A Gender Variance Who's Who

 Albin Pleva was a travelling travesti dancer, who occasionally supplemented her income by some sex work.  She was arrested by the Czech authorities subservient to the Nazi occupation for being "irredeemable" and was interned at a concentration camp, a huge pig farm at Lety.  

There is no further information about her, and so it is assumed that she died there.

• Jan Seidl.  "Legal Imbroglio in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" in Régis Schlagdenhauffen (ed) Queer in Europe During the Second World War.  Council of Europe, 2018: 59.
• "Homosexuel.le.s en Europe Pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale". Mémoire des sexualités.   Online.
• "Albín Pleva, imitátor žen, 30. léta". www.queerpamet.cz.     Online.  

G. von Zobeltitz from Weißensee, Berlin, a scion of one of Germany's old noble families with ties to the Hohenzollern court, was making a living in Berlin as Gerda, a women's tailor, by 1910, and she was also sometimes a dancer.

 

Bathyllus was born in Alexandria in the mid of the last century BCE and maybe  was originally called Gaius Theoros. He was a slave in the house of Maecenas, but later was given his freedom. He, along with Pylades of Cicicia, was credited as a pioneer of Roman pantomime (no dialogue), around 22 BCE in Augustan Rome. However the pantomimos danced a combination of old and new dances, of Greek and Asiatic traditions, and the term pantomimos had first appeared for the performer Ploutogenes before 75 BCE. Possibly what Bathyllus and Pylades did was to expand the musical accompaniment. A pantomimos was a solo artist who danced all the roles in a sequence with a different closed-mouth mask for each role, and was accompanied by a chorus who sang a libretto, a fabula saltica, supported by musicians.

Senelick p32

Unlike Pylades, Bathyllus was noted for his feminine grace. He mainly acted female parts and his solo act, Leda with the swan was acclaimed. He was regarded as the epitome of comedic performance, and as one of the leading modernizers of performance.

Maecenas, not longer Bathyllus’ owner, was said to have become/remained his lover.

Juvenal: “When the effeminate Bathyllus lasciviously dances Leda, just watch the women. Tuccia can’t control her bladder, Apula suddenly moans in drawn-out ecstasy, as if in a passionate embrace. Country-girl Thymele’s all rapt attention, she’s learning fast.” (chironomon Ledam molli saltante Bathyllo/ Tuccia vesicae non imperat, Apula gannet,/ [sicut in amplexu, subito et miserabile longum.]/ attendit Thymele: Thymele tunc rustica discit.)

One of the interlocutors in Plutarch’s Table Talk  refers to Bathyllus’ performance as a danced imitation of ‘Echo or some Pan or Satyr revelling with Eros’.

Certainly the innovations of Pylades and Bathyllus quickly became popular, and the style was even incorporated into the Emperor cult, particularly at the Sebasteion in the city of Aphrodisias in Caria (off what is now the Turkish coast) where Aphrodite and the Imperial Family were celebrated.

However there were periods of rioting among the spectators and sometimes the dancers were banished from Rome and even Italy because of these passions.

Athenaeus, Sophists at Dinner 20e

Juvenal. Satires bk 6

Libenius On Behalf of the Dancers

Lucian On Dancing 1

Plutarch Table Talk, Moral Essays 711e-f.

Tacitus. Annals 1,54

• Lillian B Lawler. The Dance in Ancient Greece. Adam & Charles Black, 1964:139-141,
• F Michael Moore. Drag!: Male and Female Impesonators on Stage, Screen and Television: An Illustrated World History. McFarland & Compamy, 1994:129.
• Laurence Senelick. The Changing Room: Sex, drag and theatre.Routledge, 2000:31-2.
• Ismene Lada-Richards. Silent Eloquence: Lucian and Pantomime Dancing. Bloomsbury, 2007: 19, 22, 23–4, 58-60, 72, 109, 124, 125, 164, 169, 170, 171, 176n1, 177n18, 177n20, 179n4, 188n16.
• Edith Hall & Rosie Wyles (eds). New Directions in Ancient Pantomime.Oxford University Press, 2008: 8,10, 29, 33, 46, 113-4, 118, 125-7, 146-7, 150, 157-8, 160, 170, 174, 189, 200-2, 265, 270, 297, 375-6, 385,

EN.Wikipedia

These are only snapshots. We know no more.

Zorana Pop-Simonović (1938 - ?)

