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Category: History
Our title is Felicity Chandelle (1905–2008), Pilot and Crossdresser. At age ten, in 1915, young John Miller was spending his free time at a local flight school. His ambition was to become a pilot. Miller did that. First delivering the mail to Camden, New Jersey, in a gyrocopter that took off from the roof of the Philadelphia post office, and becoming an airline pilot. Then in `969 the urge for feminine glamor struck and Felicity was born. Attending crossdresser meeting and events all over the east coast she was there at historic places. This is her story, sent to TGF by Jan Brown and Dallas Denny.
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Since Dee Grace LaValle began her transition nine years ago, she has been a TransWeek attendee, eventually being named executive director of TransWeek in 2018 and recognized in 2021 with the event’s highest honor, the Fantasia Fair Award. Growing up in Massachusetts, Ms. LaValle works for an international multimedia corporation and is a member of […]
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Deborah Nicole is a TGForum member who is sharing her life story with you. She starts the tale when she was a young lad in the U.K. and takes you along through the years to her current residence in the USA. Readers of a certain age will find aspects of her story to be familiar and younger folks will gain some understanding of our history.
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The first Dina’s Diner menu for 2023 starts off with a nod to the influence of Asian cuisine as Chef Dina introduces us to Chinese trans woman Fei Lu. Then she looks at just how much makeup is right to let the natural beauty shine through. While that dish simmers on the stove Dina stirs in some sexy boots and posing for the perfect photo. The entree is delivered and it proves to be fishnet hose. A powerful topper to another nutritious meal from Dina’s Diner.
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Dallas Denny continues her report on Tapestry Magazine’s history, and expands today to cover efforts to preserve the written matter that comes from countless local group’s newsletters as well as the major magazines that were published in the 1980s and ’90s.
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Part I of this series about the late trans magazine Tapestry followed its timeline across its thirty-year lifespan. Part II discussed the development of transgender personal ads in general and their trajectory in Tapestry in particular. In Part III, Dallas Denny discusses her personal experience as editor-in-chief and why she resigned.
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Dallas Denny returns today with Part 2 of the history of Tapestry Magazine. It began in the late ’70s as a typewritten newsletter and became over the next decade the go-to publication for information on all things trans. Today Dallas reports on how personal ads became a part of Tapestry, and other transgender publications.
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Dallas Denny joins our New Content today with Part 1 of the history of Tapestry Magazine. It began in the late ’70s as a typewritten newsletter and became over the next decade the go-to publication for information on all things trans. It was through one of the personal ads in Tapestry that our editor Angela Gardner first made contact with other crossdressers, including JoAnn Roberts, which led to a long association with JoAnn’s LadyLike magazine and TGFroum.
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Pauline Estelle ponders the many, many changes she has seen through the decades of her life. Of course there are personal changes related to aging but she also writes about the changes in the world, like the creation of computers, smartphones and the World Wide Web.
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Some people might feel that transgender people are a new thing. Today Chrissy Gann takes us on a tour of history and introduces us to historical figures who moved between genders. From 13th century Damascus to the Roman Empire and on through the centuries there have always been people who were not comfortable in the gender they were born into. Read on and meet some of them.
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Chrissy Gann takes a look at feminism and why it’s important to pay attention when the patriarchy makes moves to limit women’s rights. Chrissy says that cisgender women should welcome the support of transgender women.
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Earlier in her life Dana Bevan was working in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Today she shares memories of the city. While she was there, and still hiding her transgender nature, she attempted to contact members of the Ukrainian trans community.
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The Lives of Crossdressers Through the Decades, 1960s Part 2. “Double your pleasure, Double your fun, Hear it from two Lindas, It’s better than one.” Linda Jensen continues her story of crossdresser’s lives through the decades as seen through her eyes and that of her friend, also a Linda.
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Linda and a friend named Linda get together to talk about how things have changed for the crossdressing population over the last 60 some years. Told mostly by telling the life story of the ‘other Linda’.
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In the dusty halls of the TGForum Archives there are to be found many pictures of the female impersonators of days gone by. In the 1990s TGF editor Cindy Martin put together photos to create pictorials of those long ago stars. Here are just a few.
