A Gender Variance Who's Who

Towards a TS dictionary -- the letters Xx, Yy, Zz

2026-05-21T13:44:30.369-04:00

BOLD=cross reference, see item when appropriate letter posted

X

An indicator of gender inclusivity, e.g. Latinx, Mx, Womxn, etc. These terms are written but not always pronounceable. X is also the third option specified by the International Civil Aviation Organization in addition to M or F. Some countries permit this on their passports.

Xanith خنيث‎

An assigned male third gender in Oman, who are socially accepted as female e.g. at weddings. In later life some go back to living as male. Also spelt Khanith, and as such related to the word Mukhannathun.

Xenoestrogen

Estrogen Imitators including widely used industrial compounds, such as PCBs, Bisphenol A, and Phthalates, which have estrogenic effects on living organisms. In some fish species they induce sex changes. They have reduced sperm counts and induced precocious Puberty. They are certainly acting Epigenetically and are probably affecting the frequency of Transgender.

Xenovestity.

Dressing as a foreigner,

Xier/xies .. xiem/xien

A German gender neutral pronoun.

X-Jenda Xジェンダ

A Japanese term for gender queer / non-binary.

Xtravaganza, House of

An initially Latinx LGBTQ New York ballroom house founded in 1982 by Hector Valle. One of the first to join was Angie Xtravaganza, who assumed the role of house mother. It was later opened to other racial groups. Several members of the House of Xtravaganza of this period went on to become pioneers and icons within the ballroom community. The House was also known for its stable of “impossible beauties”, Trans women who reigned in the ballrooms and worked as professional models and entertainers.

XO

See Turner’s Syndrome.

XX

The designation for standard female sex chromosomes in mammals. See Homogametic.

XXY

See Klinefelter Syndrome (KS).

XY

The designation for standard male sex chromosomes in mammals. See Heterogametic.

Yard

An old term for a Penis, cf. the French Verge which if masculine, le verge, means a yard (=3 feet) and if feminine, la verge, means penis. In 18^th century usage, anal sex would be the introduction of a Yard into another’s Fundament.

Ycleptance

Naming and being named. An important process during Transition when a new name is taken and accepted by others. From the early modern verb ‘to clepe’=to name or to style. A term revived by John Money. Ycleptance can also occur in marriage and in religious conversions

Yearning

A feeling of intense longing for something. A trans woman has or had an intense yearning to be a woman. This is a philosophically neutral term that does not imply choice, social construction or biological causation.

Yimpininni

Trans and gay indigenous persons on the Tiwi Islands off the coast of Australia’s Northern Territory. They are estimated to be as many as 5% of the population. Crystal Love, the entertainer, is Yimpininni. Sometimes called Sistergirls.

Yirka'-la'ul

Yirka'-la'ul (=soft man) were assigned male shamans among the reindeer-herding Chukchi in the very far east of Siberia, who forfeited their masculinity and gained esteem. The yirka'-la'ul had a choice of the young men from whom she took a husband, a marriage that would last until the death of one of the partners.

Yogyakarta Principles

A document about human rights in the areas of sexual orientation and gender identity, published as the outcome of an international meeting of human rights groups in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in November 2006. The Principles were supplemented in 2017, expanding to include new grounds of gender expression and sex characteristics, and a number of new principles. The Principles and the supplement contains a set of precepts intended to apply the standards of international human rights law to address the abuse of human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons.

Yonkers Professional Hospital, New York

Located at 27 Ludlow St, Yonkers, New York, and partly owned by Dr Benito Rish, who was also president of its board. Rish did Transgender Surgery on patients referred by Harry Benjamin and Leo Wollman. Transgender surgery was also done by Dr David Wesser, who had done 200 sex-change operations by 1980, mainly using Burou’s technique.

From 1972 Dr Rish was sued for malpractice several times. Yonkers Professional Hospital was closed down after a surprise inspection by the state in 1980, and the next year Dr Wesser was charged with negligence by a panel that was hand-picked to be partial against him.

The building stood empty for almost a decade, and was then converted into apartments.

The Yuga Ball, Metairie, New Orleans

The first gay 'krewe' – of the krewes that put on the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebrations – was the Yuga Krewe, founded in 1958. The fourth and fifth Yuga Balls were held in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie in a school that had a large dance studio, and was surrounded by a wooded area close to the lake. The second gay krewe, that of Petronius, held its first ball in 1962 at the same location. However, the Yuga Ball a week later was raided by the Parish Police. Some managed to flee, but many were arrested in what the police dubbed a ‘lewd stag party’. Those arrested had their names printed in the newspapers and thus most lost their jobs.

Yūsei Hogo Hō 優生保護法 Japanese Eugenic Protection Law 1948

While this law permitted sterilisations and abortions, even without the consent of the persons involved, it also forbade any unnecessary operations that resulted in sterilisation. This was the charge in the Buru Boi Saiban trial 1965-6 in which a sex-change doctor was found guilty of removing otherwise healthy sex organs. There were no more sex change operations in Japan until 1998.

Zee Zee

A word for Penis favoured by April Ashley.

Zenana

A term in Pakistan for a Kothi.

Zie, Hir

Gender-neutral pronouns popularised by Leslie Feinberg. As in Zie and hir friends have arrived.

Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft (=Journal of Sexology)

The first scholarly Sexology journal. It was first published in 1908 by Georg H. Wigand's Verlang, Leipzig, edited by Friedrich. Krauss & Herman Rohleder, with help from Magnus Hirschfeld. It was then merged with Hirschfeld’s Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen. It was later revived and published 1914-28 by A. Marcus & E. Webers Verlag of Bonn.

Zoovestity

Dressing as an animal.

Zwischenstufen

The term used by Magnus Hirschfeld for homosexuality, transvestism and other intermediate stages. See also Geschlechtsübergänge.

Zwittertum

A German term for Intersex is use in the early 20^th century.

ZW

The designation for standard female chromosomes in birds, fish, insects, reptiles etc. See Heterogametic.

ZZ

The designation for standard male chromosomes in birds, fish, insects, reptiles etc. See Homogametic.

Marta Olmos Romero (1931 -1972) Mexican pioneer

2026-05-17T13:46:41.445-04:00

Olmos was from Veracruz, a middle child with five siblings. Feminine even as a child, Olmos played with dolls and did female chores, and had a first sexual encounter with a man at age 13. After a denouncement from the father, Olmos moved to Mexico City and at 21 was working as a men’s fashion clerk.

In November 1952, just weeks before the Christine Jorgensen story first broke in New York, Olmos was suffering from chronic amoebic colitis. This was treated at the clinic of Rafael Sandoval Camacho and his team. They treated the colitis, but quickly realised that there was another issue to be addressed.

Sandoval, a graduate of the prestigious Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, specialised in public sanitation and school hygiene, and also practised surgery at the Sanatorio Flemming and had developed interests in treating homosexuality surgically.

Olmos was interested in medical treatments that would bring out her essential womanhood; Sandoval and his team, Antonio Mercado Montes, Carlos Dupont Bribiesca and Marco Antonio Dupont, were thinking in terms of the gender binary and how to make their patient heteronormative. They completed a clinical case study, diagnosing Olmos with an ‘intersexual syndrome’ manifesting in homosexuality and feminine mannerisms, habits and libido. They researched Olmos’ biography, noting childhood illnesses, a cousin suffering ‘oligophrenia’ (‘interrupted mental development’ associated with hysteria and homosexuality), a preference for flashy masculine attire, and desires to cross-dress. They conducted anthropometric examinations; Binet–Simon and Raven intelligence tests; Rorschach, Szondi and Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) psychodiagnostics; and blood tests.

Marta as a brunette

From preceding sexologists, Sandoval concluded that homosexuality was pathological but could be converted. However a reorienting towards heteronormativity left an irresolvable, ‘implicit antagonism between the psychic and the somatic’. In addition, too few competent analysts existed. Contrariwise Sandoval also rejected such therapy that would help such men accept themselves, adjust to societal hostility and live openly. He thought that this would leave worrisome structural and functional issues unresolved.

What the team found with Olmos was perhaps an artifact of their research tools and their presuppositions. What they did find they regarded as pathologies: sexual complexes causing insecurity and anti-societal aggression, hysteria and ‘feminine sexual tendencies accompanied by the need to constitute as a love receptacle, and an intense desire to receive tenderness, strong depressive and hysterical states’, thoughts of suicide, pubic hair with a ‘feminine’ triangle pattern. They diagnosed ‘degeneration’ and ‘passive homosexuality’.

Marta as a blonde

From this perspective, they provided Olmos, Marta as she was now addressed, with what she wanted. Over a period of 18 months, 1952-4, Marta was treated psychiatrically, hormonally and surgically. The first surgery was a penectomy in May 1953, and a final vaginoplasty in March 1954: six surgeries altogether, four in private clinics, and two at Marta’s home. The pioneering Mexican pharmaceutical company, Syntex, provided oestrogen and progesterone, and in effect Marta was a test subject for their untested product. Syntex later marketed the product as Norethisterone - used for birth control and menopausal therapy. Syntex re-located to California in 1959.

The involvement of Syntex led to support from the then president, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1952-8), who also extended the vote to women in October 1953, and two lawyers close to Ruiz, Manuel Rangel y Vázquez and León Méndez Berman, who provided both funding and moral support. This was expected to be Mexico’s next scientific triumph.

Sandoval’s team photographed Olmos’ body as it changed, recorded their procedures, extolled their methods, presented to the press and screened surgical films for colleagues.

The eminent criminologist Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón who regarded homosexuality as dangerous but imprisonment as ineffective, expressed interest in Sandoval’s proposal.

Some of the family objected, and even tried legal objections. However Marta’s sister Soledad was supportive, and her mother Refugio Romero relented.

In May 1954 the story was in the press, at first the Mexican, and then internationally. Excélsior interviewed Marta and published restrained reports, an editorial cartoon and a letter to the editor, but the articles in its tabloid Últimas Noticias, supplement Magazine de Policía, were splashy, front -page and with lots of photos. The modern Mexican term for gender surgery, ‘operación jarocha’ (‘Veracruz operation’) is a memory that Olmos was originally from Veracruz.

Marta and Soledad, her sister

Marta’s story was compared to that of Christine Jorgensen which had been in the press the previous year, and that of Betty Cowell which had been published just weeks before. Marta’s operation was regarded as the first of its kind to be performed in the Americas. Press accounts quoted Marta proclaiming “Now I have found myself, and I am happy”. She also said: “‘I felt feminine impulses. I liked to cook, sew, and keep house” - the kind of sentiment expected of women, trans or cis, in the 1950s. She dyed her hair blond, and spoke of marriage, and men, strangers, proposed to her. She also spoke of having children and returning to work, this time selling female attire. After the devaluation of the peso from MX$8.65 to 12.50 per US$ in April 1954, and the subsequent inflation, Marta presented herself as a bona fide Mexican woman, somewhat conservative and Catholic. She had chosen her name after praying to St Martha of Bethany (sister of Mary and Lazarus). She hoped to be re-baptised, but the Church dismissed the idea, saying that she was an unnecessarily mutilated healthy male.

Initially, some Mexican commentators and officials near the Ruiz Cortines government celebrated the operation as proof that Mexico could stand with “advanced” nations in medical science.

While initial coverage in the press was sympathetic, it changed quickly. Physicians, politicians, clerics, and cartoonists turned on the case, denouncing the surgery as a fraudulent “cure”. They wrote about her as an afeminado, a Mexican term from the 19th century for men who were not heteronormative. The coverage of Christine Jorgensen led to the term Cristinas being used, not just for trans women, but also for queer men in general. Marta was compared to the foreigners Jorgensen and Cowell.

As Ryan Jones says: “Marta’s trans womanhood was thus an ‘import’ at a time of nationalism, indigenismo, modernising patriarchy, and scepticism towards foreign ‘contamination’. She evoked earlier cases where the ‘national’ was defined against a foreign, queer, grotesque other. After initial enthusiasm, the conceptual space for considering trans(sexuality) as a Mexican state of being – and transitions as legitimate for achieving it – withered. Marta instead epitomised an afeminado/‘Cristina’ defrauding the public”

Marta had briefly made public appearances and there was even talk of potential film work. However the state was moving to maintain its moral authority against youth culture and rock ‘n’ roll, and prohibited Jorgensen from performing in Mexico. Fernández Bustamante – director of Mexico City’s Oficina de Espectáculos – banned Olmos from appearing in vaudeville revues, decreeing no ‘spectacle exploiting morbid interest’ would be tolerated. Rómulo O’Farrill’s XHTV stated its ‘Tele-Síntesis’ programme would not interview Marta. The Asociación Nacional de Actores, led by Congressman Rodolfo Landa, refused her membership; which removed all stage, radio or TV performances because she was not a ‘bona fide actor’.

Direct reporting on Marta diminished, but her case persisted in debates about homosexuality, “degeneracy” and the bounds of modern medicine in Mexico.

Her later life is not recorded.

Ryan Jones found a death certificate dated 29 December 1972 for ‘Martha Olmos Romero’, referencing her mother, Refugio, which is likely hers. If so she died age 40 from a myocardial infarction and twisted, occluded intestine. She never did marry.

“Un mexicano se convirtio en mujer y dice que tendra hijos”. Los Angeles La Opinion, May 6, 1954: 1
“Hopes to ‘Make Some Man a Good wife’: Husky Mexican clerk is transformed into woman in series of operations”. Lubbock Morning Avalanche, May 7, 1954: 39.
“La cirugia ha logrado de nuevo convertir a un hombre en mujer”. Phoenix El Sol, May 14, 1954: 3.
“El Lic. Jose Vasconcelos condena la intervencion medica en estos casos”. Phoenix El Sol, May 21, 1954: 3.
Juan Morales. "Mexico's Hush-Hush Clinic: Sex Surgery While You Wait!". Whisper Magazine, 8,6, 1955:24-5.
Rafael Sandoval Camacho, Una contribución experimental al estudio de la homosexualidad. 1957.
Emily Skidmore. “Constructing the "Good Transsexual": Christine Jorgensen, Whiteness, and Heteronormativity in the Mid-Twentieth-Century Press”. Feminist Studies, 37, June 2011,
Fabrizzo Mc Manus. “Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Biomedical Sciences in Twentieth Century Mexico”, Sexuality & Culture, 18,2, 2014.
Omar Durán-García. Aesthetic Misdiagnoses: Biomedicine, Homosexualities, and Medical Cultures in Mexico, 1953-2006, Phd thesis, Columbia University, 2021: Chp 2.
Omar Durán-García interviewed by Analia Lavin. “Mexican Homosexualities and the Distortions of the Medical Gaze”. Medical Health Humanities, July 26, 2022. Online
Ryan M Jones. “‘Now I Have Found Myself, and I Am Happy’: Marta Olmos, Sex Reassignment, the Media and Mexico on a Global Stage, 1952–7”. Journal of Latin American Studies, 55, 2023.

As is normal in hispanophonic countries, Marta had two surnames, Olmos from her father and Romero from her mother. She is sometimes referred to as Marta Olmos Ramiro, but in common usage more frequently as simply Marta Olmos. Skidmore refers to her as Romero but not as Olmos for some reason, and, strangely, Mc Manus, who argues that Olmos never properly consented to transitioning, does not give her a name at all but refers to “an unidentiﬁed 21-year-old boy from Veracruz”.

There are no EN.Wikipedia articles for Marta Olmos or for Rafael Sandoval Camacho, and more notably no ES.Wikipedia articles either.

Valérie Wilson (1953-2011) actrice, performer

2026-05-13T15:24:17.776-04:00

Valérie Wilson was an early transitioner. By her late teens she was living as female and performing at L’Alcazar, a nightclub competing with Le Carrousel.

From there she was recruited to act in the sex comedy La michetonneuse. As she was still under age, her mother had to sign the contract. La michetonneuse was filmed 1969-1970 but not released until 1972. The film follows Justine who leaves her family and university in search of freedom. She is befriended by Valérie, a trans performer at L’Alcazar (and the film includes scenes of Valérie’s actual performance at L’Alcazar).

From this, Valérie Wilson was recruited to act in what turned out to be the final film by the New Wave/existentialist director Jean-Pierre Melville. Un Flic (A Cop) starring Alain Delon and Catherine Deneuve, and Wilson was the second major female character in the film. She drives a good car and wears a fur coat, and is an informer to Delon’s cop, and is apparently cis, but after Delon’s cop fails to capture the heroin shipment, he blames the messenger and threatens her with jail for cross-dressing and uses transphobic slurs.

Wilson’s third film, Un ange au paradis, is of a married man having an affair with a trans woman. After its release, she was interviewed on the televison program Chutes en tourney. The director of the film, Jean-Pierre Blanc was also interviewed in the same program, and he labelled Valérie’s character the titular ‘angel’ of the film (reflected also in the character’s name, Marie-Ange), saying that she was the only ‘honest’ character. He also stated that he had deliberately cast a ‘real travesti’ and that being one ‘is not all bad’.

Her last film was Change pas de main, a porn film, features Valérie as a nightclub dancer in the first 20 minutes.

After that she withdrew from public life.

Francis Leroi (dir). La michetonneuse, scr : Francois Jouffa & Francis Leroi, with Christine Leuk as Justine and Valérie Wilson as Valérie. France 90 mins 1972.
Jean-Pierre Melville (dir & scr). Un Flic, with Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve and Valérie Wilson as Gaby. France 98 mins 1972.
Jean-Pierre Blanc (dir & scr). Un ange au paradis, with Valérie Wilson as Marie-Ange Bystrzanowiez, Pascale Arcia as Le Transsexuel and Jean-Claude Dreyfus as Un travesti de la Grande Eugène. France 85 mins 1973.
Entretien avec Valérie Wilson. Chutes en tourne, 3ème chaîne, Octobre 1973.
Paul Vecchiali (dir). Change pas de main, scr: Noel Simsolo & Paul Vecchiali, with Valérie Wilson as Mylène. France 92 mins 1975.
Diana Santiago. « Valérie Wilson ». Diane et le sexe des anges. 2011. Archive.
Willow Catelyn Maclay. Musings on Transgender Cinema: "The Strange Movie within a Movie in Jean-Pierre Melville's "Un Flic"". Patreon.com, Jan 17, 2021. Online.
Christopher Wolff & Jesse Blanchard “‘They Lack Imagination…’ – Valérie Wilson and Trans Life in the Audiovisual Archive”. View: Journal of European Television History & Culture, 14,28, 2025. Online.

FR.Wikipedia IMDB Allociné Elcinema

---------

Wolf and Blanchard quote the La michetonneuse press kit that claims that Valérie was 19 when the film was made. However if she were born in 1953, she would be only 16/17 in 1969/1970.

IMDB names Wilson’s character in Un Flic as ‘Gaby’; other sources do not give her a name or list her as ‘transvestite’. She is not referred to by name in the film.

Maclay in particular reads a past affair between ‘Gaby’ and Delon’s cop based on facial expressions and intonations. Such is in the eye of the beholder.

Two books that never arrived

2026-05-07T09:06:00.000-04:00

Over the years I noticed again and again comments in various places, and particularly on maewest.blogspot.com, by R Mark Desjardins (1963-2025) that had something interesting to say about Ms West. He often mentioned that he was writing In Search of Mae West, but the book was never published.

Mark recently died. Hopefully his executor will be arranging publication.

"I've been asked many times when my manuscript "In Search of Mae West" will be available. Hopefully sharing this backstory will shed some light on my journey. Originally, my interest in Mae West was casual, and an intense dream encouraged me to delve deeper into her life. In 1994 I travelled to Los Angeles and by stroke of good luck, had the opportunity to meet several of the fellows who surrounded Mae during the last ten years of her life. Many previously unknown facts were disclosed and I was dumbfounded that these stories were finally being shared.
Returning home to Vancouver, Canada, I pondered over what I was told, and in 1996, I returned to Los Angeles and got these fellows to relate more insights on tape. When I shared my 2001 first draft of "Saint Mae Our Lady of Hips & Quips," weighing in at 350 pages, it was enthusiastically received. One very important close friend of Mae's thought my chapter on one personal assistant was overly harsh. Truth be known, communication with that individual had broken down, and information I utilized was from other members of the "inner group" who had axes to grind.
It took over a decade to mend fences and to obtain a face to face taped interview, which took place over two days, June 4 and 5th, 2013, to be fair in getting his story right. In the ensuing years, many more previously unavailable sources have become available to me to provide a much deeper examination of very important people extremely close to Mae whose voices have never been heard from before. Blending all this new material into my original work has proven to be a huge undertaking. Frankly, I may have more than one book worth of original material, but that ultimately will be the decision of a good editor.
Meanwhile, I would like to share two different cover possibilities I have entertained over the years. However, no final decision has been made. Brian J. Bradley's new book, "Outrageous Misfits" has cited my first draft, "Saint Mae Our Lady of Hips & Quips" in his bibliography. His book on the life and times of Craig Russell is a must read, and he has been very supportive of my project." Mark Desjardins on Facebook.

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

Margaret Branch had a fascinating life, in the French Resistance, studied with Carl Jung, psychiatric social worker with gifted children, did liaison with trans and intersex persons at Guys Hospital, etc. In 2016 it was announced that Ed Knox, a relative of Margaret's wife, was working on a much anticipated biography of Margaret.

That was 10 years ago.

Towards a TS dictionary --- the letter Qq+

2026-04-30T18:54:00.002-04:00

BOLD=cross reference, see item when appropriate letter posted

Qa'cikicheca

Qa'cikicheca (=similar to a man) are assigned-female shamans among the reindeer-herding Chukchi in the very far east of Siberia, who took a young woman as wife with social approval.

Quariwarmi

Assigned-male shamans in female dress in the pre-colonial Inca civilisation who mediated between the symmetrically dualistic spheres of Andean cosmology and daily life.

Queen. Quean

Both words are descended from Proto-Germanic *kwenon or similar, "wife, woman"; which in turn is descended from Proto-Indo-European *gwen- "woman". In addition to meaning a woman, especially a robust or spirited one, they came to mean:

a) A ruling woman or consort of a king

b) A prostitute, an impudent or disreputable woman

c) An effeminate gay man

d) A rather camp rock group

e) A female impersonator

f) A trans woman

The Queen, 1968

A film about the Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant final, which went on to be a sensation at the Cannes International Film Festival, and made a star of Rachel Harlow.

Queens Liberation Front (QLF)

The major New York social and activist group for trans persons in the 1970s. It was founded in 1970 by Barbara De Lamere (using her stage name of Bunny Eisenhower – she was a a member of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company), Lee Brewster (who ran Lee’s Mardi Gras transvestite boutique), Bebe Scarpinato (a teacher), Vicky West (artist) and Chris Moore (performer). They campaigned and hired lawyers to de-criminalise cross-dressing in New York, which was achieved in 1971. Previously, under city ordinances a bar or club could be closed and patrons arrested, simply because a single person, deemed to be cross-dressed, was present. Furthermore the words "homosexuals, lesbians, or persons pretending to be ..." were also struck, thus decriminalising gay clubs and parties. In addition, the still extant 1965 Anti-Mask: New York Penal Law criminalising "the wearing of mask or disguises by three or more persons in a public place" was found inapplicable to those in drag. The QLF publication was Drag, a magazine of Transvestism.

Queer

Possibly from the Indo-European twerkw -> Latin torquere (to twist) and early English cwer (crooked, not straight).

a) 16^th century: strange or illegitimate, and in Scottish as an adjectival form of ‘query’

b) 19^th century: odd. “It was a queer sensation having a woman in the pew beside me”.

c) Late 19^th century: contrary to one’s wish

d) Early 20^th century: sick or ill. Until the 1960s the following was a perfectly innocent remark with no suggestion of sexuality: “Yesterday I felt quite queer, but after a good night’s sleep, today I am completely gay”

e) Mid 20^th century: a pejorative and offensive term for gay or trans people.

f) Late 20^th century: gay and lesbian activists reclaimed the term as an empowering self-designation.

g) Any person whose sexual orientation or gender identity is other than that of the heterosexual mainstream and/or the gender binary.

h) GLBT persons who are not Homonormative.

While many, perhaps older, persons still refuse the term Queer as they were subjected to it as a painful slur, others appreciate it as term of defiance, and also as an inclusive term whereby one need not specify oneself as gay, bi, trans, nonbinary or whatever.

It is particularly useful in distinguishing modern queer persons from Heteronormative Sodomists.

Queer as Folk; Nowt so Queer as Folk

An old English expression, usually spoken in a mock-Yorkshire accent, indicating how strange other people are—thus, until recently not a sex or gender term at all. A longer version is: “th’whole world’s queer ‘cept for me and thee, and oft I wonder about thee”.

In 1999 Russell T Davis produced a television series on Britain’s Channel 4 about life in Manchester’s gay village. He wanted to call it ‘Queer as Fuck’ but settled for the expression “Queer as Folk”. The title was retained for the US remake, set in Pittsburgh, but actually filmed in Toronto’s gay village, despite most US audiences probably not understanding the allusion.