Roxanne Algeria (194? - )

In 1893 the 11^th World’s Fair was held in Chicago, and named the World’s Columbian Exposition.  It attracted over 27 million visitors and introduced electricity, the zipper, the Ferris Wheel and much more. It included an ethnological section and for North Africa (then called the Orient) introduced North African dancing. Dancing for middle-class Europeans and North Americans at that time consisted of a rigid body and educated foot-work – such as the Waltz. As respectable women were then corseted, this could not have been otherwise. North African dancing consisted of mainly moving the body while not moving the feet, and was considered scandalous, although of course it was a precursor of twentieth-century dancing. A variant of such dancing was already known as danse de ventre, and soon acquired the names belly dance and hoochy-coochy.

“Among the many forms of entertainment available to the fair-goers, one of the most popular acts was the performance of a belly dancer called Fatima. A hit of the Midway Plaisance, which ‘featured over a score of exotic dances,’ Fatima’s was ‘the wildest of them all.’ She danced with such ‘wild abandon’ and her movements were so lewd that the police felt obliged to step in and stop her act almost daily. As Fatima’s act grew in popularity, a rumor began to circulate. She was really a he, the gossipers claimed, a rumor that has been since verified by historian Joe McKennon.” (p33)

“Maybe he saw Fatima, the wildest of them all, over at the Turkish Village. This female impersonator when last heard of in 1933 was the father of five and grandfather of seven.”

“Some 1896 photographs provide a rare instance of a sideshow dancer who is convincingly genuine: Fatima, a Coney Island performer. Her poses are common ones in the Oriental Dance of today. Her costume has interesting authentic touches and was probably assembled by someone familiar with Egyptian jewelry and traditional Eastern symbols.”

Fatima at Coney Island

EN.Wikipedia(Little Egypt)    EN.Wikipedia(Ouled Naïl)     EN.Wikipedia(Ghawazi)

Jack Starr grew up on a farm in the US Midwest. His parents encouraged his desire to be an actor, and he studied voice, acting and classical ballet. His elder sister was dressing him in female clothing from age five.

By the age of 14 he was doing drag in mob-controlled speakeasies in Chicago: both solo and in the line of chorines. He played the drag circuit in the 1930s, and did a tour of South America, and of Europe. Jackie met a Prince who wanted to take her home.

“I was tempted but I’m glad I didn’t because he was killed in a coup and I’d have been killed too.”

In Washington DC Jackie went out with senators. Later she moved to Greenwich Village, and tried acting and singing. She also did ballet, both as male and as female. She was one of only a few men in the US who could dance en pointe. She was a fill-in for the noted stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, and she also danced as a Rockette at the Radio City Music Hall (and was also married briefly to another Rockette).

In the late 1930s, Starr was one of the first artists to join the Jewel Box Review. Starr was one of only a few Jewel Box Revue artists to be dating a woman. He married a second woman, and they had a child.

Starr was in the merchant marine during WWII.

Jackie on the cover

When the Garden of Allah in Seattle opened in late 1946, Starr was quickly signed up as the headliner. By this time Starr was in her mid-30s, and was regarded as past her peak, although she gave class to the show. She stayed for the full ten years of the club’s existence. She could make a striptease last twenty minutes, finishing in a g-string. Walter Winchel, the syndicated columnist called Jackie "the most beautiful man in America".

Bill Scott and his wife, known as Sister Faye, were street preachers, although most donations to their mission went to Faye’s heroin habit. Bill was devastated when she left town without him (she later died in a car accident, while high). Bill was both bisexual and homophobic, and also worked as a trucker.

He was in recoil from a sex-only affair with a gay man, when he found himself in the Garden of Allah and Jackie was on stage. They married. They had a formal wedding and reception, in the home of a friend who played the part of a minister. Performer Skippy LaRue was the maid of honor and a lesbian the best man. They partied till 9am, and afterwards the couple had a big fight.

However the marriage persisted. Jackie, as the woman, ran their daily affairs and the apartment, however sexually she was the top.

Jackie & Bill's wedding

Later Scott also married a woman who was supposed to inherit, with the idea of spending the money on Jackie. The inheritance never happened, and the second wife died. Scott moved back in with Jackie, and they ran a restaurant together.

Towards the end Scott had to have both legs amputated, and Jackie took care of him till he died in the late 1960s.

Jackie lived the last ten years of her life in a mobile home near the Seattle-Tacoma airport. She was as meticulous as ever in her appearance, and when she and her friends went to the Golden Crown drag bar in Seattle, the younger generation of drag performers would crowd around.

Noureddine Talbi was born in Agadir, and was raised in Hay Mohammedi, outside Casablanca. Talbi was good at languages and also a teenage athlete and won gold medals in the 110 and 440-metre hurdles at the national level, but was more interested in dancing, which was done at first in the family setting, and in imitation of the dance sequences in Egyption films.

