Did you ever hear stories about Little Jo Monaghan, the short cowboy of the Old West who turned out to have a female body? Or Rose of the Wild Bunch, the one-time prostitute turned outlaw who dressed in male garb? Or maybe you know the story of Christine Jorgenson the GI turned bombshell, and you're wondering who the first American trans man was. Would you be surprised to know he was raised in Oregon? Or maybe you used to go to the Lucille Hart Dinner and wondered why they changed the name. In this episode Gender Blender focuses on trans and genderbending history of the West. Co-hosts Jacob Anderson-Minshall and Laura Calvo discuss local trans history and speak via phone with Fulbright Scholar Emile Deveraux, who has researched Alan Lucille Hart and Clare Sears, who wrote her PhD dissertation on San Francisco's cross-dressing law. They will also play some music by trans rocker Shawna Virago and trans guy band Tough Tough Skin.
If you'd like to learn more about transgender history, you might look up The First Man-Made Man: The Story of Two Sex Changes, One Love Affair, and a Twentieth-Century Medical Revolution by Pagan Kennedy or trans historian Susan Stryker's remarkably inclusive Transgender History
- KBOO