Queerbaiting

A film or television program hints that a character is gay or trans but does not follow through, because keeping its Straight audience is more important. See Queer Coding.

Queer by Choice

A web site for gay and trans person who are not at all satisfied by the supposed Biologistic explanations of being gay or trans. http://www.queerbychoice.com. See Choice.

Queer Coding

Gay or Trans characters in a film or television program when such was illegal or forbidden by the studio bosses. Gay characters such as Disney villains or minor characters in Hitchcock films would signal by dress, comportment or facial expression such that only a minority of viewers caught on. See Queerbaiting.

Queer Heterosexuality

Heterosexuals who are non-traditional in their gender expressions, including masculine women and feminine men, and are Queer positive in their opinions. Many actual Queer people contest this usage maintaining that it is Appropriation.

Queer Music Heritage

An archive compiled by JD Doyle of queer musicians and their music. Includes both drag performers and trans musicians, as well as gay and lesbian musicians. www.queermusicheritage.com.

Queer Nation

An LGBTQ direct-action organization founded in 1990 in New York in reaction to the escalation of anti-gay violence on the streets and prejudice in the arts and media. The group was known for its confrontational tactics, its slogans, and the practice of outing. In 1993 Trangender Nation was founded after dissatisfaction re the groups attitude to trans issues.

Queerphobia

Fear and hatred of all persons whose sex and/or gender is not the standard Cis Heterosexuality.

Queer Street

Not a gender term at all. An old expression for money troubles or even bankruptcy. ‘Queer’ implies contrary to one’s wish.

In 19^th century boxing the term was also used for a boxed who was ‘out on his feet’ – that is stunned but still standing and unable to defend himself.

Some modern writers use 'queer street', ironically or otherwise, for a person's encounter with queer culture.

Queer Theory

An academic discipline that began in the 1980s influenced by philosopher Michel Foucault. Generally they study Gender and sexuality practices other than Cis Heterosexuality as social and cultural phenomena.

Queer, Transgender and Intersex People of Colour (QTIPOC)

An Umbrella term that puts transgender and intersex in focus, rather than gay and lesbian.

Questioning

A person, probably nominally straight, who is exploring and perhaps trying out different labels.

Quim (noun)

Female genitalia, the vulva. More used in the 19^th century by speakers wanting to be naughty. Connected to ‘queem’ a term used in carpentry for an exact fit. See also the cognate term Queen.

Quim (verb)

What a woman does during heterosexual genital sex. (The word ‘fuck’ is more correctly used only for what the man does). In neither standard English vocabulary of literature and science, nor the vernacular vocabulary of uncensored speech, are there other terms for this, except for Swive.

Estelle Asmodelle (1964 - 2026) dancer, activist, model, physicist, artist, musician.

2026-04-26T08:14:00.000-04:00

Original version. January 2009.

Croot was raised in small towns in New South Wales, and at 16 was seriously ill with spinal meningitis, and spent a year in hospital.

Croot transitioned to Estelle Maria Croot while at Wollongong University studying science and maths. She also started creating abstract art on large canvases, and was in a music group that played experimental and avant-garde music. Because of discrimination Estelle left university, and studied dance at Sydney Dance Company and also belly dancing with an Egyptian Dance instructor.

As Estelle Asmodelle she worked as a belly dancer in variety shows in Australia and in East Asia. She was detained in Singapore and elsewhere because her passport had an ‘M’ for gender. She, and others, lobbied the Australian and the New South Wales governments that she be allowed to amend her birth certificate. In 1987, she was the first Australian transsexual to get her birth certificate, and then her passport changed. She also lobbied for changes to the anti-discrimination laws and for research into ectopic pregnancies for transwomen. This resulted in a media storm which she was able to ride appearing in hundreds of magazine articles and frequently on Australian and Japanese television.

She took up modelling to promote her dancing, but it became her more important career. She was the first Australian transsexual to appear nude in a mainstream magazine, Australian Playgirl.

She lived in Japan 1988-1992 working as a model. She had a walk-on part in the Japanese film Ai to heisei no iro – Otoko, 1989, a transgender sexual fantasy that mainly played in art galleries. She also did some technology consulting.

In Australia she was in Secret Fantasies, 1992, and the belly-dance instructional film, The Enchanted Dance, 1994 that was controversial purely because Estelle was trans. She also made an appearance as 'girl on beach' in one episode of the television soap opera Home and Away.

In 1998 she published an autobiographical novel, An Aesthetic Dream - an autobiography. Also that year she founded the internet company Ellenet Pty. Ltd.

In 2000, Estelle lived and modelled in Los Angeles, and took acting classes at the Lena Harris Workshop.

She had continued large canvas abstract art, and was exhibited in Tokyo, Melbourne and Sydney, and Los Angeles. Her first art book was Transience, 2010.

Since 2005 Estelle has been composing electronic music, and has released 11 albums.

In 2008 she took a course in Astronomy at the University of Central Lancashire. She was interested in special and general relativity and its relationship to cosmology and time, and published papers in the Journal of the Institute of Science and Technology and the Asian Journal of Physics. In Cosmos Magazine she published "Neptune's day measured to the second", and "The Milky Way is a galactic cannibal", both June 2012. In 2013 she published Cosmology - the Ultimate Introduction. In June 2012 she became a Member of the Australian Society of Gravitation and General Relativity, and in May 2013 also became a Member of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation (ISGRG).

In 2016 her internet company Ellenet Pty. Ltd was sold.

In 2018 Estelle started a PhD at the Centre for Quantum Computation & Communication Technology, School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, working in the field of quantum mechanics and relativity.

Estelle died, age 62, in 2026.

Music albums:

2009 – Electronic Mischief 2010 – Transelectric 2010 – Dark Universe 2012 – Asmelectrix 2013 – Grooveatropolis Vol I 2013 – Electronic Mischief II 2014 – Near Earth Landscape 2015 – Dark Universe II 2015 – Monotonic Meditations 2015 – Improvera - Quite Moments 2016 – Grooveatropolis Vol II

Some of her newspaper and magazine articles:

Cleo (May 1987), People (Nov 1985 & 1993), Post (Dec 1988 Sep 1992), Penthouse Forum (1986 & 1991), New Idea (March 1986), She (July 1996), New Woman (June 1992 & 1998), Naughty Sydney (Cover – November 1991), Tomadachi (June 1991), Wellbeing (May 1989 & 1993), Nature & Health (November 1997).

EN.Wikipedia. www.asmodelle.com IMDB Alchetron

Wilma Creith (1933-1980) electrican, bus driver

2026-04-11T12:36:00.000-04:00

Creith, an electrician, was married and they had two children, and lived in Belfast. However Creith increasingly could not continue as a man. After Creith did some electrical work for Werner Heubeck, the German managing director of Ulsterbus, Heubeck considered her situation, and offered that she should train as a bus driver. She first drove as a man.

She was assigned to the school run for pupils of Sullivan Upper and Sacred Heart of Mary Grammar in Holywood/Ard Mhic Nasca and St Columbanus in Bangor, both in County Down.

Photo in the Sunday World

Cara-Friend had been set up in 1974 as a volunteer counselling service for GLBT persons in Ulster. In 1976, a separate transsexual support group was formed – Wilma was part of the team.

In 1977, when she socially transitioned Heubeck gave her support. He provided a specially made uniform and shoes for her, and the union and the other drivers followed his lead. In December that year the Belfast Sunday World, outed Wilma on its front page “ ‘Call me Wilma’ says bus man Bill”. Despite this only a few adults objected to her, although some of the children were rather rude.

In 1980 Heubeck gave Wilma five weeks sick pay to travel to England, to St James Hospital, Leeds for completion surgery, and to recover afterwards. The operation apparently went well – making her the first Northern Ireland trans woman to have the operation. Heubeck was the first to phone her after the operation.

But there was a minor complication, and a second operation was carried out. A few days later she died from what was determined to be a pulmonary embolism from high levels of estrogen.

---

In November 2024 theatre director Paula McFetrige put on a play loosly based on Wilma Creith in an actual Ulster Bus from the 1970s parked in the grounds of Belfast Castle.

Sean Boyne. “ ‘Call me Wilma‘ says bus man Bill”. Sunday World, December 1977.
“Ulster sex change man dies“. Belfast Telegraph, 29 August 1980.p1.
“Inquest on sex change victim“. Bradford Telgraph and Argus, 30 August 1980, p13.
Andrew McNair. “The transgender bus driver in 1970s Belfast”. BBC, 18 November 2024. Online.
Bronagh Lawson. “ARTS: All aboard for an inspirational slice of trans history”. com, November 22, 2024. Online.
Paula McFetridge (dir). Suspected Device. Raphaël Amahl Khouri (scr) with Mariah Lauca as Wilam Creith. Performed at Belfact Castle 1 November-1 December 2024.

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

Heubeck was renowned for many things, including redesigning all Belfast bus routes to go in and out of the city centre, and getting Ulsterbus to turn a profit despite the Troubles. But he's best remembered for actually carrying bombs from buses during the Troubles.

In total, 17 employees from both Ulsterbus and Citybus were killed during The Troubles, with 1,484 buses in total being maliciously destroyed from 1964 to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

St James Hospital, Leeds later became the location for the Leeds Gender Identity Service.

When I had surgery a few years later, I was told to stop taking estrogen before and during the operation. I thought that this was standard practice after the unfortunate death of Peggy Wijnen in 1967. I found no discussion of this aspect re Wilma.

Andréa Furet (2002 - ) actrice

2026-03-19T10:27:00.001-04:00

Furet was rasied in Paris, father a communications manager, mother a journalist at the magazine Elle. Furet dreamed of acting, and at age 11 had a first film role, a small male part in La Vallée des mensonges/Meurtres à les Cevennes, which became part of the long running Meurtres à … series, each episode set in a different part of France.

At age 13 Furet was accepted at the Cours Florent drama school. Furet was in a few more films playing teenage males.

A year later Furet discovered the word ‘transidentité’ and immediately connected to it. However it was not until June 2019 when she turned 17 that she came out to her parents and other relatives – and was accepted. She chose the name ‘Andréa’ in homage to the protagonist in The Devil Wears Prada. She was able to start taking female hormones, although then still under 18. Then she did another course at Le Cours Florent, followed by threatre studies at Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle.

In 2020 Andréa was cast at the trans protagonist of Il est elle (He is she) IMDB, adapted from the graphic novel Barricades de Jaypee by Charlotte Bousquet (2018). It was first broadcast in November 2020 on Belgian television in two parts. Iin March 2021, Andréa won the best actress prize and the film script the best script prize at Luchon Television Creations Festival before the French broadcast in November 2021 as one part. The story tells of Juju in a small town whose mother moves her to another town where she is accepted – until social networking outs her.

In May 2022, Andréa Furet competed to be Miss Paris, was one of the twelve finalists, and came second (première dauphine) – the first trans woman to do so.

In 2026 Furet was again in Meurtres à …, in Meurtres en Périgord vert , this time playing the lead police investigator, who is outed as trans 30 minutes in, but continues, and solves the case.

Marie Quenet. “ ‘Il est Elle’ sur TF1 : l'artiste transgenre Andréa Furet interprète une histoire qui fait écho à la sienne”. fr, 2/11/2021. Online.

FR.Wikipedia IMDB

___________________

Meurtres à …, now in its 15^th season, is available in North America on the streaming service mhzchoice.com.

Jenny Moore (1887 - ?) keeper of a disorderly house

2026-03-11T13:08:00.002-04:00

Moore was born in the then slum area of Oakwellgate, Gateshead (just across the River Tyne from Newcastle), and raised as a boy called Robert. Moore and her siblings were raised by their mother. From an early age she had declared herself to be Jennie, a female, and attempted to live as girl. By 1901 13-year-old Robert was incarcerated at the Abbot Memorial Ragged and School, where children under 14 were sent after arrest for vagrancy, truancy and/or begging, or if vulnerable to abuse and neglect. This was an ‘industrial school’ where children were offered skill training and ‘moral education’.

By 1911, when she was 24, Jennie, listed as Robert, was living at a seaman’s boarding house in South Shields and working there as a servant, and was so recorded in the Census of that year.

Daily Mirror 1913

By 1913 Moore was living as Jennie, and was convicted of keeping a disorderly house in Hartlepool, County Durham. She was taken to Durham for trial, and a street photograph of her was published in the Daily Mirror. Many so charged would have appeared in court in male clothing to mitigate the sentence, and claimed the transvesting as a lark or fancy dress. Jennie however was now confirmed in her gender, and appeared as her true self.

Jennie and her brother Fred Coulthard were in Gateshead in 1915. They were observed by the police, and charged with “being a reputed thief he did loiter in Gateshead for the purpose of committing a felony”. Jennie was, as usual, initially taken to be a cis woman, until she was examined at the police station. She explained that she had lived as female when she could since childhood. When asked why, made no reply. A search of Jennir’s home found no male clothes at all, but did find a well-kept neat flat with a piano and a gramophone, good curtains and carpet. The police also found correspondence with a soldier serving in the already ongoing war. Jenny was committed to a men’s prison for three months, and Fred was fined £1/7/-.

In 1916 she was arrested in Liverpool charged with living an immoral life and ‘permitting a house to be used for immoral traffic’. She had been living as Mrs Jennie Gray, wife of James Gray – who was also charged with the same offence. Initially the arresting officers again accepted that she was a cis woman.

“Man who dresses like a woman”. Daily Mirror, 16 December 1913 p9.
"Man as a Woman: A Remarkable Masquerade: Gateshead Man Sent to Prison". Greenock Telegraph. 2 August 1915 p6.
"Man dressed as a Woman: Charge of Loitering at Gateshead: Strange Disclosures". Newcastle upon Tyne Journal, 2 August 1915 p8.
"Man-Woman at Gateshead: Extraordinary Case of Masquerading". The Darlington North Star, 2 August 1915 p5.
“Man in woman’s clothes: Charge of Loitering at Gateshead: Remarkable evidence at the Police Court”. Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 2 August 1915 p9.
“Man dressed as woman: Extraordinary Liverpool disclosures”. Liverpool Evening Express, 29 June 1916 p3.
“Man and ‘Wife’: Male Prisoners sent to Assizes”. Liverpool Daily Post, 30 June 1916 p3.
Nic Aaron & Jeanie Sinclair. "Remembering Jennie Moore" in Kit Heyam & Jon Ward (eds). New and Decolonial Approaches to Gender Nonconformity: Forging A Home For Ourselves. Bloombury Academic, 2025: 87-113.

Unfortunately all we have as primary sources are newspaper articles that give her male name, and treat her as a curiosity. We can however see past these and see a lone trans woman unable to get a regular job, and without information about other trans persons.

1913 was almost the last time that fashionable women wore ankle-length skirts/dresses. The changes brought about by the 1914-8 war led to more practical shorter skirts, and in the 1920s the demands of fashion took this further.

The government had passed the National Insurance Act 1911. All workers who earned under £160 a year had to pay 4 pence a week into the scheme; the employer paid 3 pence, and general taxation paid 2 pence. This provided some sick care and a small income whilst ill. This was the beginning of the welfare state, and was copied from the system that had been introduced in Germany in 1883. This was obviously a good step forward, but the associated NI cards, which were required when starting a job, would have outed Jennie and other trans persons, and thus made it very difficult to get a legal job.

The 1915 conviction re loitering would have been under the 1824 Vagrancy Act, while the 1913 and 1916 convictions of keeping a disorderly house would have been under the 1751 Disorderly Houses Act.

In January 1916, military conscription was introduced for the first time in British history, despite the previous raising of one of the largest all-volunteer armies in history for the Great War. Presumably Jennie’s male persona was called. Did her female persona result in rejection? Did she serve, voluntarily or otherwise, and die on the Western Front (as did the trans protagonist of the novel The Scarlet Pansy)? We have no record of her after 1916.

Whatever happened to her after 1916, Jennie Moore is what we might call a primary transsexual, although she would not know the term. When she was asked in court why she lived as a woman, she did not answer, probably because she had not encountered any suitable jargon even though ‘travesty’ and ‘transvest’ as a verb had been in use in England since the beginning of the 18^th century, and 'Travestiment' was being used by 1832, and 'Travestier' by 1883. It is likely that Jennie did not associate herself with those terms in that they were mainly used for cross-dressing, and she did not voluntarily cross-dress as a man.

False positives

2026-02-27T10:30:00.000-05:00

This is a partial list of persons who are sometimes are listed as trans, but closer inspection shows that they are not.

Francois-Timoléon de Choisy (cross dreamer, yes, but not the out transvestite depicted in the posthumous faux-autobiography)

Edward Hyde/Lord Cornbury Governor of New York and New Jersey (1702-1708) was defamed as cross-dressing by second-hand accounts. Patricia U. Bonomi. The Lord Cornbury Scandal The Politics of Reputation in British America, 1998, demonstrates the lack of substance in the claims.

Anne Bonny & Mary Read Pirates who switched between men’s and women’s clothes as appropriate. Wearing trousers allowed women pirates the freedom to climb, work with ropes, go up and down ladders. All the same reasons that a 21st century cis female sailor also wears trousers etc. At their trial 16 November 1720 in Jamaica, they “plead the belly”. Sentence was suspended so that their pregnancies could be verified.

Charles Edward Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, was on the run after the failure of the Jacobite uprising and the defeat at the Battle of Culloden, 1746, the last battle fought in Britain. The rumour was put out that he passed himself as Betty Burke, an Irish maid, and a painting of a young woman was said to be of him.

John Radclyffe-Hall, nepo-baby super-rich lesbian writer and author of The Well of Loneliness, a trans fiction partially based on the life of her associate Toupie Lowther. (Laura Doan: “[Radclyffe-Hall's] haircut was thought to be the most feminine of all the short cuts popular at the time, and she had her hair done at Harrods — not a barbershop. Even Hall’s famous sartorial choices were on the feminine side of what was known as the ‘severely masculine mode’… Nor did Hall and her partner Una Troubridge dress in a bizarre manner, wearing, as some biographers have claimed, clothing from a costume shop. The couple studied fashion magazines and built their wardrobes not from men’s tailors in Savile Row, but from the most chic of London’s department stores for women. [- unlike trans man Gluck who bought suits from the expensive men’s tailors]. Hall always wore a skirt and conducted herself in a completely womanly way - in short, Hall definitely didn’t model her protagonist, Stephen Gordon, after herself.”)

Herman Göring, commander of the Nazi Luftwaffe (fond of makeup, perfumes, fancy clothes - but fancy male clothes --> a homovestite)

Ernest Hemingway(Given the mild androgyny in The Sun Also Rises, 1926, and the cross gender play with his fourth wife, Mary Welsh which he used in his posthumously published The Garden of Eden. However he grew bored of the game and desisted.)

Bobbie Kimber (did a stage act as a woman, lived as female off-stage, but the claim to have had completion surgery from Dr Burou was disproved when her body was examined at her death).

Theodore Kaczynski (Unabomber) (In 1966 when sex changes were in the news as something new, Kaczynski - and many other cis men - played with the idea of being trans for a short period. When he spoke to a psychiatrist, he spoke of depression, and never about being trans.

Hope Stansbury (based on appearance and associates taken to be trans)

Andrea Feldman (Warhol superstar taken to be trans)

Kimberley Harrison (a cis psychedelist, associate of Timothy Leary, was confused with Kimberley Elliot of Miami's TAO in Susana Pena. "Gender and Sexuality in Latina/o Miami: Documenting Latina Transsexual Activists". Gender & History, 22,3,2010: 763.)

Lanah Pelley (a gender-bender punk who played some female roles in alternative films. Pelley played the male lead in Eat the Rich, 1987, and the advertising claimed, untruthfully, that Pelley had recently transitioned)

Michelle Obama & Brigette Macron. Transvestigation defamations

Marlow Moss (1889-1958) artist

2026-01-28T14:50:00.001-05:00

We have already discussed Madeleine Pelletier and Violet Morris, who while dressing, looking, behaving like (trans) men and being taken as men, retained their female names and she/her (elle) pronouns. This was at a time when the social construction of transsexuality was still decades away in the future. Without role models, without the social construction and without external hormones, Pelletier and Morris made decisions about how to live that differ from the options available to trans men today. Likewise Marlow Moss.

Moss, born and raised in Kilburn by prosperous Jewish parents, studied piano as a child, but this was interrupted for a few years by tuberculosis and the death of the father. A new guardian offered the best teachers for dance and movement, but on the condition of remaining non-professional. This condition Moss refused, and studied at the St John’s Wood School of Art, later cutting off ties with the family to study at the Slade School of Fine Art (which was at that time opposed to any type of modern art). By then the Great War had just finished, and Moss withdrew down to Cornwall for a while.

On return to London Moss shaved the head, switched to male clothes and took the male name of Marlow. Moss read Rimbaud and Nietzsche at the British Museum Reading Room and studied the paintings of Van Gogh and Rembrandt. In 1927, age 37, Moss went to Paris and enrolled at the Académie Moderne, the free art school in Montmartre that had been founded in 1924. Moss studied under the cubist artist Fernand Léger. Moss was one of very few English artists at that time to engage with European Modernism.

Moss was impressed by the early work of the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and his non-representational art which he deemed Neoplasticism. They met in 1929 when Moss’ studio on Boulevard Raspail was only a few doors away from Mondrian’s, and there were lively discussions between them. Like Mondrian and others associated with Neoplasticism and Constructivism, Moss considered radical abstraction the ultimate art form for an increasingly fast-paced and technologically advanced society.

Moss produced a variation on Neoplasticism by using a double line, to render ‘the composition dynamic instead of static’. Despite this criticism, Mondrian incorporated the innovation two years later. He nominated Moss for founding membership of the new Association Abstraction-Création which was to foster abstract art and counter the influence of Surrealism. Mondrian was a mystic, fascinated by the occult and the Theosophist Madame Blavatsky. Moss, on the other hand, was a theoretician, organising her compositions according to a set of mathematical and geometric rules.

Also in 1929 Moss met a Dutch writer, Netty Wind (1897-1971) also known by her married and professional name as Antoinette Hendrika Nijhoff. They became lovers and had a studio at Gauciel, Normandy, a commune to the north-west of Paris where they welcomed other artists.

In 1933, the Swiss abstract artist, Max Bill, encountered Moss and Wind at an opening at a Paris gallery, pointed to a group of pictures on the wall and commented, "Thank goodness Mondrian has sent in such beautiful works!" There was a silence. Then Moss said quietly: "Those are my paintings".

Moss often wore jodhpurs (riding trousers) but sometimes a man’s suit. Many took her to be male, but others thought she was a Garçonne (many of whom wore male or near-male clothes). Despite this Netty and other close friends continued to refer to Moss as ‘elle’, and Moss accepted being addressed as ‘Mademoiselle Moss’.

In September 1938, given the changing political situation, Mondrian moved to London, and in September 1940 after Paris had fallen, he moved to New York City, where he was quite successful. He died in 1944. In recent years, his works have sold for tens of millions.

In 1939 Moss moved to the Netherlands, but when that country was invaded, Moss, being Jewish, quickly left for England, but without Netty who stayed to be with her son. Moss managed to talk her way onto a fishing trawler going to Cornwall.

During the war Moss failed to connect with the artists (some of them abstract) in St Ives. However Moss met a naval engineer, who helped train her to work in metal. Unfortunately in 1944, wartime shelling destroyed the commune in Gauciel, and much of Moss’ earlier work was lost.

After the war, Moss and Nijhoff-Wind reunited and lived alternatively in Den Haag (with Nijhoff-Wind’s husband Martinus Nijhoff) and in Cornwall where Moss had opened a studio in 1940 in the village of Lamorna, a short distance from Penzance. The marriage of Netty Wind and Martinus Nijhoff ended in 1950. He remarried to a Dutch actress, but died in 1953.

Moss’ second phase as sculpturist resulted in solo shows at the Hanover Gallery in London in 1953 and 1958, organised by the agent Erica Brausen, a lesbian: this work made no reference to Mondrian at all, although Moss did still do some Neoplasticist pieces.

Moss died in August 1958, in Penzance. Four years later Nijhoff-Wind published a book about Moss and her art. Moss's postwar work was left, at her death, to Nijhoff's son, Wouter Stefan Nijhoff, a Man Ray-trained photographer who worked under the name Stephen Storm and who died in 1986. He in turn left it to his partner, who has seldom lent or shown the work since.

Antoinette H. Nijhoff-Wind died in March 1971.

In 2014 there was tour of Moss’ work at Tate St Ives, the Leeds Art Gallery, the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings and Tate Britain in London. As a result the Dutch museum that lent two works to the first show was alerted to the fact that they owned Mosses at all. As a result, the paintings are now hanging on the museum's walls for the first time in half a century, and will not be shown at Tate Britain.