Talbi left for Spain at 18, and then France where she found work on the fashion catwalks. Her name was now Noor (shortened from Noureddine, a unisex name that means ‘light’ in Arabic).

Back in Morocco she founded her own fashion brand … but she still wanted to dance. She studied oriental dance under renowned choreographers. Initially she was snubbed, as are all artists initially, and there were rumours about her gender history. However she persisted, and performed at shows, charity galas, weddings.

Her sister acted as her manager – until she got married. Noor has adopted a child. She sent her mother on the Hajj in 2002, and wants to go herself.

“I am a strong believer; I pray five times a day, I am very close to God."

Noor became one of the best known oriental dancers in Morocco. She also dances the kabuki, the hindi, the woolof and the charqi. She can speak French, English, Spanish, Italian and three Arabic dialects: the Moroccan darija, the Lebanese and the Egyptian. She is 1.85m (6'1"), a full 2 metres in heels. She had surgery in Egypt.

She has starred in films, headlined weddings for the rich, and is a regular at big events such as the Marrakech International Film Festival, run after by the paparazzi. She teaches dance in Rabat and Casablanca, and has performed in the US, Australia and Japan.  However she chooses not to work with LGBT activists despite being asked.

However Morocco refuses to reissue her identity card, and state television continues to ban her.

'If I wasn't such a strong woman, religious, humanly and social, another might have killed herself'.

• “Noor, la danse dans la peau”. Aujourd’hui, September 13, 2002. http://aujourdhui.ma/culture/noor-la-danse-dans-la-peau-20615.
• Yassine Toumi. “Noor. Pourquoi et comment je suis femme”. Telquel.ma, mai 09 2012. http://telquel.ma/2012/05/09/noor-pourquoi-et-comment-je-suis-femme_344_2651
• Paul Schemm. “Morocco's transgender belly dancer courts acceptance”. Associated Press, 22 December 2014. CTV News Daily Mail
• Barbara Sellers-Young. Belly Dance, Pilgrimage and Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016: 123-4.
• Nadine Mazioum. “These trans Arab women challenge social norms in a big way”. StepFeed, 2017-02-19. http://stepfeed.com/these-trans-arab-women-challenge-social-norms-in-a-big-way-1541

FR.Wikipedia       IMDB

At age 16 William Richeson became Mary Baker and found work as a chorus girl in New York theatre.

She later worked as nurse, waitress and chambermaid. In 1931 she married.

In 1937 she was outed, much to the surprise of her husband.

• “Posed Ten Years as Woman, Danced in Chorus, ‘Married’ “. The Daily Mail, 12 October 1937, reprinted in George Ives (ed Paul Sieveking). Man Bites Man: The Scrapbook of an Edwardian Eccentric. Penguin Books, 1981: 128.

Frank Felice, from Detroit, moved to Lansing, Michigan in 1972, where she became Terri Williams.

She first came to police attention when a murder investigation led to a gay bar and she was able to be a witness. In 1974 Williams told the police about a man who had stayed in her apartment and spoke of a triple murder in Florida as part of a jewel robbery. Williams, in his male persona, was flown to Florida to testify, and a conviction and death penalty followed.

However by that time, Terri was ready for surgery and had a series of transgender operations 1974-5 in Lansing, Michigan performed by a professor at Michigan State University. Terri was then outed by a local television reporter under the impression that penile inversion was a new development. A Michigan state legislator brought up the issue and questioned the use of public funds for such procedures. This became a furore when the appropriations bill for the state medical school came up.

The same reporter later found her engaged to be married, but this broke up and Terri moved to Denver late 1975 to start over.

She had few job prospects and became a topless dancer. While working at that job she met Richard Moore, and they were married May 14, 1976. Apparently Terri did not discuss her history with Richard, but Mr and Mrs Moore briefly visited Lansing, and met Terri’s friends.

It was noted that Richard’s mood changed rapidly, and he even spoke of killing his wife. Mr and Mrs Moore left early to return to Denver.

Terri’s body was found on June 1 close to Interstate 80 outside Newton, Iowa with her two dogs, only one of them alive. Terri had been shot. In her purse they found her marriage license, and her note book listed friends in Lansing and in Denver, and the make, red Mercury, and license number of Richard’s car.

The police quickly put the story together and watched for the car to turn up at Richard’s address in Denver. He was arrested and charged with murder. During jury selection he suddenly attempted to confess and plead guilty. A competency proceeding was conducted and he was found competent to stand trial.

