Terri

Terri remembers the coded message that pre-empted the first meeting of the Seahorses.

“The first step was putting an ad in the Kings Cross Whisper for ‘TV enthusiasts wanted’. TV standing for ‘transvestite’.

“Well we got some interesting [replies] back of course, from people who loved [watching] the box.”

It was Sydney in the early 1970s, still years before the city’s first Mardi Gras parade, which was met with violent opposition.

Attitudes towards cross-dressers, at least amongst the NSW Vice Squad, were that any man wearing women’s clothing was either gay or a prostitute. Terri says that going out in public, especially to public toilets, was very dangerous.

“You could be arrested for solicitation.”

Terri says that if a man was wearing women’s clothes in public, then he would get his underwear searched.

“If they had male underwear on they might let them go as they might be going to a fancy dress party. If they had female underwear on… they needed putting in a cell, bashing up and whatever else they thought was appropriate.”

So with cloak-and-dagger secrecy, the first Seahorse Society meetings kept moving around between private homes and the back rooms of sympathetic restaurateurs.

New members were vetted to make sure they did not have sexual intentions towards other members. The group provided understanding, where men’s families and broader society could not.

“We have had some suicides in the club because men just can’t cope.

“One of our presidents, because of his job, had to move to a mining town in the middle of Australia. He only did it for six months and he committed suicide. It was just too much for him.”

Today, Terri is 73, a business owner who has been married for 43 years with two grown sons. His private wardrobe room in a rented house near his own is a secret to them, as it is to his many employees.

Yet to the cross-dressing community, he is well known for his unparalleled $100,000-plus treasure trove of glamorous women’s gowns, luxurious fur coats, outrageous feather boas and priceless vintage lingerie.

“I’m not known as 'Feathers' for nothing.”