do you have anything abt historical trans lesbians? 0:

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Anonymous

Transgender Lesbian Women in History

In order to answer this question I asked Zagria, the transgender historian who is running the Gender Variance Who is Who site. Many of the links below are to her transgender history site.

She points out that the term “trans lesbian” is ambiguous and has been used in many ways.

For instance: Do trans women who stay with their pre-transition wife after transitioning count?

Moreover, do the so-called “female husbands” count?

“There are large numbers of them before the mid 20th century,” Zagria says. “We would say that they are heterosexual trans men, but the lesbian sites regard them as lesbians.”

Among the “female husbands” we find Harry Stokes, Charles Hamilton and William Holton.

Here are some of the other possible interpretations of the term “trans lesbian” Zagria has mentioned to me:

1. A woman who is both trans and lesbian, like Beth Elliot, Nikki Sinclaire, Bet Power, Tracie O'Keefe.



This is the best definition of the term transgender lesbian, as Zagria sees it, although it may not necessarily make much sense further back in history.

I have seen that a lot of people seem to think relatively few of the transgender women are lesbian. However, new research indicates that the straight transgender women represent the minority.

Given the increasing tolerance of nonbinary identities and sexual fluidity, however, it becomes harder to distinguish between the “pure” lesbians and bisexual/polysexual trans women. Furthermore, many trans women see a change in their sexual orientation after transitioning.

Hannah Rossiter has written an interesting article about butch lesbian transgender women.

Most of the HBS trans women remained gynephilic (attracted to women), Zagria says. She is here referring to a The Harry Benjamin Syndrome transsexual separatist movement that was very active up till some 10 years ago. They were the MTF transmedicalists of that time.

2. A trans woman who is en-coupled with a trans woman. e.g. Susan Cooke.

3. A heterosexual male “crossdresser”. Some male assigned gender variant people have used the term “transvestite” or perhaps “male lesbian” to describe themselves. Zagria points to Virginia Prince and the American Tri-ess organisation.

Virginia Prince (1912 - 2009) went as far as changing her name and body, so to me it seems she was a man in legal terms only, and barely that.

I would include the (in)famous movie director Ed Wood, who in the movie Glen or Glenda (1953) presents as a male to female crossdresser who is attracted to women. I suspect Ed would have identified as a transgender woman if they had lived today.

4. A cis female attracted to trans men. Zagria points to Lynn Baker (Dirty White Boi) who refers to these women as “straightbians”. Be warned: Dirty White Boi is a transphobic TERF.

5. A male-bodied person, apparently cis, who identifies as lesbian and is primarily attracted to queer women. Not (yet) trans.



The original L Word TV series had a male lesbian character. In 1987 Dr. Brian G. Gilmartin published a book called Shyness & Love: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment, which used the term “male lesbian”.

6. Some people, rudely, regard gynephilic trans men as trans lesbians.

Zagria notes that the term “transbian” is, to some extent, used in self-identification, “but also used by cisbians to imply that transbians are not real lesbians.”

The photo above is of Beth Elliott (born 1950), an American trans lesbian folk singer, activist, and writer. In the early 1970s Elliot was active in The Daughters of Bilitis and the West Coast Lesbian Conference in California. It will probably come as no surprise to readers of this blog that she was attacked by the TERFs of the time.

The photo below is from Ed Wood’s film Glen or Glenda, where Ed plays the role the protagonist, here presenting as Glenda.