©1995, 2013 by Dallas Denny Source: Denny, Dallas. (1995, November). FTM Conference a Huge Success! AEGIS News, No. 1, V. 5, p. 1. Here’s a bit of history for TGForum readers… Thumbnail Photo: Illustration of Jack Bee Garland, taken from the cover of Louis Graydon Sullivan’s biography. Garland was a female-bodied man who lived in […]
Many thanks to David de Alba for sharing this interview he did with noted female impersonator Gypsy, a.k.a. James Haake. Haake was an actor and female illusionist who appeared in several films in and out of drag, starred in La Cage, and was one of the main attractions of The Carnival Cabaret in Lake Tahoe. How did a boy from Montclair, New Jersey make it to Hollywood and some of the most prestigious drag venues? The answers are in the David de Alba interview with Gyspsy.
Linda Jensen takes a chance path along the Internet and finds herself reconnected with a little-known autobiography from a little-known figure in TG history. Linda recalls how the book and its photos influenced her interest in developing a femme persona. When she was young she came across the autobiography and thought that it might turn out to be her story too. Puberty brought a different path but Linda remembers the excitement that came from reading that book.
We use words to describe people and things but many times there are disagreements about the words, or the way we use the words describing ourselves. The gay community has fought over the use of “queer” by some of its members. Others don’t want to be called “gay.” In our neck of the woods we have had the “cross dresser vs. transvestite” battles. Now there is conflict over how to use the word “transgender.” Should it ever have an “ed” added? Giving a bit of history around TG terms and speaking her mind Angela Gardner takes this topic on in “Transgender or Transgendered?”
Willow Arune is a collector of books. Not just any books but signed first editions. She hunts up the author and has them sign her copy of their work, or a bookplate which she affixes to her first edition making it a signed first edition. One of the authors she decided to track down was Geoff Brown who wrote a novel in the early ‘60s called “I Want What I Want.” The main character is a male to female transsexual. Join Ms. Arune as she takes you on a tour of TS themed books on her Hunt for Geoff Brown.
A young man is taking a course in Western Civilization at a community college. One day his professor, a tall woman with large shoulders and an odd fashion sense, takes him aside and offers him a job as a live-in caretaker. Ross Eliot moved in and learned that Babette Ellsworth was a lady with a past. A male past.
Dallas Denny remembers her long association with JoAnn Roberts and shares what it was like to know her and work with her in several community organizations.
This is the last in a series about Linda’s experiences at the Queen Mary Show Lounge in Los Angeles. From 1964 to 2001 it was the crossdressing equivalent of the Muslim’s Mecca –- everyone should visit at least once in a lifetime. To Linda it was more like the Jew’s Miami Beach –- she visited every winter.
Drag icon Vicki Rene interviewed The Cuban Legend David de Alba back in 2003. The interview was posted on Vicki’s website but when she passed away it disappeared from the web. Thanks to the devotion of one of David’s friends who found a copy and gave it to David we can present The Lost Interview.
Linda Jensen continues her series on the former Queen Mary Show Lounge in Los Angeles. Today she is stalking the “admirer” in his natural habitat. Linda profiles the admirers from The Queen as they would have been seen through the eyes of a popular television show from the past.
History is happening all the time and those who take the time to preserve their part of it do a service to future generations by letting them know where they came from. The TG community has a long, rich history but much of it disappeared into the mists of time. Dallas Denny tells us how to preserve our history.
The legendary cartoons of Christine-Jane have appeared in many transgender community publications in years gone by. They are part of our TG history and now they have found a home here on TGForum. Her work is a glimpse into the world of crossdressing in days gone by.
Dallas Denny wrote a paper 20 years ago. Forty years had passed since Christine Jorgensen’s return to the U.S. after SRS in Denmark, so Dallas called the piece Transsexualism at Forty. Now her paper is 20-years-old and transsexualism is 60. Here’s part II of her update.
Linda is recalling her experiences at the Queen Mary nightclub in Los Angeles. In its day the Queen Mary was the destination of choice for crossdressers. This month Linda recalls meeting a person named Sandi Hart, someone who had been a great influence on Linda’s early development. Videos from “The Queen” also!
We reported that San Francisco may honor Vicki Marlane, a performer from the old school of drag who was a female impersonator from the early ’50s ’til her GRS in the early ’80 when she became a TG performer. Vicki passes away in 2011. David de Alba wrote to share some memories of Vicki.
Last month Dallas Denny’s column was a reprint of her original 1993 Chrysalis article, Transsexualism at Forty. This month Dallas look at the first three of her twelve observations from the original paper to see how they hold up two decades later.
Twenty years ago Dallas Denny took a look at transsexualism, and this article resulted. In next month’s column Dalla will take a look at her ten observations from twenty years ago and see how they hold up. She might even add a couple of new points.
If you haven’t been able to get to Las Vegas to see one of the shows performed by The Cuban Legend — David de Alba — here’s your chance to experience a bit of the talent and glamor through your computer screen. David’s fans have recorded his performances with their smart phones and cameras and […]
Dallas Denny takes us on a pictorial trip back through the decades and examines how passing, for some, has become easier thanks to modern makeup and other enhancements. From Boulton and Park right up to today. Dallas takes a look at Crossdressers Across the Decades.
Among the legends of the drag world one of the biggest is the Queen Mary nightclub in Los Angeles. With a show bar in the front and a back bar for fun the Queen was the place to be in L.A. Linda Jensen spent many happy hours there. Today we present the first in a series about Linda’s adventures at the QM.
Drag legend David de Alba has done interviews with noted performers. Recently he contacted TGF to let us know that Tobi Marsh had passed away. Tobi Marsh was a drag performer in The Jewel Box Revue in Chicago back in the 1950s. Early in this century David had interviewed Tobi and offered it to TGF.
Avid collector of the vinyl record Pamela DeGroff often digs around in old record shops hoping for fabulous finds. This month she tells us about a treasure she dug up — a copy of “Max’s Kansas City 1976,” a vintage record filled with tracks by bands that played there. Jayne County!
I was looking at TGForum archives when I ran across these two reports of the first Transgender Lobby Day which took place in October of 1995. I thought it might be educational to review what happened that day and compare that to where we are today 17 years later. — JoAnn Roberts
In this post Sophie incorrectly states that our editor Angela Garnder said Halloween is the high holy day for CDs. JoAnn Roberts told Angela that while they were at a Halloween ball and Angela stole it. But Sophie’s right, Halloween is the biggest excuse for dressing up.
David de Alba, the last member of Finocchio’s cast of fabulous female impersonators to still be performing, is doing it again this November at The Onyx Theatre in Las Vegas, Nevada. The show happens on November 11 and it is a tribute to Judy Garland. While he was rehearsing for the show David de Alba, […]
Before the 1990s if you were out and transgendered you didn’t have much of a chance to publish anything like a novel, scientific literature, short stories or even poems. The two niche markets open to the out TG were writing for other TGs in newsletters and magazine. The other was autobiographies.