A H Nijhoff. Marlow Moss. Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1962.
Germaine Greer. The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work. Farrar Straus Girouxm 1979: 103.
Randy Rosen. “Marlow Moss: Did she influence Mondrian’s work of the thirties?”. Arts Magazine, 53, 1979.
Sarah Wilson. “Marlow Moss” in Delia Gaze. Dictionary of Women Artists. Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
Alan Fowler. Constructivist Art in Britain 1913-2005. PhD Thesis University of Southampton, March 2006: 34-6, 37-9. Online.
Lucy Harriet Amy Howarth, Marlow Moss (1889–1958). PhD Thesis University of Plymouth, 2008. Online.
Élisabeth Lebovici translated by Lucy Pons. “Marlow Moss”. Aware Women Artists, 2013. Online.
Charles Darwent. “Marlow Moss: forgotten art maverick”. The Guardian, 25 Aug 2014, Online.
Lucy Howarth, ‘Marlow Moss: Space, Movement, Light’, in Marlow Moss, Tate Research Publication, 2014. Online.
Alex Pilcher. “Marlow Moss” A Queer Little History of Art. Tate Publishing, 2017: 66-7. Also Online.
Sabine Schaschl-Cooper. A forgotten Maverick: Marlow Moss. Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2017.
Lucy Howarth. Marlow Moss. Eiderdown Books, 2019.
Lucy Howarth. “Queering Constructivism: the legacy of Marlow Moss”. ArtUK.org, 17 Feb 2021. Online.
Gülce Özkara. “Space, Movement, and Body: Marlow Moss” Stedelijk Studies Journal. 11,2022. Online.
“Marlow Moss and the quest for ‘space, movement and light’ “. Christie’s, 13 October 2022. Online.
Nicole Lampert. “The transing of Marlow Moss: It is narcissistic to project our own ideas back through history” . co.uk, 19, May 2023. Online.
Claudio Vogt. “Notes on an Overlooked Maverick”. Vonbartha, June 7, 2024. Online.
Emily Snow. “Marlow Moss: The Queer Abstract Artist Who Influenced Mondrian”. Daily Art Magazine, 21 April 2025. Online.
Florette Dijkstra. De sprong in het licht: Marlow Moss (1889-1958). Querido, 2025.
Joanna Moorhead. “ ‘Her time has come’: did Mondrian owe his success to a cross-dressing lesbian artist who lived in a Cornish cove?”. The Guardian, 12 Jan 2026. Online.

EN.Wikipedia The Tate The Mayor Gallery Kunstmuseum den Haag

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

As with Madeleine Pelletier and Violet Morris, Halberstam's Female Masculinity has nothing to say about Marlow Moss.

Darwent comments:

“Moss's prewar paintings do look like Mondrians, in the way that some early Mondrians look like Derains. There is a difference between influence and imitation. Moss's take on neoplasticism is mathematically based, Mondrian's instinctual. When Moss – always ‘Miss Moss’ to Mondrian – writes to explain her theories to him, he answers, stiffly, ‘Numbers don't make any sense to me.’ Her works look like his, but they also don't.”

Germaine Greer, who does not discuss Moss’ life or gender construction, does write:

“The modern version of this calumny is the easy assumption that is made about closely related male and female painters, that the man led and the woman followed, which accords her the status of an imitator, and assumes that differences in outlook are evidence of inferiority or incompetence. A superficial judgment would place Marlow Moss as an imitator of Piet Mondrian, with whom she spent a great deal of time in Paris between 1929 and 1938, but in fact the relationship between them was one of equals, and in the case of double-line compositions, Mondrian followed the lead set by Moss. Their careers diverged when Moss began to use relief in her paintings with superimposed white slats and collage. She was, as many women have been, interested in constructivism and the boundaries of painting and moved eventually to plastic constructions. It is arguable that she had a greater influence on subsequent developments in twentieth-century painting than Mondrian did.”

Of course the Constructivist Art and Social Construction are completely different things.

Nicholas Stuart Gray (1912 – 1981) children's author, playwright, thespian

2026-01-22T14:49:00.001-05:00

Gray was born in Sydenham. The father was a cork merchant with his own business, and in 1927 he patented a new rear-viewing system for cars. He had been active in amateur dramatics when young, and his sister was a violinist. The mother was born in Leytonstone, of Scots parents, but after being orphaned, grew up in Aberdeen with her maternal grandmother and became a nurse. They were married in Aberdeen, and then lived in north London close to Golders Green tube station, and later in Anerley close to the Crystal Palace, and then in the 1930s in Hove, Sussex, west of Brighton.

Grey was raised as Phyllis Loriot Hatch, the eldest child, and had a sister and two brothers. They had a large house and a nanny. As Nicholas remembered when interviewed in 1973:

“About ten. I wrote stories, and then I would dramatize them. We had a very big nursery with an archway at one end. My mother arranged a curtain for this, and we did plays behind it. She gave us kitchen paper and a screen or two, so we could paint our sets and pin them up. We used to knock up a play in an afternoon and do it in the evening. We charged people a penny admission, and there was no talking.”

Phyllis became a pupil at the Progressive School of Music, Elocution and Dancing in Croydon, and in May 1928 came second in competitive elocution (in the category for ages 15 and 16) at the Croydon Musical Festival, and later that year acted in plays put on by the school’s Progressive Players. That November Phyllis played Bassanio in a Shakespearean medley. In January Phyllis played the lead in a playlet based on Tolstoy’s What Men Live By. In May 1932, Phyllis wrote and acted in a play at the Brighton Music Festival. In July 1933 Phyllis competed for the coveted Ellen Terry Cup at the annual BESS elocution contest.

By that November Phyllis was listed as acting at the prestigious London theatres, Sadler’s Wells and the Old Vic. The Old Vic cast of Macbeth led by Charles Laughton and Flora Robson performed the play on the wireless 8 April 1934. Phyllis was listed as the second witch.

And then Phyllis Hatch disappeared.

In 1938 the seemingly unknown thespian Nicholas Gray talked his way into becoming director of the Try-Out Guild (a group formed to test the interest of theatre management in new plays) saying that he had been acting in repertory theatre in Scotland for ten years. He did this while also giving his birth year as 1922, that is that he was 17. When the war started in September 1939, he joined the local Home Guard, the unpaid armed citizen militia. It is said that he then registered as a Conscientious Objector, and was sent to do farm work.

He still managed to fit in theatre work. In April 1940, Gray’s play Judgment Reserved was performed at the Lindsey Theatre Club in Notting Hill, with Gray playing one of the main parts.

In December 1940 The Slough, Eton and Windsor Observer reported that the female lead at the Theatre Royal, Windsor was indisposed and that Nicholas Gray stepped in to replace her.

“When at the end of the performance, the audience were let into the secret, there was a general gasp of surprise, and an enthusiastic round of applause for Mr Gray. His movements and voice were perfect for the part, and despite the fact that he is not himself effeminate, his acting was quite feminine.”

In August 1948 his play The Haunted, was the first at the re-opened Torch Theatre Club in Kensington. BBC television had been resumed in June 1946 after its closure during the war, and The Haunted was broadcast on television October 1948.

Gray had noticed that there were radio and television shows for children, and cartoon matinées at the cinema, but nothing in live theatre except pantomime. He said that he did not actually like children, but wanted to introduce children to live theatre while young in order to ensure an ongoing audience when they grew up. His first children’s play to be written was The Tinder Box, but the first performed was a variation on Beauty and the Beast which was performed at the Mercury in Notting Hill Gate at Christmas 1949 with set design by Joan Jefferson Farjeon, and ran for a week of sell-outs. Gray and Farjeon then founded the London Children’s Theatre.

Beauty and the Beast became a perennial favourite, revived Christmas after Christmas, And one success led to others, and Gray quickly became a famous children’s playwright. Many of the plays were based on well-known fairy tales, usually with a twist. The plays were usually with set designs by Farjeon – and the two had a life-long friendship. Farjeon also did set design for plays by Agatha Christie.

Gray continued to act not only in his own plays but also in Shakespeare plays as Hamlet, Richard II and Iago.

The Daily Telegraph columnist Winefride Jackson wrote, 3 January 1957:

“I asked Mr. Gray how he assessed the appeal of his plays to children. ‘I write what pleases me. As I consider I have the IQ of an average child it seems to work.’ When I murmured that he was surely under-rating himself he replied, ‘Certainly not. The average child is very intelligent. One assumes that children grow cleverer as they grow older. Personally I think they grow more stupid. Young children have a merciless logic and are extremely critical.’ “

In 1959 Nicholas finally had gender surgery, although neither the doctor who prescribed testosterone, nor the surgeon are documented. Apparently no oophorectomy (removal of ovaries) was done, perhaps because Gray was close to menopause.

Nocholas acquired a retreat, a farm in Devon. He was strongly opposed to hunting foxes with hounds, and in October 1968 he was in the news when he warned a hunt away from his land while carrying an ancient blunderbuss. In November 1971 he wrote to the Western Daily Press “and also the national press, but they ‘regretfully’ would not print my letters” to mention the widespread distaste for hunting with hounds.

In 1973 Gray was interviewed for an anthology on children’s literature.

Overall Gray wrote twelve published plays for children; at least two unpublished plays for adults and two (plus one “scientific entertainment”) for children; eight novels, one novella and three collections of short stories for children; one adult whodunnit novel; one collection of poetry and one book of autobiography centred on his cats. Some of his later works were illustrated by his sister, Winifred May Hatch.

Gray died age 68 in March 1981. The death certificate stated: “a) Bronchopneumonia; b) Carcinomatosis; c) Ca Ovary (*NB Sex Change 1959)”, that is pneumonia after ovarian cancer. He left his royalties and copyrights to his siblings, and a niece, and Joan Jefferson Farjeon. His modest estate was reported as valued at £33,101 (£130,000 today),

Joan Jefferson Farjeon died age 93 in 2006.

“The wireless performance of Macbeth”. The Guardian, 7 April 1934: 14.
“Judgment Reserved”. The Kensington News and West London Times, 5 April 1940: 5.
“ ‘Leading Lady’ who was a man: No-one realised it”. The Slough, Eton and Windsor Observer, 6 December 1940: 1.
“Torch Theatre Club: The Haunted”. Kensington and Chelsea News, 14 Aug 1948: 4.
“The Mercury Theatre”. The Kensington News and West London Times, 16 December 1949: 3.
“Children’s film corner”. The Kensington News and West London Times, 16 January 1953: 3.
Winefride Jackson. “Writing for children”. The Daily Telegraph, 3 January 1957: 5.
D. “Puss in Boots, Lyric, Hammersmith”. The Kensington News and West London Times, 4 January 1957: 9.
M.P. “You must take your imagination along”. The Sutton and Cheam Advertiser, 31 December 1959: 8.
Stephen Amys. “Puss on Boots is cat of character”. The Eastern Evening News, 30 December 1967: 5.
Douglas Slight. “A Blunderbuss stops the Hunt”. Daily Mirror, October 10, 1968:13.
“Gunman farmer hunts a hunt”. Western Daily Press, 10 October 1968: 4.
Nicholas Stuart-Gray. “Tally-Ho! The M5 Foxhounds”. Western Daily Press, 18 November 1971: 6.
“Nicholas Stuart Gray Interviewed by Justin Wintle” In Justin Wintle and Emma Fisher. The Pied Pipers: Interviews with the influential creators of children’s literature. Paddington Press Ltd, 1974: 147-160.
“Obituary: Nicholas Gray”. The Daily Telegraph, 19 March 1981: 16.
“Beastly beginnings”. The Daily Telegraph, 19 March 1981: 18.
“Actor’s estate”. Southern Daily Echo, 27 October 1981:2.
“Nicholas Stuart Gray”, in Janet Podell (ed). The Annual Obituary 1981, St Martin’s Press, 1982.
Rob Maslen. “Nicholas Stuart Gray, Down in the Cellar (1961)”. The City of Lost Books, March 24, 2020. Online.
Ann Harvey. “Joan Frances Farjeon (Joan Jefferson Farjeon), scenic designer: born London 26 May 1913; died Northwood, Middlesex 8 August 2006”. The Independent, August 13, 2006.
Claire Jordan. “The Performance of a Lifetime: the many roles of Nicholas Stuart Gray”. Old Tails for New Primates, Online.

EN.Wikipedia IMDB SF Encyclopedia

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

This article is in part a precis of Claire Jordan’s much longer account based on her own research – which is excellent, and which I suggest if you want more detail.

When Gray transitioned in 1939, he gave his birth year as 1922 or 1923, and some publications say 1919.

Why did he choose ‘Gray’ as a surname? Jordan suggests:

“Maybe because hatching is a way of making greyscale in art using black ink, which he would know because his sister Winifred grew up to be a commercial artist. Also, because he was using his new name to live as a man whilst still, for the moment, anatomically female, he might have been making a rather dark joke about the traditional saying ‘All cats are grey in the dark’, explained by Wiktionary as ‘Sex is enjoyable regardless of the physical attractiveness or social station of one’s partner.’ ”

Why did Gray reduce his age by 10 years? Almost certainly to look like an androgynous youth. Michael Dillon was prescribed testosterone at the end of the 1930s, and is generally taken to be the first trans man anywhere to receive such. However it is possible that Dr George Foss who prescribed to Dillon, also prescribed to Gray. If so it is not documented. Men of Gray’s actual age were of course being conscripted after the war started in September 1939. Jordan suggests that Gray was so called, but had to undergo the standard medical examination. The doctor rather than out Gray as trans, supported his assignment to the Home Guard, and later as a Conscientious Objector.

Jordan comments

“ Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, has definite echoes of some of Gray’s work: the play The Other Cinderella revolves around a demon and a good fairy who are officially meant to be vying for control of human souls but are secretly friends and collaborators, a lot like Crowley and Aziraphale; and the episodic novel The Garland of Filigree features a demonic hound called Gytrash who decides that he is more dog than demon – again, decidedly reminiscent of the hell-hound called Dog in Good Omens”.

Jordan’s webpage includes a bibliography of Gray’s writings, but does not include the early plays under the name of Phyllis Hatch.

Rob Maslen's article is a good overview of the contents of Gray's fiction.

A review of James I. Martin’s Sexual and Gender Minority History: A Counter-Narrative. Oxford University Press, 2025.

2025-12-21T16:44:00.002-05:00

This is a LGBT+ history book. However I will be reviewing mainly the trans elements.

Despite the title, this book is a history of LGBT in the US only, apart from a quick foreshadowing in Weimar Germany. The one and only mention of England is the names of the last two men to be hanged for sodomy in 1830 - that is it, really. I am surprised that Martin’s English publisher, Oxford University Press, did not insist on adding the term “US” into the books title.

James I. Martin was an Associate Professor at the NYU Silver School of Social Work where he published several sociological and social psychological studies of sex and gender minorities. He did not publish as a historian.

In chapter 2 “Germany in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries” Martin gives quickie summaries of Károly Mária Kertbeny, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Magnus Hirschfeld, Adolf Brand etc. Of Hirschfeld (p 14-16) Martin tells us that he was a co-founder in 1897 of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee which applied three times to the Reichstag to decriminalise homosexuality, and in 1919 he founded the Institute for Sexual Science. As Martin tells it, he presumably did no work with trans persons in that none are mentioned. On p27 we are told of the destruction of the Institute. On p95, while discussing Virginia Prince, Martin says erroneously: “At the time, such men referred to themselves as transvestites, the English translation of a term invented by Magnus Hirschfeld more than 40 years earlier”. And equally erroneously “transsexuals, an identity label also invented by Hirschfeld”.

Having skirted around Germany’s trans history, Martin then totally ignores that of England, France, Italy, Brazil, India, Thailand, etc.

The first transvesting, anywhere, that he mentions is in Chapter 4 “Foundations in the United States” where there is a single paragraph on female-born persons who fought as men in the US civil wars of the 1770s and the 1860s such as Deborah Sampson and Albert Cashier. This is followed by a full page on Charlie Parkhurst, Mary Fields and other unnamed masculine women/trans men on the frontier. (p33-5) For male-born persons, he mentions only the gender social construction of ‘fairy’ particularly in New York (p40-1), drawing mainly on George Chauncey’s Gay New York - although one searches in vain in Martin’s book for the best known ‘fairy’ who published two books and many journal articles in this period, that is Jennie June/Ralph Werther/Mowry Saben. Nor is there any mention of the first sexological study of trans women in the US, that by Bernard Talmey, 1913-4.

In his chapter 4 summary, Martin writes: “Men developed devoted and sometimes sexual relationships in the all-male cowboy, railroad, mining, and logging communities of the frontier West before encroaching settlement extinguished their freedom to do so. Many women escaped their prescribed gender role by dressing and behaving as men in military service or by living independently in the rural West.” There is no mention of the few male-born persons who did socially transition such as Alice Baker and Mrs Noonan, army wife.

Chapter 5 “The Jazz Age” quickly summarises prohibition and the Harlem Renaissance. Cross-dressing singer Gladys Bentley (p47,60) is mentioned, as are the Hamilton Lodge Balls (p50,60), Julian Eltinge (p51) and The Pansy Craze, where only Gene Malin (p52) is mentioned. Strangely he mentions Radclyffe-Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, in The Pansy Craze section - John Radclyffe-Hall would not be amused. Pansies such as Frankie Jaxon, Valda Grey, Rae Bourbon are not mentioned.

Chapter 6 “The 1930s and the Great Depression ” tells of the post-Prohibition drag clubs in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. But not much else re trans persons.

Chapter 7 “The World at War” is almost all about gay man and lesbians in the military. It does not mention then-starting ball organizer Phil Black, nor the research by Jan Gay that included several biographies of trans women and was published as George W. Henry’s Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns, 1941, nor the arrival of the US’s first completed trans woman, Charlotte Charlaque, a patient of Magnus Hirschfeld who had been deported from Nazi Germany.

Chapter 8 “The 1950s and the Homophile Movement ” describes the Lavender Scare and state oppression on one hand, and the emerging gay and lesbian self-help organizations on the other: Mattachine, One Inc, Daughters of Bilitis - and then very quickly (p95) Virginia Prince and Christine Jorgensen. However the trans pioneer activist Louise Lawrence is not mentioned at all, and Harry Benjamin who introduced Prince and Jorgenson to each other is not mentioned until later.

Likewise: Claire Elgin, who would later become a successful business woman and the first trans woman millionaire, was creating waves in 1953-4 but is not mentioned, nor is Tamara Rees. In 1953 Harry Benjamin participated in a symposium with the Austrian neuro-psychiatrist Emil Gutheil. Benjamin’s paper, “Transsexualism and Transvestism as Psycho-Somatic and Somato-Psychic Syndromes” is in effect the first draft of what 12 years later will become his book The Transsexual Phenomenon. From the early 1950s, Dr Elmer Belt in Los Angeles started doing vaginoplasty for trans women at the urging of Benjamin. This predated the team led by Poul Fogh-Andersen in Copenhagen, and Belt was doing vaginoplasty using skin grafts from the thigh, buttocks or back while the Fogh-Andersen team was doing only orchiectomy and penectomy. In 1958 the 19-year-old trans woman we refer to as Agnes approached Dr Robert Stoller at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center and persuaded him that she was intersex, leading to successful vaginoplasty. These are major events in the history of transsexuality in the US, and yet Martin seems totally indifferent to them.

Chapter 9 “A Rising Tide of Resistance” opens with the general uprisings of the 1960s, by blacks, feminists and anti-war protestors. The gay/trans riots at Cooper Do-Nuts, Los Angeles; Dewey’s restaurant, Philadelphia and Compton’s Cafeteria, San Francisco are mentioned. After more details of gay/lesbian activism, there is a short summary of Virginia Prince and the creation of the Foundation for Personality Expression (FPE) and Reed Erickson and his financing of Harry Benjamin’s work. The Transsexual Phenomenon is mentioned. (all p111) Stryker is given as the sole authority for all three. Neither Docter’s nor my biographies of Prince are referred to.

However Donald Wollheim/Darrel Raynor’s influential book, A Year Among the Girls, is not even mentioned; nor is Susan Valenti’s Casa Susana’s trans getaway in the Catskills; nor Andy Warhol’s ‘superstars’, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn and Jackie Curtis; nor Jane County; nor Rachel Harlow.

A major omission is the opening in the late 1960s of the university hospital gender clinics: Johns Hopkins, Minnesota; Stanford, UCLA. Even major sex-change doctors other than Benjamin, such as John Money at Johns Hopkins and Robert Stoller at UCLA are not mentioned as such, only as authors of one or two papers. Drs Stanley Biber and Marci Bowers are also not mentioned.

Chapter 10 “Stonewall and its Aftermath” briefly summarizes David Carter’s book, avoids naming any persons who may have been present at the riots, but does names journalists who wrote about them. The Queens Liberation Front founded by Lee Brewster and Barbara de Lamere is mentioned (p120-1), but Martin follows Susan Stryker in not naming Barbara correctly - but only by a short-lived stage name of ‘Bunny Eisenhower’. This is to refer to a trans woman only by one of her dead names. Barbara was one of very few New York trans women of the late sixties to eventually achieve completion surgery. Brewster’s Mardi Gras Boutique which lasted for 30 years, and was the place to shop for trans persons, impersonators and others, is not mentioned. Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries and STAR house, both founded by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson are mentioned but we are not told what happened to Sylvia and Marsha in later years, not even that Marsha was murdered.

However trans activist groups in other US cities at the same time are not mentioned at all: such as TAO in Miami or COG in San Francisco, nor entertainment troupes like the Cockettes.

Martin writes (p124) “During the 1970s, Virginia Prince used the term transgenderist to refer to gender-variant people who did not consider themselves transsexuals, particularly those who were male bodied. However, it would take until the 1990s for transgender to become an umbrella term for most, if not all, gender-variant people”. This sentence has several difficulties. Prince did use ‘transgender’, ‘transgenderist’, ‘transgenderal’ but only a few times. She was by nature transgenderphobic, but the false attribution of her endorsing the word while being the most divisive of trans activists caused many to not adopt the term ‘transgender’ for a long time. For more detail see my The Myth that Transgender is a Princian Concept.

Chapter 11 “Turbulence and Visibility in the 1970s”. A lot happened re trans persons in the later 1970s: Lou Reed and Rachel; Benjamin’s practice was inherited by Jeanne Hoff who herself transitioned; the Diane Delia murder; DSM III removed homosexuality and added transvestism; Kim Kristy discovered Sulka and reverted to male and became editor of Female Mimics; Rachel Harlow dated the brother of Grace Kelly; the film Let Me Die a Woman was released; The Johns Hopkins Gender Clinic was closed; Dog Day Afternoon.

However the only trans event for this period mentioned by Martin is the Erickson Educational Foundation’s symposiums that later became the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA) symposiums, and their first Standards of Care. He does not mention that HBIGDA later became WPATH.

Chapter 12 “The Deluge and Beyond”. This is the 1980s and the scourge of AIDS. Martin says nothing of trans women dying of AIDS although many did. He lists (p158-9) Leslie Feinberg, the adoption of the word ‘transgender’, states allowing birth certificates and driver’s licences to be changed, The International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy, GenderPAC, Brandon Teena and Boys Don’t Cry, Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Here the book stops. Was a first draft written 35 years years ago, but only now published? That would certainly explain some of the omissions, although there are citations to much more recent books.

Why does Martin call this book a ‘counter-narrative’? “Counter-narratives are stories told from the perspectives of people who are marginalized in society, and thus they serve to resist the domination and marginalization perpetuated by the dominant narrative.” The problem is that such a counter-narrative has already been done many times in books by George Chauncy, Lillian Faderman, Florence Tamagne etc. These three are cited, and are mainly histories of gays and lesbians. Histories of trans people that are not cited and their contents not used in Martin’s bibliography: for Weimar Germany: Rainer Herrn, Raimund Wolfert; for the US: Michail Takach, Barry Reay.

Reay had previously named his book Trans America: A Counter-History. However I would deny the term ‘counter-history’ in both cases as they both draw on established and published histories. At this point in time, a counter history would draw on neglected sources and alter our perceptions of our own history.

Not that I have any problems with the books by Chauncey, Faderman, Tamagne etc. They are on my shelves and I do return to them now and then. But there is a new generation of historians who are looking at our history differently: Benjamin Kahan, Laurie Marhoefer, Ben Miller, Sabine Meyer and of course Rainer Herrn and Raimund Wolfert.

At £49.00/US$109.30/C$121.55/€76.99 Martin’s book is outrageously overpriced, without delivering quality content.

If you want a trans history of the US, despite much repeating of what is well known, I suggest Reay’s book, at a fraction of the price.

If you want a queer history of the US, mainly about gays and lesbians, but with a lesser part on trans history, I suggest (also at a reasonable price):

Michael Bronski's A Queer History of the United States - a review.

Elisa Menezes Duarte (1949 - 1980) performer, bombadeira, travesti boss, murdered

2025-12-13T14:14:00.002-05:00

Original July 2023, revised and updated December 2025

During the 1970s travesti sex workers in Brazil became more accepted by some members of the public, if not by the police, and along with that there were two other developments:

1) the injection of silicone rather than the more dangerous oil or paraffin to feminise the body. Such pumping (bombadas) was first done in New York by competent doctors such as Dr David Wesser, but a few years later was being done by non-doctors (such as Jimmy Treetop in New York).

