A History of Tapestry Magazine Part II, Personal Ads

Note: Part I of this series about the late trans magazine Tapestry followed its timeline across its thirty-year lifespan. This follow-up is about transgender personal ads in general and about the personal ads in Tapestry in particular.

Having never read Transvestia or for that matter ANY trans publications before 1990, I have no experience with personal ads before the 1990s. I was around in those days, but the fledgling trans community was invisible to me, and so I have no personal experience before the 1990s, but I’ve seen them in many vintage publications since. I would welcome any information I misstate or failed to turn up.

You can view most of Tapestry’s 115-issue run here.

Evolution of Transgender Personals Advertisements And Their Role in Tapestry Magazine

When Virginia Prince’s Transvestia magazine was launched in 1960, most crossdressers (the in-use term at the time, as was transvestite) were deathly afraid of being exposed. Consequently, they kept their crossdressing under tight wraps. They didn’t share their true natures with friends, co-workers, authorities, and often even with their spouses. This was prudent; indeed, if they disclosed or were discovered, they were at risk of losing their jobs, their social standing, and, even closer to their hearts, their wives and families. If spotted in public, they were often arrested, with attendant publicity in newspapers or on the evening news. (Ryan, 2015). And so they crossdressed in secret, in their homes when their families were away, or in rented motel rooms. If they were lucky enough to know other crossdressers—or, even better, had located a rare social or support group— they could dress in the company of their peers. They kept their feminine apparel in suitcases in the trunks of their cars, or hidden in their basements or attics or garages, or in rented lockers. Often, they purged, getting rid of anything and everything that reminded them of their secret shame, and then, almost inevitably, would again begin assembling a new wardrobe. Some purged many times over the spans of their lives. The relative few who were in contact with other crossdressers rented post office boxes so they could conceal their activities from family members, but even then they were apprehensive. When corresponding, they inevitably used “femme” names.

And so, Virginia’s Transvestia served a vital role not only as a magazine, but as a central coordinating facility which allowed readers to contact other readers without risk. Every subscriber was given a coded identification. Those interested in making contact would mail a letter to Virginia with the code number of a desired correspondent in a stamped, unaddressed envelope; Virginia would then forward it to the intended recipient. If the person on he other end of that code number so chose, they could respond, using the same method. So it went, until the correspondents became confident enough to share their addresses and names—usually, just a post office box number, and usually only their feminine names, so I’m certain many soon bypassed Virginia’s effective but awkward and slow system.

To facilitate this sort of contact, Transvestia captioned photos sent in by crossdressed readers with first (femme) names and their corresponding codes. The magazine also ran short paid personal ads. There were never more than a few of the latter, and they were limited to a few lines of text. Under Virginia’s dictatorial reign, the ads and photos were chaste, pretty much limited to requests to meet other crossdressers:

30-J-1 FPE N.J. T.V. wishes corres. other TV’s anywhere. Promise ans. Like meet and trade pics. TV’s in N.Y. area.

—Transvestia 20 (1963), p. 80.

Cover, Transvestia 47, (1967)

Identification Codes

I don’t know whether Virginia, in her desire to ensure her subscribers that their privacy would be protected, pioneered the use of identification codes or whether she took the practice from publications she had seen elsewhere. I suspect the latter. Perhaps similar systems were used in earlier gay and lesbian publications. Perhaps they were in use in earlier pornographic trans magazines. Certainly audiences in both of these categories had the same sorts of security concerns as crossdressers, and this showed in the pages of the publications.

By the 1970s and probably before, other trans publications were emulating Transvestia’s mail forwarding service. Magazines like Femme Mirror which were affiliated with the Foundation for Full Personality Expression (Virginia’s organization), used the Transvestia codes, but most, for instance “Cathy” Charles Slavik’s Transvestite World Directory, didn’t follow Transvestia’s double digit/single uppercase letter/single digit format.

