Harry Benjamin Bibliography
There has never been a comprehensive bibliography of writings by Harry Benjamin. I did a partial in previous writings, and found partial bibliographies in Bullough, Legg et al., and Wikipedia, Richard...
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Rod Fleming (1956 - ) writer, photographer, lover of trans women
Rod Fleming, raised in Scotland, cis, attended Edinburgh School of Art in the 1980s – where he first met some trans women – and became a journalist and photographer. He married a woman; they had four...
View ArticleAmandus Balitzki (1890 - ?) postal clerk
Balitzki was born in the then German city of Stettin, the illegitimate, later legitimate, child of a railway man and a nurse. Although raised as a girl, Balitzki had no interest in dolls or cooking,...
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A.C. (1920 - ?) day laborer
A.C. (a name assigned by the psychologist) was the ninth of 12 children. The father, who was mean and beat all the children, ran a cotton gin and store in Arkansas. A.C. was assigned female, but even...
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A US visitor present at the burning of Hirschfeld's library
A US visitor present at the burning of Hirschfeld's library, asks what is happening:"Ach! we are burning all the books of the Jews!" the woman told him enthusiastically."! see. But it seems too bad...
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Magnus Hirschfeld’s Die Transvestiten – some observations
Part 1: 3 misconceptionsPart 2: 2 more misconceptionsHirschfeld’s other BooksMisconception #1: the claim that DieTransvestiten is Hirschfeld’s definitive work on trans topics.The Bulloughs, Cross...
View ArticleMagnus Hirschfeld’s Die Transvestiten – some more observations
Part 1: 3 misconceptionsPart 2: 2 more misconceptionsHirschfeld as trans.Misconception #4: the assumption that Hirschfeld was himself a transvestite.The first such claim seems to be Vern Bullough’s...
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Erwin K Koranyi (1924-2012) psychiatrist at Ottawa's 1970-1980s gender clinic
Koranyi was born and raised in Budapest. During the Holocaust Koranyi was compelled into slave labour, and his wife had been arrested and was in a holding camp before transit to Auschwitz, when they –...
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15 other persons worthy of more attention
Buzz feed a few days ago ran a list of 19 trans persons who had achieved something in life. I have two problems with it.It is a list of the usual suspects. Why are such lists almost always aimed at...
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Finocchio’s – a nightclub: Part I: the early years
Original version, January 2010.Part I: the early yearsPart II: post WWII Part I: the early yearsJoe Finocchio (1897 - 1986) was born in Italy. His father Bernardo Finocchio emigrated to San Francisco,...
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Finocchio’s – post WWII
Original version, January 2010. Part I: the early yearsPart II: post WWII In 1946, Joe, and other club owners, were having problems with the Board of Fire Prevention and Investigation after a fire at...
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Seppel Einsmann (1885 – 1959) factory worker
Seppel was born Maria Mayer, the eldest child of a factory worker and a housewife, in Bruchsal, 20 km from Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Württemberg. At age 27 in 1912, Mayer was working in...
View ArticleThree recent books about Magnus Hirschfeld
There have been three recent books about Magnus Hirschfeld and the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft: Rainer Herrn's Der Liebe und dem Leid; Brandy Schillace's The Intermediaries and Daniel Brook's The...
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La Forest Potter (1855-1951), an early 1930s witness to queer New York
La Forest Potter. Strange Loves: A Study in Sexual Abnormalities. Robert Dodsley Company/ National Library Press, 1933.Trigger warning: Some of the quotations from Dr Potter include words and opinions...
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Francois-Timoléon de Choisy (1644 - 1724), Part 1: Abbé, diplomat, author,...
Part 1: Life, and the 1695 short-storyPart 2: discussion and bibliographyFrançois-Timoléon was born in August 1644, a week after the Battle of Freiburg which eventually led to the end of the Thirty...
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Francois-Timoléon de Choisy - cross-dreamer or out transvestist?
Part 1: Life, and the 1695 short-storyPart 2: discussion and bibliographyWas de Choisy more trans than a cross-dreamer?Joan DeJean in her introduction to the 2004 edition of The story of the...
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Trans cops
There has been discussion recently of the reactionary autobiography by Rene Jax (spelt without the usual accents). He (for he has reverted) has the impertinence to claim to be the ‘first’ transgender...
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Jae Stevens (1947-1974) performer, murdered
Stevens was born in Fort Worth, Texas, but raised in Concord in the East Bay across from San Francisco. He came out as gay when he was called to the draft board.In 1966 Jae started a professional...
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Books on Gender Variance in 2025 - Part 1: (auto) biographies and histories
AutoBiographyJean-Sebastien Busque. Gender Bilingual: Translating Life for Men and Women. Editions RESONANCE Publisher, 2025.Edward-Jeanne Cerdan. L'indompté - Confidences tendres et authentiques d'un...
View ArticleBooks on Gender Variance in 2025 - Part 2: other categories
$£¥ €=Excessively overpriced books. T S Avini. The New Gender Paradigm: Exploring Progressive Gender Identities. 2025.Kath Browne & Emily Kazyak. Polarising Sexualities and Genders: Divisions,...
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Elisa Menezes Duarte (1949 - 1980) performer, bombadeira, travesti boss,...
Original July 2023, revised and updated December 2025During the 1970s travesti sex workers in Brazil became more accepted by some members of the public, if not by the police, and along with that there...
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A review of James I. Martin’s Sexual and Gender Minority History: A...
This is a LGBT+ history book. However I will be reviewing mainly the trans elements.Despite the title, this book is a history of LGBT in the US only, apart from a quick foreshadowing in Weimar Germany....
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Nicholas Stuart Gray (1912 – 1981) children's author, playwright, thespian
Gray was born in Sydenham. The father was a cork merchant with his own business, and in 1927 he patented a new rear-viewing system for cars. He had been active in amateur dramatics when young, and his...
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Marlow Moss (1889-1958) artist
We have already discussed Madeleine Pelletier and Violet Morris, who while dressing, looking, behaving like (trans) men and being taken as men, retained their female names and she/her (elle) pronouns....
View ArticleFalse positives
This is a partial list of persons who are sometimes are listed as trans, but closer inspection shows that they are not.Francois-Timoléon de Choisy (cross dreamer, yes, but not the out transvestite...
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