A Clippings Scrapbook: Drag Shows and Bombshells on the Front Lines Against the Nazi Scourge
The 1940s were not a good time to be gay, and an even less stellar time to be trans. But we were there; on variety show stages, on the front lines, and strapped into the cockpit of the bombers, trans folk like us helped eradicate the Nazi menace...only to be left behind by our allies at the end.
by Piper Bly
Sources:
https://www.topfoto.co.uk/asset/3124914/
https://www.historynet.com/british-soldiers-put-on-a-drag-show-in-wwii-then-the-nazis-showed-up/
"Nothing like a dame: How Britain's wartime censor failed to see the funny side of soldiers dressed as women". Patrick Sawyer for The Telegraph, August 7, 2018. Archived: https://archive.is/hVGMG#selection-1557.1-1557.109
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/drag-entertainment-world-war-ii
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splinters_(1929_film)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/drag-surprising-mainstream-history/
Coming Out Under Fire: the History of Gay Men and Women in World War II. Allan Bérubé , 1990, University of North Carolina Press.
https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/tgi-bios/christine-jorgensen
Becoming a Woman: A Biography of Christine Jorgensen, Richard F. Docter, 2008, Haworth Press
Christine Jorgenson: A Personal Autobiography, 2nd edition, Christine Jorgenson, 2000, Cleis Press
https://hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/nazi-persecution/gay-people/
Homosexual Inmates in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Wolfgang Röll, MA, 2010. Journal Of Homosexuality.
Piper Bly is a professional illustrator and underground cartoonist. When she’s not busy plowing away at her drawing board, singing dirges in the moonlight, or wandering throughout the United States, she can often be found tending to her ivies, frying up some biscuits, spending unreasonable hours in the gym, or floating above the Mississippi River at midnight, waiting for the tide to wrap her in its loving embrace and take her away. Her whereabouts are currently undisclosed. You, however, can find her at piperbly.com.