2) A few Brazilian travestis had managed to get to Paris, and returned rich enough to buy not one but two or more apartments. The first was almost always for their mother: a casa da minha mãe. Then greater numbers went. At the peak of the migration there were – for a short while – special charter flights for travestis (although in mufti). It was estimated that of 700 prostitutes in France, 500 were from Brazil – and they had taken over the main prostitution venues in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne. They were treated somewhat better than in Brazil – they were addressed as Madame or Mademoiselle, but they were still living on the margin, subject to violence and having to pay both the police and a travesti boss for a place to stand. The French prostitutes’ union protested their presence, accusing them of unfair competition in that as illegal immigrants they did not pay taxes.

Elisa was from a relatively well-off family in Rio de Janeiro. She participated in some Carnival balls, and performed in the Săo Paulo stage show Les Girls when it came to Rio

Elisa (in Et il voulut)

. She had been able to afford to be pumped in New York. She learned how to do it, and after buying silicone in New York, she set up in business in Paris in 1973 as a bombadeira. She did have a gig at Chez Madame Arthur, but mainly controlled the prostitution ‘stands’ and was known as la Reine de Pigalle. If a Brazilian sex worker did not accept her terms, she could get the worker deported, as happened to Jaqueline Welch.

Elisa was featured in the film Et il voulut être une femme, about travestis and other trans women in Paris in the 1970s. The film includes Elisa's surgery.

Competition came from Claudia Tavares, who was also a bombadeira, who sourced her silicone in Paris and had cheaper prices. Elisa put a lot of pressure on Claudia, to get her to leave France. Threats and violence mounted until Claudia killed Elisa.

Claudia in later years,

Claudia was convicted for the killing, served seven years in a men's prison, afterwards obtained completion surgery in France, found a husband and became a celebrity chef providing Brazilian cuisine. She has written some books, giving her version of things.

After the murder, many rivalries, envy, scandals, and threats surfaced among the immigrant travesti sex workers themselves. At the same time, the pressure from the French authorities grew: between 1980 and 1984, expulsions were multiplied because of irregularities in their visas. Migration of Brazilian travestis to Italy and other European countries commenced.

Michel Richaud (dir). Et il voulut être une femme, with Elisa. France 76 mins 1978. IMDB. Part 1 online.
“Reavesti brasileiro é assassinado em Paris”. Cidade de Santos, 1.11.1980: 7.
"Elisa morreu na Praça Pigalle. Mataeam o maior travesti do mundo”. Diário da Manhã, 2.11.1980: 1.
Joao S Trevisan translated by Martin Foreman. Perverts in Paradise. Gay Men’s Press, 1986: 165.
Don Kulíck. Travesti : Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes. Univeristy of Chicago Press. 1998: 178, 217.
Julieta Vartabedian. Brazilian Travesti Migrations: Gender, Sexualities and Embodiment Palgrave Macmillan, 2018 : 89, 197.
Igor Danin, research 2025.

A tentative list of Claudia's books:

Claudia Tavares. A volta da gata. Livaria Editoria, 1983.
-- La femme inachevée. Editions R Deforges, 1987. *
-- Circonstances atténuantes : Récit. Nicolas Philippe, 2002. *
-- A Rejeitada. Cia, dos Livros, 2011.
-- Claudia. Faralonn éditions, 2022.
-- La volonté d'exister. Nombre 7, 2023.

*=discusses Elisa.

-----

No surname is given by either Vartabedian or Kulíck. Vartabedian has no entry in her index for any Elisa. Kulíck has an index entry for a different Elisa, but not this one.

Vartabedian writes: “During the beginning of the 1970s, the first ‘pumped up’ (bombadas) travestis did it in the United States, in New York, with the practitioner Wesser.” Apparently she did not know that Wesser was a doctor, even though I wrote of him two years before her book came out.

The practice of pumping silicone spread across Brazil and south America during the 1980s. In 1983 there was a sort of epidemic in São Paulo where many travestis were dying painfully after industrial silicone was sold as filtered silicone. (Trevisan p165).

Claudia's books are very hard to find. As is the film, Et il voulut être une femme.

Health warning: estrogen is far better than silicone for feminisation.

Books on Gender Variance in 2025 - Part 2: other categories

2025-12-05T15:00:00.006-05:00

$£¥ €=Excessively overpriced books.

T S Avini. The New Gender Paradigm: Exploring Progressive Gender Identities. 2025.
Kath Browne & Emily Kazyak. Polarising Sexualities and Genders: Divisions, Differences and Lgbtqia+ Equalities. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.
Margot Canaday. Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America. Princeton University Press, 2023.
$£¥ € Jonah Garde. Trans Geschichten der Moderne »Geschlechtsumwandlung« im 20. Jahrhundert und ihre kolonialen Geister. Transcript Verlag, 2025.
$£¥ € Anne Henkings-Soares. Transsexualism and Transgenderism. 2025
$£¥ € Silvia Posocco, EJ Gonzales-Polledo, Lars Aaberg & Tunay Altay. Queer and Trans Life: Anthropological Futures. Berghahn Books, 2025.
Mirha-Soleil Ross. Gender Trash from Hell: The First Print Collection of the Zine That Changed Everything. Little Puss Press, 2025.
Holly Talons. Transgender Travel Guides. various countries. 2025.

Media

$£¥ € Sarah Donley & Melencia Johnson (eds). Intersectional Experiences and Marginalized Voices: Research, Analysis, and Praxis. Routledge, 2025.
$£¥ € Paige Macintosh. Debating Authenticity: Authorship, Aesthetics and Embodiment in Trans Media. Edinburgh University Press, 2025.

Legal & Activism

$£¥ € Flora Renz. Gender Recognition and the Law: Troubling Transgender Peoples' Engagement with Legal Regulation. Routledge 2025.

Crime & Imprisonment

$£¥ € Olga Suhomlinova, Saoirse Caitlin O’Shea. Transgender and Non-Binary Prisoners’ Experiences in England and Wales. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2024.

Philosophy and Queer Theory

Talia Mae Bettcher. Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy. University of Minnesota Press, 2025.
Christian Flavigny. Comprendre le phénomène transgenre: La réponse par la culture française. Ellipses, 2023. “the notion of ‘gender’, specific to United States society, applies poorly to French society.”
Kay Gabriel. Perverts. Nightboat Books, 2005.
Ella Haselswerdt, Sara H Lindheim & Kirk Ormand (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Theory. Routledge, 2024.
Samuel Clowes Huneke. A Queer Theory of the State. Floating Opera Press, 2025.
$£¥ € Melanie Micir. Contemporary Queer Modernism. Routledge, 2025.

Feminism

Jude Doyle. Did I Leave Feminism? A Trans and/or Feminist Manifesto. Melville House, 2025.
Sophie Lewis. Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation. Haymarket Books, 2025.
$£¥ € Isis Nusair & Barbara L. Shaw. Pedagogies of Interconnectedness: Feminist-Queer Collaborative Transformation. University of Illinois Press, 2025.
Ben Vincent, Sonja Erikainen & Ruth Pearce (eds). TERF Wars: Feminism and the fight for transgender futures. The Sociological Review, 2025.

Disabled

Alex Iantaffi (ed). Trans and Disabled: An Anthology of Identities and Experiences. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2025.
S E Thomson. A Life in Too Many Margins. Kindle, 2025.

Education

D Chase Catalano et al (eds). Envisioning a Critical and Liberatory Approach to Trans and Queer Center(ed) Diversity Work. Peter Lang AG, 2025,
Claire Jenkins. Wrong Bodies Wrong Schools: Trans children in today's schools. Troubador Publishing, 2025.
$£¥ € Elizabeth J Meyer. Queer Justice at School: A Guide for Youth Activists, Allies, and Their Teachers. Teachers College Press, 2025.
Steve Mobley et al (eds). Embracing Queer Students’ Diverse Identities at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: A Primer for Presidents, Administrators, and Faculty. Rutgers University Press, 2024.
Perry Zurn. How We Make Each Other: Trans Life at the Edge of the University. Duke University Press, 2025. ( Using the Five Colleges in Massachusetts as a case study, Zurn notes that Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, have been at the forefront of developing trans-inclusive policies in higher education)

Biology

Josh L Davis. A Little Queer Natural History. University of Chicago Press, 2024.
Agustin Fuentes. Sex is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary. Princeton University, 2025.
Nathan Lents. Diversität: Der biologische Sinn hinter der Vielfalt von Sex, Gender und Geschlecht. DuMont Buchverlag GmbH, 2025.

Arts & Photography

Dawn Hoskin. The Short Story of Queer Art: A Pocket Guide to Key Movements, Works, Themes & Breakthroughs. Lawrence King Publishing, 2025.
Jon Key. Black, Queer, and Untold: A New Archive of Designers, Artists, and Trailblazers. Levine Querido, 2024.
Michael Malott. Andy Warhol: The Real King of Pop. 2025.
Cesar Leo Marcus. Art History from an LGBT Perspective. 2025
$£¥ € Paul Martineau & Ryan Linkof (eds). Queer Lens: A History of Photography. Getty Publications, 2025.
Joséphin Péladan. De l'androgyne, théorie plastique: le premier essai théorique sur hermaphrodisme, androgynie et transgenre en art. Culturea, 2022.

Music

Taylor Prescott. American Pop—Behind the Mask: Queer Voices in 1950s Pop Culture. 2025.

Drag & Camp

Simon Doonan with illustrations by Kenzo Hamazaki. The Camp 100: Glorious flamboyance, from Louis XIV to Lil Nas X. While Lion Publishing, 2024.
Richard Fleishman. Fierce, Fabulous, and On Stage: The Drag Revolution on Broadway, 2025.
Velvet LaRue. Peach Ball Diaries: A History of Atlanta’s Drag Underground. 2025.
David Marshall. Queen RuPaul: The Queen Who Brought Drag to the Mainstream. How one star turned drag into a global revolution of art, pride, and identity. 2025
$£¥ € Joe Parsloe. Their Majesty: Drag Performance and Queer Communities in London. Routledge, 2025.
V J Pumpdabeat. Welcome to Ballroom: A Newcomer's Complete Guide: Unabridged. 2025.

Fashion

Andersson. The Dandy: A People's History of Sartorial Splendour. Oxford University Press, 2025.
Eleanor Medhurst. Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion. Hurst & Co, 2024.
$£¥ € Kelly Reddy-Best. Queer and Trans Fashion Brands: Resistance and Revolution in the 21st Century. Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2025.

Theatre & Cinema & Television

Jayne T Hayes. Erased Voices: The Untold Story of Chanel Stewart and the Lost Transgender Narrative in Disney's Win or Lose. 2024.
Michael Koresky. Sick and Dirty: Hollywood's Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness. Bloomsbury, 2025.
Fintan Walsh. Performing the Queer Past: Public Possessions. Methuen Drama, 2025.

Sports

Harrison Browne & Rachel Browne. Let Us Play: Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes. Beacon Press, 2025.
Travis R Bell & Anne C Osborne. Gender Defenders of the Sport Binary: Mediating Discourses of Difference against Intersex and Transgender Female Athletes. Peter Lang, 2025.

Guidebooks

Hormones et Transidentité: Livre transgenre LGBT | Guide complet sur les hormones, la transition MTF et le coming out des personnes transgenres. 2024.
D B. A Guide to a Successful Transition for Trans Men: With Hormone Therapy & Top Surgery Support and My Personal Journey. 2025.
Jenn der Bentson. An Introductory Guide to Crossdressing. 2025.
Jimmy Chen. Owning Your Voice: A Trans Voice Guide on Shaping and Finding your voice. Trans Voice Lab, 2025.
Jacob Engelsman. Lactation for the Rest of Us: A Guide for Queer and Trans Parents and Helpers. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2025.
Louis Feghlou. Le Petit guide de la transidentité - Comprendre, vivre, accompagner et défendre les transidentités. First, 2025.
Taylor Foles. Masculine Muscle Method: Masculine Muscle Method: The Complete Fitness & Strength Guide for Trans Men to Build Muscle, Burn Fat, and Own Their Masculinity. 2025.
NV Gay. The Queer Allies Bible: The Ultimate Guide to Being an Empowering LGBTQIA+ Ally. lg Publishing, 2025.
Oliver L Haimson. Trans Technologies. The MIT Press, 2025.
Adrien Lawyer, Erik wolf, T Michael Trimm & Molly McClain. Gender Transition For Dummies. For Dummies, 2025.
Gia May. Transgender Women Are Just Women Finding Their Inner Goddess. 2025.
David Scholz. Transidentität Und Geschlechtliche Vielfalt Im Arbeitsumfeld: Ein Praxisbuch Für Unternehmen Und Den Öffentlichen Dienst. Springer Gabler, 2025.
Martine Song. How To Pass As Female: Helpful Hints for Crossdressers and Tgirls. 2025.
Rahim Thawer. The Mental Health Guide for Cis and Trans Queer Guys: Skills to Cope and Thrive as Your Authentic Self. New Harbinger Publications, 2025.

Trans Children & Youth

Marta Matyszewska. Parent's Guide to Transgender children: Support your child journey. Kindle, 2025.
Marie Newman. Supporting Your Transgender Child: Made-From-Scratch Planning Guide. 2025.
Elizabeth Payne & Melissa Smith (eds). Queer Kids and Social Violence: The Limits of Bullying. University of Minnesota Press, 2025.
Sabina Pignataro. Nati fuori binario. Infanzie e adolescenze transgender nell'Italia di oggi. Il Margine, 2025.
Tara Romaine. CHILDREN’S GENDER REASSIGNMENT AND THE UNSEEN DANGERS: Exploring the psychological, medical, and ethical risks of gender transition in minor. Kindle, 2025.
Alexis Stratton, Adam Polaski & Jasmine Beach-Ferrara. Trans Kids, Our Kids: Stories and Resources from the Frontlines of the Movement for Transgender Youth. Ig Pub, 2025.

Couples & Family

Pete Cossaboon. Hidden Unions: Exploring Same-Sex Marriage in the Middle Ages through John Boswell’s Lens. 2025
Kirsty Loehr. A Short History of Queer Parenting. Oneworld Publications, 2025.

Non-Binary

Lou ms.Femme. Rivoluzione non binaria: Viaggio nell'enby femminismo. Le plurali editrice, 2025.

Intersex

Sylvia Sellers-Garcia. The Criminal Case of Juana Aguilar: Adjudicating Gender in Colonial Central America. Penn State University Press, 2025.
Juliana Gleeson. Hermaphrodite Logic: A History of Intersex Liberation. Verso, 2025.
François Soyer. ‘Catalan Hermaphrodite’ and the Inquisition, The: Early Modern Sex and Gender on Trial. Bloomsbury, 2025.

Cis-Heterosexuality

Rebecca Harrison. Misogyny and the psychology of masculinity. Samsara, 2025.
$£¥ € Samuel Rutherford. Teaching Gender: The British University and the Rise of Heterosexuality, 1860–1939. Oxford University Press, 2025.
Jordan Windholz. The Single Life: Unpatriarchal Manhoods in English Renaissance Literature. University of Alabama Press, 2025.

Medical Care

Hannah Barnes. Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the World's Largest Gender Service for Children. Pitchstone Publishing, 2024.
Davide Costa. Beyond the binary: Connecting Medical Humanities and Healthcare for Inclusive Transgender and Gender Diverse Experience. Kindle, 2025.
$£¥ € Christy Newman, Anthony Smith et al (eds). Social Perspectives on Trans Health. Routledge, 2025.
$£¥ € Gennaro Selvaggi & Miroslav L. Djordjev. Gender Affirming Vaginoplasty. Elsevier, 2025.
Ketil Slagstad, Standardizing Sex: A History of Trans Medicine. University of Chicago Press, 2025.
$£¥ € Carolyn Wolf-Gould, Dallas Denny, Jamison Green & Kyan Lynch (eds). A History of Transgender Medicine in the United States: From Margins to Mainstream. State University of New York Press, 2025.

Psychiatry and psychology

Marcus Evans. Identity and the Foundational Myth: Psychoanalytic Insights into Gender Distress. Phoenix Publishing House, 2025.
Avery Marlin. The Psychology of Gender Identity: 10 Facts That Go Beyond the Binary. 2025
$£¥ € Miriam Fröhlich & Marcus Rautenberg. Transgender und non-binäre Menschen psychotherapeutisch begleiten: Ein Manual für die Gruppentherapie. Hogrefe Verlag, 2025.
Serena Heller. A Psychoanalytic Exploration of Female to Male Transition. Routledge, 2024.

Gender

$£¥ € Kath Browne & Emily Kazyak (eds). Polarising Sexualities and Genders: Divisions, Differences and LGBTQIA+ Equalities. Bloomsbury, 2025
Emily Keener. The Complexity of Gender: An Inclusive, Feminist, & Developmental Exploration. Academic Press, 2025.

Race and Gender

Ming Mustafa. Alina Kosta: The Legal Advocate for Trans People of Color - Unauthorized. Press for Play Books, 2025.
Robert Redding. New Identities: Unmasking Male Racist Transphobia. 2025.
Kaila Adia Story. The Rainbow Ain't Never Been Enuf: On the Myth of LGBTQ+ Solidarity. Beacon Press, 2025.

Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

$£¥ € Alexis Herr. LGBTQI+ Persecution during the Holocaust: An Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Perseverance. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.

Literature

$£¥ € Jean-Christophe Corrado. Genet lyrique: Écriture du moi, amour et célébration chez le premier Genet. SUP, 2025.
$£¥ € Sandra Cox. Queer Narratives in Contemporary American Comics: Gutter Smut. Routledge, 2025.
Caroline Gonda & Chris Roulston (eds). Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack'. Cambridge University Press, 2025.
Aaron Hammes. TransGenre. Cambridge University Press, 2025. “a reconsideration of genre theory in long-form fiction through transgender minor literature … proposes narrative reading practices as strategies of the minor to subvert, transgress, and reappropriate the novel's genealogy and radical future prospects”
$£¥ € Chiara Pellegrini. Trans Narrators: First-Person Form and the Gendered Body in Contemporary Literature. Edinburgh University Press, 2025.
Robin Anne Reid, Christopher Vaccaro & Stephen Yandell (eds). Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-Earth. McFarland & Co, 2025.
$£¥ € J D Sargan. Trans Histories of the Medieval Book: An Experiment in Bibliography. Arc Humanities Press, 2025
Chris Washington. Nonbinary Jane Austen. University of Minnesota Press, 2025.

Language & Jargon

$£¥ € Brian James Baer & Serena Bassi (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Sexuality. Routledge, 2025
John McWhorter. Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words. Avery, 2025.
$£¥ € Stephen Turton. Before the Word Was Queer. Cambridge University Press, 2024.
$£¥ € Chantal Zabus & Chris Dunton. Transafrica: The Languages of Postqueerness. Zed Books, 2025.

Poetry

Roz Kaveney. The Great Good Time. Team Angelica, 2022.
Jessie Keary. Explaining A Dress: Transfeminine Erasure and Vindication. Discover New Art, 2025.
Nora Neurosismancer. Hymns of Survival and Rage: Poems. Kindle, 2025.
D C Wilkinson. Scents of Lavender: Queer Love Through the Ages --In Verse. 2025.

Fiction

Ronja Klein. Queer im Universum: Kurzgeschichtenband. Books on Demand, 2025.
Lee Mandelo (ed). Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity, Erewhon Books, 2025.
Zane McNeil, Riley Clair Valentine & Buchanan Blu. Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance and Rebellion. PM Press, 2025.

Religious

Vivencio Ballano. Natural Law, Homophobia, and LGBTQI+ Exclusion in the Catholic Church. T&T Clark, 2025.
G Bass. Transgender Christianity: A Spiritual Journey To Freedom. Cadmus Publishing, 2024.
$£¥ € Nicolete Burbach & Lisa Sowle Cahill. Trans Life and the Catholic Church Today. Bloomsbury, 2024.
Charlie Claire Burgess. Queer Devotion: Spirituality Beyond the Binary in Myth, Story, and Practice. Hay House, 2025.
Rev Clifford Falen. Two-Spirits and the Muxes: Path to the Morning Star (The Apocalypse in the Stars). 2025.
Steff Fenton. Gender Expansive Faith: How Trans Lives are Illuminating the Divine, Transforming Feminism and Ending Christian Patriarchy. 2025.
Colby Gordon. Glorious Bodies: Trans Theology and Renaissance Literature. University of Chicago Press, 2024.
Samuel Kader. When The Church Fights God. SK Ministry Inc, 2025. “God has been moving within the LGBT(+) movement for over the last 50 years. But the current church world still fights what God is doing within that community.”
Jean-Claude Larchet. Renewing Gender: An Orthodox Perspective. Holy Trinity Seminary Press, 2025.
$£¥ € Nick Mayhew. Queerness in the Early Modern Russian Orthodox Church. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.
Rebecca Jane Morgan. Gender Heretics: Evangelicals, Feminists, and the Alliance against Trans Liberation. Pluto Press, 2023.
Kody Muncaster. Queer Engaged Buddhism. The Sumeru Press, 2025
Elowen Rose Nightingale. Pink Faerie Way: A Wiccan Tradition of Glamour, Desire, and Transfeminine Strength. Hemingway Publishers, 2025,
Tomás Prower. Queer Magic: LGBT+ Spirituality and Culture from Around the World. Llewellyn Publications, 2025.
Briar Rose. Beyond the Binary: Exploring Queer Identity in Polytheistic Traditions. 2025.
Briar Rose. Deities of Desire: Queer Transgender Gods and Goddesses from Global Traditions. 2025.
Robert S Smith. The Body God Gives: A Biblical Response to Transgender Theory. Lexham Academic, 2025.
Preston Sprinkle. Etre corps: Les identités transgenres, l’Eglise et ce que la Bible en dit. Het Pro, 2025.
C W Steinle. Sex, Gender, and the Bible: A Need to Know Essay. Memorial Crown Press, 2025.
Lollie Twinkle. Grace... Greater Than Identity: A Trans Christian Testimony - Where Identity Meets Grace. 2025.
Mark Yarhouse. Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture (Christian Association for Psychological Studies Books). IVP Academic, 20205.

Transphobic

Miriam Grossman. Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist's Guide Out of the Madness. Skyhorse, 2024.
Ray Manning. The Insanity of Misgendering Oneself . 2025.
Dora Moutot & Marguerite Stern. Transmania: Enquête sur les dérives de l'idéologie transgenre. Magnus, 2024.
Joshua Rhoades. The Truth About The Transgender Movement: Created in His Image, Not Our Imagination. 2025.
Ellen van der Veen. The creation of Transgenders: Through the Woke Mind Virus and social media. 2025.
Steve Wollett. Feminism’s Final Battle: Trans Misogyny and the War on Women. 2025.

Fightback

Matt Hicks. Irreversible Change—Trans Empowerment: The Debunking of “The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters”. Kindle, 2025.
Adrienne J. TERF WARS: Exposing the Attack on Transgender Rights. 2025.
Amir Naaman & Pierre d’Alancaisez (eds). Inversion: Gay Life After the Homosexual. Verdurin, 2025.