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Our Retro Rerun today is from March of 1999. It was written by TGForum subscriber Stephanie K. Thomas after Ms. Thomas attended her first major transgender event, Fall Harvest in Minneapolis in November of 1998. Stephanie learned a couple of things at that event. For one thing she found she loved to dance the night away as Stephanie, and two, she realized that all her life she had needed to know the gender of anyone she interacted with. After meeting a variety of gender and sexual identities at the Fall Harvest she decided to abandon that position.
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Alice Novic was a TGForum member back in 1999 when she became the subject of a TGF Pictorial. We reach back to 1999 and bring your the photos from that pictorial.
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Digging into the TGForum Archives we found a post from 1997 by Ms Bob & Carol Kleinmaier on the early 20th century female impersonator Julian Eltinge. He appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway and in movies, both silent and the talkies. There hasn’t been a female impersonator as popular or famous until the arrival of RuPaul on the drag scene. Julian Eltinge, The Crinoline Girl is our Retro Rerun and is illustrated with photos that did not appear in the original post.
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What crossdresser hasn’t at one time or another become fascinated by women’s undergarments? Either the look of a nipped in waist contained by a tight, unyielding corset or a black lacy bra with bikini panties and thigh high hose — or just a pretty, silky slip — undergarments can provide that sexy feeling crossdressers love. Today Pauline Estelle takes a look back at the history of lingerie.
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Initially, when people wore clothing beneath their outer garments they called it underwear. Due to changes in societal mores, and where sexuality is concerned underwear is now called lingerie and it has become provocative. Among primitive tribes and in more sophisticated societies crude or more subtle loin cloths were worn. Civilizations around the Mediterranean tended […]
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An older trans woman, retired and not on any schedule, gets up one morning and between her bed and the coffee pot she revisits her youth when she was a male sailor assigned to the SeaBees and one day she met her first love. They became roommates and while they remained platonic the were together until her roommate left the service. The story is the work of our newest Contributor Jaelle Terrell. It is the first story in a trilogy that Jaelle has kindly allowed us to publish.
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Last month we reached into the TGForum Archives and brought back part two of Aleisha Michelle Emerson’s series on transgender influenced rock. The articles were originally published in the late 1990s and in the first two she covered the 1950s and ’60s, and the Glam Rock trend of the ’70s. Today we pull out number three in the series and bring you her article on the gender bending that went on in the music world during the 1980s and ’90s. While none of the bands and musicians in the article have not declared themselves trans they were willing to bend gender norms to help them stand out in the crowd.
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It’s a special day that comes but once a year. It’s not Christmas or Easter, or National Talk Like a Pirate Day. We’re talking about National Lipstick Day! How did we all develop such an attraction to ruby red lips? Angela Gardner did a little research on the subject and learns that painting the lips to enhance attraction has been going on for thousands of years. Ancient Sumerians did their lips with crushed gemstones like some kind of antediluvian drag queens. More recently actresses, and actors, in the early cinema and theater used lip coloring to make themselves more present on stage or screen. Take a quick trip back in time for the history of the sexiest cosmetic on this National Lipstick Day!
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Ms Bob Davis digs into the history of the recently closed transgender friendly San Francisco nightclub, Divas. It was a favorite spot for members of the transgender community to hang out, take in some drag performances and mingle with other segments of the greater queer community. From it’s beginning in one spot to the fight with local residents to move to a much larger venue nearby Ms. Bob dishes the history of Divas.
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Classic female impersonator Paul Lavern Cummings passed away in Las Vegas, Nevada in March of 2018 after being severely injured in an auto accident. Back in 1999 TGForum ran an interview with Cummings that was conducted by TGF contributor Ken Spaulding. Since it’s been almost a year since Cummings’ death we dip back into the TGForum Archives and bring you that 1999 interview.
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Suzzie gives a transgender history lesson that features Roberta Cowell and April Ashely. She tells their stories and explains how she relates to them. They were contemporaries who took the path to gender transition. Suzzie also contemplated making that move but then she turned away from GRS and made a deal with a cisgender woman. Read her tale of three transgender women and see if you think Suzzie came out ahead.
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