New HUD rules go into effect barring discrimination against gay and transgender people.

Dr. Diamond is an early pioneer in trans research. Outside of the trans community, he is best known for exposing the “John/Joan” case in which Dr. Money (who allegedly physically attacked Dr. Diamond years before) faked his research to make the world believe that gender identity is a choice.

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Bev Jo, co-creator of the Radical Lesbian Feminist and Separatist community, states her wish that all trans people would die:

“their arrogance and oppressiveness is amazing. It is funny though that they are so used to Feminists immediately bowing before them that they don’t know how to deal with that we don’t care what happens to them. They expect we’ll be shocked to see statistics about them being killed, and don’t realize, some of us wish they would ALL be dead.”

The State Department marked GLBT Pride Month by publishing new guidelines for correcting the gender listed on their passports.

In a letter Dianna B. Johnston states, “In the past few years, however, some courts have determined that discrimination against a transgendered individual may constitute unlawful gender stereotyping in violation of Title VII’s prohibition against sex discrimination.”

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Ray Hill, keynote speaker for the 2007 Unity Banquet, Ray Hill is the father of the Houston Queer Community and is one of the last surviving original queer activists from the civil rights uprising of the late 1950′s and 1960′s.

While a controversial assertion, it’s one made with supporting evidence. It true, this would mean that a eunuch discovered America before Columbus.

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While a controversial assertion, it’s one which is made, says supporters, with evidence. If true, this would mean that a eunuch discovered America before Columbus.

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It is generally thought that Houston’s first formal Drag King competition was held on this date. The top prize was $250.

The Transgender Pride flag made its first appearance at a pride parade in Phoenix, Arizona

Nine biological men in Qunfuda, Saudi Arabia pleaded guilty to cross-dressing and homosexual acts. They were sentenced to 2,400-2,600 lashes and five to six years in prison.

Human rights Campaign officials met with representatives of the transgender community to discuss tensions that had arisen after HRC lobbyists encouraged federal lawmakers not to support protections for transgendered people in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

After a two year legal battle female-to-male transsexual Dale Altrows of Quebec was granted the right to have his birth certificate’s sex designation changed to male.

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Private Barry Winchell, 21, was brutally beaten by fellow soldiers at Fort Campbell Army Base. He died the following day at Vanderbilt University Hospital. Private Winchell was not transgendered. He was beaten to death, however, because he was in a relationship with a transgendered person. His girlfriend was Calpernia Addams, a transsexual and entertainer at The Connection, Nashville’s largest gay nightclub.

Melinda Whiteway was appointed co-chair of the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association, making her the first self-identified transgendered person to co-chair a national gay and lesbian organization.

Kristina Sheffield and Rachel Horsham, both male-to-female transsexuals, lost a legal battle to be recognized as women under English law when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the British government had not violated their rights by refusing to issue them new birth certificates or by refusing to allow them to marry men.

Representatives of the American Psychiatric Association met with approximately fifty transgender activists who voiced their concerns about reforming the diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder.

Transgender activists demonstrated outside the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association to protest the labeling of transgender people as mentally ill.

Marvin Thomas Nissen was given a life sentence and John Lotter was given the death penalty in the murder of transsexual Brandon Teena and his two friends.

In Iran, a 31 year old man was convicted of “ugly and improper conduct” and sentenced to twenty lashes for crossdressing.

In the Washington D.C. transsexual Tyra Hunter died from injuries sustained in a hit and run accident after an emergency medical services tech chose to ridicule her rather than treat her.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act was re-introduced in Congress. HRC demands that transgender people not be included in the legislation.

John Lotter’s trial began for the murder of Brandon Teena and his two friends. He would be found guilty and sentenced to death.

A hearing on discrimination against transgender people took place in San Francisco before the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. It resulted in a paper on transsexual discrimination and unanimous passage by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors of an amendment to add gender identity to the list of those protected from discrimination.

Rev Janine De Boer announced that she would resign as minister of a small church in Grouw, the Netherlands, because it had been discovered that she had a sex change operation in 1982.

