Transgender Archives: The First Pilgrimage
Yesterday I walked out the door of my girl friend’s apartment in the Hudson Valley, crossed the street, and caught a bus to New York City.
I was embarking on the first of what I hope to be a dozen or so pilgrimages to visit the world’s known repositories of transgender and transsexual historical materials.
I have a special interest in transgender archives because the one I created now resides in the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan Library
There’s hardly a day that goes by without me wishing my material were at hand so I could lay my hands on this piece or that piece for reference purposes, but then again, there’s not a day that goes by without my being grateful the collection I started and built is in a safe space, is available to historians and researchers today, and will be available long after I’m gone.
The Center
My first sojourn was to visit Rich Wandel, Curator of the National Archive of Gay and Lesbian History at the GLBT Community Center of New York. Housed in the former Food and Maritime Trades High School at 208 West 13th Street in the West Village, the Center is home to more than 300 groups and maintains a long running program for gender-nonconforming people.
I met Rich in the Center’s Archives room, a small space with walls lined with historical photographs and stuffed with computers, boxes of material queued for cataloging and other boxes ready for researchers. Rich explained the archives are housed off-site and resources are transported to the Center when requested. The collection is catalogued and available online.
Rich Wandel
The Archive consists of 97 donated collections, most primarily lesbian and gay in content, some with peripheral transgender content — and a few with exclusive transgender content. Of particular note are the collections of :
- Felicity Chandell, which include photographs, correspondence, pamphlets, and crossdressing magazines dating from the 1950s and legal papers pertaining to Chandell’s arrest, trial, conviction, and appeal on charges of misrepresentation, almost certainly relating to her crossdressing.
- Rollerina, Fairy Godmother, a comical Village character of the 1970s.
- Liz Eden. Eden was the transsexual girlfriend of bank robber John Wojtowicz, who was portrayed by actor Al Pacino in Sidney Lumet’s 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon.
I’ve contacted Mr. Wandel for a repeat visit. I want a look at the Felicity Chandell folder.
Readers: Your life, your history is important. Please consider adding a provision to your will for your trans-related materials to be sent to the archive of your choosing. For a list of archives, IM me at aegis@mindspring.com for a list of archives.
©2011 by Dallas Denny
Category: Transgender Community News, Transgender History
About the Author (Author Profile)
Dallas Denny’s contributions to transgender activism, knowledge, and history are legendary and span four decades. She was the first voice thousands of desperate transpeople heard when they reached out for help, and she provided the information and referrals they so desperately needed. She is a prolific writer. Her books, booklets, magazines she has edited, and articles fill an entire bookcase and are in danger of spilling over into a second bookcase. She has created and led several national nonprofit organizations, been present at the creation of at least five transgender conferences, and led two long-lived support groups, She created the first trans-exclusive archive of printed and recorded literature, which today is available to the public at Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan. She has been a fierce advocate for transgender autonomy and access to medical care. Through it all, she has stayed on task, and made it all about the task at hand rather than about herself. Now, in her mid-seventies, she maintains the same frenetic pace she has kept up since the 1980s. Dallas’ work is viewable in its entirety on her website.Subscribe
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