In the News (with pictures & videos)

[alison]

Two years ago, Casa Valentina was playing on Broadway.  I got tickets and went to see it, properly.  By that, I mean I was cross dressed when seeing it.

In fact, I spent the day in New York City.  I spent most of my time at the Museum of Natural History/Haydon Planetarium.  I went in by bus to the city, and then took the subway up to the museum.  The forecast for the day was for heavy rain in the evening, so I took along some boots with me (with a 4" heel no less).  As it was getting close to closing time, I went into a bathroom and changed my skirt, and then came out and changed into my boots, took the subway downtown, had some dinner, and wandered my way up to the theater.

I  had a good time at the show.  The characters were real and believable.  It was interesting, because it was not only about Casa Susanna (Valentina), but also about the beginnings of Tri-Ess.  I am a member of a group that used to belong to tri-ess but became independent, partly because tri-ess is for heterosexual cross-dressers, and rejects or shuns homosexuals.  This point was a major source of conflict in the second act.

When the show was over, there was a big backup in the lobby because the skies opened up and it was pouring.  Since it was a few blocks to the bus station, I had to buy an umbrella from a street vendor.  I had an umbrella with me but lost it.  I'm glad they didn't jack up the price because of the weather (I think I paid $5).  I'm glad I had on my boots and a skirt, because some of the roads became small streams.  If I were dressed as a man, my shoes would have been soaked along with the cuffs of my pants.

I got back to the bus station, bought a can of soda (I wasn't going to pay the rip-off price of 3 times as much for the same can in the theater during intermission).  It was a short wait for the bus, which I took to the park-and-ride before driving home.  Between the time I got in the bus station and off the bus, the rain had thankfully stopped.  Oh, and I found the umbrella I lost on the ground right next to the car.  I put the wet umbrella in my car to dry off when I got home.

[Betty]

LOL, Tri-Ess... that's a very odd group. They're a uptight far-right "good old boys" club of straight & closeted crossdressers with very strict homophobic & trans-phobic policies.

http://www.tgforum.com/wordpress/index.php/the-tri-ess-wars/

They think they would gain more acceptance from the public by shunning, gays, lesbians, transsexuals. & being incredibly homophobic. In modern times, in many states, & provinces, their homophobic & trans-phobic policies are technically illegal.

Many of them are pretty hypocritical too. Lots of their members & even a few of their board members/officers a few years down the road move on to having a boyfriend, or became transsexual anyway.

Granted, it's good to point out the fact that most crossdressers are not gay, but to shun or ban gays & transsexuals makes them no better than the people who want to shun & ban them.

Indeed, the percentage of crossdressers who are gay is just about the same as the general population. That is, about 10% are totally gay. 10% more have mostly gay tendencies, 10% more that swing both ways, & another 10% would have a gay experience if the opportunity came up with the right person.

But here's a thought to ponder. If you want to look like a woman, act like a woman, be treated like a woman, feel like a woman, BUT want to sleep with a woman, doesn't that make you more a lesbian that hetro? Then I get a laugh out of the crossdressers, who say they're really a woman inside, so they're not really gay when they sleep with a man, even if they do get an erection... because they're really a woman inside. There's a lot of gay men who feel like a girl when sleeping with their boyfriend, who never crossdressed. Are they saying they're really straight because they feel like a woman when they have sex too?

That's being in denial. It's just like the majority of crossdressers in my town are in denial that they're TV, TS, or a crossdresser. They have closets & dressers packed with woman's clothes, stockings, girdles, shoes, wigs, & makeup. But they say they're an impersonator, & performer, not a crossdresser. They get 3-5 minutes on stage lip syncing terribly to some old song in a gay club, once a week to once every couple of months. Yet they've spent a small fortune & lots of time on tons of girl's stuff. Yeah right, it's all for that occasional 3 minute performance.

Anyway, the author of Casa Valentina, & the guy who sold the book of pictures of Casa Susanna got their story all wrong. Although I was probably about 8 or 9 by the time Casa Susanna closed, it was right in my state. By the time I was 18, I had heard about it from crossdressers who had actually had been there. Because I was gay, the ones I talked to that were there, were were gay, & not married.

Back in the 50s & 60s, one could get arrested just for being suspected of being gay, or hanging out in locations where gays were known to be. Worse yet, your names or pictures would get in the newspaper as the town's scandal of the week. Indeed, even gay clubs, bars, & restaurants were regularly raided, busted, & shut down for having gays in them or for being gay-friendly... except those places owned by the mafia who paid off crooked cops & politicians to stay open.

Since the days of prohibition, if you were gay, the mobsters were your friends who bribed cops & politicians to leave us alone in their establishments.

