Photographer: Napoleon Sarony (1821-1896)
Title: Ella Wesner, male impersonator
Date: ca. 1880
Medium: albumen print
via Flicker Commons
Historic photo: Ella Wesner, 1880
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SearchPhotographer: Napoleon Sarony (1821-1896)
Title: Ella Wesner, male impersonator
Date: ca. 1880
Medium: albumen print
via Flicker Commons
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Cool, I like old photography.
This is ridiculous!!!
I am sure that this must be a fake picture. Everyone knows that people with "gender issues" have only been around for the last 40 or so years.
By the way, don't let anyone who is against Trans folks in ENDA or says that the "T" should not be included in GLBT see this picture. They may go into immediate shock mode.
Thank you Gloria. Once again you have proven that it's hard to deny history and especially when pictures exist that refute that the GLBT community didn't just crawl out from under a rock.
I just StumbledUpon a blog post of a newspaper clipping from 1918. Apparently, an immigrant transman had lived successfully as a man for 30 years, and no one was the wiser until discovered in the hospital.
http://mustymoments.blogspot.com/2009/09/his-face-was-very-smooth-for-man.html
I can't vouch for the blog or blogger, but the photograph of the newspaper clipping seems legitimate.
Ella came from the New Hope area (accross the bridge in Lambertville, NJ) from a show biz family. She was on the Philly stage early in her career.
In one of those how do we assess how someone identified years ago questions - you have factor in that Ella emanded to be buried in male attire.
There's an NYT obit.
Well Kathy, I guess that answers the question of "whatever did Transgender people do before they invented sexual reassignement surgery?"
Now if we can only figure out what bathroom s/he used back then.
There's an NYT obit.
Indeed there is.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B01E6DF133FE433A25757C1A9679D946696D6CF
Would I lie to you?
An honest life lived, is a soul remembered for eternity.