, not 1974-5.

Thus Kimberly Harrison cannot be Kimberly Barreiro Elliot.  To regard them as one is a false positive. 

A Chronology of trans persons in modelling and fashion: Part II: 21st century

Part I: to 2000

Part II: 21^st century

2001

Barbara Diop from Senegal worked as a model in Milan.

2003

The 2003 Cricket World Cup was held in South Africa. It was arranged that each team be led onto the field by a model, and Barbara Diop was chosen to lead the Zimbabwean team. It was only later, during the contest, that word went around about Barbara's gender history.

Yollada Nok Suanyot worked as a model and beauty queen before she became one of Thailand’s major trans activists.

2004

IVAN, Japanese-Mexican, was selected as a model of Paris Fashion Week.

2005

Camilla De Castro, São Paulo, model and porn star, killed herself.

Choi Han-bit was a contestant on Korea's Next Top Model, Cycle 3, where she ended 10th.

2006

Claudia Charriez made it to the semi-finals of America's Next Top Model hosted by Tyra Banks, but was then disqualified for being transsexual. Tyra Banks then declared Claudia to be "America's Next Top Transgender" on her talk show. One of the judges, Janice Dickinson, a former model and now running her own agency brought Claudia onto her own television reality show, made her pose as a man, but then fired her in the last episode on the grounds that they could not make any money from her.

2008

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

Allanah Starr and Buck Angel were modelled life-size by artist Marc Quin. Allanah also modelled for men’s magazines.

America’s Next Top Model 11 included Isis King, who had up till then been living in a homeless shelter. She asked whether she could be accepted as a girl "born in the wrong body", and came 10^th overall. This led to being on the Tyra Banks show twice, the second after surgery from Marci Bowers.

2009

Erika Ervin, 6"8'/2.03m, did modeling work for Harper's Bazaar and in fashion shows in Milan, and in 2011 Amazon Eve, her performance name, became the Guinness World Record World's Tallest Professional Model.

Dominique Jackson from Tobago became a resident model for fashion designer Adrian Alicea and walked for the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. She has also modeled for Vogue España.

Choi Han-bit,  amongst more than 1,200 applicants to the annual SBS-sponsored Super Model Contest, gained public attention by progressing through the contest's preliminary rounds. Choi's participation drew mixed reactions from internet users and other contestants, but SBS officials stated that they would view it as a "violation of human rights" to disqualify a transgender individual whose legal sex was female. As one of the contest's 32 finalists, Choi automatically qualified as a professional model. Despite this, Choi faced discrimination in the modelling industry, having been refused participation in fashion shows without any clear reason.

2010

Lea T had attempted a career as a male model, but was always being taken as female. Later Riccardo Tisci employed Lea as his personal assistant and used her as his fit model. He based his autumn/winter 2010 Givenchy collection around the idea of androgyny and Lea agreed to be featured. Later Carine Roitfeld, the editor of the French Vogue published a nude photograph of Lea with her male genitalia only partly covered. She was also featured in the Italian Vanity Fair, and was on the cover of Lurve magazine.

Kayo Satoh had been doing modelling work in Nagoya, and became an exclusive model for Tokai Spy Girl magazine. She became more famous when on 31 August 2010 she mentioned on Nippon Television's Majotachi no 22ji that she had been born male, after online rumours.

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

Anastasia Michaelsdotter, Sweden, age 14 was scouted by several modelling agencies.

2011

Andrej Pejić, androgynous model from Bosnia via Australia, walked both the men’s and women’s shows for Jean-Paul Gaultier, was on both Schön! and Dossier Journal covers, number 18 in top 50 male models, and 98 in FHM 100 Sexiest Women.

Isis King, having completed transition, returned to America’s Next Top Model 17. She was eliminated in the third week. She then became a model for American Apparel.

Miss Sahhara, from Nigeria, walked at London Fashion Week for four seasons. She was also involved with Alternative Fashion

Liu Shi Han, had had completion surgery and became China’s first trans model.

Nikkiey Chawla, 26, India, has walked at Milan, and is in an episode of UTV Bindass’s show Emotional Atyachaar.

Valentijn de Hingh was followed by a documentary team from age 8-17. Then a model, then rejected because too tall. Now modelling again.

2012

Carol Marra was invited to participate in the Minas Trend Preview, a fashion show that happens right before Fashion Rio and São Paulo Fashion Week. This led to more work, including in Paris.

Anastasia Michaelsdotter, now 16, was walking in Milan and Paris.