At the trial, Richard Moore denied that his wife was transsexual, but said that she had had her tubes tied. He also said that he was the country singer, Johnny Cash, that the police had bugged his car, and that the key policemen were imposters. His father testified that Richard had become mentally ill years before, and had spent two months in a mental hospital in Pueblo, Colorado.

He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He appealed on the grounds that his removal from the courtroom after several verbal outbursts violated his constitutional right of confrontation. He also claims trial court abused its discretion in admitting murder scene and autopsy photographs and should have instructed, on its own motion, on diminished capacity. The appeal court affirmed the original conviction.

Nobody claimed Terri’s body, and so she was buried in Newton.

• Eddie Krell, “Honeymoon Murder of the Transsexual Bride” Inside Detective, September, 1976: 40. PDF
  
• “STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Richard A. MOORE, Appellant“. March 21, 1979. Leagle
  
• Katrina Rose. “The Honeymoons That Will Murder Transsexuals’ Rights” ENDABlog, 24 July 2011 https://endablog.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/the-honeymoons-that-will-murder-transsexuals-rights/

Transas City
__________________________

The surgery at Michigan State was pioneering, and Terri was one of the first transsexuals in Michigan. I do not understand why she is not included in this LGBT Heritage Timeline for the state, especially as it is hosted by Lynn Conway’s university.

Penile inversion was new in Michigan in 1975, but had been developed by Georges Burou 20 years earlier, and Stanley Biber in Trinidad, Colorado had been doing such operations since 1968.

Dymenzstein was born in Montreuil outside Paris. At age 2 the family moved to Jerusalem where the child went to a French Catholic school with children of diplomats.

At age 11 they moved back to Paris and Dymenzstein received ballet training at the Paris Opera. This was followed by twelve years as a classical dancer, including with Maurice Béjart and at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg.

At age 23 Dymenzstein picked a country at random and went to Japan, was influenced by Kabuki and Noh theatre, and realised that he wanted to play female roles.

Dymenzstein was back in Paris for the 1968 riots and found work in the Alcazar cabaret (which included Marie France Garcia and Amanda Lear). This required playing many roles during each performance.

She moved to Berlin to start transition into Solange for she had heard that natural hormones were available, and being of Jewish descent was intrigued to see the city that been the Nazi capital. However she found Berliners to be quite friendly.

Like Romy Haag, she opened a nightclub. She took the show-biz name Zazie de Paris (a combination of Zsa Zsa Gabor and Zizi Jeanmaire). The club attracted the likes of David Bowie and became a centre for punks, but she found it too much work and left after a year. She was a friend of Jayne County.

In the 1980s Zazie started working in theatre with noted directors Jérôme Savary and Peter Zadek. She acted in minor films from 1982 onwards, but her breakthrough was with Werner Schroeter's film Deux (Two) in 1980 where she played a character called Zazie.

Solange completed her gender affirmation.  Later she was in the euthanasia-clinic comedy Kill Me Please, 2010 and Mario Fanfani's Les nuits d'été, 2015.

Usually she was denied cis female parts, but she has recently been working in the Tatort cop series on German television where she plays the best friend of a police Commissioner.

Solange now considers herself a Berliner, and has said that she will probably never leave.

• Raimund Hoghe. "Falten erzählen mehr als Federn: Glanz und Travestie sind nicht mehr ihre Sache". Zeit, 17. März 1989. www.zeit.de/1989/12/falten-erzaehlen-mehr-als-federn.
  
• Jayne County with Rupert Smith. Man Enough to be a Woman. London: Serpent's Tail, 1995: 141-2, 183-4.
  
• Romain Titeux. "Zazie de Paris: rencontre avec l'icône drag de la scène Berlinoise". LesInRocks, 15/10/2011. www.lesinrocks.com/2011/10/15/cinema/zazie-de-paris-rencontre-avec-licone-drag-de-la-scene-berlinoise-118351.
  
• Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi. "Exclusive: Interview with Zazie de Paris". Shockya, September 4 2014. www.shockya.com/news/2014/09/04/exclusive-interview-with-zazie-de-paris.
  
• Michael Schacht. "Zazie de Paris spielt die beste Freundin des Frankfurt-Kommissars | Die „Tatort-“ Karriere einer Transsexuellen". Bild, 18.05.2015. www.bild.de/unterhaltung/tv/tatort/karriere-einer-transsexuellen-40987778.bild.html.
  

DE.Wikipedia    IMDB

Padgett, the son of a Baptist minister and a first-grade school teacher in Mississippi, won a scholarship at age 14 to study ballet at North Carolina School of the Arts, and then at the School of American Ballet in New York City leading to the award of a Ford Foundation Scholarship.