Announced for 2026

Alex Bakker. Transgenderpioniers: Dora, Gerd en dokter Hirschfeld in het roerige Berlijn. Nieuw Amsterdam, 2026.
Katie Barnes. Fair Play: Trans Athletes and the Fight for Fairness. St Martin’s Griffin, 2026.
Barbara Bompani, B Camminga, John Marnell & Kamau Wairuri (eds). East African Queer and Trans Displacements. Bloomsbury Academic, 2026.
D Chase J Catalano, Andrea N Baldwin & Chris A Barcelos (eds). Learning from Queer and Trans Studies: An Introduction. Routledge, 2026.
Preeti Choudhary. Trans People in India: A Decade after NALSA. Routledge, 2026.
Laura Jane Collins. Beyond Recognition: Transgender Antidiscrimination Law, Rhetoric, and Ethical Responsibility. University of Alabama Press, 2026.
Raewyn Connell. Trans Lives: Social realities across the globe. Polity, 2026.
Laverne Cox. Transcendent: A Memoir. Gallery Books, 2026.
Kirstin Cronn-Mills. Gender Inequality in Sports, 2nd Edition: Leveling the Playing Field. Twenty-First Century Books, 2026.
Dorian Rhea Debussy. The Lavender Bans: A Century of Anti-LGBTQ+ Policies in the US Military. Columbia University Press, 2026.
Aniruddha Dutta. Globalizing through the Vernacular: Kothis, Hijras, and the Making of Queer and Trans Identities in India. Bloomsbury, 2026.
Gabriel Estrada. Queer Indigenous Cinemas: Sovereign Genders from Seven Directions. University of Arizona Press, 2026.
Az Franco. Trans Rights Now: A Guide to Trans Rights Activism, Protesting and Small Scale Change-Making. Jessica Kingsley, 2026.
Kyla Gillespie. TransFormed: The Power of God's Word and God's People in One Woman's Journey through Gender Confusion, Reassignment Surgery, and Detransitioning. B&H books, 2026.
Joss T Greene. Gender Bound: Prisons, Trans Lives, and the Abolitionist Horizon. University of California Press, 2026.
Ali Greey & Helen Jefferson Lensky. Justice for Trans Athletes: Challenges and Struggles. Emerald Publishing, 2026.
Lauren Guilmette. Feminist Making, Doing, and Sensing: Experiments in Philosophy. Duke University Press, 2026.
Jack Halberstam. Anarchitecture After Everything: A Trans Manifesto. The MIT Press, 2026.
Hongwei Bao, Yahia Zhengtang Ma (eds) Queer Literature in the Sinosphere. Blommsbury, 2026.
Laura Horak. Trans Cinema: Making Communities, Identities, and Worlds. University of California Press, 2026.
René_Rain Hornstein & Christel Baltes-Löhr. trans, inter und nicht-binäre Geschlechtlichkeiten. UTV GmbH, 2026.
Katherine Hubbard & David Griffiths. Queer Studies: The Basics. Routledge, 2026.
Hédi A. Jaouad. The Immortal Journeys of Isabelle Eberhardt: A Spatial Biography. Three Rooms Press, 2026.
Julie Kleigman. Finding Renée Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis’s Trans Pioneer. HarperOne, 2026.
Bambi Lake. Devour Me, Again: The Poems of Bambi Lake. Nightboat Books, 2026.
Nillin Lore. Emerging Selves: An Exploration of Gender Identity. Bold Stroke Books, 2026.
Candace Moore. Marginal Production Cultures: Infrastructures of Sexual Minority and Transgender Media. Routledge, 2026.
Rebecca Jane Morgan. Deviants and Trailblazers: A History of Trans Activism in Britain. Pluto Press, 2026.
$£¥ € Danielle Moyer, Jess Guerriero & Kara Connelly (eds). Advances in Research on Pediatric Gender Affirming Healthcare. Elsevier, 2026.
Ankita Mukherjee. Beyond Transgender: The Social and Political Lives of Gender Nonconforming People in India. Palgrave Macmillan, 2026.
Aaron Retish. Gender in Modern Russia: 1850 to the Present. Bloomsbury, 2026.
Ellie Roscher & Anna Baeth. Fair Game: Trans Athletes and the Future of Sports. The New Press, 2026.
David Scholz. Transidentität verstehen - transident leben: Ein Wegweiser durch medizinische, psychologische und rechtliche Fragen. Springer, 2026.
Izabella Scott. The Bed Trick: Sex and Deception on Trial. Atlantic Books, 2026.
Goran Stanivukovic. Queer Shakespeare: Desire, Sexuality and Embodiment. The Arden Shakespeare, 2026.
Nina Sankovitch. Not Your Founding Father: How a Nonbinary Minister Became America's Most Radical Revolutionary. Simon & Shuster, 2026.
Susan Stryker. Changing Gender. Farrar, Straus and Girous, 2026.
Paolo Valerio, Amelia Rosa Tundo & Eugenio Zito (eds).
Beans Velocci. Sex Isn't Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary. Duke University Press, 2026. Being Third Gender, Being Neapolitan: Culture, History and the ‘Femminielli’. Routledge, 2026.
Maryjean Wall. She's the Mother of Us All: Sweet Evening Breeze and the Queer Community of Lexington, Kentucky. McFarland & Co, 2026.
A J West. How Queer Bookshops Changed the World. Oneworld, 2026.
Lloyd Whitesell. Queer and Trans Aesthetics. University of Michigan Press, 2026.
Keio Yosida. Pride and Prejudices: Queer Lives and the Law. Scribe US, 2026.
Perry Zurn. Cisgender: Disorienting a Category. Duke University Press, 2026.
$£¥ € Jeffrey David Zajac. Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy in Humans: Evidence from Murine Models. Elsevier, 2026.

Announced for 2027

Joanna McIntyre. Transgender Celebrity. Routledge, 2027.

Books on Gender Variance in 2025 - Part 1: (auto) biographies and histories

2025-12-03T11:22:00.000-05:00

AutoBiography

Jean-Sebastien Busque. Gender Bilingual: Translating Life for Men and Women. Editions RESONANCE Publisher, 2025.
Edward-Jeanne Cerdan. L'indompté - Confidences tendres et authentiques d'un homme transgenre. Good Mood Dealer, 2024.
Jay Defazio. You Only Live Twice: A Memoir in Two Genders. Pride & Joy, 2025.
Tommy Dorfman. Maybe This Will Save Me: A Memoir of Art, Addiction and Transformation. Hanover Square Press, 2025.
Ken Etherton. The Day My Life Made Sense: I am not what I appear to be. 2025.

Mallery GenX. BECOMING HER: Transitioning After Forty. Kindle, 2025.
Olivia Gosselin. Le Chemin: Parcours d’une femme autiste, musulmane et transgenre : récit d’une renaissance. 2025.
Debra Hopkins. This Journey Called Life: A Transgender Woman’s Story of Faith, Survival, and Hope. 2025.
G L. Lola, jeune femme transgenre. Kindle, 2025.
Dylan Mulvaney. Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer. Sphere, 2025.
Imogen Reid. Accept Yourself Or Die: From Mormon Missionary To Trans Punk. Sheer Spite, 2025.
Oliver Radclyffe. Frighten the Horses: A Memoir of Transition. Grove Press, 2024.
Daniela Requena. Mamá, soy mujer: Diario de una chica trans. Editorial Planeta, 2022.
Kat Rogue. Crossdresser: Growing Up Trans In The 1990s And 2000s. Sheer Spite, 2025.
Léon Salin. D'un monde à l'autre: Une histoire de transition de genre. Leduc Societe, 2025.

Essays

Vivian Blaxell. Worthy of the Event: An Essay. LittlePuss Press, 2025.
Jennifer Finney Boylan. Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us. Celadon, 2025.

Biographical sketches

Sophia Aguilar. Queer Latine Heroes: 25 Changemakers from Latin America and the U.S. from History and Today. Jessica Kingsley, 2025.
Ria Brodell. More Butch Heroes. MIT Press, 2025.
Diamond Hester. Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Queer Histories. Pegasus Books, 2024.
Jim Wilke. Frontier Comrades: From the Fur Trade to the Ford Car. University of Nebraska Press, 2025.

Biography

Juan Cadena. UNFOLDING: Stories of Queer Resilience, Faith, and the Work of Living. 2025,
Deb Carson. Becoming FLO…A Mostly True Story. Pure Art Press, 2024.
Jeff Copeland. Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn. Feral House, 2025.
Shiro Deng. Julie Lemieux: Canada's First Transgender Mayor. LGBTQ Books Canada, 2025.
Patricia Heuston. La Maupin: Sword, Stage, and Scandal in the Court of Louis XIV. Silverback Books, 2025.

Muhammad Nawaz Khan 7 Saima Muhammad Nawaz. Shadows of Destiny: The Transgender Voices. 2025, (the story of Zayn who rises to become a civil servant)
David Marshall. Marsha P. Johnson: The Woman Who Sparked a Revolution, How One Brave Soul Lit the Fire at Stonewall. 2025.
David Marshall. Laverne Cox: The Trans Actress Who Broke Barriers. The role that shattered stereotypes and forced Hollywood to change. 2025.
David Marshall. Sylvia Rivera: The Street Fighter for Trans Rights. The fearless activist who refused silence, and ignited a movement for equality. 2025.
Tom Roberts & Jacqueline Kent. Bonjour, Mademoiselle!: April Ashley and the pursuit of a lovely life. Scribe Publications, 2025.
Tormaline. Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson. Tiny Reparations Books, 2025.
Taylor Walsh. SYLVIA RIVERA: A Revolutionary Life in the Fight for Trans Equality. 2025.
Brenda Bradford Ward. Forty Years to Life: A Case Study. Genre Library, 2025.
Pan Wendt. Erica Rutherford: Her Lives and Works. Goose Lane Editions, 2025

Paul Wise. Marsha P. Johnson Biography: Pay It No Mind and Keep Walking. 2015.

Changeback

Rene Jax, Memoirs of the First Transgender Cop. Kindle, 2025.
Sandra Mercado Rodríguez. La estafa del transgenerismo: Memorias de una destransición. Tierra de Nadie Editores. 2022.

Doctor & Allies Biography

$£¥ € Daniel Brook. The Einstein of sex : Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, visionary of Weimar Berlin. W W Norton, 2025.
$£¥ € Rainer Hernn. Der Liebe und dem Leid: Das Institut für Sexualwissenschaft 1919-1933. Suhrkamp, 2022.
$£¥ € Brandy Schillace. The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story. W W Norton, 2025.

Spouse & Parent Autobiography

Amber Donnelly. The Woman in My Husband's Place: A memoir of trauma, survival, and a life-altering choice. Kindle, 20205.
Caroline Litman. Her Name is Alice. Mudlark, 2025.
Cristina Olivetti. About Bliss: Fighting for My Trans Son's Life, Joy, and Fertility. Jessica Kingsley, 2025.
Gemma Telford. Between: A Memoir on Gender Transition by a Mother and Her Trans Son. Trigger Publishing, 2025.

Trans/GLBT history

Feras Alkabani. Richard Burton, T.E. Lawrence and the Culture of Homoerotic Desire: Orientalist Depictions of Arab Sexuality. I B Tauris, 2024.
Lucy Cohen. A Transgender History: Discrimination, Movement, and Cultural Enrichment. 2025.
Pete Cossaboon. Beyond Binary: The Global Spectrum of Gender Through Time and Faith. 2025.
Pete Cossaboom. We Were Always Here: Unsung Queer Heroes and the History They Made. 2025.

Eli Erlick. Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History. Beacon Press, 2025.
Jonah I Garde. Trans Geschichten der Moderne: »Geschlechtsumwandlung« im 20. Jahrhundert und ihre kolonialen Geister. transcript, 2025.
Phaedra J Kelly. The Naked Gender Transient: An Origin and History of Intersex and Transgender . Austin Macauley, 2025.

Amara Moira, João W. Nery, Márcia Rocha and Tarso Brant. Vidas Trans: A luta de transgêneros brasileiros em busca de seu espaço social. Idioma, 2022.
$£¥ € Marina Montesano. Cross-dressing in the Middle Ages. Routledge, 2025.
Caro De Robertis. So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color. Algonquin Books. 2025.
Alicia Spencer-Hall & Blake Gutt (eds). Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography. Routledge, 2023.
James Thompson. Unbound Trans Voices: Cultural Reflections on Transgender Lives Around the World. 2025.
Lucy Violet. HISTORY OF THE LGBT MOVEMENT: All the obstacles and struggles of the lgbt movement for the recognition of the fundamental rights of homosexuality. 2025.

Country Histories

Julian Rhys Carter. Gay Today, Gone Tomorrow How We Fought for Our Rights—And Why We’re Still Not Safe: A History of LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Battles, Backlashes, and the Ongoing Fight for Freedom. 2025. (US)
Tamara Chaplin. Becoming Lesbian: A Queer History of Modern France. University of Chicago Press, 2024.
Richard Fleishman. Queering the Ton: The Hidden Rules of Queer Survival in Polite Society. 2025. (19th-century England)
Anthony Delaney. Queer Enlightenments: A Hidden History of Lovers, Lawbreakers, and Homemakers. Doubleday, 2025.
Anthony Delaney. Queer Georgians: A hidden history of lovers, lawbreakers and homemakers. Doubleday, 2025.
Andrew Donnelly. Confederate Sympathies: Same-Sex Romance, Disunion, and Reunion in the Civil War Era. University of North Carolina Press, 2025.
Ariane Fortin. Histoire des Personnes Transgenres: Chroniques Transgenres à Travers les Âges. 2023. (France)
Michelle H S Ho. Emergent Genders: Living Otherwise in Tokyo's Pink Economies. Duke University Press, 2025.
$£¥ € Wikke Jansen. Queer Mobilities in Indonesia: Religion, Activism, and Everyday Life. Liverpool University Press, 2025.
Ximena Salazar Lostaunau. Mujeres trans en el Perú: historias de vida e identidad. Fondo Editorial Cayetano, 2023.
J Daniel Luther. Queering Normativity and South Asian Public Culture: Wrong Readings Only. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.
$£¥ € James Martin. Sexual and Gender Minority History: A Counter-Narrative. Oxford University Press, 2025. (US centric)
John Moliah. Silent Voices: Living as LGBT in Bangladesh. 2025.
$£¥ € Liz Mount. 'New' Women: Trans Women, Hijras and the Remaking of Inequality in India. Cambridge University Press, 2025.
Megg Rayara Gomes de Oliveira, Letícia Carolina Nascimento and Jaqueline Gomes de Jesu (eds). Epistemic Dissonance: The (R)existence of Black Travestis and Trans Women in Brazil. Amefrica Press, 2025.
$£¥ € Dhishna Pannikot. Navigating Gender Identity in India: Social and Cultural Perspectives on Gender Sustainability. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2025.
Justin Perez. Queer Emergent: Scandalous Stories from the Twilight of AIDS in Peru. Duke University Press, 2025.
S K Raghuvanshi. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 (Bare Acts by Allahabad Law Agency Book 18). Allahabad Law Agency, 2025, (Pakistan)
Aaron B Retish. Gender in Modern Russia: 1850 to the Present. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.
Skriuwer. The Other Side of the Rainbow: A Critical History of the LGBT Movement. 2025. (US)
Lilith Carol Romeiro da Silva. Ainda assim, eu Floresci: A historia real de uma mulher trans brasileira. 2025.
$£¥ € Ahonaa Roy & Vasu Reddy. Transnational Contact Zones: Rethinking Gender and Sexuality in Africa and India. Routledge, 2025.
$£¥ € Sheba Saeed. Transgender Identities: The Evolving Identity of Transwomen in Pakistan. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.
Yulia Yu Sakurazawa. People Loved by Gods, Despised by Humans: The Unknown World of Hijra, the Third Gender of India. 2025
Mickaël Studnicki. Droites nationalistes et homosexualités en France. SUP, 2025.
Gregory Williams. Love is the law: Cuba’s queer rights’ revolution. 2025.

Alvin K Womg. Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong and the Sinophone. Duke University Press, 2025.
$£¥ € Mirjam Zadoff & Karolina Kühn (eds). To Be Seen: Queer Lives 1900–1950. Hirmer Publishers, 2023. (queer lives in early twentieth-century Germany)

City and Province Histories

Ivano Azzellino & Valentina Giacchetti. I ragazzi di Monte Caprino. Storie di identità di genere e orientamento sessuale. Tab edizioni, 2025. (Rome)
Robert Fieseler. American Scare: Florida's Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives. Dutton, 2025.

$£¥ € Mathais Foit. Queer Urbanisms in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany: Of Towns and Villages. Palgrave, 2023.
$£¥ € Charles H Ford & Jeffrey L Littlejohn. Queer Virginia: New Stories in the Old Dominion. University of Virginia Press, 2025.
Rae Garringer. Country Queers: A Love Letter. Haymarket Books, 2024,
Rae Garringer. To Belong Here: A New Generation of Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit Appalachian Writers. University Press of Kentucky, 2025.
Simon Goldhill. Queer Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 2025.
Magnus Hirschfeld translated by Michael Lombardi-Nash. Annual of Sexual Intermediaries 23 Volumes (1916) Urania, 2025. (Berlin)
John Van Hoesen. Insist That They Love You: Craig Rodwell and the Fight for Gay Pride. Aevo UTP, 2025. (New York)
Peter Parker (ed). Some Men in London: Queer Life, 1945-59. Penguin, 2024.
Peter Parker (ed). Some Men in London: Queer Life, 1960-67. Penguin, 2024.
Julie Peakman. Libertine London: Sex in the Eighteenth-Century Metropolis. Reaktion Books, 2024.
Megan Rohrer. San Francisco's Transgender District. Arcadia, 2025.
Alexander Zinn. Maintöchter: Schwule, Lesben, Trans- und Intersexuelle in Frankfurt am Main 1933-1994. Wallstein Verlag, 2025.

Jae Stevens (1947-1974) performer, murdered

2025-11-27T14:37:00.001-05:00

Stevens was born in Fort Worth, Texas, but raised in Concord in the East Bay across from San Francisco. He came out as gay when he was called to the draft board.

In 1966 Jae started a professional career in San Francisco as a female impersonator and comedian, dancer and singer at THE FAN-TASY on Mason Street as part of "Jack & The Giants". He continued to work in the showroom of the P.S. Lounge, appeared on The Cabaret circuit in San Francisco and Los Angeles as one-half of the team of Stevens & [Steve] Miller. Jae also performed in a trio act with his sister, Melissa Stevens, and Miller. They were known as the "Wonder Sisters”.

In 1970, Jae was performing with The New Faces, and appeared at a charity premiere of the film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, IMDB, as Jean Harlow and, taken as a cis woman, was acclaimed best female by audience applause. She then revealed that she was an impersonator – which was to the chagrin of the socially prominent judges.

Jae in The Laughing Policeman

Jae had an uncredited cameo in the 1973 film The Laughing Policeman. IMDB.

June 1974 Jae, age 27, had been performing at Finocchio’s night club. He (in mufti) was seen later on the night of the 24^th in the Cabaret Club in the North Beach, but it was not noticed that he left with anybody. He was feeling good as the next morning the Wonder Sisters were to fly to Boston for a gig. However, on the morning of June 25 Jae's body was found near Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate Park having been stabbed five times, three directly in the heart. It so happened that at 5 am the same morning the police had attempted to pull over a suspicious car in the Hayward area, but the driver raced away, was chased and crashed. The young driver, described as blond with shoulder-length hair, ran and escaped. The car was later identified as that of Jae Stevens.

The crime scene was a secluded area of the park sometimes used for gay encounters. The police assumed that Jae and his killer had gone there together after meeting in a bar.

There had been a similar murder of a gay man five months earlier, and then another on July 7. All were stabbed multiple times. Based on this modus apparandi, mainly the multiple stabbing and secluded locations, the SFPD assumed that they were looking for a homophobic serial killer.

Jae’s murder was, of course, a shock to the family. The youngest sister, Alma, 18, who had a history of instability, sought psychiatric help in late September, but was turned away. In October, she and her mother Mary Stevens, visited family in Texas. They returned late on Thursday 10 October. The father, a real estate agent, was not there as, while they were away, he had been sleeping at his office. After arriving home, Alma attacked and killed her mother with a hammer, dismembered the body and partially destroyed it by burning in the fireplace. The older sister, Melissa, the family member who had also performed as a Wonder Sister, and who had identified Jae’s body for the police, arrived, and was also attacked. She survived and went immediately to the local police, who arrested Alma.

At her trial in February 1975, Alma was found innocent by reason of insanity, based on psychiatric reports, and she was committed to Napa State Hospital for an indefinite period.

Shortly afterwards, the father died in fire at his office. Melissa trained as a nurse and left the Bay Area. She returned only after Alma’s death in 2004.

We should also mention that San Francisco police at that time recently had dealt with the Zodiac (1968-9) and the Zebra (also 1971-4) serial killings of straight persons, and the overall homicide rate in San Francisco was more than double what it is today. Despite this there were apparently only four San Francisco murders in 1974 that can be designated as homophobic, the three later attributed to what became called the Doodler, and another killed in his apartment. In 1975 there was a surge in the number of such murders, including that of two trans women, Barbella and Yancy both killed in their own apartments. There was a gay community meeting in April concerned about the murders, but they continued.

Three men, including a well-known entertainer and a diplomat, had survived a stabbing encounter in Fox Plaza and described the suspect, a black man, who was mentioned as making contact by sketching his mark. The police suspected that this ‘doodler’ could be the person who did the stabbing murders the year before. They put out a police sketch based on the three witness statements. The police listed five murders, 1974-5, as done by the Doodler, and suggested that the black man wanted for the Fox Plaza stabbing might be the Doodler.

A few months later there was a gruesome murder, again at the Fox Plaza, and in December-January two murders on Turk Street including one of a trans woman, Demott.

In late 1975, a psychiatrist phoned the police and claimed that one of his patients had confessed to the murderers during therapy. The police did not get the name of the psychiatrist straight, and never called him back. The therapy patient named was brought in for questioning in 1976, several times. The three men who had survived being stabbed identified the suspect. However, as homosexuality was still illegal at that time and San Francisco, like most US cities, had a police unit whose sole pupose was to entrap and arrest gay men, and to be outed as gay would destroy their lives and careers, the three survivors refused to testify against him. The suspect did not confess, charges were not pressed, and he was released. Murders of gay men in San Francisco continued, but no further murders were said to be done by the Doodler.

A rumor was put about that the Doodler had fled to New Orleans.

Bill Kane & Jerry Carpenter. “Show Bars” California Scene, October 1971: 12. Online.
“News”, Drag Magazine, 1,1, 1971: 16, 31. Online.
Donald McLean. “Entertainer Jae Stevens Slain!”. Bay Area Reporter, 4, 13, 6/26/1974. Reprinted as “In Memoriam: Jay Stevens 1947-1974”. Drag Magazine, 4, 16, 1974: 34. Online.
Wendy Heard. “The Doodler”. com. Online.
Kevin Fagan. “The Doodler”. Com, March 16, 2021. Online.
Gian J Quaser. “The DOODLER Serial Killer Theory”. Questersite, August 30, 2021. Online.
Gian J Quaser. “Murder By Forgotten: The Gay Murders of San Francisco 1968-1982”. Questersite, February 6, 2022. Online.
The Doodler: Unsolved, But Not Forgotten”. The Bloody Truth, December 17, 2023. Online.

Alma Stevens:

“Body found in Concord fireplace: Mother missing, daughter held”. Concord Transcript, Oct 11, 1974:1.
“A tragic psychiatric rejection”. The San Francisco Examiner, Oct 16, 1974:46.
“Alma Stevens committed to a hospital”, Concord Transcript, Feb 26, 1975:1.

En.Wikipedia(Doodler) Find a Grave

--------

Jian J Quaser questions whether there was indeed a Doodler. The murders, of course were real, and significantly more than the five or six attributed to the Doodler. One of the Doodler victims was not stabbed, but beaten with a rock. Also, the man who stole Jae’s car and then ran off was described as ‘blond’ not black.

Quaser:

The DOODLER concept then goes public in 1976, but the concept was presented to us vaguely. I have repeated it a number of times on here. To belabor the point, we are basically told there possibly had been some black guy known now as The DOODLER who might be connected with 14 other murders, names unspecified, over 1974-1975. In retrospect we are given five names of potential victims: they are, of course, Gerald Cavanaugh (January 1974), Jae Stevens (June 1974), Klaus Christmann (July 1974), Fred Capin (May 1975), and Harald Gullberg (May/June 1975). After this, The DOODLER concept rather fizzles away.

From our point of view today, however, there is a problem. A closer look at these cases, for the most part, doesn’t reveal much of a connection except they occurred out-of-doors and in the western districts of San Francisco. In retrospect there seems little reason these 5 were made tokens. Poor Harald Gullberg probably wasn’t even murdered. He certainly wasn’t knifed, and the coroner wasn’t sure if his death was an accident. Why then were these 5 names presented to the public in 1976 and strung to a black guy who had attacked in Mid Market and whose known victims had survived?

Quaser is almost alone in questioning the Doodler as a police construction. I am however inclined to go with his interpretation. The search for a mythical Doodler resulted in the murders not being properly investigated, and the real murderers not being apprehended.

Trans cops

2025-11-23T21:26:00.000-05:00

There has been discussion recently of the reactionary autobiography by Rene Jax (spelt without the usual accents). He (for he has reverted) has the impertinence to claim to be the ‘first’ transgender cop. It is always inadvisable to claim to be the ‘first’ anything, as almost always other earlier ones come to light.

As we know only 1-2% of those who transition, later de-transition. As such, medical sex-change is one of the most successful branches of medicine. In particular the regret rates in plastic surgery range up to 47%; having children and getting a tattoo have regret rates of 7 % and 16.2 %, respectively.

However some sections of the press like to dramatise transsexual surgery regret, and Walt Heyer (1940 -) has made a career from his detransition. Jax appears to be doing something similar.

Jax, born 1954, social transition 1977, surgery 1990, detransition 2022, maintains an ignorance of the transgender cops who preceded him. He even ignores Carol Katz (see below) also in California, and who transitioned in 1974, only three years earlier. This is a bit much.

There are actually quite a lot of transgender cops, both trans men and trans woman. Here are the best known of transgender cops who very much pre-date Jax.

Fernando Mackenzie (1836- ?) transitioned while still a child. He did national service in the French army. At the age of 35 he migrated to Spain and joined the Madrid police force. After a move to Seville, still serving as a policeman he was employed at the governor’s palace. In this role he served under seven successive governors. Two years after his wife died, he was badly injured in a street accident, and was taken to hospital where it was revealed that he had a female body. Consequently he was dismissed and denied his pension.