24 May 2012. The trans models were pulled from a fashion show at SM Mall of Asia for Philippine Fashion Week at PFW's insistence.

2013

A petition that Carmen Carrera, alumna from RuPaul’s Drag Race, serve as a model for Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show garnered 45,000 signatures, but to no effect.

Nicole Gibson walked the runway at London Fashion Week, just days before undergoing gender confirmation surgery.

Lea T featured in Benetton campaign.

Andreja Pejic on cover of Serbian Elle.

American Apparel put out a call for transgender models.

2014

The Bangkok-based Apple Modeling Agency has launched the first transgender model division with 18 models on its books.

Ines Rau, of Algerian descent, who had comnpletion surgery at age 16, was featured in the May issue of Playboy, and then worked as a model in New York, and also appeared in Vogue Italia.

Geena Rocera, from the Philippines, then 30, having worked as a model for over a decade, came out.

Carmen Carrera on cover of Dress to Kill, profiled by CNN.

Valentijin de Hingh featured in Tom Ford's autumn campaign.

2015

Andrej Pejić, after completion surgery in late 2013, was profiled by Vogue, and also became the first-ever trans woman to sign a cosmetics contract.

Valentino Sampaio went from doing local shows and photo shoots to being in São Paulo Fashion Week, and being on the cover of Elle Brasil and L’Officiel Brasil.

December. New York Magazine/The Cut ran a cover story reminding readers that Tracey Norman, now 63, was the first black trans model. This led to Clairol welcoming her back as the face of its new “Color As Real As You Are” campaign.

Loiza Lamers won Holland’s Next Top Model 8, initially in stealth until rumours were found on the internet. She was voted the winner after disclosing her gender history.

Hari Nef walked shows during New York Fashion Week, and was signed to IMG Models.

Peche Di, from Bangkok, started Trans Models NYC.

2016

Lea T hosted the opening ceremony at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Andrej Pejić, was awarded "Best International Female Model" by GQ Portugal and the following year she made history by becoming the first transgender woman to appear on the cover of GQ.

Gemma Cowling debuted at the Adelaide Fashion Festival at age 19. She claimed to be the first Australian trans model signed to agency, Estelle Asmodelle having been forgotten.

Shay Neary, from rural Pennsylavania, signed by Coverstory, becoming the first openly trans plus-size model.

2017

Valentino Sampaio was on the cover of Vogue Paris, March 2017, with the by-line: ‘Transgender beauty: How it’s shaking up the world’ and with an editorial inside.

Teddy Quinlivian, who had been discovered for Louis Vuitton in 2015, came out, and was praised by those she worked with.

Playboy featured Ines Rau, proclaiming her to be the first trans women so featured, despite her own earlier appearance, and that several others had been featured in past years.

Kami Sid, Pakistan’s first trans model.

Munroe Bergdorf was employed as the first transgender model to front a L'Oréal campaign in the UK.

Leyne Bloom, from Chicago, appeared in Vogue India.

2018

Giuliana Farfalla, who had completion surgery at 16, participated on the twelfth season of Germany's Next Topmodel, and finished in eleventh place. In January 2018, she became the first transgender model to appear on the cover of the German Playboy.

2019

Teddy Quinlivian, hired by Chanel. Listed as one of the "Top 50" models by models.com.

Geena Rocera, Playboy Playmate for August.

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•  Elspeth H Brown. Work! A Queer History of Modeling. Duke University Press, 2019. The only trans models mentioned are Teri Toye and Tracey Norman.

10 greatest transgender models

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Transgender_and_transsexual_female_models

Both Wikipedia and 10 Greatest Transgender models list persons not mentioned above. I have not included those who have not either walked a significant catwalk, been featured in a significant advertising campaign or been featured in a significant photography exhibition. Participation in beauty pageants, being a porn star, being an actor or on the internet does not count.

www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2012/sep/13/brazil-transgender-models

www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/08/21/50-years-transgender-models

https://thehhub.com/2018/08/21/transgender-models

www.worldstopmost.com/2017-2018-2019-2020/celebrities/most-beautiful-transgender-models-world-best-famous-sexiest-richest-highest-paid-top-10-popular-list

www.trendrr.net/22294/most-beautiful-hottest-transgender-models-world-famous-gorgeous

A Chronology of trans persons in modelling and fashion: Part I: to 2000

Part I: to 2000
Part II: 21^st century

1889

L.S., a fashion model in Paris, In 1909. Aged 20, she was engaged to be married and was bothered by apparent tumours in her labia majora and attended the Hôpital Beaujon. A biopsy of the tumours resulted in them being identified as testicles. The doctors then decided that she was a 'true male', that is a masculine pseudo hermaphrodite. She was informed that her feminine 'genital aspiration', that is her engagement to her fiancé, was an act of homosexuality.