I suspected each publication generated its own codes and managed its own mailbox. To be certain, I got in touch with collector and historian Bobbie Davis and with Sandy Mesics, who, in the mid 1970s, was working in 1975 for a Philadelphia-based trans publisher and so had first-hand experience. Sandy was kind enough to confirm my hunch:

At Neptune Productions, the personal ad forwarding business was a steady source of what we called “lunch money.”  I wasn’t actually involved in forwarding the mail: we had part-time employees (usually friends or family members of the publisher) who did that work. We assigned the personal ads a sequential number by state or province (e.g.: MICH 825). As I recall, we kept the personal information on 3 x 5 cards, using these to forward letters to the advertiser’s mail address.

I think we charged 25 cents a word for a personal ad, and eventually we published photos free of charge. We would write the contact info and personal ad number on the back of each picture.

So yes, we used our own codes. Also, we would run the ads in many of our various publications, so folks got a lot of “bang” (bad pun!) for their buck.

As with Virginia’s Transvestia, Neptune Publications charged a fee for forwarding mail. Sandy again:

It cost people $1 for us to forward a letter. That’s why I said it was a steady stream of lunch money. I wish I could tell you how much we brought in by personal ads, but I wasn’t privy to that information. I can tell you it wasn’t insignificant…

Of course, not all publications chose to forward mail. In Phoebe Smith’s The Transsexual Voice, the first and so far as I know the only early periodical that directly addressed the concerns of transsexuals, those placing personal ads had to include contact information.

Sandy Mesics again:

When I published Image magazine, I didn’t want to get into the mail forwarding business. We charged 10 cents per word for a personal ad, but the person had to publish a return address, and almost everyone had P.O. boxes back then, so it wasn’t much of a problem.

Bobbie has rigorously researched early trans social networks, and in particular Transvestia and Casa Susanna, and she kindly sent me the text of her 2015 article in Transgender Studies Quarterly, which I had been unable to access because I’m not a subscriber. The article, and Bobbie, on a phone call, confirmed what Sandy told me: a number of different coding systems were in operation. “Personals code in Transvestite World Directory contact ads began with the letters TWD; those in Empathy Club publications used EC.” (Davis, 2015; personal communication with Ms. Bob Davis, 25 October, 2022).

Personal Ads Evolve and Spread

From the 1970s onward, many publications included personal sections. Outside of Virginia’s purview, personal ads in other publications came to consist of text and a photo, with short descriptions of what or who the advertiser was looking for. Some of the ads would have met with Virginia’s approval, but many were sexually provocative. There’s a great deal of subtext in some of those messages. Sex was often implied, but, like the identification of the advertiser, was coded. Here’s a representative ad from an undated early 1970s issue of Transvestite World Directory:

Personal ads, The Transvestite World Directory, Undated, but Early 1970s, No. 41, p. 34

Arizona: Male, TV wants female and TV friends, bi-sexual, French, mid-30s, interested in clothes and makeup. Travels California, N.M., Nev., Utah, Colo., and Texas to meet for mutual fun. Dominant women and couples welcome. All answered with Photo. Boc EC-1318 (See photo).

It’s clear this advertiser was looking for something more than a meet and greet. She was open about being bisexual, but when it came down to describing sex acts, she punted and used the term French to refer to her preference for (or at least willingness to participate in) oral acts.

Many advertisers were in fact, simply looking to simply meet someone like them, but motivations were many and varied. Some wanted fashion tips to improve their appearance as women. Some wanted love relationships rather than semi-anonymous sex; more than a few were in fact looking for understanding wives. Some wanted to be required or force to crossdress by a woman. Some were interested in leather, or threesomes, or bondage and domination. A few asked to be paid for their time and services. There were no doubt as many motivations as there were advertisers.

It’s hardly surprising that the nature of the various personal sections differed across magazines. Some were more risqué than others, allowing advertisers to make clear their motivation and desires. The most strikingly different, at least to my eyes, were those in The Transsexual Voice. The advertisers weren’t men wanting to meet for a good time, but transsexuals, most AMAB and occasionally AFAB who were living in their target gender and looking for assistance with their appearance and for love and place—and men and occasionally women looking for sex or relationships with transsexuals. Here are two such ads:

Transsexual, pre-op, very special, classic, sophisticated, charming, sensitive, desires to meet females, males, and other transsexuals who are financially successful individuals with taste and a love of life.

