One to One

Quickie quiz: Why was Joe E. Brown a particularly clever, and ironic, choice to play Jack Lemmon's beau in Some Like it Hot?

Answer: In his younger days BROWN was often the woman in question. Brown is remembered for his big mouth, but he played drag roles an awful lot, and he sure looked great in films like "Shut My Mouth".

In this scene he is helping Adele Mara button her dress. Later that same year, 1942, Brown played an old woman in a film called the Daring Young Man in which he was cross-dressed for long stretches.

SLIH's director Billy Wilder was a smart-aleck who loved inside jokes. The Brown choice was pretty slick, but do you think it was an accident that the villain was George Raft? We've talked about George here before.

Everyone loves the end of the film, but my favorite moment is the Tango scene with Jack Lemmon and the blindfolded musicians...Zowie! 'Course Marilyn's solo in that dress...

Does all this having you thinking what I'm thinking? Marilyn! Go ahead, I'll wait. Look at that smile and those perfect shoulders and dream on honey...dream on.

The letters are always different but the themes are very familiar to me now.

The person has lived with his secret since he was a kid, but he was too scared to really do anything about it. But now, at age 35-50, he has discovered that he really should have been born a woman and wants to know where to get hormones, or find a surgeon. Many, many times this person has never gone out in public attired in women's clothes or even met another transgender person, but they are convinced that they are transsexual and must now direct every fiber of their being to reaching their goal of having a sex-change.

Guess what? Some people who have these feelings really should go forward and have SRS. Some probably shouldn't, but I would never presume to guess who is a "real" transsexual and who isn't.

Still, when I get certain kinds of letters I can't help but see red flags that could be signaling that it might be best to hold off on the appointment with Dr. Biber for a few weeks.

Red Flag #1: "I never actually been out in public..."

Red Flag #2: "I've never talked to another person about this..."

Red Flag #3: Add 1 & 2 above and ask "Where can I get hormones?"

I mean no disrespect to people who have written me with such comments. Just the opposite, I respect them tremendously for having the guts to make any contact with another transgender person.

But the best way to really find out what is going on inside, in my opinion, is to get out and meet others. There is very little reason to be paranoid, especially if contact is made with the many, many well-established support groups worldwide.

I have had so many friends, and me too, who have wondered whether having surgery was what we wanted to do. Some decided, yes, that's the right thing. Many more took a look, maybe tried hormones for a while, did electrolysis (ouchy! don't get me started on THAT) and then just decided that it wasn't for them. But the key thing in every case with a happy ending was that they were constantly talking to others who cared about them. You can get in a lot of trouble when you're isolated.

Having said that, I think I also need to say now that I cannot personally be that kind of friend for the many folks who contact me with this goal in mind. I'm don't say this in a bragging way. I just happen to be here. But there are just not enough hours in the day for me to do that.

However, one big reason TGF exists is to try and end the isolation some folks still feel. This is why we have our own resource and contact lists, as well as links to even more extensive resources elsewhere. The new IFGE link is particularly good.

And we also have personals. These are a great way to make new friends. That's what most us really need anyway. Lordy, SOMEONE has to tell us how cute we look in that new frock...

John Cleese, the old Monty Python member, said in a recent interview that if there was anything they would do over it would be to get rid of "the little bit of gay-bashing" that turned up in some of the skits. Amen John, but it was more than a "little bit" and you can take back the "Lumber Jack Song" too.

Remember? "I wish I was a girlie...just like my dear Mama?" It was a funny song, except that the joke was on the guy singing it. But the worst was the way the Mounties who were doing the chorus leave him in disgust at the end. I love the Pythons but I always hated that skit. What is truly weird about Python gay-bashing was that Graham Chapman, a Pythoner who died a few years back, was gay and apparently went along with it.

Python-drag was usually pretty funny though. But the hands-down queens of television drag are the "Kids In The Hall". This show is in heavy play on a local cable channel in the Bay Area and the guys are just amazingly good when they cross-dress. Somebody in that troupe knows what they are doing.

Don't get too crazy and excited about Laser "electrolysis" just yet. Besides internal problems at Thermolase , the company that is going to produce the equipment for the new hair removal technique, there are some voices in the scientific community who are now beginning to raise questions about this approach. Transgender Forum does not print unsubstantiated rumors, but you can be sure that if those who have these questions can substantiate their claims you will read about here.

T conviction of the second man in the Brandon Teena murder case reminds me of just how many people in our community have been the victims of violence, including here in an area known for "tolerance."

Just a few years ago one of the most well-known people in the Bay Area drag community, Cameron Tanner, who was best known as Tina Tanner the XXIInd Empress of San Francisco, was killed with a baseball bat while walking down a street, for absolutely no reason other than because two punks hated the fact of his existence. That case is still unsolved and is, sadly, one of dozens, perhaps hundreds in the last few years.

Here are just a few names of those who have been victims of the worst kind of hate (produced by Riki Anne Wilchins and the Transsexual Menace):

MARSHA P. JOHNSON was one of NYC's oldest and best-known drag, transgendered and African American activists. Her work covered 20 years, back to the days of the original Stonewall Rebellion. Three years ago, Marsha was seen being harassed and verbally assaulted by some teenage kids near the Christopher Street piers. Later that same night, she was found floating dead in the Hudson River, not far from that location. The police refused to investigate, stating there was no reason to suspect a bias crime, or even any crime at all.

CARLA D was born and raised in Texas, later moving to Orange County, CA, where she lived quietly for 10 years. She eventually landed a job as a telephone operator with Pacific Bell. In the mid-80's, Carla went through a gender program and underwent surgery. A hard-working and outgoing person, she would give the coat off her back if she thought it would help. One day, she failed to show up at her job. A friend, stopping by to check in on her, found her on the floor of her apartment, dead of multiple stab wounds. No suspect was apprehended, and none was ever charged.

RICHARD GOLDMAN was a forty year old transgender man. He lived in a Manhattan condo owned by his parents, retired state judge Milton Goldman and his wife, Phoebe. Shortly after Christmas of 1991, while on a visit to their nearby Chelsea apartment, Richard was shot to death by his father, who then shot and killed his wife before finally turning the gun on himself. Questioned after the murder, neighbor Sonya Miller said that his parents "were very much against [Richard's crossdressing]. They were very disappointed. I think this is what it was about. There was always a problem there... They wanted him to 'act normal.'"

HAROLD DRAPER was 29 year old and transgendered, employed as a sex worker in Patterson, NJ. On May 30, 1992, Harold's lacerated body was found behind St. Ann's Church in West Patterson, dead of multiple stab wounds. Investigator Harold C. Pegg, Jr. theorized the killer was involved in a relationship with the victim: "That kind of murder shows a lot of hatred. It was not just a knife fight."

CAMERON TANNER was a transgendered person living in San Francisco. Active in local affairs, s/he served as Empress of the San Francisco Imperial Court, where s/he was also known jokingly to friends as "Tina Turner." On March 11, 1992 Cameron was repeatedly assaulted on the corner of Capp and 16th Streets by two men carrying baseball bats. S/he was so severely beaten that s/he lapsed into a coma after being taken to a nearly hospital.

After fighting for life for nearly 6 weeks, Cameron finally succumbed to his/her injuries and died on the morning of April, 21.

MARY S. was a white, middle-class transexual woman working as a computer programmer/analyst in Boston, MA. After she began to transition on the job, she was summarily fired. Stuck without an income, she began hunting all over for any type of job. Unable to find work, and increasingly desperate for income, she finally turned temporarily to sex work to pay for food and home. Shortly thereafter, the Boston Police pulled Mary's body from the trunk of a car in the river; it was not immediately apparent if she had died from drowning or from the multiple stab wounds.

JESSY SANTIAGO was a model, living in the Crestwood Avenue neighborhood of the South Bronx. Said counselor Juan Mendez of the Hetrick Martin Institute for lesbigaytrans kids: "[Jessy] was beautiful. She had the beauty, brains and determination to make it, but there's not many options for someone like that to survive once they disclose their anatomic gender." The evening of Feb. 8, 1992, a neighbor heard Augustin Rosado, a local man who had wanted to date Jessy, scream "I'm going to kill that fag." With the police at the door, Rosado attacked Jessy, beating her with an iron bar before stabbing her to death with a box cutter, a screw driver and a knife. The NYPD refused to call the murder a bias crime, and initially the Crime Victims Board even delayed providing financial assistance for her burial. Said Charles Rice of "Gay men of the Bronx" : "...because [Jessy] was this gay, Latino transvestite, it's a throwaway case to people like the police..."

PEGGY SANTIAGO, Jessy's sibling, was employed as a transgendered hustler. Peggy was murdered in the same neighborhood by a customer, just three years before Jessy's death

This community HAS made tremendous progress and we are going to make even more. We can not allow ourselves to be intimidated or frightened back into our closets by the acts of a few monsters. Our best defense is continuing to be who we are, proudly.

I have to say that I am terribly proud of the large group of people from our community who went to Nebraska last month to let people know that this case is being watched and closely. We all owe them a debt.

Transgender Forum intends to carry every scrap of information and news about the trial and the events, thanks to the efforts of these folks, particularly, Dana Friedman of Transsexual Menace, an activist group that is maintaining vigil in the Midwest, Nancy Nangeroni and Davina Anne Gabriel, who wrote the story that appears our current editions.