This led to membership of the New York City Ballet, and dancing major male roles in ballets created by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, Robert Lafosse and Dick Tanner. It also led to hanging out with Andy Warhol at Indochine and late nights at Studio 54.

Padgett retired from ballet in 1995, took up painting and has become known as an outstanding painter of animals. In 2007-8, both parents died in quick succession. There was a small inheritance, and a transsexual friend was upgrading with facial feminization surgery.
Padgett decided it was time and announced that she was transitioning as Sheela-Marie. This was completed with genital surgery by Toby Meltzer in Scottsdale, Arizona. While she had medical insurance, transition costs were not included: altogether including facial feminization it cost $100,000.

• Jacob Bernstein. "For Some in Transgender Community, It’s Never Too Late to Make a Change". The New York Times, March 6, 2015. www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/fashion/for-some-in-transgender-community-its-never-too-late-to-make-a-change.html.
  
• Joshua Bright. "Better Late Than Never". The New York Times, 2015. www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2015/03/08/fashion/20150308TRANSGENDER.html.
  

WilliamSecordGallery

Kret of Pernambués, Salvador, Bahia, was talented even as a child, and came to the attention of television personality, Clodovil Hernandes, who arranged years of training. Kret became a dancer and funk singer in the band Saiddy Bamba.

During transition she ran for Salvador council in 2008 for the Party of the Republic, and despite being the most harassed candidate by the press she came fourth highest in the vote. She was still legally male under Brazilian law, and was expected to wear a suit and tie and use the men’s toilets.

However in November 2009 Léo won a ruling in the Civil Registration Court recognizing her identity. During her three years in office, councillor Kret worked on the committees for citizens' rights, repairs and economic development and tourism. Despite this, in 2012 she was not re-elected.

She has now returned to singing and formed the group Léo Kret & As Novinhas.

• "Diferente de 2008, Léo Kret não consegue reeleição: Candidata transexual tem menos de oito mil votos este ano". Varela, 18/10/12. http://varelanoticias.com.br/diferente-de-2008-leo-kret-nao-consegue-reeleicao/#.UtqkqBBTvIU.
  
• "Léo Kret vai comandar grupo de funk". BN Holofote, 02 de Julho de 2013. www.bahianoticias.com.br/holofote/noticia/30726-leo-kret-vai-comandar-grupo-de-funk.html.
  
• "Léo Kret vai ao encontro do povão e do eleitorado na Parada Gay de Salvador". BN Holofote, 22 de Setembro de 2014. www.bahianoticias.com.br/holofote/noticia/36807-leo-kret-vai-ao-encontro-do-povao-e-do-eleitorado-na-parada-gay-de-salvador.html.
  

PT.WIKIPEDIA    Desciclopedia    Camara Municipal de Salvador

Laxmi was born in Thane, Maharashtra, the eldest child of seven of Brahmins from Uttar Pradesh. Laxmi was a sickly child suffering from double pneumonia, typhoid and asthma, was taunted at school for being feminine, and was sexually abused by a relative.

By the second standard Tripathi was fascinated by the Bharatanatyam dance, its costumes, jewellery and make-up. She also became with a hijra artist, Shabina Frances. Unusually her family supported her study of dance and theatre, and Laxmi took an arts degree at Mumbai's Mithibai College and a post-graduate degree in Bharatnatyam. She drew comments on the street:

"I was comfortable with myself; so what others said never bothered me. That was the time when I was a queen, an epitome of sexuality, and I had many boyfriends. All this while I found I was very feminine".

She became a celebrated dancer, and also worked for LGBT causes:

"There were many hijras who died on my lap in the hospital because they didn't get medical attention on time".

In 2002 Laxmi became a founding member of the Dai Welfare Society, which works for hijra and other trans persons. In 2008 Tripathi was voted to represent the Asia Pacific Sex Workers Network and in this capacity spoke at the UN Civil Society Task Force at the UN General Assembly. In 2010 she launched the Indian Super Queen beauty pageant.

Laxmi has starred in several television shows including the reality show Bigg Boss, and in three documentary films. She has adopted two children.

She was one of those who had petitioned for India to recognize a third gender, which was achieved in April 2014 by the Supreme Court, which was in time to permit trans persons to vote in the 2014 national elections. The court also ordered that employment and education quotas be established for trans as for other minorities.

• Suneeta Singh & Sangita Dasgupta. A People Stronger: The Collectivization of MSM and TG groups in India. Sage Publications, 2013: xxii, 93, 124.
  