Emilie Kellner (1873- ?) a Berlin police officer (Kriminalschutzmann) who was allowed to dress female while on duty from 1912. Kellner became one of Hirschfeld's patients, but after moving to the suburb of Charlottenburg, became unemployed.

Tony Barreto-Neto (1945- ) first a lesbian and then a trans activist. In his 40s Barreto-Neto became a cop in Hillsborough, Florida and became a decorated police officer with numerous awards. He transitioned to Tony on the job. After hostility from fellow cops, he joined the Hardwick, Vermont, Police Department. After being ostracized, he sued, won and established for the first time that trans persons are protected under Vermont law.

Carol Katz

Carol Katz (1947 - ) Katz was a US Federal law enforcement agent in Los Angeles until 1973 when she resigned and started to transition. She started a transsexual support group in 1980 and was a charter member of the ACLU Transsexual Rights Committee. From 1979-81 she was on the Christopher Street West Gay pride Parade and Festival Committee. She recruited trans persons to work as parade monitors and in festival security. She used her contacts to effect greater co-operation with the various police forces.

Alexandra Selyaninova (? - ) served in the Red Army, then as a police officer. After a transfer to the Perm Region as a Police Captain, far away from relatives and old friends, Selyaninova began to wear female clothing, and applied for a medical examination. Doctors from Moscow diagnosed Selyaninova as transsexual. There were two operations in 1991, and Alexandra was issued a new passport and birth certificate. She stayed in Perm and ran her own business.

In the 1990s, there were enough trans cops to found TOPS (Transgender Officers Protect and Serve), which later became TCOPS (Transgender Community of Police & Sheriffs) with a world wide membership in the 100s.

Two more trans cops of interest:

Laura de Costa Teixeira (1980-) previously in charge of the anti-drugs squad in the north-east city of Goiana, Pernambuco, Brazil, transitioned in 2013 with surgery in Thailand, and then transferred to a police unit that specializes in countering crimes against women.

Lorimer Shenher, previously of the Vancouver Police Department, was involved in the Missing Women Investigation that eventually led to the arrest and conviction of serial killer Robert Pickton in 2007. Shenher transitioned in 2015, and has published two books: That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away, 2025 and This One Looks Like a Boy, 2019, his autobiography.

Francois-Timoléon de Choisy - cross-dreamer or out transvestist?

2025-10-19T08:47:00.002-04:00

Part 1: Life, and the 1695 short-story

Part 2: discussion and bibliography

Was de Choisy more trans than a cross-dreamer?

Joan DeJean in her introduction to the 2004 edition of The story of the Marquise-Marquis de Banneville:

“Modern biographers and critics generally assume that Choisy's memoirs may be taken at face value. His tendency to hyperbole and self-aggrandizement makes me more than a bit skeptical with regard to the reliability of the memoirs.”

Paul Scott is the major advocate that de Choisy’s memoirs are mainly fiction.

“I argue that these memoirs, from the time of their discovery, have been taken at face value and wrongly treated as autobiographical. It is my contention that, when they are examined with a degree of critical scrutiny, the inescapable conclusion is that they represent nothing other than an elaborate and sustained fantasy on their creator’s part. The primary problem in attempting to verify the accuracy of Choisy’s account is the absence of supporting evidence. This has been noted by some, if by no means the majority, of the scholars working on Choisy. It should be emphasized that this lack of substantiation is absolute and comprehensive, for there is not a single reference, allusion, or description, no matter how cursory, to Choisy’s cross-dressing escapades by any of his contemporaries.” [p15]

… “The memoirs are ﬁlled with accounts of events that surpass any reasonable degree of plausibility. The level of social and, in particular, clerical acquiescence that the cross-dressed Choisy receives beggars belief. It is not only the parish priest, the curate, and M. Garnier, his confessor, who tolerate his unusual ﬂamboyance, but also the cardinal archbishop of Paris. He becomes the principal collection-taker during Sunday ofﬁces at Saint-Médard and does not tone down his extravagant dress: ‘je m’y préparai comme à la fête qui devait me montrer en spectacle’ (‘I prepared myself for it as for the party that was to show me off’ p. 439). There is no question that parishioners do not realize that this lady is not all she seems, for Choisy boasts that ‘il est certain qu’il vint beaucoup de gens d’autres paroisses, sachant que j’y devais quêter’ ( ‘it is certain that many people from other parishes will come, knowing that I had to collect there’ p. 440). The pinnacle occurs with a mock marriage between Choisy, dressed as a bride, and her fourteen-year-old bridegroom, Charlotte, dressed in male garb, which is witnessed by a crowd comprising clergy, parishioners, and the girl’s family members (p. 448). The simulated nuptials are an extremely dubious occurrence in a period when marriages, and indeed all the other sacraments, were prohibited from being enacted on stage for fear of profanation,” [18-19]

… “In the fourth part, for example, Choisy goes to great lengths to explain his acquisition of a recently built chateau close to the city of Bourges, noting that the exact purchase price is 28,000 livres. The estate, called Crespon, belongs to a trésorier, M. Gaillot, and Choisy’s agent is named M. Acarel, to whom Choisy grants a procuration générale authorizing him to conclude the affair (pp. 479–80). Despite this detailed account, not one of these references can be veriﬁed or documented. There is not, and has never been, an estate called Crespon in the locality of Bourges, and no ofﬁcial named Gaillot working in local government. One critic has attempted to argue that Crespon might be identiﬁed with the chateau and estate of Vouzay, but this assumption can easily be refuted by the fact that it never changed hands during the seventeenth century. Choisy commissions a joint portrait of himself, dressed as Mme de Sancy, and his lover, Charlotte, vested as a boy, by a M. de Troyes, with sittings lasting for a month (p. 446). This is likely to be the society artist François de Troy (1645–1730), yet this painter did not begin to specialize in portraits until 1675, a full decade after he is supposed to have captured the cross-dressed pair. [p19-20]

By the late 17^th century literacy rates in France, using the very simple measure of being able to sign one’s own name, was 29% for man and 14% for women. This was lower in rural areas, and higher in Paris -- 74 percent of men and 64 percent of women in Montmartre could sign their names, and on some streets literacy rates reached 93 percent. Literacy was of course higher among the rich and titled – the top 1% - many of whom went to prestigious schools and universities. Many who attended the Royal court in Paris and Versailles, and their servants, kept diaries and wrote letters to each other – often containing gossip. Historians specialising in this group read theses diaries and letters – many have actually survived. What is not found in these documents are accounts of de Choisy en femme. This alone is sufficient to reject de Choisy’s posthumous memoirs as such and to categorise them as fiction, or cross-dreaming.

Scott’s examples of anachronisms and of details that simply do not check out further the argument.

Works by de Choisy:

Quatre dialogues. I. Sur l'immortalité de l'âme. II. Sur l'existence de Dieu. III. Sur la providence. IV. Sur la religion (with Louis de Courcillon de Dangeau, also an Abbé), Paris, Sébastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1684.
Interprétation des Psaumes avec la Vie de David, Paris, Sébastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1687 (reprinted 1690 and 1692)
Journal du voyage de Siam fait en 1685 et 1686, Paris, Sébastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1687 ; 1688 ; 1740; Éditions Duchartre et Van Buggenhoudt, 1930 ; critical edition by Dirk Van der Cruysse, 1995; reedited Orchid Press, 1999.
Recueil de plusieurs pièces d'éloquence et de poësie présentées à l'Académie française pour les prix de 1687, donnez le jour de S. Louis de la mesme année, avec les discours prononcez le mesme jour (par MM. l'abbé de Choisy et de Bergeret) à la réception de M. l'abbé de Choisy en la place de M. le duc de Saint-Aignan, Paris, Pierre Le Petit, 1687
La Vie de Salomon, Paris, Claude Barbin, 1687.
Les Pensées chrétiennes sur divers sujets de piété, Paris, Claude Barbin, 1688.
Histoire de France sous les règnes de Saint Louis… de Charles V et Charles VI, 1688-1695.

Histoire de Philippe de Valois et du roi Jean, Paris, Claude Barbin, 1688.
La Vie de Saint Louis, Paris, Claude Barbin, 1689.
Histoire de Charles cinquième, roi de France, Paris, Antoine Dezallier, 1689.
Histoire de Charles VI, roi de France, Paris, Jean-Baptiste Coignard, 1695.

De l'imitation de Jésus-Christ, Paris, Antoine Dezallier, 1692.
La Vie de Madame de Miramion, Paris, Antoine Dezallier, 1706
Histoires de piété et de morale, par M. L. D. C., Paris, Jacques Étienne, 1710.
Les plus beaux événements de l'histoire sacrée et de l'histoire prophanes rapportés à la morale par M. l'abbé de Choisy, Paris, Jacques Étienne, 1711.
La Nouvelle Astrée, Paris, Nicolas Pépie, 1712. An adaptation of the novel byHonoré d'Urfé.
Histoire de l’Église, Paris, Jean-Baptiste Coignard, Antoine Dezallier & Christophe David, 1703-1723, 11 vol.
Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de Louis XIV, par feu M. l'abbé de Choisy, edited with a preface by François-Denis Camusat, Utrecht, Van de Water; Amsterdam, Jean-Frédéric Bernard et N. Étienne Lucas, 1727 ; new edition with notes by Georges Mongrédien, Mercure de France, 1966, 1983, 412 p.
Mémoires de Madame la comtesse des Barres, à madame la marquise de Lambert, Bruxelles, François Poppens, 1736 ; reedited under the title : Aventures de l’abbé de Choisy habillé en femme en 1862 ; reedited under the title : Aventures de l’abbé de Choisy déguisé en femme en 1923 ; again reedited and retitled : Mémoires de l’abbé de Choisy habillé en femme, comme suite des Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de Louis XIV, Mercure de France, coll. « Le Temps retrouvé » n^o 7, 1966).

La marquise-marquis de Banneville,

Anon. Histoire de la marquise-marquis de Banneville, nouvelle parue dans le Mercure galant, Feb 1695.
Anon. Histoire de la marquise-marquis de Banneville, nouvelle parue dans le Mercure galant, Aug 1696. – extended version.
Paul Bonnefon, “Les dernieres annees de Charles Perrault,” Revue d’histoire litteraire de la France, Oct.-Dec. 1906 : 606-75.
Jeanne Roche-Mazon, ‘“Une Collaboration inattendue au XVIL siecle: L’Abbé de Choisy et Charles Perrault’. Mercure de France, Feb 1928: 513-42.
Paul Delarue. “Les Contes merveilleux de Perrault: Faits et rapprochements nouveaux." Arts et traditions populaires 1.1, 1954: 1-22; 1.3, 1954: 251-74.
Marc Soriano. « Une Enquête difficile » Les Contes de Perrault. Paris: Gallimard, 1968 : 55-71.
François-Timoléon de Choisy, Charles Perrault, Mémoires de l'abbé de Choisy habillé en femme. Suivi de Histoire de la marquise-marquis de Banneville, Éditions Ombres, 1995.
Deborah J Hahn. “The (Wo)Man in the Iron Mask: Cross-dressing, Writing and Sexuality in L'Histoire de la Marquise-Marquis de Banneville”. Paroles Gelees, 15, 1, 1997.
Daniel Maher. « Monsieur ma femme? Le travestissement au XVIIè siècle » in Elzbieta Grodek (ed), Écriture de la ruse, Faux Titrenumber 2000.
Francois Timoléon de Choisy, Marie-Jeanne L’Heritier & Charles Parrault, translated by Steven Rendall, introduction by Joan DeJean. The story of the Marquise-Marquis de Banneville. Modern Language Association of America, 2004.
Caroline Jumel. Review of the 2004 The story of the Marquise-Marquis de Banneville. Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies, 21,2, 2007.

Works by others who accept the Memoirs at face value:

Abbe d'Olivet. La Vie de M. de Choisy de l’Academic Française. Lausanne: Bousquet, 1742.
Oscar Paul Gilbert (translated from the French by Robert B. Douglas). Men in Women's Guise: Some Historical Instances of Female Impersonation. John Lane,1926: chp I-IV. The standard account.
C J Bulliet. Venus Castina : Famous Female Impersonators Celestial and Human. Bonanza Books, 1928: 186-195.
Pierre Vachet. “Histoire de l’Abbé de Choisy”. La Psychologie de Vice : Les Travestis. Editions Bernard Grasset, 1934 : 95-132.
J.S. Thompson. The Mysteries of Sex: Women Who Posed as Men and Men Who Impersonated Women. Hutchinson, 1938. Causeway Books, 1974. Dorset Press, 1993: chp XX. Another standard account.
Hector Uribe Troncoso. “De Choisy … Prince of Tranvestites”. Sexology: Sex Science Magazine, August 1953: 19-24.
Edward Podolsky & Carlson Wade. Tranvestism Today: The Phenomena of Men Who Dress as Women. Epic Publishing, 1960: 36-44.
Jacque Lacan, ‘L’Objet de la psychanalyse’. Online: 259-260.
The Abbé de Choisy, translated by R H F Scott. The Transvestite Memoirs. Peter Owen, 1973.
Dirk van der Cruysse. L’Abbé de Choisy: androgyne at mandarin. Fayard, 1995.
Nancy Arenberg. “Mirrors, Cross-dressing and Narcissism in Choisy’s Histoire de Madame la Comtesse des Barres”. Arenberg Cahiers, 17,2,2005.
Pierrick Brient, ‘La Perversion normale de l’abbe´ de Choisy’, La Clinique lacanienne, 11 (2006), 195–202.
Hervé Castanet. Tricheur de sexe: L'abbé de Choisy : une passion du travesti au Grand Siècle. Max Milo, 2010.

Works critical of the memoirs:

Paul Scott. “Authenticity And Textual Transvestism in The Memoirs of The Abbe De Choisy”. French Studies, 69,1, 2014.
“Professor Casts Doubt on One of History’s Greatest Cross-Dressing Memoirs”. The University of Kansas, 02/20/2015.

Other:

Catherine Ornstein. Little Red Riding Hood uncloaked : sex, morality, and the evolution of a fairy tale. Perseus, 2002: 198-200.

EN.Wikipedia FR.Wikipedia.

Francois-Timoléon de Choisy (1644 - 1724), Part 1: Abbé, diplomat, author, cross-dreamer

2025-10-18T14:36:00.003-04:00

Part 1: Life, and the 1695 short-story

Part 2: discussion and bibliography

François-Timoléon was born in August 1644, a week after the Battle of Freiburg which eventually led to the end of the Thirty Years’ War between Europe’s Catholics and Protestants.

François-Timoléon was a grandson of Jean de Choisy Jr. (1562 - 1652), receiver general of finances of Caen. He was the fourth and last son of Jean III from Choisy, lord of Balleroy (1598 -1660), a State Councillor, intendant of Languedoc, chancellor of Gaston d'Orléans, and Jeanne-Olympe Hurault de L'Hospital (1604-1669), a granddaughter of Michel de L'Hospital and an intimate of the Queen of Poland Marie de Gonzague. From the ages of 18 to 22, he studied philosophy and theology at the Sorbonne, and in 1663 became an abbé de cour (a low rank tonsured cleric, not usually connected to an abbey or a religious order, but with a sinecure). His mother’s death in 1669 left him an inheritance which he frittered away in Venice.

He returned impoverished, and lived off his sinecure. In 1676 he visited Rome as a part of the retinue of Emmanuel-Théodose de La Tour d'Auvergne, Cardinal de Bouillon (1643-1715), and was part of the Conclave that elected Pope Innocent XI. After serious illness in August 1683, de Choisy retired for a year to the seminary of Paris Foreign Missions Society, and co-wrote Quatre dialogues. I. Sur l'immortalité de l'âme, II. Sur l'existence de Dieu. III. Sur la providence. IV. Sur la religion. After that, in 1685, he accompanied the Chevalier de Chaumont on a year-long diplomatic mission to the Kingdom of Siam. It was there that he was finally ordained by Louis Laneau, bishop of Métellopolis, envoy of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and Vicar Apostolic of Siam.

On return to France in June 1686, de Choisy wrote Interprétation des Psaumes avec la Vie de David, and in 1687 was admitted to the Académie Française on 24 July 1687. In 1689 he received the benefit of the priory of Saint-Benoît-du-Sault. From then until his death in 1724, de Choisy wrote a series of hagiographies on French monarchs, histories of France and tracts on Catholic devotions.

In February 1695 an anonymous short story, a cross-dressing fantasy, Histoire de la marquise-marquis de Banneville, was published in Le Mercure galant, and then an extended version of the same story was published in in the same magazine in August of the next year.

De Choisy was given the deanery of the chapter Bayeux Cathedral, in April 1697.

He died aged 80 in October 1724.

His nephew and executor, the marquis d’Argenson, following his death, found among his papers an apparent autobiography. The manuscript was carefully written (unlike the majority of his other texts, which had been subject to additions and corrections). The document related that, when young, de Croisy had lived as a woman for at least two years in Paris, Bordeaux, and Bourges using three different personas, which he used to seduce young women and even dress them as boys. One result was the fathering a daughter - he paid for the upbringing and education of this child, later arranging a happy match for her. This account was first published as Mémoires de Madame la comtesse des Barres, 1736,

Who wrote La marquise-marquis de Banneville?

Summary of the story :

A young man raised as a woman and a young woman raised as a man. They meet and fall in love, unaware of each other's sex. They marry. On their wedding night, each lover reveals their secret, to their mutual surprise and relief. They decide to keep living in their chosen genders, move to the countryside, and conceive a child, ultimately achieving an unconventional happy ending.

There is obviously a similarity to the Mémoires de Madame la comtesse des Barres, first published 1736.

Three candidates have been proposed as the author of La marquise-marquis de Banneville, either alone or working together:

Charles Perrault, a major advisor and bureaucrat at the court of Louis XIV who supervised the building of the Louvre and Versailles and wrote fawning biographies of prominent French men. Posterity remembers him for the fairy tales he wrote later in life, Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye (Tales of Mother Goose) which includes "Little Red Riding Hood", "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Bluebeard".
Perrault’s niece Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier, who also wrote fairy tales under her own name, and collaborated with her uncle. In her story, Marmoisan, a young woman takes her dead twin brother’s clothing, passes as a man, and becomes a courtier, a soldier, and a lover.
Francois-Timoléon de Choisy whom Perrault knew in that both were members of theAcadémie Française … and as France’s most famous transvestite??

Scholars disagree about who wrote it:

Paul Bonnefon, 1906, proposed L'Héritier alone.
Jeanne Roche-Mazon, 1928, proposed Perrault and de Choisy together,
Paul Delarue, 1954, proposed Perrault and L'Héritier together.
Joan DeJean, 2004, proposed all three authors.

As Joan DeJean tells us (p x-xi):

“In February 1695, Jean Donneau de Vise, the editor of Le Mercure galant, an early French newspaper and the richest source of information on the doings of the French court and the lifestyles of its rich and famous, called his female readers' attention to the short story of the month, an early version of Marquise-Marquis. It was, he said, written by “someone of [their] sex" and displayed “charm" and “intelligence," as well as all the “delicate wit" that, he argued, “only women possess" (12-13). This was not at all an unusual thing for Donneau de Vise to say: he stands out among early journalists for his consistent desire to advertise women's accomplishments — Le Mercure galant published many women writers and promoted women's writing—and to cover news of particular interest to female readers. The paper gave so much space to every aspect of la mode, for example, that it can be thought of as the beginning of the fashion press. The story that followed Donneau de Vise's introduction opens with a prologue in which its author identifies her-self as a woman and addresses her self to readers of“[her] sex, assuring them that they can always be sure when a work is written by a woman and listing all the ways in which her style is typical of women's writing in general.

Fast forward to August 1696. In that issue of Le Mercure galant, Donneau de Vise included a far more extensive version of Marquise-Marquis. He claimed that its author, identified once again as a woman, “had forgotten" to include certain parts the first time around (171). In the meantime, in February 1696, Donneau de Vise had published another story, “Sleeping Beauty" (“La Belle au bois dormant"), which he introduced in this way:

“We owe this work to the same person who wrote the story of the little marquise"

—in other words. The Story of the Marquise-Marquis de Banneville (74). Here is where the mystery of the story's authorship begins. No one has ever believed that “Sleeping Beauty" was written by a woman; it has been included in every edition of Perrault’s tales. Indeed as soon as the first collection of those tales was published, Donneau de Vise sang its praises in the January 1697 issue of Le Mercure galant and told his readers that all those who had enjoyed “Sleeping Beauty" were sure to want to read the rest of Perrault's stories.”

Based on the similarities between the Banneville story and de Croisy’s posthumous memoirs, it is generally assumed that he contributed to the story by example or by text. However De Vise’s editorials suggest L'Héritier as the likely author, and as he also attributes “Sleeping Beauty” to her, we wonder how much of Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye was her work rather than her uncle’s. Further: it is possible that the similarities with de Croisy’s memoirs are because he drew up on the Banneville story, and, as several commentators have suggested, the Red Riding Hood story as well.

La Forest Potter (1855-1951), an early 1930s witness to queer New York

2025-09-28T08:28:00.002-04:00

La Forest Potter. Strange Loves: A Study in Sexual Abnormalities. Robert Dodsley Company/ National Library Press, 1933.

Trigger warning: Some of the quotations from Dr Potter include words and opinions relating to sex and/or race that are today considered objectionable.

1933 was not a good year for being queer. The ending of alcohol prohibition in the US (good in itself) unfortunately led to the end of the Panzy Craze, and increased police raids on queer bars and nightclubs. In Germany, Hitler’s Nazi Party took control of the government. In the Soviet Union, Stalin’s OGPU started a reversal of the decriminalization of homosexuality that had resulted from the Revolution by arresting 198 gay men, and claiming that there was a link between homosexuality and fascism. In England and France trans men and masculine women had been shaken after Victor Barker, John Radclyffe-Hall and Violette Morris had each lost in their very different law trials.

The New York that La Forest Potter describes falls in between that found in the earlier publications, Mowry Saben/Jennie June’s three books and the psychological study of five transvestites by Bernard Talmey, and the later study Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns (1941) attributed to George Henry but based on the research of Jan Gay.

George Chauncey’s Gay New York: Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, published 1994 mentions Potter in its notes as a source for details, but he is not in the book’s index, and there is no mention of him or his book in the text.

The term ‘fairy’ was commonly used in this period for effeminate gays, trans feminine persons and drag performers. Chauncey’s book goes into a lot of detail on this.

Two anecdotes referring to the book’s influence

David K Johnson’s “The Kids of Fairytown: Gay Male Culture on Chicago's Near North Side in the 1930s” in Brett Beemyn’s Creating a Place for Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories, p111 tells us:

“Although most Chicagoans had never read a medical text on homosexuality, Harold's list of the books that introduced him to gay life did include one work by a medical expert. La Forest Potter's Strange Loves: A Study in Sexual Abnormalities was an attempt to bring medical expertise on the nature, causes, and curability of homosexuality to a general audience to help eradicate ‘the problem.’ But by outlining the prevalence of homosexuality — how America had ‘Gone Pansy;' as he titled one of his chapters — he inadvertently suggested that it was normal. Potter asserted that ‘homosexuality ... is diffused not only through all the anthropological forms of mankind — savage and civilized life — but also throughout every strata of society, and among every class of population.’ ” ... “To Harold and undoubtedly many others, Potter's line of argumentation intrigued more than it dissuaded.”

Robert Darby. “The Censor as Literary Critic”. Westerly, 31,4, December 1986: 37 tells us:

“Genuine scientific texts on sexual abnormality might be allowed in serious libraries for research use by approved scholars, but popular works were a different matter. Garran read Strange Loves, by La Forest Potter MD, as professing to be "a serious study of homosexuality", but he found its general style suggesting that it was, rather, "a book to excite curiosity". American authors, he remarked, "show no squeamishness in an open discussion of this subject; but I think its discussion in this way offends against present standards of decency in Australia." Allen agreed: ‘This book is not desirable for public bookshelves, and I should not regard it as in any way a serious contribution to medical science. It is a popularisation of information regarding sexual abnormality ... It is not well written: and in places is incorrect. For instance, it repeats mere garbled gossip about Socrates; and I do not believe that the author has read a word of the Symposium.’ ”

Who was La Forest Potter?

La Forest Potter graduated from Boston University School of Medicine in 1884 and contributed articles to Physical Culture, the food faddist magazine run by Bernard MacFadden. He was apparently interested in 'cancer cures'; at one time he was associated with a proponent of the so-called 'grape juice cure' for cancer. Strange Loves was banned in Australia in 1936. He also wrote The psychology of health and happiness, 1897; A new treatment of cancer and chronic diseases, 1929 and various other popular medical texts. He lists membership in the New York County Medical Society, Massachusetts Medical Society, Boston Gynecological Society, Associate Professor of Rhinology, Laryngology, and Otology, New York School of Clinical Medicine, and Surgeon, Malden Hospital.