1950

Michel-Marie Poulian worked as a model in Paris, in addition to painting portraits and doing stained-glass windows for churches.

1955

Charlotte McLeod did modelling in New York and New Orleans.

1959-62

Noted Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm went to Paris and shot Jacquie Sarduy, Nana and other trans women. These were later published as  Les Amies De Place Blanche, 1983.

1960

After completion surgery in Casabalanca, April Ashley returned to England, and was able to build a career as a model; clothed, in underwear and nude. This led to a very small part in the film The Road to Hong Kong. Until November 1961 when she was outed in the Sunday People.

1964

Holly Woodlawn was briefly employed as an in-house model at Saks Fifth Avenue, new York.

1965

A person we know only as ‘Queen Elizabeth’ got a job in Davison’s department store in Atlanta as a model. One day the boss walked in as she was changing and saw her penis. She was immediately fired.

1966

Benjamin’s The Transsexual Phenomenon tells us of Betty/Suzanne who after surgery worked as a fashion model.

1970

Les Lee, performer at Le Carrousel, designed and modelled a collection of women's clothes with some success, such that the models union was able to persuade the French Government to pass a law forbidding female impersonators from working as models.

Georgia Ziadie was working as a model in New York when she met Lord Colin Campbell, married him a week later, and they were divorced the next year.

1971

Rachel Harlow, following her lead role in The Queen, 1968, and her subsequent triumph at the Cannes International Film Festival, had become the hostess at a Philadelphia nightclub named with her own name. There were also interviews, endorsements, modeling jobs and television appearances.

1974

Andy Warhol recruited models from the new transy bar Gilded Grape for his Ladies and Gentlemen (The Drag Queen Paintings) series. They were paid $50 and Andy took polaroids. They were not shown as such in the US, but in September 1975 were exhibited in Italy.

1975

Tracy Norman attended a modeling event at the Pierre Hotel in New York in 1975. There she was discovered by renowned photographer Irving Penn and booked for Vogue Italia a few days later. She was quickly featured in major advertising campaigns, Ultra Sheen and Avon Cosmetics. Clairol put her face on their dark-auburn hair dye no 512, launched that year.

1976

After the end of her public affair with John B Kelly, brother of movie-star and princess Grace Kelly, businessman and on the Philadelphia Council, Rachel Harlow 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.

1977

Potassa de la Fayette, model and star on the dance floor at Studio 54.

Robertina Manganaro was a model for the avant-garde artist, Enrico Baj.

1979

Diane Delia worked in New York as a model for Avon Cosmetics.

1980

Lauren Foster had started working as a model in Johannesburg and then Paris regularly in magazines and advertisements. However she was disqualified from the Miss South Africa Pageant. Her big break was in 1980 when she was hired by and was featured Vogue to do a 6-page fashion editorial. She was outed by the tabloid Scope, when another model sold the story, which resulted in ignorant press attention.

Essense Magazine booked Tracy Norman again for several sessions in 1980. During the last session, the hair dresser's assistant, who was from the same part of New Jersey and had been asking around trying to figure out who Tracy was, spoke to the editor, Susan Taylor, who stopped the shoot. Nobody said anything. However Tracy was never paid for the last shoot, and the pictures were never used. Work in New York dried up. There was a rumor that Taylor threatened to sue Zoli, the agency for false advertising, but the agency did not know either. Eventually a friend confirmed that her secret had gone around quickly, but still no-one said so directly.

1981

Caroline Cossey (Tula) was noted in Smirnoff Vodka’s “Well They Said Anything Could Happen” advertisement in 1981 that shows her water-skiing behind the Loch Ness Monster. She was a Page Three Girl for The Sun. This led to a small part in the James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only, 1981, and an associated article in Playboy. This led to her being outed as trans, and as a consequence lost most of her modelling contracts.

1982

Tracy Norman, seeking work in Paris, got a phone call for another model, who had returned to New York. She was offered the gig, but delayed it for two weeks while she slimmed down to a French size 6. This led to a six-month contract with Balenciaga.