• Nirmale George. "India's Supreme Court recognizes 'transgender' as third gender". CTV News, April 15, 2014. www.ctvnews.ca/world/india-s-supreme-court-recognizes-transgender-as-third-gender-1.1776333.
  
• "We too are human beings: Transgender activist Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi". DNA India, 27 April 2014. http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-we-too-are-human-beings-transgender-activist-lakshmi-narayan-tripathi-1982540.
  
• Nidhi Sethi interviews Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi. ""I was the only drag queen on campus...I was very bad at that time". The Times of India, Apr 30, 2014. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/people/I-was-the-only-drag-queen-on-campus-I-was-very-bad-at-that-time/articleshow/34374740.cms.
  
• Laxmi Narayan Tripathi. "My Life as a Transgender Woman in India" Daily Development, May 14, 2014. http://dailydevelopment.org/blog/laxmi-narayan-tripathi-my-life-transgender-woman-india.
  

IMDB   EN.WIKIPEDIA   HI.WIKIPEDIA   ProjectBolo   UNP


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Laxmi is the name of the goddess of beauty and fortune who is also the wife of Vishnu.  However the name was decided by the Vaishnavist family before Laxmi was born and thus is not a name taken at transition.

Sammy Hoover was born in West Virginia, and at 16 joined a carnival. He was too pretty to just sell hotdogs, and was put in the girlie show.

Hoover became Barbara Lemay, and performed as Glamazon. She became a star hootch dancer. Once a man died of a heart attack during her show. His mortician came to see the woman who could send a man to his death with a smile and an erection. She also worked as a stripper and in burlesque, and as a go-go dancer.

In her 60s she was still stripping at a gay club in Los Angeles, when Rico Martinez made a documentary about her life.

*Not the mezzo-soprano, nor the wrestler, nor the album by RuPaul.

• • Rico Martinez (dir). Glamazon: A Different Kind of Girl, with Barbara Lemay. US 83 mins 1993.
  • ChrisStraayer. Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Re-Orientations in Film and Video. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996: 259-60. 

Brendan McDaniel and her twin brother were born in California and raised in Maui, Hawai’i to parents who were teachers. In her late teens McDaniel was trained as a dancer in Los Angeles, and then moved to New York and won a scholarship to Steps Dance Studio.

McDaniel ran into Sherry Vine, whom she had previously met in Los Angeles, and was introduced to the New York drag scene. Her first job in drag was selling cigarettes and candy at the Roxy. She then started performing at Boy Bar as Candis Cayne. Candis, performed at the Wigstock drag festival with an elaborately choreographed act and then was asked to do the choreography in the film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, 1995. She acted in Stonewall, and performed in Wigstock, both also 1995. At her performances in New York she would talk about her transition, and a tip bucket went around to pay for her surgeries. Candis completed transition in 1996.

She was the title character in the film Mob Queen, 1998. In 2001 she was the winner of the Miss Continental USA pageant for transgender performers. From 2002 she was informally married to Marco McDermett, a New York DJ who worked with her in her show, and had a child from a previous marriage.

She was in one episode of CSI: NY in 2007 and was a recurring character in Dirty Sexy Money, also 2007, and in Season 6 of Nip/Tuck. In all of her films she has played transgender characters. She continues to appear in film and television and does live shows in New York and Los Angeles. Her marriage to Marco broke up in 2010

• Julian Fleisher. The Drag Queens of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide. New York: Riverhead Books, 1996: 46, 56, 79-81, 107-8, 128.
• Couch Baron. "Times, They Are A-Changin'...". Television Without Pity, September 8, 2007. www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/dirty-sexy-money/the-candis-cayne-interview.php.
  
• Eva Wiseman. "Candis Payne: This California girl is the first transsexual to star in a prime-time soap." The Guardian, 9 March 2008. www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/mar/09/5.
  
• Joshua Miller. "Catching Up with Candis Cayne". Out, 11.8.2009. www.out.com/entertainment/2009/11/08/catching-candis-cayne.
  

EN.WIKIPEDIA.    IMDB

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There is a question of how, if she became a woman in 1996, she was able to enter the Miss Continental USA pageant in 2001.  However unlike Miss Gay USofA or Miss Gay America which bar transgender contestants and/or those on female hormones,  Miss Continental USA encourages such contestants.

Of course Candis was not the first trans women to play a trans woman in a television series.  There were a dozen of so previously – see especially Carlotta in Number 96, in 1973.  See my detailed list.

Carl Rollins Hammonds was born in Prague, Oklahoma, the eldest of seven children. He grew small breasts as a teenager, and his mother took him to several doctors including a ‘brain specialist’, but would not consent to exploratory surgery. She was told that Carl would not live past 35, or that he would go insane.

