Musing About These Austin Gender Variant Photos

I've talked about the point more than a few times that Black gender variant people are an intertwined part of the African-American community and not something that just popped up out of thin air in the late 20th-early 21st century . 

Thanks to Max Reddick, I have some more proof of that and some interesting photos to peruse.

The cool part is that these photos were taken at a club in the Lone Star State.

Max sent me a link to a story in the Arts Labor Austin blog by Michael Corcoran dated February 7, 2014.    In it Corcoran discusses finding some photos dated October 7, 1955 while searching for another legendary Austin establishment called Charlie's Playhouse.  

The photos weren't of Charlie's, but possibly of the IL Club which was on East 11th Street    The east side of Austin was predominately African-American at the time but due to gentrification of those historic neighborhoods and the rising cost of living, Austin's African-American population is falling. 

It's interesting to note these photos are of drag artists of that time period performing at a blues club.

Not a big surprise to me, knowing that the Halloween Finnie's Ball in Chicago and elaborate drag balls in New York's Rockland Palace dating back to the Harlem Renaissance were quite popular and drew large crowds during that period.  

The winner of Finnie's Ball was covered in Jet magazine from the 50's through the late 60's-early 70's.  
      
And just across the Sabine River, New Orleans has had a longtime gender bending reputation and Mardi Gras events that lent themselves to celebrating gender variance .

As I look at these photos I'm curious about the lives of the people in them.  How old were they at the time these photos were taken?  Did they continue to live in the Austin area or move on to cities with larger gender variant populations?

Did their gender variance cross over into transgender territory? 

To see more photographic evidence of gender variant people prior to my arrival on the planet is exciting to me and drives me to want to learn more about this Austin scene and the snapshots taken on this October 7, 1955 night.   It's even more exciting to note that it's in my home state, and these folks share my ethnic background..

February 13, 1953

Today was the day 60 years ago that Christine Jorgenson stepped off a Scandinavian Airways flight from Copenhagen to Idlewild (now JFK) Airport in New York and into history as the first post World War II transperson. 

The news of her genital surgeries had already exploded into the international headlines in December 1952 It primed the pump for the media feeding frenzy that greeted the stylishly dressed 27 year old when she arrived on this side of The Pond.  


Some people argue that Christine Jorgensen's arrival in New York and her stylishly stepping off that SAS airplane are the opening moments of the sexual revolution in the United States.

What it did signify was that for transpeople, we now had a name for what was ailing us, a way to deal with it, and a person we could look up to as one of us who had successfully gone through the medical process.

So yes, we all walk in Christine Jorgensen's pumps. It was she who endured the stifling media scrutiny of being a transperson under the white hot glare of media publicity from the moment she stepped off the plane from Denmark on February 13, 1953 until she passed away in May 1989.

And because she did so, we exist today.   The ongoing education on trans issues began in the US at that moment and is still unfolding today. 

Take a moment today to say words of thanks for Christine Jorgensen.  Let's also strive in this 60th anniversary year of her arrival back on US soil to honor her memory by doing what we can to pave the way for the trans younglings who are depending on us, their trans elders, to make it easier for them to live their trans lives to their fullest potential.
 

When Farrakhan And Christine Jorgensen's Paths Crossed

History and historical figures sometimes have those moments where they cross paths as they play their roles on the historical stage..   Sometimes it's because they actually meet, as Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr did in March 1964.   Other times those historical figures may never personally meet, but their paths cross because of other factors.

When Christine Jorgensen returned to the United States sixty years ago this month, she was a major news story and people were fascinated about her and the topic of transsexuality. 

A Bronx born and Boston raised classical violinist and calypso singer with Caribbean family roots by the name of Louis Wolcott was recording hit music under the moniker 'The Charmer' back in those days.   One of his records was so popular it was on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for five years.

'The Charmer' was still two years away from his 1955 conversion as a member of the Nation of Islam, becoming Louis Farrakhan and giving up his music career when he released this calypso record about Christine Jorgensen entitled 'Is She Is Or Is She Ain't'

It ain't exactly complementary of our pioneering American trans woman, but this is just an example of the 'Christine mania' that was going on at the time and some of the shots she took in order to pave the way for future generations of trans people.   

Christine Jorgensen-Sixty Years Later

While Christine Jorgensen was quietly convalescing in a Danish hospital after the second of her genital surgeries on November 20, the news about her being the first post World War II transwoman was about to explode literally into New York's and eventually the world's consciousness.

Dr Magnus Hirschfeld and his Berlin institute had already done the first trans surgeries with Lili Elbe and 'Dorchen' back in 1930-31.  Christine was the first post World War II to do so after undergoing hormone replacement therapy under Dr. Christian Hamburger and his team.. 

On December 1, 1952 the headline for the New York Daily News blared 'EX-GI BECOMES BLONDE BEAUTY', thus triggering the ongoing fascination of America and the world with us transpeople.

That December 1952 headline knocked a nuclear test at Eniwetok Atoll off the front pages and also created a news feeding frenzy that only became more pronounced when then 27 year old Christine  returned home to New York on February 13, 1953.

It is a sixty year period that has seen surgery for transwomen evolve through the efforts of people such as Georges Bourou, Roberto Granato, Stanley Biber, Yvon Menard, Sanguan Kunaporn, and a girl like us in Marci Bowers.

It is also a period that has seen the knowledge of the medical and social side of transsexualty grow through the efforts of Harry Benjamin, organizations such as WPATH and in many cases, transpeople themselves.