So places for crossdressers, & many crossdressers would say they were straight even if they weren't to avoid extra harassment, arrests, raids, getting closed, & getting in the newspapers. There were plenty of gay crossdressers going to Casa Susanna. To protect the place & themselves it just was never mentioned. The place was promoted as a straight place in the newsletters, magazines, & through word of mouth to keep the cops, raids, & harassment away.

Even as late as the early 1970s, you could still be arrested for just being on a stretch of street, suspected to have gays around. The official charge was loitering with the intent to meet prostitutes, homosexuals, & other degenerates. Yep, it was a real law in most cities in the USA, & enforced to harass gays. It was not like a minor loitering charge either, it was a serious charge & got your name or picture in the newspaper if you were busted for it.

If there were prostitutes at one end of the street, & you were on the other end of the street, if the cops suspected you were gay, or the building you were near was gay-friendly, the cops would leave the prostitutes alone & go after you.

So any gay-friendly places were very hush-hush about it. The official word was always that they were straight places, & we all were innocent straight people.

[Betty]

Transgender candidate, 20, challenging fellow Democrat.

If Vancouver-area voters elect her, Kaitlyn Beck would be the youngest member to ever serve in the Washington Legislature, and likely the first transgender woman to hold office there.

Beck, 20, faces long odds in her quest to unseat a fellow Democrat, Sharon Wylie of Vancouver. But Beck’s challenge highlights a slew of issues, including the rarity of transgender candidates and lingering tensions within the Democratic Party over this year’s presidential candidates.

Beck comes to politics as an outsider and acolyte of Bernie Sanders, the U.S. senator and former Democratic-socialist presidential candidate.

Wylie, 67, casts herself as progressive but with a pragmatic bent, and a longtime admirer of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

“I’m not somebody who’s been in office for a long time,” said Beck, who lives in Vancouver and works in Portland at a medical staffing company. “I would be a truly progressive voice for the state.”

Beck’s candidacy comes at a time when conservatives in Washington and across the nation have attempted, and sometimes succeeded in passing laws restricting transgender people’s access to public bathrooms and locker rooms.

A bill to do that in Washington died in the state Senate this year, after a trio of moderate Republicans joined most Democrats in opposing it. A similar proposal put forth as a ballot initiative failed to draw enough signatures to qualify for the November elections.

Having an openly transgender representative “would have a pretty profound impact on the conversation that happens in the state Legislature,” said Danni Askini, executive director of the Seattle-based Gender Justice League.

There are no openly transgender men or women elected to any state legislatures in the nation, according to Elliot Imse, spokesman for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.

Meanwhile, the contest in the 49th District is one of two House races there pitting Democrats against each other in the general election, a first for the district.

Beck grew up in Paonia, Colo., a town of about 1,450 people a few hours’ drive southwest of Denver.

She moved to Washington in 2014. Beck said she’d always dreamed of living in the Northwest.. and later became drawn to the Sanders campaign.

“She’s very progressive both socially and economically,” said Vaughn Henderson, who said he met Beck earlier this year and now works on her campaign.

Henderson, 19, ran unsuccessfully for the state Senate, losing in the primary but earning an endorsement from The Columbian newspaper, which also backed incumbent Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver.

In her campaign, Beck has proposed a statewide 5-cent tax on plastic bags to raise money for education and said she’d like the state to have more ambitious clean-energy goals.

Beck called Clinton “corrupt” and “a little too conservative for my taste” and said she liked Sanders because he was “really a candidate for the people.”

Citing the Clinton-Sanders divide between her and the incumbent, Beck said she decided to run when it seemed Wylie, a consultant, wasn’t going to draw a challenge. Beck indeed was the only candidate to file against Wylie.

“It took me entirely by surprise,” said Wylie, adding later: “Southwest Washington is one of those areas that feels very neglected by the people power of the Puget Sound region, so I don’t think it makes sense for us to be split and not work together.”

A former nonprofit worker and lobbyist, Wylie was appointed to the seat in 2011 and fended off challenges from Republicans in 2012 and 2014. She describes herself as a progressive who tries to be pragmatic.

Wylie touts legislation she sponsored to save the state money through its contracting process and to strengthen laws against so-called revenge porn.

“The best practice for being in office is having a lot of life experience,” said Wylie, who sits on the House Finance Committee, which could play a large role in budget and education-funding policy next year. “That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have more young people.”

While Henderson touts the fact that Beck’s campaign Facebook page has more likes than Wylie’s, Beck nonetheless faces a tough challenge.

Wylie collected nearly three out of four votes in the August primary, her best primary performance so far, and raised over $51,000, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission.

Beck is likely to only raise a few thousand dollars, and said she’d prefer not to raise much money.

Meanwhile, the Young Democrats of Clark County and the Washington Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, have endorsed Wylie.