From age 17 Hammonds worked as a half-man-half-woman in carnival, and then as an ‘exotic dancer’, and took the name Hedy Jo Star.

Hedy was drafted in 1942, and was in the press after making a fuss about not cutting her long hair. She served as a female impersonator in the US Army shows.

After the war, she returned to carnival life. She was a friend and colleague with Tony Midnite, and both of them made costumes for other people. Hedy was the owner-manager of the Hollywood State Revue, a troupe of female dancers, one of whom was Vicki Marlane. They played state fairs in summer, and in winter Hedy worked as a hypnotist in nightclubs.

Just after Christine Jorgensen was in the news in 1954 Hedi wrote her autobiography, I Changed My Sex!, which was only a slight exaggeration.

In 1956 she saw a female endocrinologist in New York.

“My face was covered during the examination with a sheet. Then my doctor and her colleagues examined me. Later my doctor explained to me that what she was planning to do was illegal under New York law, which is the reason the other specialists she consulted wished to remain anonymous.”

The doctor put Hedy on estrogen and arranged breast-enhancement. Despite testimony from twelve physicians that Hedy should have gender surgery, the New York State Medical Society refused permission because of the mayhem laws.

In 1958 Hedy, by then two years on estrogen, applied to the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She received an answer by letter three months later:

“We do realize that you are psychologically more comfortable in your role as a female and perhaps it would be wise for you to continue as you have done in the past”

 but her request was refused on the grounds of her not being intersex, and that the surgery “might in actuality constitute mayhem”.

A few years later she saw Dr Harry Benjamin who referred her to Elmer Belt in Los Angeles. She was saving up for this when, early in 1962 and just before Belt discontinued doing genital surgery, a friend referred her to a doctor in Chicago who, after an examination, phoned the Methodist Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and she had an appointment. The Memphis doctor and four colleagues examined her and then warned her that the operation was extremely dangerous, that she might not survive, and if so may not be able to walk. However the operation was done the next day. Hedy prayed to God “not to let her live to leave the operating table if she was doing wrong and going against His will”. One of the doctors punctured her urinary track and corrective surgery was needed. She was in hospital for 45 days.

Novel Books, associated with The National Insider republished her 1955 autobiography, and she wrote an advice column for the National Insider which also was later published as a book.

Hedy married a doctor from Boston, Dr Ralph Bucinskas (1943 - 2003). They moved to Las Vegas where she developed her career as a costumier. One of her first clients was the impersonator, Kenny Kerr, then just starting his career. She was known for her expensive costumes for dancers, strippers, female impersonators, clowns, burlesque and circus performers, and for Elvis Presley and Anne Margaret.

She died at age 79.

• Hedy Jo Star with an Introduction by Dr Edwin Poole. I Changed My Sex! Chicago: Allied Books 158pp 1955. Novel Books 1963. Reissued as "I changed my sex!": the autobiography of stripper Hedy Jo Star formerly Carl Hammonds; with an introduction by Edwin Poole. Allied, 158 pp 1980.
• Hedy Jo Star. “Both Sides of Love”. National Insider. Early 1960s. Advice column.
• Hedy Jo Star. Sequel: I Changed My Sex! Chicago: Novel Books 1964. The advice columns that Hedy wrote for the National Insider.
• H.J Star/ Carl Hammonds. My Unique Change Chicago: Novel Books 128 pp 1965. Online. 
• Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge, Ma, London: Harvard University Press. 363 pp 2002: 198-9, 218-9,325n85.
• Deborah Rudacille. The Riddle of Gender. New York: Pantheon Books. 2005: 102, 113-9.
• “Circus Sideshow ‘Girls’”. Tribe Dec 22, 2006 http://circusarts.tribe.net/thread/8df0806c-1137-40f5-b613-b52911666261#f52bdcff-d0b2-4c8d-95ef-2bac0ec10d49.
• Roy E. Richmond “Hedy Jo Star”. Sideshow World. www.sideshowworld.com/81-SSPAlbumcover/HH/9-Hedy-Jo1/Star1.html
• Ward Hall. “Hedy Jo Star”. Sideshow World. www.sideshowworld.com/81-SSPAlbumcover/HH/19-Hedy-Jo2/Star2.html.
• Lauren Gillette. “Miss Hedy Jo Star”. Eat It or Wear It, Nov 9, 2009. http://laurengilletteeatitorwearit.blogspot.com/2009/11/miss-hedy-jo-star.html.
• Dennis McBride “Las Vegas Transgender”. OutHistory, 2010. www.outhistory.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Transgender.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Some say that her birth name was Joseph Starke.  This is repeated by Ward Hall in his comment on the article in Tribe.   When his comment was reprinted in Side Show World, this datum was removed.   Roy Richmond is Hedy’s nephew and he is able to assure us that this rumor is untrue.