1984

in New York, the new fashion sensation was the openly transgender Teri Toye, who had moved to New York from Iowa to study fashion. She was offered modeling work, especially for the cult fashion designer Stephen Sprouse, but also for Karl Lagerfeld and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Circulate magazine dedicated six pages to Lauren Foster.

Tracy Norman returned to Newark in 1984, and signed with the Grace del Marco Agency. However after a few months she was featured in an Ultra Sheen cosmetics ad, and then she was remembered. Again work dried up.

Roberta Close in Rio was becoming famous as a model and actress.

1985

Valerie Taylor, in stealth, was working as a model in Los Angeles.

Leslie Townsend, in stealth, was working as a model in Houston.

1988

Noor Talbi found work in Paris on the fashion catwalks at age 19, before she returned to Morroco and became a renowned dancer.

1993

Robertina Manganaro, encouraged by her rich husband to become a stilista, opened a studio in Paris, using her title-by marriage Comtessa.

1994

Alessandro di Sanzo, who had played a trans teenager in the films Mery per sempre, 1989. and Ragazzi fuori, 1990, was hired by the Rome fashion designer Egon von Furstenberg to walk the catwalk in a bridal dress. The Church took umbrage as she was a known transsexual.

Storme Aerison posed as a supermodel and claimed to be the sister of real supermodel Kathy Ireland. Photographers and others gave her their services in exchange for a percentage of a calendar that she said that she was producing.

1996

Estelle Asmodelle was the face of the Supermodel Agency in Australia; she was their spokesman and main model during 1996-2000.

1998

Claudia Charriez, then age 16, was already modelling.

1999

Sophia Lamar modelled for Levi’s and others.

Lee Si-Yeon first made a name as a male model, and was known for a feminine appearance and wearing women's clothing on the catwalk – the first model to do so in South Korea. Later she decided to transition, which was completed in 2007.

Before becoming the host on Taiwan's Eastern TV Auction Channel, Li Jing had worked as a model.

2000

Amanda Lepore worked extensively with photographer David LaChapelle advertising Armani and MTV. Swatch released a ‘Time tranny’ watch with her features.

Robertina Manganaro, stilista, had her first show at the Milan Pret-a-porter, which cost her a million francs of the family money.

Tracey Gayle Norman (1951 - ) model

Original version: April 2014

Tracy Norman was raised in Newark, New Jersey. Father thought that his child was too effeminate and made a desultory attempt at teaching boxing. He moved out when Tracy was 6; the mother worked multiple jobs to support her two children.

The first in her family to graduate high school, Tracy, on the same day, told her mother that she was a woman, and was accepted. A few months later. Tracy met a old-school friend who had started transition. She answered questions and gave Tracy some birth-control pills.

In trans clubs, Third World and Up the Down Stairs, she was told of a doctor who prescribed to trans women, and soon she was not just being taken as female, but was being noted for her beauty. This was at the same time as Lottie and Crystal LaBeija founded the House of Labeija with a ball at the Up the Down Stairs.

A friend of Tracy who helped her with make-up, worked in the fashion industry and knew where fashion shows were being held. He taught her what to say at the door, that she was a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, which let her stand in the back row. Thus she attended a modeling event at the Pierre Hotel in New York in 1975. She noticed a group of black models and followed them in, making sure that she was the last person.  There she was discovered by renowned photographer Irving Penn and booked for Vogue Italia a few days later.

One of the other models, Peggy Dillard, was nice to her, while the others shunned the newcomer. Dillard revealed many years later that, as she had spent years DJ-ing at a gay disco, and had friends who had transitioned, she was able to read the newcomer. Tracy was paid $3,000 – more than she had ever had before. Penn referred her to an agency, Zoli. Some weeks later, Penn received a phone call from Condé Nast magazine, passing on the rumor that Norman was not born female. Penn dismissed it out of hand as ridiculous. A make-up artist approached her during a break and said that he knew what was going on with her. He also said ‘Don’t worry, I think you’re beautiful. Just be natural.’ He also told the photographer Anthony Barboza, who replied that if that were the case, the magazine must know. Apparently it went no further and Tracy was rehired by the same magazine six months later.

Tracy was similar in appearance to the rising black model Beverly Johnson, and quickly was featured in major advertising campaigns, Ultra Sheen and Avon Cosmetics. Clairol put her face on their dark-auburn hair dye no 512, launched that year.