Bi-sexual male, 28, 5’6”, 155 lbs. white, wishes to correspond and/or meet attractive, passable, feminine transsexuals, preferably with breasts implants. Especially those in Charleston, S.C. area.

• The Transsexual Voice, June 1985, p. 10

Tapestry’s Personal Section

All of this, plus the willingness of some publishers to allow slutty poses and nude photographs with erect penises proudly on display, made personals sections seem tawdry in the eyes of many, including mine. And so, as Tapestry magazine evolved into the trans magazine with by far the largest circulation and IFGE worked to spread its message of acceptance and community, in its desire to be as wide-reaching as possible, the personal section (which sometimes reached 50 pages!) came to be seen by some IFGE staff and board members as both a liability and a financial windfall.

Tapestry’s first personal ad, issue 34, January, 1982, p. 7 (of 8)

The first issue of Tapestry with a personal ad was number 24, in 1980. Page seven included a single ad by 26-year-old Christie Lea, who was “interested in correspondence and meeting with TVs, TSs, ladies or gents.” She made the point of saying she was attractive, so we can only guess at her motivations. Her ad included her phone number and what was apparently her street address in Newport, Rhode Island.

The personal ads were popular with readers, and soon the personal section was a prominent feature of the magazine. With issue 44 in 1984, the magazine instituted a forwarding service with codes similar to Virginia’s. Personal ads were free until 1998, but I’ve no idea if there was a charge for mail forwarding.

Tapestry’s personal ads were wildly popular, and not only for beginning crossdressers. Many minor trans community luminaries ran ads, some for years. Who? Well, for a start, Winnie Brant, Eve Burchardt, Nancy Cole, Yvonne Cook-Riley, Holly Cross, Sheila Kirk, Allison Laing, Merissa Sherrill Lynn (all with IFGE), and Jason Cromwell, Bobbie Davis, Jane Ellen Fairfax, Phyllis Randolph Frye, Naomi Owen, Tracy Ryan, Jenny Sand, Vanessa Sheridan, Ellen Summers, and Anne Vitale. If you’re unfamiliar with some of these names, you might do yourself a favor and look them up, as they all worked together to build the community we’re enjoying today.

The last issue of Tapestry with personal ads was number 83, Summer 1998. An editorial comment at the start of the section warned that personal ads would thereafter incur a charge. This was understandable, as increasing the page count by as many as 50 with no corresponding increase in income was financially unwise. There was no indication that future issues of the magazine would not include personal ads.

With issue 84, the personals were removed from the magazine and published separately. Some in the community felt it would kill the magazine, but it didn’t. The personals were issued on newsprint and included with the mailings of Tapestry, but I don’t believe they lasted for more than four or five issues. I was receiving Tapestry in a publications exchange and have three in my possession, so perhaps that’s all there were.

I wasn’t privy to the discussions that led to the decision to remove the personal ads from the magazine. Nancy Nangeroni was IFGE’s newly-installed Executive Director and Mykael Hawley & Matthew S. Carlos were coming on board as co-editors. The decision might have been theirs, but perhaps it was a decision by the board. But bottom line, the personals were gone. I’m glad that happened before I became editor-in-chief with issue 89, and not during my tenure.

Today, Transvestia, Tapestry, The Ladder, The Transsexual Voice, Image, and Transvestite World Directory are long gone, but I imagine connections made from the ads continue to flourish today, and I imagine transgender personal ads are alive and well somewhere in the multitransverse. I rather hope so, as they filled a useful purpose.

Works Cited

Davis, Bob. (2015, 1 November). Using Archives to Identify the Trans* Women of Casa Susanna. Transgender Studies Quarterly, 2(4), 621–634. doi.

Ryan, Hugh. (2019, 28 June). How dressing in drag was labeled a crime in the 20^th century. (2019, June 28). History Channel. . Assessed November 26, 2022.

The Ladder. (1957, May). The Daughters of Bilitis.

Tags: crossdressing, featured, History, Tapestry, Transgender

Category: crossdressing, History, Transgender History