Does anybody have any idea who the female endocrinologist in New York in 1956 was?

Likewise who was the surgeon in Memphis in 1962?  Did he ever do another sex change operation?

Why does nobody mention that I Changed My Sex! precedes Hedy’s operation by 7 years?

Notes towards the social construction of intersex:  Teenage Carl grew small breasts and his mother, being freaked out by that took him to a series of doctors.   However in 1958 the doctors at Johns Hopkins found that Hedy did not meet their definition of intersex.

There are comments in some sources about Hedy having America's first complete sex change even though she did not have genital surgery until 1962.  The implication here is that Christine Jorgensen did not have vaginoplasty in Denmark, and not until a date in the 1960s that is not specified in most sources.  However to even bring up this claim is to totally ignore a) all the persons who had surgery with Elmer Belt b) those who had already gone to Dr Burou in Casablanca c) those who had had surgery in Europe e.g Tamara Rees in the Netherlands in 1954 and Sally Berry in Sweden in 1953-8.

Sandy Stone mentions Hedy Jo Star in her "The Empire Strikes Back", with the quote: "I wanted the sensual feel of lingerie against my skin, I wanted to brighten my face with cosmetics. I wanted a strong man to protect me."   This kind of stereotyped femininity  was expected of 1950s women, cis and trans alike, but nowadays is rather suspect and is even liable to be labeled 'autogynephilic', even in androphilic early transitioners as Hedy definitely was.

Hirahara Tetsuo 平原 徹男 was born in Kushiro, Hokkaido.  His father, a veteran of the Greater East Asia War, named him Tetsuo=Iron. Nonetheless, Tetsuo developed feminine interests.

He was trained as a ballet dancer, and at age 11 appeared in New York City Ballet Company production of The Nutcracker Suite in Los Angeles.

At 15 he ran away and worked in a gay bar in Sapporo, and then in Carrousel in Osaka. She had castration at age 19 and become a woman Hirahara Maki 平原 麻紀, and performed as Karūseru Maki (Anglicized as Carousel Maki), a name she took from the gay bar in Osaka, which in turn was named in homage to the Le Carrousel tours of Japan in the 1960s.


She had final surgery from Dr Burou in Casablanca in 1973.

She has acted in 11 films since 1969, and is a well-known nightclub performer.

In 2001, she was arrested for possession of drugs, and spent 41 days in a male jail because the family registry still listed her as male.

In 2002 she published her autobiography. Finally in 2004 she was able to be recognized legally as female under the new laws.

In 2006 her home was burgled and ¥8 million-worth of jewellery and ¥3 million in cash was stolen.

• Chie Matsumoto. “He always knew he was really a she”. The Asahi Shimbun International Herald Tribune, May 25-6, 2002. www.comatonse.com/reviews/asahi052602.html.
• Karūseru Maki. 私を脫がせて / Watakushi o nugasete. Tokyo: Bunkasha, 2002.
• Japan Zone Entertainment News, December 09, 2006. www.japan-zone.com/news/2006/12/09/index.shtml

www.carrousel.co.jp    JA.Wikipedia      IMDB.

Ismail was raised in Kedah province (map), in northwest Malaysia. He earned a living sewing clothes and dancing in female roles in local dance troupes.

In his twenties he became more and more aware that the dancing and his female clothing were contrary to Islam, but he could not give them up. One night during Ramadan he had a vision of heaven. He vowed to change, but not before a dance performance a few days later. Then he fell into a trance for three days.

On emerging he gave up dress-making, female clothing and dancing. He conducted a special purification for his house in that the materials had been purchased from a Chinese kafir.

He then dressed in the white robes of an alim and began preaching to his neighbours about hellfire. As the others knew him from before, his radical transformation was taken as divine intervention. The religious bureaucrats feared that he would be taken as a prophet. They interviewed him, declared him to be impious, and his preachings to be tempting but false. However he went on to a more prestigious role as a healer.

• Sharifah Zaleha Syad Hassan. "Versions of Eternal Truth: Ulama and Religious Dissenters in Kedah Malay Society". Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography, 8, 1989: 43-69.
• Michael G. Peletz. Gender Pluralism: Southeast Asia Since Early Modern Times. London & NY: Routledge, 2009: 187-8.