Probably realized something about herself during a wartime drag show
Every other GI for the rest of time: “this better not awaken anything in me”
I guarantee a lot of old vets still thought about “that one time when…” Kinda sad but a little charming
The fact that this newspaper article not only celebrated the transition but used the right pronouns throughout is so insane to think of compared to today.
Had to look up a bunch on her for a show I worked on. Basically it was more a “marvel of modern technology” that a woman can transition than celebrating gender identity. This is during the atomic age where the West was really all about articles of new tech.
That being said, researching the era 40-50s like Fyre Island and Provincetown, it’s crazy how tolerant people were back then. A lot of it was basically an entire male generation got shipped off together and inevitably ran into gay men up close. When the person was also doing their job to keep each other alive, they didn’t really care. Also a lot of gay men met each other in the war. So for a while anyway, there was some tolerance baked into a lot of society.
Then small dick assholes came and convinced allot of those people gays are the bad using religion and fear of communism (Violet Scare). And 60 years of that is how we’re here where we are today.
I had absolutely no idea about the violet scare and looked it up. The idea that people could successfully campaign for something so awful is horrible.
This is why people need to watch ‘The Music Man.’ You can find anything to get the rubes riled up.