Beck hasn’t yet applied to get an endorsement from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, though there’s still time to do so, according to Imse.

[Betty]

Crossdresser leaves the Cowboy State for Portland

Sissy Goodwin, the Cowboy State's most famous crossdresser, is leaving Wyoming for Portland.

The college science professor and his wife Vickie plan to buy a small farm. He may wear petticoats and peasant blouses as he tends to the animals, Goodwin told the newspaper.

John Glionna described Goodwin in a 2013 Los Angeles Times article as "a linebacker-sized figure in a pink skirt, lacy yellow blouse and five-o'clock shadow, a gold lamé purse slung over his shoulder and a white bow affixed to his receding gray hair."

Goodwin does not consider himself gay or transgender. He identifies as a male who believes in "gender independent," he told the Los Angeles Times. He just likes to wear dresses.

He was born Larry Goodwin in 1947. He chose the new name after a stranger called him "sissy" in a derogatory way.

"I knew I had to hide my behavior," Goodwin told his wife. "So I tried to be very macho, as you know."

Goodwin broke the news to his wife sometime after they were engaged.

"I thought, 'Well, that's not a big deal,'" Vickie Goodwin said.

Still, Sissy Goodwin faced several attacks in Wyoming. He said one man beat him up on his front lawn, kicking Goodwin's teeth in in front of his son. Another neighbor used a knife to threaten to castrate Goodwin.

Casper police arrested Goodwin in a department store in 1979 for wearing a dress then offered to drop the charges if he stopped crossdressing in public. Goodwin refused, saying the practice was not illegal.

That kind of discrimination wouldn't go far in Portland. Two years ago, the Bureau of Labor and Industries awarded the Rose City T-Girls $400,000 after the owner of The P Club asked the crossdressers not to return to the North Portland bar.

The city has a full service crossdressing salon, several meet-up groups and a popular blogger who documents life as a Portland crossdresser.

Goodwin told The Los Angeles Times he isn't being chased out of Wyoming. But he and his wife imagine a happy, easy life in Portland.

Vickie Goodwin told her husband on StoryCorps she hopes in 20 years she hopes they'll be "walking along with our little canes, holding hands, you in your pretty dress and me in my jeans, being happy."

[Betty]

In history on the news:

Lucy Hicks Anderson was assigned male when born in Waddy, Kentucky, but she had already taken the name Lucy when she started school. She left school at 15 and became a domestic worker, later setting in Pecos, Texas, and working at a hotel. At age 34 she married Clarence Hicks in New Mexico. After the couple moved to Oxnard, California, she saved her earnings from domestic work and operated a brothel from a property she’d purchased. She and Hicks divorced in 1929. Fifteen years later, she married soldier Reuben Anderson. In 1954 her trans status became known, and she was prosecuted for perjury in Ventura County because she allegedly lied on her marriage license. Because Anderson had received government checks from the U.S. Army as the wife of a soldier, both she and her husband were convicted of fraud and sent to prison. She lived in Los Angeles upon her release.

[Betty]

Transgender Politicians:

Geraldine Roman, who identifies as transgender, made history last spring when she was elected to the House of Representatives in the Philippines.

The 49-year-old will become her country’s first openly trans person to hold public office, securing the congressional seat in Bataan previously held by her mother, Herminia Roman.

Roman, who transitioned more than two decades ago, will set a precedent in a country where lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people only enjoy limited rights. Still, she’ll now join an elite group of trans pioneers who’ve held various elected offices around the world, including Venezuela’s Tamara Adrián, Poland’s Anna Grodzka and Luisa Revilla Urcia in Peru.

[Betty]

New Zealand’s Georgina Beyer became the world’s first openly transgender MP when she entered Parliament in 1999. At the time, the media heavily emphasized Beyer’s past as a sex worker, but she said the scrutiny “did not make enough of an impact to destroy my credibility as a human being, as a person, as a politician. Which is remarkable.’’

[Betty]

Tamara Adrián, a lawyer and human rights campaigner, became the first openly transgender member of the Venezuelan National Assembly in 2016. “My sole presence in the Parliament, it brings fresh air to an environment that was full of homophobia and transphobia,” she has said. “My presence will require tolerance and I will very strongly request that respect.”

[Betty]

In 1992, Althea Garrison was elected as a Republican to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Just days after that victory, however, The Boston Herald published an article outing Garrison, who had been living as her authentic self as a woman at the time of her campaign, as transgender. In 1994, she lost her re-election bid.

[Betty]

Aya Kamikawa, who is a Tokyo municipal official, became Japan’s first openly transgender person in a public office in 2003. Still, in 2006, she said, “My mission is not over yet. There are still many who are suffering as I used to.”