The Lesbian Resource Center where she served as a volunteer conducted a survey of its constituency to determine whether it should stop ofering services to male-to-female transsexuals. Filisa did the data entry for tabulating the survey results; she didn’t have to imagine how people felt about her kind. She took her own life afterward.

She left behind her personal diary.

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Brandon Teena was brutally beaten and repeatedly raped. Though forensic evidence was available and he was able to name his attackers, police refused to make an arrest.

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This Conference was for “attorneys and other legal professionals; for employment, personnel, and other human resources professionals; and for members of the transgender community… Transgendered persons include transsexuals, transgenderists, and other crossdressers of both sexes, transitioning in either direction (male to female or female to male), of any sexual orientation, and of all races, creeds, religions, ages, and degrees of physical impediment.”

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PRINCE: “I therefore would like to propose such a term, namely, BIGENDERIST, or BIGENDERAL for the noun and BIGENDERED for the community at large.”

TERE: “We propose the usage of the term “transgender” as an overall and inclusive term for our community.”

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FTM activist and founder of FTM International, Louis Sullivan died of complications from AIDS at age 39.

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A U.S. Army colonel was discharged and sentenced to 90 days in Leavenworth for appearing in drag at an AIDS benefit and kissing another man.

United State Secretary of Health & Human Services Louis Sullivan wrote a letter to Representative William Dannemeyer (R-CA) to assure him that the Department would not reprint a government report which showed that already high suicide rates among GLBT youth were skyrocketing. The report infuriated Dannemeyer, who claimed that recommendations of tolerance and anti-discrimination programs in schools would undermine family values. Attempts to bury the report failed.

The US Postal Service issued a Pride postmark to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, an action begun by transgender people.

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“She must have seen many changes since that day in 1952 when the headlines blared “GI Becomes Blonde Bombshell”, as have we all. Certainly, she, and we, saw the day pass when a specific ethnic ancestry was an SRS requirement, and we’re doubtlessly moving – albeit too slowly – towards the time when Black, Hispanic, or Native American ancestry is never an impediment. No doubt about it, we and Christine alike saw sex change operations become a routine medical procedure (though sometimes still mistakenly called experimental). She saw a whole school of scientific thought grow up around her personality; and a generation of TSs with surprisingly similar personalities and life histories undergoing sex changes.”

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Cross-dressing actor Divine died at age 42 of a heart attack. (Real name-Harris Glenn Milstead) Visit his grave at: http://www.findagrave.com/pictures/2171.html

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The first Oscar awarded to an actor in a GLBT role was presented to William Hurt for his role in Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Don McLean, who gained national attention as Archie Bunker’s female-impersonator friend on “All in the Family,” died at Mission Emergency Hospital. He was 44. He was best known in the local entertainment scene under his drag name of Lori Shannon, long the star of Finocchio’s. In “All in the Family,” he played Beverly LaSalle, whose life was saved when an unsuspecting Bunker gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The episode marked the first time a television series had sympathetically portrayed a drag queen, as McLean proudly called himself. Beverly LaSalle made several more appearances on the show before the character was killed saving the life of Bunker’s “Meathead” son-in-law. McLean, who stood 6-feet-5 in his heels and considered himself “a stand-up comic in a dress,” relished startling tourists at Finocchio’s with such one-liners as, “Welcome to Boys’ Town – I’m Father Flanagan.”

GenderNet went “on the air” January 1, 1984 at 6 p.m. (PST) and as of this writing, thirteen days later, 207 calls have been recorded on the network…

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Harvey Fierstein’s play Torch Song Trilogy won the Tony Award for Best Play of the 1982-83 season.

FRESNO (AP)—Christine Jorgensen says her highly publicized sex change operation three decades age gave her the identity she needed to find “happiness and contentment.” Ms. Jorgensen, now 56, said in a speech to Fresno State University students Monday that she describes people who have had such operations’ “transgender“ rather than transsexual.

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Philadelphia Gay News publishes virulently anti-transsexual screed by Victoria Brownworth. Entitled, “Transsexuals in the Lesbian Community: The Ultimate in Male Power-Tripping” it was directed at Leslie Phillips, an attorney and trans woman, because of Phillips’ attempt to become involved with the Lesbian Feminist Weekend event. A month later, PGN published a response by Phillips entitled “Transsexuals in Our Community: How Dare We Exclude?”

Years later, Brownworth was on the Lambda Literary committee that nominated J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would be Queen for an award in Lambda’s trans category.

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Contributed by: Katrina Rose
Source: Philadelphia Gay News, May 29, 1981; June 28, 1981; “Victoria Brownworth and J. Michael Bailey”

Janis Raymond publishes a paper titled,”Technology on the Social and Ethical Aspects of Transsexual Surgery” which was then used by the Reagan Administration (and insurance companies) to deny medical care to the trans community.

Raymond writes…

“I believe that the elimination of transsexualism is not best achieved by legislation prohibiting transsexual treatment and surgery but rather by legislation that limits it.”

… and then advocates to substitute reparative therapy for actual medical care:

“Nonsexist counseling is another direction for change that should be explored. The kind of counseling to “pass” successfully as masculine or feminine that now reigns in gender identity clinics only reinforces the problem of transsexualism. It does nothing to develop critical awareness, and makes transsexuals dependent upon medical-technical solutions. What I am advocating is a counseling that explores the social origins of the transsexual problem and the consequences of the medicaltechnical solution.”

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Judge Bell, after stating that he had “no hesitation in saying that the definition of ‘marriage’ as understood in Christendom is the voluntary union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others for life,” opined that the man in question was “neither man nor woman but was a combination of both.”

Contributed by: Katrina Rose
Source: In re C & D, 28 A.L.R. 524 (1979).

It wasn’t until the publication of this document that a “transsexual” stopped being an umbrella term. Until 1979, a transsexual (Type 4 or 5) could be someone who lived only some of the time cross-sexed, didn’t need – or may not even have wanted – hormones or genital surgery.

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“You and I as transpeople have many things in common. Since we are going in opposite directions, I’m having some difficulty. Those things that I loathe, you will cherish. Those mannerisms I embrace, you have discarded. So be patient if I write some ideas that do not jive or may make you mad. The theme of this letter is what is important. The theme is that we are both children of God.”

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Renee Richards, a transsexual tennis player, was ruled eligible to play in the women’s division by a New York judge.

“Phyllis Frye prefers to be called transgenderous rather than transsexual. Frye points out that most of the things we consider to be characteristics of sexuality are really characteristics of gender.”

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A conceptual taxonomy is evident in this graph; the three types of trans classifications all fall under one heading. Additionally, Frye clearly views effacement men as being under this conceptual taxonomy… a notion that differs significantly from Ariadne Kane 1976 usage of transgenderist…

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The first part of the daily serial “Tales of the City” by Armistead Maupin appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Maupin’s “Tales of the City” featured a transsexual as a main character.

“Ariadne Kane is an experienced, sensitive and articulate lecturer on the subject of transvestism. transgenderism and transsexualism. She has coordinated three New England Conferences on Alternate Sex and Gender Lifestyles and was the organizer of the Fantasia Fair in Provincetown last fall.”

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This is perhaps the most tantalizing clue to where “transgenderist” may have originated. According to this 1975 letter, Frye first discovered the term in Sussie Collins’, magazine, Female Impersonator News. Sussie Collins was the national Director of the United Transvestite and Transexual Society – one of the early TS/TV national organizations, formed in 1973.

“FOR EXAMPLE, a speaker might use these new transgender pronouns when ey addresses an audience of both men and women. Eir sentences would sound smoother since ey wouldn’t clutter them with the old sexist pronouns. And if ey should trip up in the new usage, ey would have only emself to blame.”

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Republican Minnesota State Rep. Arne Carlson introduces a floor amendment to gay-only rights bill H.F. 536, seconded by Rep. James Ulland, also a Republican. The amendment would have added “transsexualism” to the categories that would be added to the Minnesota Human Rights Act by the bill and defined “transsexualism” as “having or projecting a self-image not associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness.” The amendment loses on a voice vote, though an estimate was that 40 were for and 70 against. The Democratic leadership had, earlier in the session, refused to let transsexuals testify for inclusion at a Judiciary Committee hearing.

Contributed by: Katrina Rose
Sources: 1975 Minnesota House Journal; “Midwest TS’s and TV’s Fight for Civil Rights,” Drag, Vol. 6 No. 23 (1976)

“The gimmick that brought him fame and fortune four years ago was the trans-gender name, the mascara, the bizarre goings-on on stage.”

Boston’s Gay Community News runs a column by trans woman Margo Schulter: “Transsexophobia: Old Arguments Against New people.”

Contributed by: Katrina Rose
Source: Gay Community News, March 30, 1974

Transgender actor Candy Darling died at age 26 of pneumonia and cancer.

“[In 1974] some of the terminology used at the conference would take some twenty years to become widespread. As far as we are aware, the first use of the term trans.people (sic) was when Julia Tonner referred to “the two worlds of the trans.people” (ie transsexuals and transvestites). In addition, there was also talk of transsexuals seeking ‘gender alignment’ and of ‘trans-gender’ also used as an umbrella term.” – (2007) Gendys Journal, D King & R Elkins

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The term is used in print as an umbrella term.

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John Wojtowicz and Sal Naturale attempted to rob the Chase Manhattan Bank in Brooklyn to get money for Wojtowicz’s lover’s sex change operation. Naturale was shot to death, and the incident became the subject of the movie “Dog Day Afternoon.” Wojtowicz was sentenced to 20 years.

“Transsex was invented by Christine Jorgensen.”

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Howell formed the Transvestite Information Service (TVIS) with the support of Reed Erickson Foundation. Reed Erickson, an FTM transsexual, personally approved each new group his Foundation supported. This transsexual-backed organization was one of the first to do some practical research on behalf of the community. For instance, TVIS conducted the first ever national and international survey of local crossdressing ordinances.

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An organization called Transsexuals and Transvestites was formed by Judy Bowen (a MTF transsexual) in New York to help them better understand each other and the challenges they face.

Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, was arrested for blocking the sidewalk following a demonstration in Los Angeles. While in jail a MTF pre-operative transsexual was brutally beaten after being placed in the same cell with male heterosexual prisoners. Perry arranged for her release and went on a hunger strike to convince authorities not to put transsexuals in cells with male heterosexuals.

“[R]aquel Welch (left), moviedom’s sex queen soon to be seen as the heroine/hero of Gore Vidal’s transgendered “Myra Breckinridge”

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Drag, Transsexual & Transgenderist acting troupe The Cockettes premiered their act in San Francisco.

“Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square,” by Lucian Truscott IV, Village Voice

(above photo from this article featuring trans woman, Michelle, 2nd from left)

Excerpts from the story:
“The forces of faggotry, spurred by a Friday night raid on one of the city’s largest, most popular and longest lived gay bars, the Stonewall Inn, rallied Saturday night in an unprecedented protest against the raid and continued Sunday night to assert presence, possibility, and pride until the early hours of Monday morning.

Wrists were limp, hair was primped, and reactions to the applause were classic. “I gave them the gay power bit, and they loved it, girls.” “Have you seen Maxine? Where is my wife — I told her not to go far.”

Suddenly the paddywagon arrived and the mood of the crowd changed. Three of the more blatant queens — in full drag — were loaded inside, along with the bartender and doorman, to a chorus of catcalls and boos from the crowd. The next person to come out was a dyke, and she put up a struggle — from car to door to car again. It was at that moment that the scene became explosive. Limp wrists were forgotten. Beer cans and bottles were heaved at the windows, and a rain of coins descended on the cops.”

In an action for a name change, the District Court of Hennepin County Minnesota (Minneapolis) declares that Cuban-born Sandra Valdesuso, then a performer at the Minneapolis Club the Gay 90s under the stage name Shalimar, “mentally and physically was not adjusted to male status and was not a perfectly formed male person” and “is hereby declared to be a female person.”

Contributed by: Katrina Rose
Source: In re Valdesuso (Order dated Sept. 25, 1968); R. Joel Tierney and Timothy M. O’Brien, “You’re a Good Man Charlotte Brown or What Now my Love?,” Hennepin Lawyer, Nov. 1968.

Trans-Sex Surgery at Minnesota

“MINNEAPOLIS, Minn, (AP)  -  Trans-sexual surgery has been completed on the first patient in the University of Minnesota Medical School’s gender research program. Dr. Donald W. Hastings announced yesterday.”

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While it takes until 1973 to for Jorgensen to be commonly referred to as a “transsexual” in newsprint, this 1966 article is the first to Jorgensen as a transsexual.

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Dr Harry Benjamin testified at a meeting of the New York Health Department to urge that transsexuals should be allowed to have new birth certificates issued reflecting their gender preference. His recommendations were rejected.

Police raided a drag ball in New York City. Dozens were arrested on charges of indecent exposure.

“It is not the trans-sexuals and transvestites that cause us worry about the world. It is ministers who, in time of crisis, reach for tranquilizers rather than prayer and worry about what, not the Lord, but the deacons will say.”

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June 29, 1955 – Illinois General Assembly passes “An Act to add Section 13d to ‘An Act in relation to births, stillbirths and deaths, and to provide for the registration and the establishment of records thereof’, approved June 22, 1915, as amended.” The new Act provided that “Whenever the Department of Public Health receives an affidavit from a physician that he has performed an operation on a person whose birth is registered in this State, and that by reason of such operation the sex designation on such person’s birth certificate should be changed, the Director shall make such investigation as it may deem necessary. If satisfied that the original birth certificate is in error, it shall make a new certificate of birth in the same form as provided in Section 13 of this Act.” The Act was signed on July 6.

Contributed by: Katrina Rose
Source: 1955 Ill. Laws p. 1026.

Dr Harry Benjamin conducted a symposium on transsexuals for the New York Academy of Medicine.

The explicitly trans story “Transformations” is published in an American comic.

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Christine Jorgensen returned to the United States and was greeted by a large number of reporters after receiving what was incorrectly reported as being the first sex reassignment surgery.

Christine Jorgensen entered the hospital for her initial genital surgery.

Kate Bornstein, self-described “transgendered dyke” and author of “Gender Outlaw.”

In New York, police raided a masked drag ball and arrested 99 men. They were charged with masquerading as females.

Dr Magnus Hirschfeld, founder of Berlin’s Institute for Sexual Science and The Scientific Humanitarian Committee, died in Nice, France.

Hirschfeld, a pioneer in transgender studies and medical treatment, was himself a transgender. Hirschfeld was known as “Tante Magnesia” and “Auntie Magnesia” in the German GLBT community.

Top: Title of Nazi propaganda film “Der Ewige Jude” (The Eternal Jew) directed by Fritz Hippler in 1940, demonizing Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish doctor.

Top-level members of the Third Reich advised the Head of Police to deliver homosexuals and transvestites to concentration camp Fuhlsbuttel, which had just established homosexuals as a new category.

Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science was raided and destroyed by Nazis. Writings on sexology were burnt. Both clients and sexologists were persecuted. Hirschfield, the father of modern-day sex reassignment surgery (both MTF & FTM surgery) and gender studies died two years later in exile. The Institute was the first known employer to openly hire known transsexuals.

Cantonal Court in Nidwald, Switzerland grants change of “civic status” from male to female for trans woman Margirth Businger.

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Contributed by: Katrina Rose

During a speech by transgender rights activist Dr Magnus Hirschfeld in Vienna, Nazi youth stormed in. They hurled stink bombs and opened fire. Dr. Hirschfeld was unharmed, but many audience members were wounded. Dr. Hirschfield oversaw the first sex reassignment surgeries in modern history.

In Vienna, GLBT liberation activist Dr Magnus Hirschfeld gave a speech before an audience of 2,000. Though not well publicized, hundreds of people had to be turned away.

In Berlin, Dr Magnus Hirschfeld founded the Institute for Sexual Science. Hirschfeld coined the term “transvestite” and was reportedly a crossdresser.

Top: Institute doctor counseling a transgender, ca 1929.

Civil War physician Dr Mary Walker died from injuries sustained in a fall. S/he had been criticized throughout life for wearing men’s clothing.

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Eltinge was a female impersonator who stared in vaudeville and silent films – most notably in the film to which the above article refers (The Countess Charming). Eltinge is interesting to me because his dual gender personas inspired the critic Percy Hammond to coin the term “ambisextrous” to describe him.  While ultra feminine on stage, he was ultra masculine off the stage.

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Lived Six Years in Trans-Sexed Attire: Girl Buried in Her “First Black Suit”

(United Press) Chicago, Feb. 9. — Ida Weinstein, 26 years old, was buried yesterday in the first dress to clothe her body in six years. As “Ben Rosenstein” and the “husband” of Pauline Rosenstein with whom he lived for six years. Ida died in a pitifully furnished, small bedroom in the rear of the second floor of No. 2146 Ogden Avenue, the victim of tuberculosis. Her last gasping request to her “wife” and to her “wife’s” mother was that she be buried “in her first black suit.”

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A Colorado newspaper, The Trinidad Advertiser, carried a story about the death of “Katherine Vosbaugh,” who had lived as a man for 60 years and married a woman. Even after being hospitalized in 1905 for pneumonia and discovered to be physically female, Vosbaugh continued to live as a man and was referred to by the nickname “Grandpa.” (Ironically, years later Trinidad Colorado would become “the sex change capital of the world,” where over 50% of sex change operations in the US were performed at one time.)

Prior to this post, it was asserted that the term “transsexual” was first used in 1949 (transexual and transsexualis) and the German version, (transsexualismus) was first used in 1923. Now, it seems that this term first appeared in print the 1907 edition of The Medial Times.

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A policeman in Mexico City stopped to investigate a loud party. When he knocked the door was opened the officer discovered a drag ball. When reinforcements arrived the party was raided and 42 people were arrested. One was later released after police said she was discovered to be a cisgender woman. Rumors spread that the person who was released was not a woman, but a close relative of President Diaz in drag.

 
The Scientific Humanitarian Committee was founded in Berlin by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld to organize opposition to legal and social oppression of homosexuals and transgenders Germany. Hirschfeld coined the term “transvestite” and was reportedly a crossdresser. It would be the first of several pre-Nazi queer liberation organizations in Berlin.

Members of the Committee included Albert Einstein, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke and Leo Tolstoy. The Committee was instrumental in founding the Institute of Sexology (later destroyed by the Nazis) which pioneered SRS for both MTF & FTM transsexuals.

The play “A Florida Enchantment” was reviewed in the New York Times. Some of the characters swallowed a magic seed which transformed them into members of the opposite sex. It was described as vile, stupid, and the worst play ever produced in New York.

Illinois Supreme Court rules against Louis Piepho in his attempt to divorce his wife Elizabeth based on his accusation that she was “an hermaphrodite.” Though Louis had argued, “Suppose in the case at bar the proof should turn out that the defendant is an Hermaphrodite and that the male organ in the subject predominates, then we would have a plain case of a man married to a man,” the court held that, in light of Louis having waited thirteen years after the marriage to bring suit, “In the absence of strong rebutting facts, he must be taken to have accepted the situation, and can not now be heard to complain.”

Contributed by: Katrina Rose
Source: Peipho v. Peipho, 88 Ill. 438 (1878); Louis Piepho’s brief to the court (Note: The Illinois Supreme Court appears to have misspelled the surname in its opinion.)

Annie Ryan married Annie Hindle, who gave her name as Charles Hindle, in Grand Rapids Michigan. Gilbert Sarony, a female impersonator, was one of the witnesses.

A 21-year old man identified only as J.M. was admitted to the Insane Department of the Philadelphia Hospital. Dr. Philip Leidy later wrote of the case as an example of “sexual perversion” because J.M. claimed his name was Jane and he was a girl, and he spoke in an effeminate voice and liked to fondle men with “both his mouth and hands.”

The Labouchere Amendment was passed in England. It provided for a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years, with or without hard labor, for any male person guilty of an act of gross indecency with another male person in public or in private. The effect of this was that any and every form of male homosexual expression – including effeminate behavior in biological men and masculine behavior in biological women – that offended the feelings of a jury became criminal. This law was dubbed the “blackmailer’s charter” and cast a shadow of criminality over British homosexual life until its repeal 82 years later.

Dr. William Hammond delivered a paper to the American Neurological Association on a “disease” which makes males believe themselves to be females. As an example he spoke of Native Americans who lived as the opposite sex.

In Evansville, Indiana, Joshua Elkins attempted to get the upper hand in is divorce from Matilda by asserting that she was a hermaphrodite. However, a divorce was eventually granted in favor of Matilda after a “commission of physicians” that had been “appointed for the purpose of examining her” reported that she was “a perfect woman.”

Contributed by: Katrina Rose

1865 - An article titled “A Strange Story” was published in The Guardian about the British Surgeon General, Dr. James Barry. It reported the fact that Mr. Barry was discovered to have a female anatomy after his death, “…thus it stands as an indisputable fact, that a woman was for 40 years an officer in the British service, and fought one duel and had sought many more, had pursued a legitimate medical education, and received a regular diploma, and had acquired almost a celebrity for skill as a surgical operator.”

A MALE-WOMAN. — A strange sort of person named Sophia Gibons, died a few days ago [in] Cambridge out in Guernsey County Ohio. It was always supposed that the person in question was a female and for [twenty-five] years the public remained in ignorance of the…

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1862 – Albert D. J. Cashier (born Jennie Hodgers)  arrived at Camp Fuller in Rockford, Illinois to begin training in the service of the Union Army. He physical sex was not discovered until 1910 during an illness. He was latter committed to the Wartertown State Hospital for the Insane where was forced to wear a dress for the first time in more than 50 years. He died two years after his commitment was buried with full military honors.

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The army of Rebecca sends the following notice to a corrupt church leader:

Reverend Sir,

I, with one of my daughters, have recently been on a journey to Aberayron, and amongst other things have heard many things respecting you, namely, that you have built a schoolroom in the upper part of the parish, and that you have been very dishonest in the erection of it, and that you promised a free school for the people, but that you have converted it into a church, and that you get £80 by the year for serving it. Now, if this is true, you may give the money back, every halfpenny of it, otherwise if you do not, I with 500 or 600 of my daughters will come and visit you, and destroy your property five times to the value of it, and make you a subject of scorn and reproach through-out the whole neighborhood. You know that I care nothing about the gates, and you shall be like them exactly, because I am averse to every tyranny and oppression.

Rebecca and Her Daughters

“Journal of the Private Life and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon at St Helena” by the Count of Las Cases. The Count wrote :

“I received a visit from one of the captains of our station at St Helena. Knowing the state of my son’s health, he brought a medical gentleman along with him. This was a mark of attention on his part, but the introduction occasioned for some moments, a curious misunderstanding. I mistook the Captain’s medical friend for his son or nephew. The grave Doctor, who was presented to me was a boy of 18, with the form, the manners and the voice of a woman. But Mr. Barry (such was his name) was described to be an absolute phenomenon. I was informed that he had obtained his diploma at the age of 13, after the most rigid examination, and that he had performed extraordinary cures at the Cape.”

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Hannah Snell was admitted to Bethlem Hospital (asylum) at aged 68. Snell was one of Britain’s best know FTM soldiers. Why Snell was actually hospitalized is not known.

At West Point, Deborah Sampson was honorably discharged from the Massachusetts Regiment. She had passed as a man for almost 1 1/2 years and formed attachments with several women. She later married a man and received a military pension.

Deborah Sampson, the first known FTM US soldier, joined the American army under the name Robert Shirtliff. He had previously fought in the Continental Army. His biological sex was discovered the following year. S/he was honorably discharged in 1783. With the help of Paul Revere, Sampson received a pension of 34 pounds starting in 1792.

The French diplomat and captain of the Dragoons, La Chevaliere D’Eon began her journey home to France after the English King Louis XVI acknowledged that “he” was actually a she. Only after her death in 1810, was it discovered that D’Eon was a MTF transgender person.

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In England, Ann Marrow was found guilty of impersonating a man in marriage and sentenced to the pillory where they were so severely pelted that they were blinded.

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Mary Poplet: I keep the Two Sugar- Loaves in Drury-Lane, the Pisoner and the Princess came into my House, and the Princess charg’d the Prisoner with taking her Cloaths, and the Prisoner call’d her a Villain, and said she gave ‘em to him. I have known her Highness a pretty while, she us’d to come to my House from Mr. Tull, to enquire after some Gentlemen of no very good Character; I have seen her several times in Women’s Cloaths, she commonly us’d to wear a white Gown, and a scarlet Cloak, with her Hair frizzled and curl’d all round her Forehead; and then she would so flutter her Fan, and make such fine Curt’sies, that you would not have known her from a Woman: She takes great Delight in Balls and Masquerades, and always chuses to appear at them in a Female Dress, that she may have the Satisfation of dancing with fine Gentlemen. Her Highness lives with Mr. Tull in Eagle-Court in the Strand, and calls him her Master, because she was Nurse to him and his Wife when they were both in a Salivation; but the Princess is rather Mr. Tull’s Friend, than his domestick Servant. I never heard that she had any other Name than the Princess Seraphina.

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From London Journal: They write from Bristol, that on Saturday Morning last two of their Turnpikes were found entirely demolished, as have Three others since, by Persons dress’d in Womens Clothes, and long high-crown’d Hats.

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A young Woman that had been Apprentice to a Mantua-maker near Fetter-Lane, who afterwards put on Man’s Cloaths, going by the Name of Tom Shammy, and became Servant at a Tavern of good Note, within Temple Bar near the Gate, was last Friday brought to Bed of a Daughter: We hear that one of the Midwives that were present at her Labour, declared her to be an Hermaphrodite, grounding her wise Judgment, as is supposed, upon the impudent Creature’s being aparelled as a Man. (Daily Post)

Charles Hitchin, who had been convicted of attempted sodomy, was put in the pillory. When several of his friends from the molly houses – queer meeting places in which many were also transgender – attempted to protect him from the crowd the mob attacked them and a bloody fight took place. It was the earliest recorded act of GLBT resistance.

Katherine Jones, alias Nowland, is acquitted of a charge of bigamy at London’s Old Bailey, claiming that “the last she was married to was no Man, and therefore could not be a Husband; that it was a Monster, a Hermaphrodite, and had been shown as such at Southwark-Fair, Smithfield, and several other Places; and called several Witnesses to prove the same; one whereof deposed, that he knew the Mother of it, who brought it up as a Girl in Apparel and at School, and to handle the Needle, till it was 12 Years old, when he turn’d Man and went to sea. She was also produc’d in Court, and own’d her being a Hermaphrodite, and having been shown; and it appearing by her own Confession as well as other Evidences that the Woman was more predominant in her than the Man” the court acquitted Jones.

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Contributed by: Katrina Rose

Lord Cornbury arrived in Manhattan to be the governor-general of New York. He would create scandal by publicly cross-dressing.

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Count Dohna (born Christina and later Queen of Sweden) “left Sweden donning men’s attire, and riding a white charger through Europe. She called herself Count Dohna. In Rome, Pope Alexander VII gave her a royal welcome, and the festivities lasted for several days. After she converted to Catholicism she became a favourite of the Vatican. Because of her wealth she was welcomed in high society, even though the ladies despised her for her mannish ways.”

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The General Court of the Colony of Virginia rules that a person who went variously by Thomas Hall and Thomasine Hall to be “a man and a woeman” and, in order to be identified by the other colonists as such, was to wear specified items of male and female clothing.

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Contributed by: Katrina Rose
Source: Mary Beth Norton, Founding Mothers and Fathers (1996)

The Virginia Court began hearing testimony in the matter of Thomas/Thomasina Hall, who claimed to be both male and female. The decision of the court would be that Hall was both a man and a woman, despite lack of evidence of female genitals. The court specified the clothing Hall was to wear, which included both male and female apparel.

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Spanish conquistador Vasco Nunez de Balboa discovered what he claimed was a colony of cross-dressing males in present day Panama and slaughtered them.

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In Venice, Rolanda was arrested by the Signori di Notte, forced to confess to being a transgender through the use of torture and then burned at the stake one week later.

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Emperor Elagabalus (AKA Heliogabalus) had offered vast sums of money to any surgeon who could preform genital reconstructive surgery. His head was cut off and his naked body was dragged through the streets of Rome.

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