Potter's other books as listed on page opposite title page

The Advertisement

This is the advertisement that ran several times in the magazine Broadway and Hollywood Movies.

The chapters of interest:

Chapter IV THE “INTERMEDIATE SEX"

“For while admittedly there are mental hermaphrodites and mental deviates in uncounted numbers, the true “third sex, if we are to be really accurate in our description, consists only of individuals who are anatomically bisexual. … These individuals are unquestionably atavistic or retrogressive in their biological status. Nevertheless, true hermaphrodism is an extremely rare phenomenon. I stress the anatomical basis of this condition at this time in order to differentiate true hermaphrodism from pseudo -hermaphrodism -- or what I might term " mental " hermaphrodism.”

So far, not too bad.

However, Potter then has a sub-heading, REAL WORLD PROGRESS MADE BY HETEROSEXUALS where he proclaims that the “[homosexual] abnormality should be considered anti-social, anti-racial, and anti-biologic”.

Then still in the same chapter WHEN MEN DON WOMEN'S CLOTHES, where he writes: “To the average person it would seem that all this bother is ‘much ado about nothing’. For it would be rather difficult to see what particular harm can come to the police force, or to society in general. … However, it may be because these transvestites, as they are called, suggest abnormality (whether they are abnormal or not) that they are arrested, hailed into court and fined.”

In his next sub-heading, IS INVERSION COMMON AMONG TRANSVESTITES? Potter contrasts William Stekel who regarded trans persons as homosexuals with Magnus Hirschfeld who from a much larger sample knew otherwise. Potter attempts to reconcile this difference with the opinion of the psychoanalyst Andre Tridon who claimed that transvestites are in the majority of cases unconscious homosexuals.

His final sub-heading in the chapter is THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE GERMAN URNING. He writes:

“While it may not react greatly to the prestige and glory of Berlin in the minds of many people, it is nevertheless true that this highly cultured city boasts perhaps a greater number of homosexuals than any other city in the world -- not excluding Paris, which, for several centuries, has been notorious for its sexual profligacy. Of course, it may be that this seeming preponderance of abnormals arises merely from the fact that, in Berlin, and in Germany and Austria, the urning comes out into the open, so to speak. He does not find it necessary to skulk and slink in the hinterlands of society, as he does in European and American centers generally. However, we may attribute this apparent epidemic of homosexuality to the fact that there is less hypocrisy in Germany and more real science than is to be found anywhere else on the face of the earth.”

This of course had been previously true, but it is ironic, sad and frightening that by the time Potter’s book was published, the Nazis had become the German government, and the purge of queer culture and persons was ongoing.

Chapter VII FEMALE MEN AND MALE WOMEN

This is a rather nasty chapter where the question is should his readers

“place these individuals either in the same category with burglars, swindlers, and automobile thieves, or else it would permit them to be recognized as men and women who are mentally and morally sick — neurotics who are no more to blame for their condition than they would be for having dyspepsia, or sciatica, or a deviated septum”.

Potter quotes Dr. W. Beran Wolfe, Director of the New York Community Church Mental Hygiene Clinic who blames the second opinion almost exclusively on Otto Weininger’s Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character), 1903. However he goes on to discuss opposite sex characteristics such as male gynecomastia and women with beards. He misleadingly connects this to homosexuals, whom he regards as having a female psyche. He has a brief discussion of the work of Eugene Steinach and his transplanting of gonads to animals of the other sex.

Chapter XI “The Drag”

I have previously written of the Hamilton Lodge Balls, the premier drag event in New York in the 1920s and 1930s, which attracted thousands each year. Potter does not mention them by name. He writes of the Philadelphia Mummers parade, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, The Rose Pageant in Pasadena, California. He quotes from Blair Niles’ 1931 novel, Strange Brother, but he wrote too early to include The Young and Evil, 1933 by Charles Ford and Parker Tyler. Both novels include scenes at the Hamilton Lodge Balls.

He then comes to “THE DRAG BALL”.

“These are the famous ‘Drag Balls’, held in many of our principal cities, on the average of once a year. The men, dressed in the clothes of women, are called ‘drags’. In New York City there are at least two outstanding Drag Balls yearly - one held at Webster Hall, in Greenwich Village, the other in the Manhattan Casino, up in Harlem. Of late years this place has had ‘the run’."

And in a purple passage using terms, that no modern writer would, he refers to

“the motley throng that surges and sways to the blood-boiling rhythm of a Negro band. Hundreds and hundreds of Negroes also- of every shade of black and brown— from the octoroon, hardly to be distinguished from a strikingly lovely brunette Caucasian girl, to the burly blackamoor, of pure Ethiopian type are crowded, cheek by jowl, into sense -maddening proximity. For the Harlem Drag Ball is a ‘mixed’ affair, attended by whites and blacks alike.”

THE PARADE OF THE FAIRIES.

“Finally the dancing floor is cleared by the police for the chief event of the evening. It is the big ‘kick’ for which most of the spectators have come -the ‘parade of the fairies’, with a prize of two hundred dollars to be awarded to the ‘fairy’ who displays the loveliest and most artistic costume.”

$200 in 1932 = $4,700 today.

Reviews and comments

In December 1934, the pioneer gay activist Henry Gerber reviewed Potter’s book in his Chanticleer newsletter (as summarized by Jonathan Katz):

... I think the history of psychology is . . . damning evidence of man’s credulity and outright stupidity. The volume under review by Dr. La Forest Potter, who boasts of being a “late member of the New York County Medical Society, Massachusetts Medical Society,” etc., etc. . . . proves to me two significant facts: 1) that the medical authorities in America, of which Dr. Potter is a shining example, are about 100 years behind the times, and 2) that most psychologists in this country are mere yes-men who blindly and obediently follow the current authorized moral code without any regard to common sense or the results of modern scientific research ….

While the title of the book would indicate that the author had in view all phenomena of sex which seem strange to him and to the ignorant public alike, Dr. Potter deals mainly with homosexuality. . . . such a title is a profitable device for the sale of books, for the morons are always looking for something new and “strange” in sex matters. In other words, the book of Dr. Potter is just another instance of the morbid sex racket, a lurid description of sex abnormalities under the moral guise of condemnation of the queer sinners dealing in such “strange” loves in order to get the filthy details by the post office censors of “obscene” literature. Krafft-Ebing was perhaps the first author to start this racket and the volume in review is evidence of the sad fact that the end of it is not yet.

In the accepted fashion of Krafft-Ebing’s pot-boiler, Dr. Potter goes through the various artificial classifications of homosexuals. He has Chapters on the Riddle of Homosexuality . . . a chapter on the history of . . . the various unsuccessful attempts of “scientists” to solve the “riddle,” .. . special chapters on Lesbians (female homosexuals), in which the author makes the sensational statement that “there isn’t a man on earth who has a Chinaman’s chance against a Lesbian, once she has thoroughly seduced a woman to her wiles” (any doctor having knowledge of gynecology ought to know the reason to be due to the fact that males are very deficient in the fine art of satisfying a woman’s sexual needs.) [etc.] ….

.. . Dr. Potter views the psychoanalytical method of dealing with homosexuals and cites cases in which homosexuals have been “cured” by psychoanalysts. . .

But the author does evidently not think so much of this “cure” of homosexuals, for he cautiously warns that homosexuals can be cured only if they want to be cured. The only way to cure a [male] homosexual of his foible is to make him love women, a very simple process indeed, but Dr. Potter does not seem to realize that heterosexual men can be cured exactly in the same fashion from their love for women, by getting them to like men. By the same method, Pop-eye, the sailor cures children who do not like spinach by making them believe that spinach is really good for them and that every normal citizen must eat it.

Byrne Fone. A Road to Stonewall, 1969:

“Dr. Potter’s cliches resonate against the common currency of homophobic texts of the period and centuries before. He deploys the familiar accusations and links homosexuality not only with the destruction of what he suggests are virtually nationally encoded gender roles but clearly implies that homosexuality and homosexuals are effectively un-American. Because of the ‘infestation’ of homosexuality, however, the pioneer and heterosexual American virtues have been weakened and now the danger is clear and increasingly present: ‘Today there are homosexual ‘joints,’ ‘queer’ clubs, pervert ‘drags’ or homosexual plays in practically every considerable American city.’ Not only general society but American youth has been tainted by homosexuals, for ‘today there is scarcely a schoolboy who doesn’t know what a ‘pansy’ is’ ”. (p233-4)

Andrea Ens, Pain, Pleasure, Punishment, 2024:

“The book’s ad promised sophisticated adult readers clinical findings that would ‘tear away the veil of mystery that hides the facts behind homosexuality’ by demonstrating ‘the abnormal ties and the unnatural desires and erotic reactions of these twilight men and women’. But while Strange Loves’ marketers emphasized its titillating narratives of perverse sexual trysts hidden in darkness, the text itself repeatedly insisted ‘abnormals’ were often not malicious, intentional criminals, but ‘neurotics who are no more to blame for their condition than they would be for having dyspepsia, or sciatica, or a deviated septum’. This blamelessness – revealed by contemporary medical and scientific advances into the origins and impacts of ‘sexual abnormality’ – meant that American medical, social, and legal treatment of non-heteronormative Americans might allow their re-entry into ‘normal’ heterosexual society’. (p26)

Henry Gerber, “More Nonsense about Homosexuals,” Chanticleer, Vol. 1, No. 12 (Dec. 1934), 2-3. Partially reprinted in Jonathan Katz (ed) Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay men in the USA: 595-6, and in Tracy Baim’s Out and Proud in Chicago: 38-9.
Byrne Fone. A Road to Stonewall: Male Homosexuality and Homophobia in English and American Literature, 1750-1969. Twayne Publishers, 1995: 233-4.
Byrne Fone (ed). The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature. Columbia University Press, 1998: 669.
Byrne Fone. Homophobia: A History. Henry Holt and Company, 2000: 386-8.
"More Hilarious Zeitgeistiness". Autist's Corner, February 28 2009. Online.
Anna Lvovsky. Queer Expertise: Urban Policing and the Construction of Public Knowledge about Homosexuality, 1920–1970. PhD thesis, Harvard. May 2015: 34, 38, 39, 41, 48, 49, 53, 54, 60, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72 81, 84, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92.
Alysha Maree Crossan. Liberals, Ground Breakers, and Graduate Students: Reinvestigating US Sex Surveys and Research Before Kinsey, 1900-1953. PhD thesis, University of Auckland, 2022: 46, 154, 155, 156, 157.
Andrea Ens. Pain, Pleasure, Punishment: The Affective Experience of Conversion Therapy In Twentieth-Century North America. PhD Thesis, Purdue University, May 2024: 26-7, 47-8, 50-2, 55-6,

Potter's Bibliography

Three recent books about Magnus Hirschfeld

2025-08-10T09:00:00.000-04:00

There have been three recent books about Magnus Hirschfeld and the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft: Rainer Herrn's Der Liebe und dem Leid; Brandy Schillace's The Intermediaries and Daniel Brook's The Einstein of Sex. My problem with all three books is that so many of the known trans persons who consulted Dr Hirschfeld are not even mentioned.

The best book on German trans persons in the Kaiserreich and Weimer Republic remains Herrn's previous book from 2005, so I have included it below for compatison.

	Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts: Tranvestitismus and Transsexualitat in der fruhen Sexualwissenscaft. 2005	Rainer Herrn. Der Liebe und dem Leid: Das Institut für Sexualwissenschaft 1919-1933. 2022	Brandy Schillace. The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story,2025	Daniel Brook. The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld Visionary of Weimar Berlin. 2025
Alma de Paradeda	.	.	.	.
Max Tilke	✓	.	.	.
Hermann von Teschenberg	✓	✓	✓	✓
Karl M Baer	.	.	✓	✓
Friederike Schmidt	.	✓	✓	.
Rosina Danner	✓	.	.	.
Katharina T	✓	✓	✓	✓
Willi Pape	✓	.	.	.
Josefine Meißauer	✓	.	.	.
Gerda von Zobeltitz	✓	.	.
Ruth Fischer	.	.	.	.
Emi Wolters/Luz Fraumann	✓	.	.	.
Berthold Buttgereit	✓	✓	.	.
Alex Starke	✓	.	.	.
Dörchen Richter	✓	✓	✓	✓
Hertha Wind	.	.	.	.
Joseph Einsmann	.	.	.	.
Liddy Bacroft	.	.	.	.
(Char)Lotte/Lothar Hahm	✓	.	.	.
Toni Ebel	✓	✓	✓	✓
Charlotte Charlaque		✓	✓	✓
Lili Elvenes Elbe	✓	✓	✓
Gerd Katter	✓	✓	✓	✓
Gerd Winkelmann	✓	.	.	.
Oskar Gades	✓	.	.	.
Ossy Scho.	✓	.	✓
Helene N.	✓	.	.	✓
Michel-Marie Poulain	.	.	.	.

Seppel Einsmann (1885 – 1959) factory worker

2025-08-06T09:13:00.000-04:00

Seppel was born Maria Mayer, the eldest child of a factory worker and a housewife, in Bruchsal, 20 km from Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Württemberg. At age 27 in 1912, Mayer was working in Karlsruhe doing ironing, when she married Joseph Einsmann, a plasterer and one year older. The marriage did not go well, and they used the occasion of the husband’s military service during the Great War to separate. Herr Einsmann applied for an official dissolution of the marriage in 1923, but Frau Einsmann did not find out until much later.

During the War, Frau Einsmann worked in an ammunition factory in Pforzheim, and there met Helene Müller (né Banz) who likewise had separated from her husband during the war. When the War ended in late 1918, Frauen Einsmann and Müller and many others were obliged to give up their jobs in favour of the returning soldiers. Einsmann and Helene Müller moved to Mainz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, where they lived together. As in Pforzheim, the better jobs in Mainz were reserved for men. Einsmann had kept one of Joseph’s suits, and in one of its pockets were his pre-war identification documents. With a suitable haircut, Einsmann, using the name Joseph, obtained employment with the occupying French military forces – at a wage that supported two persons. Later Einsmann moved to a security and locking company. Einsmann was generally known to his fellow workers as ‘Seppel’. Helene worked as chambermaid.

In 1921 Helene gave birth to a girl, and Seppel registered the girl’s parents as Joseph and Maria Einsmann.

In 1925 Seppel took a position at Werner & Mertz which made shoe polish under the brand name Erdal. He was promoted to foreman supervising 20 workers. He was regarded as hardworking and always punctual, and was an active union member. He also sang tenor in two Mainz church choirs.

A second daughter was born in 1930. This time the Registry Office noticed that Joseph and Maria Einsmann were listed as divorced. Seppel therefore said that he had fathered the child illegitimately with ex-wife Maria Mayer, and the child was recorded with Maria Mayer as the mother. The tax office was notified so that Seppel paid less tax. He was regarded as a good example of a father.

In August 1931, Seppel had a work accident. His hand went into a cutting machine, and the little finger on the right hand was lost. The stay in the men’s ward at the hospital went smoothly. However the subsequent claim for temporary incapacity insurance ran into a problem. The Reich Insurance Office in Berlin realised that they had two disability cards both of which had been issued to a Joseph Einsmann and with identical data. This led to Seppel being questioned and thus outed. He was charged with false certification in changing civil status and lying about the parentage of the two daughters. There was also the matter that he had been Best Man at a wedding and thus signed that the marriage was legitimate. Seppel’s story was repeated in the press in subsequent months, both in Germany and abroad.

Seppel sold photographs showing his masculine self, along with Helene and their two daughters. The court appointed two psychologists to give an opinion. The county medical officer Dr Wagner accepted Seppel’s claim that her cross-dressing was only to find work and to gain a family wage. Seppel was also sent to see Dr Felix Abraham at Berlin’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. Abraham diagnosed a „transvestite predisposition“. This opinion Seppel rejected.

The trial, 20 August 1932, lasted only three hours. Seppel, as obliged, was present in female clothing. The court accepted Dr Wagner’s opinion, not that of Dr Abraham. Maria’s ex-husband declined to testify. Both Einsmann and Müller were given suspended sentences – to the applause of the court visitors - but had to pay court costs.

Werner & Mertz continued Seppel’s employment. Seppel, after consulting with the employer, took a vacation that was due, and then returned to work, this time as Maria. Maria and Helene continued to live at the same flat throughout the duration of the Third Reich, and moved to a different address in Mainz in 1945. Maria was referred to as ‘aunt’ by the children, and then by the grandchildren. She died in 1959 age 74. Helene died in 1991 age 98.

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

Apparently Helene almost never spoke to her children about Seppel’s life as a man.

There is no record from Helene or elsewhere about who did father her children.

“Einsmann” means ‘one man’, but ironically was two.

Abraham’s diagnosis of “transvestite predisposition” was rather blunt, but as Seppel maintained his male persona outside work as well as in, and kept it up day and night 365 days a year, for 12 years, – and sang tenor in two church choirs - he probably was a type of trans. After 1932, social pressure and public knowledge compelled adherence to a female presentation. The mainstream press went along with the opinion expressed in the court that the male presentation dressing was only to find work and to gain a family wage. However Paul Weber, writing in the lesbian/trans Die Freundin shortly after the trial, wrote “For all of us this matter is no ‘exceptional case,’ but rather the dream of what the reality of a thoroughly masculine woman can look like.”

Would it not have been easier to list Helene Müller, the actual mother, as the mother on the birth registration?

„Frau Vater. Eine als Mann verkleidete Frau arbeitet seit 12 Jahren auf dem Bauplatz und in Fabriken“. Mainzer Tagesanzeiger, 16 August 1931.
“Feminine ‘Father’: Woman Who Worked as Man Since the War”. Birmingham Evening Despatch, 16 April 1932: 1.
“12 Years Pose as Man“. Swindon Evening Advertiser, 22 August 1932: 4.
"Maria Einsmann, eine tapfere Frau!".Mainzer Volkzeitung. 22 August 1932.
“Josef Maria Einsmann,” Die Freundin, 35, 2 September 1931: 2f.
Paul Weber, “Das Urteil gegen Frau Einsmann,” Die Freundin, 36, 7 September 1932: 2.
Katie Sutton. The Masculine Woman in Weimar Germany. Berghahn, 2013: 113, 115.
Eva Weickart, (2020). "Die Frau in Männerkleidung. Der Fall Maria Einsmann. Presseberichte aus den Jahren 1931 und 1932". mainz.de, 2020. Online. (The enclosed PDF includes a lot of press reports on the cas)
Barbara Trottnow (dir). Frau Vater – Die Geschichte der Maria Einsmann, ZDF German 29 mins 2022.

DE.Wikipedia(Maria Einsmann) EN.Wikipedia(Maria Einsmann)

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

The expatriate writer Anna Seghers used Einsmann’s life as the basis of her 1940 novel Der sogenannte Rendel, written while she was in exile in Mexico. She also wrote a film script based on the story, Hier gibt's keine Katharina ('There is no Katharina here'), but it was never filmed.

Berthold Brecht, the German playwright, also wrote a fictional version of Einsmann, Der Arbeitsplatz oder Im Schweiße Deines Angesichts sollst Du kein Brot essen, which is included in the collection of the same name. It was translated into English in 1983.

Barbara Trottnow, a filmmaker from Mainz, made a film in 1995 based on parts of Segher’s script. 25 years later she made a 29 minute documentary directly about the Einsmanns, which included a contribution from Helene’s granddaughter, Erkens.

In 2014 the city-district of Mainz-Altstadt named a square after Einsmann and called it Maria-Einsmann-Platz, using only what should have been his dead name, and with no mention of his wife, Helene.

Anna Seghers. Der sogenannte Rendel. Volk u. Wissen, 1940.
Bertold Brecht. The job or By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou fail to earn thy bread. Methuen, 1983.
Barbara Trottnow (dir). Katharina oder: Die Kunst, Arbeit zu finden. Scr: Anna Seghers, with Heidi Ecks as Katharina. ZDF German 80 mins 1995. IMDB
Barbara Trottnow (dir). Frau Vater – Die Geschichte der Maria Einsmann, ZDF German 29 mins 2022. Webpage.

Finocchio’s – post WWII

2025-07-30T10:24:00.000-04:00

Original version, January 2010.

Part I: the early years

Part II: post WWII

In 1946, Joe, and other club owners, were having problems with the Board of Fire Prevention and Investigation after a fire at the Herbert Hotel and Backstage Cocktail Lounge in which four firemen had lost their lives. Temporarily the number of patrons was limited to 250, until required structural changes were made.

During this time Majorie was absent. On 16 July it was reported that she had married another clubman, Percy Harman of San Mateo, in Calexico on the Mexican border, but only four days later, back in San Francisco, she obtained a separation and the restoration of her Finocchio name. She explained that immediately after the marriage, Harman had pestered her for large sums of money.

In September 1947 a burglar entered the home of Joe and Marjorie and took $40,000 in furs and a safe containing $15,000. While the break-in occurred at about 10.30 pm, it was not discovered until the 350lb house safe was discovered by a motorist at 1:45am southwest of the city. The safe had been punched open. The Finocchios, still at the club were informed by the police, and hurried home.

Howard Hughes grew bored with Pussy Katt. However, he did finance a drag club for her in Acapulco which they called Finocchio’s South. In later years she performed at Madame Arthur’s in Paris.

William Stoffler, a San Francisco stockbroker, married and noted for his good looks, became a dancer at Finocchio’s, and an occasional date of Howard Hughes. His suspicious wife discovered his second life, and divorced him.

In 1948, the Finocchios sued four former employees, Ray Bourbon, Jackie May, Johnnie Magnum, and Francis Russell, for putting out records and advertising with the words “The new Bourbon Records presents the world’s foremost female impersonators from Finocchio’s of San Francisco”. Later that year Joe and Marjorie travelled together to England.

The 5^th edition of Where to Sin in San Francisco, 1948, asked “Is it true what they say about Finocchio’s?”, and answered:

“Yes, it is. Even if the girls were women, the shows would be provocative. But the artists in the costly gowns are not women. Without saying what they are, twinkling Marjorie Finocchio does declare, “They’re the only stable ones in the country.” Tall, beautiful, stable Freddie Renault, the $200-a-week MC, has been here fourteen years. . . . Cute, Oriental Li Kar, double stable after ten years, is both a dancer and the club’s costume designer. . . . Stablest of all is Walter Hart, $275-a-week specialist in murky songs.”

Walter Hart, had been at Finocchios since 1933. He was billed as the male Sophie Tucker, and the real Sophie Tucker was delighted. She gave him many of the gowns and furs he wore and never failed to catch his show when in the city. However in 1948, as Herb Caen wrote: “ After 15 solid years on the job, Entertainer Walter Hart is out of Finocchio’s, on acct. some verbal twanging with Mrs. F. That’s sort of like the last ferry leaving the Ferry Bldg”. However Hart soon found employment at the Tivoli.

Lucian Phelps took over the “male Sophie Tucker” persona, and, as with Walter Hart, the real Sophie Tucker caught his act and sent him gowns and furs.

The 1949 San Francisco Real Property Directory listed only Marjorie as the club owner.

By 1950 the City Directory listed Joseph and Eve Finocchio living at the same address.

The local competition was the Black Cat Bar, which was developing from being a bohemian and Beat bar, to being more gay. Jose Sarria entered a competition to get a gig at Finocchio’s, but did not get it, and then went to the Black Cat where he started as a waiter, and graduated to being the major singer, openly gay, openly in drag, singing a re-working of Bizet’s Carmen. Unlike Finocchio’s, customers were permitted to dress as they chose. In 1951 the State Board of Equalization suspended the Black Cat's liquor license in that known homosexuals ate and drank there.

The other competition was Jewel Box Revue, and many of the impersonator stars worked for both the Revue and Finnochio’s at different times. As a touring revue, the Jewel Box was in San Francisco only intermittently. However, even when the Revue was in town, Finocchio’s was filled to capacity, four shows a night, six nights a week, attracting locals, tourists and celebrities such as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Bette Davis and Tallulah Bankhead.

1954: UCLA psychologist Evelyn Hooker started her groundbreaking work comparing the psychological adjustment of homosexual and heterosexual men that showed that gay men were not significantly different. Her research included a visit to Finocchio’s.

Marjorie died in 1956 after a lingering illness. Joe then married Eve, and Eve was finally allowed into the club, and quickly took over Marjorie’s role. She took over with a vengeance. Her brother George Filippis also came in as club manager, her sister Maria Filippis as the cashier and Eve’s teenage daughter Concetta as the official photographer. Joe continued to oversee the bar and the door. The huge photos of the performers which were hanging in the club and outside on the street were all taken down. The club was redecorated – the décor was said to be based on that of Le Carrousel of Paris – and at the same time Le Carrousel star Les Lee was hired.

Another new hire was Lavern Cummings, who sang as both soprano and baritone, and who stayed until 1982.

A chorus line, Las Vegas style, were introduced known as the Eve-ettes, after the second Mrs Finocchio. Eve quickly cut the number of musicians from five to three, and refused to be addressed as ‘Madame’ as that was how Marjorie had been addressed.

1958: Francis Blair, star of Seatle’s Garden of Allah, also performed a comedy drag routine with Ray Francis, “Two Old Bags from Oakland” which they did at Finocchio’s that year.

In the summer of 1959, the future Aleshia Brevard, moved to Los Angles and found a Catholic priest lover who, after giving her gonorrhea, took her to San Francisco and to see the show at Finocchio’s. Lucian as Sophie Tucker fabricated a story about having a training school for impersonators, and picked out Aleshia in the audience and said "And this, ladies and gentlemen, is my star pupil. Isn't she beautiful? Stand up and take a bow." Aleshia then knew what she wanted. “I auditioned at Finocchio's, based solely on a photograph I'd submitted. Before having that audition photo taken, I'd never been in female attire. Talk about an untrained 'New Nanette'! I would have never gotten hired at the most prestigious impersonation club in the country if it had it not been for Stormy Lee, Finocchio's star exotic dancer. People HATED Stormy, I'm well aware of that, but she put me under her protective wing on the night of my audition.” Aleshia was given the stage name of “Lee Shaw” by the MC Lestra Lamonte. Aleshia had the looks and developed an act as Marilyn Monroe singing "My Heart Belongs To Daddy". The real Monroe came one night to see the act.

'Lee Shaw' and Eve

Aleshia and Stormy had extra kudos in that they each had a boyfriend. Off-stage Aleshia became a patient of Harry Benjamin during his summer sojourns in San Francisco – it was Stormy who shared her Premarin and then took Aleshia to her first appointment with Harry Benjamin. The aspect that Aleshia hated most was “having to remove my makeup and despised dressing in men's clothes before leaving the club - but that was the law. What I detested most was how Mrs. Finocchio's sister, Maria, who sold tickets, would call out ‘Good night, Lee Shaw’ - or whomever, as we were exiting the club. She was pointing out to lingering customers how impersonators looked 'off stage'. I always felt that was very unkind.”

Libby Reynolds, two years after his tryst with actor Raymond Burr, and then selling the story to Confidential Magazine, was hired in 1962.

Aleshia/Lee Shaw left the club in 1962, and was one of the last trans woman to have surgery with Dr Elmer Belt in Los Angeles. This was to the chagrin of the Finocchios who threatened that she would never work again.

There was a shortage of dancers at the club. Reggie Dahl was in the hospital, a Spanish dancer by the name of Néstor had a mental breakdown, and the only dancer left at the club was Stormy Lee. Robin Price, previously of the Jewel Box, heard of the vacancy and came from Los Angeles to audition, and was not hired. However Price was phoned a few days later, asked if she could do the Can-Can, and after a second audition was hired.

Concetta, Eve’s daughter, graduated from UC Berkeley. In 1963 she married Eric Jorgensen, and they called their first child Eric.

Stormy had surgery the next year with Dr Burou in Casablanca. Lestra Lamonte, the emcee died, and Price became the new emcee. Price fell out with Eve Finocchio when she tried to tell him not to visit a certain club on his own time, despite her sister going to the same place. They stopped talking until the last day of Price’s contract, when Eve finally wanted to talk, but Price simple packed bags and left.

The Black Cat Bar, following some 15 years of unrelenting pressure from the police and the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) finally closed in1963.

Carroll Wallace, who had a sideline as a real-estate investor, became the emcee. As such he had to do the stage lighting and sound, which was not easy and it was very tiring on his feet to be standing for the whole show.

David de Alba joined as a star performer in 1971, and he did hair-styling and wigs for the other performers. Two years later, he asked permission for four days off for plastic surgery. However on returning he found that he had been fired, and was told to pick up his costumes, make-up cases, wigs and musical charts. He still did wigs and hair styling for the other performers, and was often contracted as a guest star. “What I didn’t realize at the time was that there was a new cost cutting trend going on at the club. Mrs. Finocchio was getting rid of the main supporting acts and replacing them with members of her beloved chorus line, 'The Eve-ettes'. They now had two jobs, being in the chorus and then as main supporting acts. So there you had it, two acts for the price of one!”

Lucian Phelps, 65, who had performed at Finocchio’s since 1949, died after a long illness in 1973.

An ad 1977

A wildfire destroyed the area surrounding the Jorgensen house, but not their house.

Jae Stevens, 27, was a performer at Finocchio’s when she was murdered in Golden Gate Park in 1974. The police actually pulled over her car, presumably driven by her murderer, but, after a chase and a crash into a house, the man escaped.

Mr and Mrs Jorgensen had three more children, and then were divorced, leaving Concetta as a single mother of four. The very same year she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. She became a disability activist, did publicity for the club and despite her disability – and she was eventually a paraplegic - she was 30 years on the Alameda County Consumer Affairs Commission.

In 1981, in an interview in the San Francisco Chronicle, Joe was quoted: “We always keep our eyes open. It’s easy to get fellows in women’s clothes. But we don’t allow any filth, and most of them resort to filth.” Eve did the first interview, and if Joe agreed, Eve made arrangements for costuming and rehearsals. At that time dancers were paid $80 to $125 a week. Eve arranged for Holiday Tours and Gray Lines to add Finocchio’s to their tour lists. Gray Lines included a Finocchio’s photograph in its brochure. During the 1970s, as topless and then bottomless revue bars had opened, there had been fears that business at Finocchio’s would decline. But with time the topless bars became passé and Finocchio’s was still going. In the late 1970s it managed as many as 300,000 customers a year. There were four shows a night, each running about an hour. The shows had themes that were not always the same from show to show, and guests could stay for extra shows.

Joe Finocchio died of a stroke in January 1986, aged 88. This left Eve as the sole owner. She brought in Eric Jorgensen, Concetta’s eldest son, then 23 to be groomed as a future manager – which he was by 1989. Eve continued to manage the shows and performers, but the zest was declining. Gray Lines dropped Finocchio’s in 1988, but later restored it. An article in the Chronicle in 1989 claimed that Finocchio was grossing $2 million a year. However in 1990 they upped the cover charge from $10 to $15, with a new two-drink minimum, and now opened only four days: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Again in 1991, a wildfire destroyed the surrounding area, but again not the Jorgensen house. A television movie was made of the event, Firestorm: 72 Hours in Oakland. Actress Jill Clayburgh played a character based on Concetta Jorgensen.

A few years later Finocchio’s started presenting lip-synching performers – weakening what had made the club special. Eve later fired the band and it became all lip-synching. The press paid less and less attention. Openings were reduced to only three nights: Friday to Sunday, and only three shows a night. Sometimes there were no customers, and the show was cancelled.

Eve Finocchio decided to close the club in November 1999 because of a major rent increase and dwindling attendance.

Eve died 2007, age 92.

Concetta Finocchio Jorgensen, daughter of Eve died in 2012, age 71, survived by 4 children and 12 grandchildren.

Lavern Cummings died in 2018 age 91 in Las Vegas after being hit by a car.

Other artists who performed there include: Katherine Marlow, Holly White, Russell Reed, Val DeVere, Ted Hendrix, Harvey Lee, Francis Stillman, Jeri-Lane, Frank Doran, Jackie Philips, Bobby Johnson, John Lonas, Vaughn Auldon, Johnny Mangum, Del LeRoy, Milton La Maire, Ray Francis, Francis David, Paul La Ray, Mike Michelle, Bobby Belle.

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

“Police Raiders Arrest Ten in S.F. Night Club: Patrons Rush for Exits as Officers Visit Finocchio’s”. San Francisco Chronicle. July 20, 1936: 5.
Ki-Lar Finocchio’s. Finocchio’s program, 1944. Online.
“Ex-Finocchio Wife Divorced: ‘Quickie’ Marriage to San Mateo Man Aired in Action”. San Francisco Examiner, Aug 2, 1946,
“Finocchio Defies Order To Close S.F. Night Club: Fire Marshal Threatens to Jail Owner For Disregard of Safety Rules”. San Francisco Examiner, Aug 24, 1946: 5.
“Finocchio Home Looted of Furs”. San Francisco Examiner, Sep 11, 1947:11.
Jack Lord and Lloyd Hoff, Where to Sin in San Francisco, 5th ed. (San Francisco: Richard F. Guggenheim, 1948), 145.
“In Memoriam: Lucian Phelps”. Drag, 3, 10, 1973:40. Online.
“In Memoriam: Jae Stevens 1947-1974”. Drag, 4, 16, 1974:34. Online.
“San Francisco drag bar owner Joseph Finocchio dies at 88’. Santa Cruz Sentinel, Jan 15, 1986:10.
Norman Melnick. “Deaths: Joseph Finocchio”. San Francisco Examiner, Jan 15, 1986: 19.
Jacqueline Frost. “Home alone: ‘House of mixed blessings’ in lunar landscape: Fire survivors lament lost neighborhoods”. Oakland Tribune. Jan 27, 1992:1.
Tracie Reynolds. “Star Struck: Survivor to give proceeds to son, who suffered burns: Firestorm victim with multiple sclerosis sells story to TV”. Oakland Tribune. Nov 9, 1992:1.
Michael Tuchner (dir). Firestorm: 72 Hours in Oakland. With Jill Clayburgh playing a character based on Concetta Jorgensen. US 104 mins 1993. IMDB.
Les Wright. “San Francisco”. In David Higgs (ed). Queer Sites: Gay Urban Histories Since 1600. Routledge, 1999: 171-2.
Jesse Hamlin. “Strutting Into History / Laughter gives way to tears as Finocchio's ends 63-year drag-show run”, San Francisco Chronicle, 29 November 1999.
Jesse Hamlin. “What a Drag: Finocchio’s to Close/Cross-dressers have entertained at club for 63 years”. SFGate, Nov 4, 1999. Online.
Nan Alamilla Boyd. Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965. University of California Press, 2003: 49,52-6,187.
D.J. Doyle. “Finochio’s”. Queer Musical Heritage. http://www.queermusicheritage.us/oct2002f.html.
“David de Alba on Finocchio's”. www.david-de-alba.com/david4.htm. www.david-de-alba.com/david5.htm.
“David de Alba on Shaw”. www.david-de-alba.com/aleshia.htm.
“David de Alba on Price”. www.david-de-alba.com/Price.htm.
Mel Gordon et al. "UC Berkeley Interview on Finocchio Club Legend: David de Alba". http://david-de-alba.com/Berkeley%20Interview.htm
Aleshia Brevard. The Woman I Not Was Born to Be: A Transsexual Journey. Temple University Press, 2001:
Darwin Porter. Howard Hughes: Hell’s Angel. Blood Moon Productions, 2010: 575-6, 593-5, 733.
Aleshia Brevard. The Woman I Was Born to Be. A Blue Feather Book, 2010:
Kathleen Brosnan & Amy Scott. City Dreams, Country Schemes: Community and Identity in the American West. University of Nevada Press, 2011: 248-250.
Chris Treadway. “Berkeley disabled rights activist dies at 70”. The Mercury News, January 11, 2012. Online.
David Artavia. “Trans Trailblazer Aleshia Brevard Dead at 79”. The Advocate, July 25, 2017. Online.
James Smith. “Finocchio’s club: A San Francisco Legend”. The Argonaut, 28, 2, Winter 2018. Online.
James Smith. “Finocchio’s” Except from San Francisco’s Lost Landmarks. Online.
Susan Stryker. “Finocchio's, a Short Retrospective”. FoundSF: the San Francisco digital history archive. Online.
Michail Takach & B J Daniels. A History of Milwaukee Drag: Seven Generations of Glamour. History Press, 2022: 64-6.
Margot Canaday. Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America. Princeton University Press, 2023: 95-99.
Lucas Hilderbrand. The Bars are Ours: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After. Duke University Press, 2023: 74-5, 77.

EN.Wikipedia GLBT Historical Society Online Archive of California Queer Music Heritage Digital Commonwealth

Discussion in other books:

Canaday:

“For the trans women who performed at Finocchio’s, this was more than just a job. The actress Aleshia Brevard was first taken to the night club by a man she was involved with and “instantly felt she had to be there. … It was common, she remembered, for trans women to dance at Finocchio’s just long enough to earn the money for surgery and then leave. As a result, Finocchio’s eventually preferred hiring cross-dressers to trans women because they tended to stay on the job.”

She also includes a footnote Chp 2 n167

“Friedman thought (citing letters between the sexologists Harry Benjamin and William Masters) that a date with a performer at Finocchio’s (usually made through a waiter) could be arranged for around $50. The higher price was because these women were, according to some, considered exotic. Certain young gay hustlers “who ordinarily might not have cross-dressed” did so in order to command a higher wage.”

This is taken from Harvey Friedman. Strapped for Cash: A History of American Hustler Culture, 2010: 124-5. This in turn is based on Harry Benjamin & R E L Masters. Prostitution and Morality, 1964: 305-9, which does not actually mention Finocchio’s but the comment probably does apply to it.

“Impersonators working in clubs, and making their contacts there, earn far more money than do other types of male hustlers, for the reason, no doubt, that they are to some extent “celebrities.” Fifty dollar fees are not unusual, and at the club most intensively studied, a $20.00 fee for a single sexual act was the absolute minimum the prostitutes would consider.”

Takach & Daniels:

“Despite offering drag shows for seven decades, Finocchio’s was never really a gay-friendly destination. The club capitalized on its gay performers for amusement, but its owners never really wanted to deal with gay customers. While Joe Finocchio provided gainful employment to generations of gay men who might otherwise struggle to survive in San Francisco, he was always more interested in running a profitable tourist attraction than a LGBTQ safe space, social outlet or historical landmark. … Joe’s first wife, Marjorie, was the front face of the operation. … Robyn Raye, an impersonator … said of Marge Finocchio, ‘I don’t think she liked gay people, but she certainly knew how to use them.’ … ‘Marge Finocchio made millions off drag queens. We made that woman rich.’ “

My comments:

’finocchio’ is Italian for fennel and by extension a negative word for gay. Some say that this is because its bulb looks like male genitals, but the corresponding word in Portuguese, ‘fanchono’ would seem to be cognate.

Rachel Harlow in Philadelphia was also born with the Finocchio name. However there does not seem to be any connection between the San Francisco Finocchios and those of Philadelphia. Likewise there does not seem to be any connection between the San Francisco Jorgensens (the family of Concetta’s husband), and the family of Christine Jorgensen in New York City. The fact that Concetta bore both names, Finocchio and then Jorgensen, is a fascinating trivium – but without significance.

Many – less informed - articles maintain that it was Joe Finocchio who built up and ran the 201 Club. However it was Marjorie who used her money to buy the first club, and then chose the acts and ran it, and afterwards Eve – who despite despising her – stepped into her shoes. Marjorie ran the club 1929-1956, 27 years. Eve ran it less well, but for longer, 1956-1999, 43 years – and carried on after Joe’s demise.

The requirement for the performers to arrive and leave in male drag also applied at the 181 Club/Club 82 in New York. But not at Le Carrousel in Paris. The Finocchios were strict, sometimes shouted at their employees and threatened blacklisting if a performer left without permission. However the 181 Club/Club 82 was mafia owned – by the Genovese family - and if you crossed them, worse things could happen.

I could not have written this without James Smith's “Finocchio’s club: A San Francisco Legend” in The Argonaut.

Finocchio’s – a nightclub: Part I: the early years

2025-07-29T07:22:00.001-04:00

Original version, January 2010.

Part I: the early years

Part II: post WWII

Part I: the early years

Joe Finocchio (1897 - 1986) was born in Italy. His father Bernardo Finocchio emigrated to San Francisco, and at age 14 Joe, the eldest child, joined him. His first job was in the produce market at $2 a week. He served in the US army during the Great War (March 1918-February 1919). Alcohol Prohibition came in January 1920, and in August and September that year Joe working in a restaurant was arrested three times in Prohibition raids. In the third, officers confiscated two truckloads of wine and whisky, as well as liquor from the tables. A search produced more liquor stashed in various places throughout the restaurant. Joe was bailed at $1,000. Also that year Bernardo visited Italy and returned with the rest of his children, two girls and a boy. He now owned the Hotel Maxwelton at 515 Bush Street (near Grant Avenue), and Joe took over the management there. He also worked in a speakeasy owned by his father.

By early 1925 Joe was married, to Marjorie Faxon (1891-1956), a divorcee with a teenage son and an upscale beauty shop. In 1929 Majorie Faxon Finocchio bought the 201 Club, a speakeasy at 406 Stockton Street in the Tenderloin. Joe worked there part-time. The club attracted a mixed gay-straight crowd including writers, artists and thespians. Some would perform for their friends, and as such for the other customers. One night a customer in mufti performed an imitation of the legendary Sophie Tucker. This gave Joe and Marge the idea of a nightclub with men performing with all the glitter, sophistication and glamour of sophisticated women. Initially the show was a female impersonator paired with a exotic dancer – hula or Chinese. This arrangement attracted a gay clientele. Harry Hay, the future gay activist, met men there.

Elsewhere in California: 1932 had been a peak year for pansy revues (which featured female impersonation) with appearances in Los Angeles by Karyl Norman and Jean Malin, and the next year Hollywood made a record number of films with pansy content. However, from 1932 onwards, and especially after the end of Alcohol Prohibition in 1933, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) started busting the pansy clubs. BBB's Cellar and Jimmie's Back Yard were raided repeatedly. The raid on The Big House in fall 1932 met resistance: the patrons fought back and a female impersonator attempted to escape through a window. The bar, renamed Buddy's Rendezvous, reopened, and the police returned eight months later and arrested five transvestites on vagrancy charges. In November 1933 another raid on Jimmie's Back Yard resulted in 90-day sentences for the owner, the mistress of ceremonies and the piano player. Three other female impersonators were each sentenced to six months – the maximum penalty. Harold Brown, arrested on suspicion of posing as a narcotics officer, was discovered to be female bodied and got a suspended 30-day sentence for masquerading. Three pansy bars were shut down in 1936, and another three the next year. Frank Shaw, the Los Angeles Mayor, ran a notably corrupt administration from 1933 until he was recalled in 1938. He was opposed by Clifford Clinton, a restaurateur, who with others filed a grand jury report that led to the recall. Part of Shaw's fight back was to step up the attack on 'sex pervert' bars.

With the repeal of Prohibition, the 201 Club had been able to promote itself more openly, and they hired more dancers and expanded the floor show. Freddie Renault, with experience in ballet and musical comedy joined the cast.

However performers mixed with the customers, and were paid on a percentage basis. This was not permitted by new police regulations. San Francisco Police Chief William Quinn announced , “Lewd entertainers must be stopped!” In the early morning of July 20, 1936, the 201 Club was crowded, and five female impersonators were doing a dance routine followed by a ‘vulgar parody’. A police officer took the microphone and announced: “This place is under arrest. Patrons will not be molested. Those who have nothing to do with this place may leave without fear of arrest.” 120+ patrons quickly left. 10 persons remained, and were taken to the Hall of Justice. Joe and Marge Finocchio and Jack Peterson the club manager were charged with keeping a disorderly house, selling liquor after 2:00 a.m., and employing entertainers on a percentage basis. However as the raid took place at 1:45 the Finocchios were able to challenge the charge of selling after 2:00. The performers, Walter Hart (the male Sophie Tucker), Carroll Davis, Eugene Countryman, Jack Lopez, Dick Vasquez, and Frank Korpi were booked on vagrancy charges, a $1,000 fine. The following day, the municipal judge sentenced Hart and Davis to 30 days in the county jail. The arresting officers said that Eugene Countryman took no part in the singing, so he was given a thirty-day suspended sentence. The Judge dismissed charges against the other performing defendants. The Finocchios asked for a jury trial, charging that the undercover police specifically requested songs in contention. Apparently a settlement was reached in that there were no further reports in the press.

The publicity brought in even more customers. That November there was a write up in the Chronicle on Joe Finocchio when he flew to South Bend, Indiana via Chicago to purchase a luxurious Studebaker Dictator Coupe, and drove it back to San Francisco, a trip that took six days.

The Finocchios realized that tourist business was the growth portion of their clientele, and, as such, being located in the seedy Tenderloin was a problem. They elsewhere found a suitable nightclub space with a stage and orchestra pit at 506 Broadway above Enrico’s Café. There was an outside stairway for easy access. The sign outside was now ‘Finocchio’s’ and the club opened 15 July 1937. They hired more impersonators, and enlarged the band to five performers. Marjorie planned the entertainment on a grand scale. She booked the finest entertainers, supervised and planned elaborate productions. Joe dealt with the drinks, and negotiated with the police. The club was allowed to exist because it became a tourist attraction, a symbol of the city’s sophistication. Joe had to promise the police that the entertainers would not mingle with the customers. Tourist magazines billed Finocchio’s as ‘America’s most unusual night club’. The club had always included ethnic impersonators, and this continued. Li-Kar did a Geisha dance; Billy Herrero recreated Hedy Lamarr in the film Algiers, 1938; in 1940 the club developed an Argentine feature; later Juan Jose did a flamenco dance; Reene de Carlo a hula dance; Bobby de Castro did a striptease in a gorilla costume (this was supposed to be Cuban). Top female impersonators were booked. They advertised as “Where the entertainment is different, and how”. That the performers were female impersonators was an open secret, but was not admitted within the show until the end when performers as per tradition removed their wigs.

Herb Caen, who would become a celebrity columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle and was noted for his sarcasm, joined the paper in 1938. He often referred to Finocchio’s as the Italian-Swish Colony. His put-downs of the club were taken in good-humor and were after-all publicity for the club. The February – October 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, a World’s Fair was held on an artificially built island in San Francisco Bay to celebrate the two new bridges, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. Although not part of the Exposition, Finocchio’s benefited by being the main attraction down town.

In late 1939, a newly hired waiter, George Dasch, was causing disruption in the kitchen by arguing the Nazi cause. Marge quickly fired him. (In 1942, he returned to the US as part of the Third Reich’s Operation Pastorius. Dasch betrayed his colleagues and defected to the FBI. Most of the team were captured, tried and then executed. Dasch, despite his defection, was sentenced to 30 years, but released and deported after 6.)

Marjorie

The ‘After Dark’ column in the Chronicle declared in January 1941 that Finocchio’s was one of the places that made San Francisco famous. In September 1941, Herb Caen was repeating gossip that the Finocchios had “rifted to the point where they’re discussing property settlement”, and the next day the Chronicle reported “Mrs. Joe Finocchio, soon-to-be-divorced wife of the No. Beach night club operator, fell off her new boat in the bay the other day – and was rescued by a sailor who got to her just in time”. Joe had been seeing Eva/Eve Filippis, a recent immigrant from Italy, who had given birth to a daughter 1 February 1941 whom she named Concetta Finocchio. It was claimed that Marjorie had divorced Joe for ‘extreme cruelty’ in 1941 and that then Joe and Eve were married – however recent researchers have failed to find the records. Joe and Marge continued to live at the same address. Marjorie made it very clear that Eve Filippis was never to enter the club.

Other than that, there was a little trouble at the club during the war years. Many civilians moved to San Francisco to take jobs in the shipyards. Accommodation was available in the Fillmore district from which the Japanese-Americans had been interned. The still underage Tony Midnight, who was working in munitions during the war, snuck into Finocchio’s using fake ID.

In 1942 military authorities declared Finocchio's "off limits" for selling liquor to WWII military personnel outside of authorized hours. That temporary sanction was lifted New Year's Eve 1943 after Joe Finocchio and other bar owners signed an agreement to limit liquor sales to military personnel to between 5 pm and midnight. Beer could, however, be sold between 10 am and midnight.

Despite the growing rift between Joe and Marjorie, they continued to collaborate and in March 1943 opened a new lounge adjacent to the main auditorium.

Harvey Goodwin moved to San Francisco and became a performer at Finocchio's night club.

Rae Bourbon had been arrested during a police raid while broadcasting live from Tait’s in San Francisoco in 1933. A decade later she was back in town and headlining at Finocchio’s, as was Karyl Norman, billed as the highest paid female impersonator at the time.

In late 1941 Tex Hendrix from England became the emcee. He wowed the audiences by changing evening gowns for each of his 12 acts.

The ex-tight-rope walker from Barnum and Bailey’s circus, Nicki Gallucci came to sing at Finocchio’s. Gallucci was a natural soprano, the only male coloratura soprano capable of reaching high D above middle C.

Carol Davis often sang in a tux behind the Theatre Bar. His act was to look like a woman dressed like a man.

The 1944 program designed by Ki-Lar

In 1945 there was a rumor that Errol Flynn, David Niven and two others had taken Finocchio’s Pussy Katt (then aged 16) and friends back to a hotel suite at the Fairmont for a night of ‘debauchery’. Gossip columnist Louella Parsons heard this, but couldn’t use it. Howard Hughes who had first met Katt when he escorted Ava Gardner to Finocchio’s, returned for another meeting, and became her lover. Later Hughes flew with Katt to Mexico City for an operation that made her America's first surgical transsexual, and she was paid $50,000. Afterwards he installed her in a villa in the new resort of Acapulco, and repeatedly visited her for almost two years.