Christine Jorgensen as our pioneering American transwoman would be followed by legions of other transwomen and transmen not only here, but around the world such as Great Britain's April Ashley and France's Coccinelle.   There were countless others who eventually had surgery and under the protocols of the time faded into society never to reveal their status as transwomen while other picked up the advocacy torch to fight for the human rights of people like themselves. 

Christine was the first to deal with trans celebrity status.  She navigated the media onslaught that greeted her upon her return to the States.  She wrote her life story in an autobiography that sits on my bookshelf now and became a movie.  She had a career in entertainment and Hollywood. She did the education at university campuses as a lecturer in the 1970's and 1980's.   She did the television interviews on the shows of the day such as Donahue and Dick Cavett .  She worked with the medical professionals of her time such as Dr. Harry Benjamin while living her life to best of her ability until she passed away in May 1989 of lung and bladder cancer the day before my 27th birthday. 

Christine also dealt with the societal frustrations that many transpeople still deal with today.   She was denied the opportunity to get married in 1959 because her birth certificte still had 'male' on it.  She was loved by some and vilified by others.  But she was happy and never regretted what she'd gone through to become a pioneering #girllikeus.

She also gave a name and a face to what people were suffering with and was the trans icon of many of my trans elders who were kids during that time period.  When Jorgensen passed away on May 3, 1989 in San Clemente, CA I was well into gathering information and making the moves to get hormones to facilitate my own transition that would happen for me in 1994.

Some people consider Christine Jorgensen's arrival in New York and her stylishly stepping off that SAS airplane from Copenhagen at what is now JFK airport the opening moments of the sexual revolution in the United States and there's a plausible argument that could be made for that.   

As she said in the film that was made several years before her death in which she returned to Denmark to reunite with the medical team that made her transition possible, "We didn't start the sexual revolution but I think we gave it a good kick in the pants!"

But Christine Jorgensen is also the starting point for our public fascination with and at times sixty year contentious discussion of transsexality on many levels   It's also the beginnings of a worldwide journey of discovery and evolution for those of us who are gender variant.   It also jump started the still evolving medical and societal thinking concerning gender identity and the causes and treatment of transsexuality.

And we transpeople owe a lot to her sixty years later for being courageous enough to start that journey.

Black Trans History-Jim McHarris

Found another interesting story from our African-American trans past in the fascinating EBONY archives.

Courtesy of a November 1954 issue of EBONY and the books Black Love, Black Resistance and Dr Susan Stryker's The Transgender Studies Reader, I began to read the story about transman Jim McHarris.

It starts in his birthplace of Meridian, MS in 1924.   He was born as Annie Lee Grant and his parents died early during his childhood. 

McHarris was raised by two sets of foster parents and exhibited a distaste for all things feminine except dating the ladies.   The young Jim McHarris would often slip away to Jackson to hang out.  Longtime friend Bishop Smiley Jones noted that young McHarris was not only attracted to women, but preferred mens clothing and living as a man as well.  

He transitioned in his early teens, ditched the female clothing and began in 1939 to move frequently to different cities around the country.   McHarris lived in Memphis, Chicago and other midwestern cities living his transmasculine life.   In that 15 year period as a restless traveler the 5' 5" McHarris worked as a short order cook, cab driver, gas station attendant, auto mechanic, shipyard worker, and preacher.while continuing with his handsome baby face and husky 175 pound frame to draw attention from and enjoy the company of the ladies he was attracted to. 

He moved to Kosciusko, MS in November 1953 and ran into his old friend Bishop Smiley Jones, who was now living there and was the pastor of the True Tabernacle Church of the First Born.  (If that town name sounds familiar, it is the hometown of talk show queen Oprah Winfrey who ironically was born there in January, 1954, but back to the story)

McHarris asked his old friend to keep his gender secret as he set out to build his life in Kosciusko.  He worked at a gas station for almost three months, was living at a local boarding house, was working as a short order cook and was engaged to be married to a young high school girl.  . He was also scheduled to be elevated to deacon at the True Tabernacle church

But the life he was carefully building in that town of 10,000 people at the time unraveled in 1954 when he was pulled over by Kosciusko.police on a traffic stop.  Officers pulled him over for McHarris' car having improper lighting and noted he had a pint of whiskey in the car.   He was arrested and when the officers prepared to do a pat down search on him Jim revealed his birth gender..     
  
The gender revelation caused drama in the town and subjected Bishop Jones to some criticism from local residents.  The people most upset were the cis women that Jim dated as well as the woman he dated when he was living in Memphis who admitted in the EBONY article she was receiving money from him.  

There was even more drama when Jim in order to 'prove' he was born female, retreated to a closet, stripped off his male clothes and revealed breasts and female genitalia in front of the judge and the arresting officers.

He was quickly fined by Judge (and mayor of Kosciusko) T.V. Rone and given the option of paying a $100 fine or doing 30 days in jail at the prison farm.  While Jim was serving his sentence he was dressed in men's clothes, and worked in the prison kitchen, but housed with a female prisoner.

When he served his time, he stepped out to a Kosciusko that gave him a cool reception and people he once called friends shunning him..  McHarris decided it was time to move once again.  As he gathered his belongings and prepared to move to Jackson, he said in the article "I ain't done nothing wrong and I ain't breaking no laws"

He also made the decision to live his life permanently as a man.  But one thing Jim McHarris didn't do was register as all US men had to do at that time for the draft.

When EBONY asked him why, he quipped, "Man, I ain't crazy."   But in every other respect, Jim McHarris was happy to be treated as one of the boys and made certain he lived his life that way to the best of his ability.