Phillips vs Brown, 1979 - a trans patient sues
A Gender Variance Who's Who
by
1M ago
Phillips, who then had a different name, grew up in Pennsylvania, where he was raped by his father and others, and placed in foster homes from age 13. After moving to California, she met John Phillips, and, she living as female, they were married in Nevada in 1970, where she became Mrs Phillips. February 2-4, 1973, was the occasion of the Second Interdisciplinary Symposium on Gender Dysphoria Syndrome sponsored by the Divisions of Urology and Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Stanford School of Medicine. A highlight was Dr Georges Burou‘s presentation of his techniques; John Brown made ..read more
Visit website
Louise Michel (1830-1905) teacher, anarchist, Communard
A Gender Variance Who's Who
by
1M ago
Louise was the illegitimate daughter of Marianne Michel, a domestic servant in Vroncourt-la-Côte, Haute-Marne. Marianne was seduced and then abandoned by Laurent Demahis, the scion of the estate, who quickly left after Louise was born. Unusually, the Demahis grandparents embraced Louise Demahis (as she was known), permitting her the run of the estate, giving her a good education and freedom to pursue scientific enquiries. When the grandparents died in 1850, Laurent’s widow claimed the estate forcing Louise and Marianne, who had received a small bequest, to leave, and forbade Louise from presen ..read more
Visit website
A review of Alison Li’s biography of Harry Benjamin
A Gender Variance Who's Who
by
2M ago
Alison Li. Wondrous Transformations: A Maverick Physician, the Science of Hormones, and the Birth of the Transgender Revolution. University of North Carolina Press, 2023. There are four biographies of Magnus Hirschfeld (by Charlotte Wolff, Ralf Dose, Elena Mancini and Heike Bauer), an autobiography and three biographies of Havelock Ellis (by Phyllis Grosskurth, Chris Nottingham, Arthur Calder-Marshall, John Stewart). Why has there been no book length biography of Harry Benjamin previously? Li did a BSc in Biochemistry at McGill University and a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science ..read more
Visit website
Dorchen Richter/Dora Richterov (1892 - 1966) waiter, cook, maid.
A Gender Variance Who's Who
by
2M ago
Original July 2008.  Revised to include information from Rainer Herrn, Raimund Wolfert and Clara at Lili-Elbe-Bibliothek in particular. - - - - - - - - - - Rudolph Richter, the second of six children of a musician-farmer and his lace-maker wife, was born and raised  in Seifen (now Ryžovna in Czechia) (map), a village of some 600 persons in Bohemia close to the German border, which was then part of Austria-Hungary.  Germans referred to the high-altitude region on both sides of the border as Erzgebirge. Dora, as she would become, once attempted to tourniquet her penis ..read more
Visit website
Shelley Ball (1953–) sex worker, inmate.
A Gender Variance Who's Who
by
3M ago
Original: May 2011.  William Ross Ball was raised, one of four children in Chilliwack, British Columbia. Their alcoholic father killed himself when the child was eight, followed by the mother having a nervous breakdown two years later.  The children were then raised in group and foster homes.  Shelley later said: "I wanted to be a woman since I was a kid, as far back as I can remember".  At 13 she was committed to a mental institution near Vancouver for dressing in female clothes.  Ball's teenage years were spent in reformatories and institutions across Canada, and ev ..read more
Visit website
Three books – expected but never arrived
A Gender Variance Who's Who
by
4M ago
 All writers have plans that do not pan out, but readers, who enjoyed/appreciated the early book, do have a pang of regret that the promised second volume has never appeared – not even after a quarter-century.  These three books in very different ways dominated the discussions of gay and trans history over that period, and were much appreciated. Camille Paglia. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. 1990. “The first volume of Sexual Personae examines antiquity, the Renaissance, and Romanticism from the late eighteenth century to 1900. I demonstrate ..read more
Visit website
Frank Blunt (1865 - ?) pioneer trans man, gigolo
A Gender Variance Who's Who
by
5M ago
Original version October 2011. Initially from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Blunt had been raised as a girl named Annie Morris. The father was abusive and at age 13, Morris ran away.   Morris was accepted by a horse trader, James Blunt, and they presented Morris as his son, Frank Blunt. They traveled within the US.  Frank worked men's jobs.  For a while Frank managed a lumber camp in northern Wisconsin.    The Blunts moved to Milwaukee and opened a saloon, a rooming house and a retail coal business.  Frank gambled in (men-only) pool-halls, voted and chased women.&n ..read more
Visit website
David Petillo (1908 – 1983) hitman, mafioso
A Gender Variance Who's Who
by
5M ago
Original Version March 2010. Antonio Petillo from Pollico, Salerno south of Naples, emigrated to New York in 1885, and married Michelina, also an Italian immigrant, the next year. They had seven children – David was the sixth. Antonio was a sanitation worker and later a driver. He became a naturalized US citizen in 1910.  David attended a public school sometimes, and left for good when he was 14. He became involved with Giosue Aiello, a criminal who ran an area in the Lower East Side of Manhattan around Cherry Street. Petillo became regarded as a finocchio, or even a ..read more
Visit website
Phil Black (1903 - 1975) female impersonator, ball organizer.
A Gender Variance Who's Who
by
6M ago
Original version December 2008. Pittsburgh’s Hill District had been settled in the 1820s when those who could afford it moved out from Pittsburgh’s industrial core.   It became the city’s primary neighborhood for immigrants and other newcomers.  During the Great War, many black migrants came from Alabama and other parts of the South to fill Pittsburgh’s wartime labor shortage. By the 1930s African-Americans constituted a small majority in the area alongside various immigrant communities. Unlike the segregated theatres and nightclubs downtown, those in the Hill District, particul ..read more
Visit website
Ajita Wilson (1950 – 1987) prolific actress
A Gender Variance Who's Who
by
6M ago
Original March 2007. Wilson was born and raised in Brooklyn. After a start as a transvestite entertainer in New York in the last remaining burlesque spectacles of the time, Wolson also posed for some adult magazines, Around 1970, bankrolled by a rich boyfriend, said to be from Denmark, Ajita Wilson went to Europe, and had completion surgery. It is rumoured that she was featured in hardcore loops at this period – however such are not documented. Her first non-porno film was Cesare Caneveri’s La Principessa Nuda,1976. in a leading role as Miriam Zamoto, an African princess on a fund-raising ..read more
Visit website

Follow A Gender Variance Who's Who on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR