Today we are taking a journey back into time; the Wayback Machine is set to March 1965…
We are going to visit the Realist Issue #57 – “Of Transvestites and Other Epicenes” an article by David Lee Pagari. In the article he asks the question, “Does a man have a right to wear women’s clothes?” he then writes about a man (Felicity, who was a member of FPE which later became Tri Ess) who was arrested for walking down the street. He was walking down the street minding his own business when a detective came up and arrested him for “having his face painted, discolored, covered, or concealed, or being otherwise disguised in manner calculated to prevent his being from being identified, appears on the road or public highway, or in a field, lot, or enclosure.”
The law was on the books since 1840 when it was used to stop Dutch landowners from being harassed by farmers during the Anti-Rent Movement of the 1800s. The case became a rally point for transgender people around the nation, some of the organizations that became involved were FPE founded by Virginia Prince through Virginia Prince’s Chevalier Publications (Transvestia) in Los Angeles and Siobhan Fredericks’ Abbe de Choisy Press (Turnabout) that provided legal expenses for the appeal of her conviction. Together, Ms. Prince and Fredericks raise $1200 for her defense fund from their members and with the support of the ACLU they tried to overturn Felicity' conviction. With their appeal turned down by the New York courts they turned to the Supreme Court where their motion was also denied.
However, in a way there was a victory. It brought together the trans-community and set the stage for the transgender movement.
In 2006, Felicity was interviewed Helen Boyd author of “My Husband Betty” and other books for her blog en|Gender. She interviewed Felicity a couple of months before her 100th birthday and asked her five questions. One of them was,
Some of this post came from a dissertation paper by R. S. Hill “'As a Man I Exist; as a Woman I Live': Heterosexual Transvestism and the Contours of Gender and Sexuality in Postwar America.” part 3 “HAVING IT ALL: TRANSVESTIA’S GENDER COMMUNITY”
We are going to visit the Realist Issue #57 – “Of Transvestites and Other Epicenes” an article by David Lee Pagari. In the article he asks the question, “Does a man have a right to wear women’s clothes?” he then writes about a man (Felicity, who was a member of FPE which later became Tri Ess) who was arrested for walking down the street. He was walking down the street minding his own business when a detective came up and arrested him for “having his face painted, discolored, covered, or concealed, or being otherwise disguised in manner calculated to prevent his being from being identified, appears on the road or public highway, or in a field, lot, or enclosure.”
The law was on the books since 1840 when it was used to stop Dutch landowners from being harassed by farmers during the Anti-Rent Movement of the 1800s. The case became a rally point for transgender people around the nation, some of the organizations that became involved were FPE founded by Virginia Prince through Virginia Prince’s Chevalier Publications (Transvestia) in Los Angeles and Siobhan Fredericks’ Abbe de Choisy Press (Turnabout) that provided legal expenses for the appeal of her conviction. Together, Ms. Prince and Fredericks raise $1200 for her defense fund from their members and with the support of the ACLU they tried to overturn Felicity' conviction. With their appeal turned down by the New York courts they turned to the Supreme Court where their motion was also denied.
However, in a way there was a victory. It brought together the trans-community and set the stage for the transgender movement.
In 2006, Felicity was interviewed Helen Boyd author of “My Husband Betty” and other books for her blog en|Gender. She interviewed Felicity a couple of months before her 100th birthday and asked her five questions. One of them was,
2) What is the biggest change you’ve seen in your lifetime concerning crossdresing?
The biggest change in CDing has been the sloppy clothing being worn by women, which has turned my interest away from CDing, for except in NYC and Washington, where women still dress at least fairly well, except for pants. (If women can wear pants, then why could we not, as men, wear skirts without being ridiculed?)
Some of this post came from a dissertation paper by R. S. Hill “'As a Man I Exist; as a Woman I Live': Heterosexual Transvestism and the Contours of Gender and Sexuality in Postwar America.” part 3 “HAVING IT ALL: TRANSVESTIA’S GENDER COMMUNITY”
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