Essense Magazine booked her again for several sessions in 1980. During the last session, the hair dresser's assistant, who was from the same part of New Jersey and had been asking around trying to figure out who Tracy was, spoke to the editor, Susan Taylor, who stopped the shoot. Nobody said anything. However Tracy was never paid for the last shoot, and the pictures were never used. Work in New York dried up. There was a rumor that Taylor threatened to sue Zoli, the agency for false advertising, but the agency did not know either. Eventually a friend confirmed that her secret had gone around quickly, but still no-one said so directly.

By 1982, Tracy had given up her apartment, and moved back in with her mother. A friend was already working in Paris, and another suggested that they go there. Tracy used her sister’s birth certificate to get a passport. In Paris the three friends shared hotel rooms. One day Tracy got a phone call for another model, who had returned to New York. She was offered the gig, but delayed it for two weeks while she slimmed down to a French size 6. This led to a six-month contract with Balenciaga.

The UltraSheen ad

Next she tried Milan, but work was slow there too. She returned to Newark in 1984, and signed with the Grace del Marco Agency. However after a few months she was featured in an Ultra Sheen cosmetics ad, and then she was remembered.  Again work dried up even though this was the year that openly trans model Teri Toye was being feted, and trans model Lauren Foster regained her career after being outed a few years earlier.

One thing went right. Tracey dated a straight male office worker from Long Island. He did not mind when she told him that she was trans, and they had a three-year relationship.

Tracy found work in shoe retailing, but again word got out and people came to stare through the window. She then took work at Show Center, a burlesque peep show in Times Square that featured trans women, but behind glass so that the customers could not touch. She was able to earn over $1,000 a day there, and stayed three years. This led to her involvement in the voguing balls, first as an observer, and then as a member of the House of Africa. She used her modelling experience and trained her team to walk like professionals, rather than the flamboyant style that the other houses affected. Her personal trademark was to walk in just jeans and t-shirt. She would take a white handkerchief and wipe her face in front of the judges to show that she was wearing no make-up – and the was met by applause. She became mother to the house, and was elected to the Ballroom Hall of Fame in 2001.

In the 1990s Tracey had encountered her father who was driving a bus that she was on. “I was like, ‘Daddy, it’s me.’ He was shocked to see me.” Later he was diagnosed with cancer, and she visited him in hospital. “He saw that I have done something very exciting with my life. I think he was proud of me at that point. He was more accepting.”

Later Tracey worked again in shoe retailing – for the up-market Peter Fox Shoes, and for a while was a manager.

Tracey in 2016

In December 2015, New York Magazine/The Cut ran a cover story reminding readers that Tracey, now 63, was the first black trans model. This led to Clairol welcoming her back as the face of its new “Color As Real As You Are” campaign.

• Meekaprodigy. "Paris Is Burning Tea (Harlem Ballroom Scene)" Lipstick Alley, 03-26-
• "Tracy Africa" The Luna show#100. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGWhRQSzqzk, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvCKxygj0vM. 
• Jada Yuan & Aaron Wong. "The First Black Trans Model had her Face on a Box of Clairol". New York Magazine/The Cut, 14 December, 2015. Online.
• Carly Stern. "The 'first black transgender model' reveals how her high-flying fashion career, posing for the likes of Vogue and Clairol, crumbled after her gender identity was exposed". Daily Mail, 17 Dec 2015. Online. 
• Jada Yuan. "Susan Taylor Says She Wouldn’t Have Outed Tracey Africa". New York Magazine/The Cut, Dec 27, 2015. Online.
• Jada Yuan. "Tracey Africa Norman Is Back As the Face of Clairol".  The Cut, August 2016. Online.
• Hermione Hoby. "How Tracey Norman, America’s first black trans model, returned to the limelight". The Guardian, 21 Aug 2016. Online.
• Yada Yuan. "Trans Models Will Cover Harper’s Bazaar for the First Time". New York Magazine/The Cut, Sept 19, 2016. Online.
• Elspeth H Brown. Work! A Queer History of Modeling. Duke University Press, 2019: 2-4, 13, 263-5, 267, 270-2. 

MySpace

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Tracy or Tracey? She changed the spelling in the early 1990s.

After the December 2015 article in New York Magazine/The Cut, JadaYuan, the author, was finally able to get feedback from Susan Taylor, the editor at Essense who had supervised Tracey’s last shoot in 1980. Not surprisingly Taylor remembers things differently: “I always suspected she was genetically male. I accepted her as she presented herself, as an exquisitely beautiful black woman. Now, this is 40 years later, but I think someone that she went to school with in Newark told me that they knew her as a boy. I think.” … “And we sought to hire her into the ‘80s and she was not available. I just learned that a few days ago.”