Queens at Heart (1967)

"This short pseudo-documentary offers a rare look at trans life and drag ball culture in mid-1960s New York." According to Jenni Olson, the LGBTQ historian and archivist who rediscovered the film in the 1990s, "Misty, Vicky, Sonja and Simone are four courageous trans women who candidly discuss their personal lives with a lurid, straight cis male interviewer who claims to have spoken to 'thousands of homosexuals' (and who clearly doesn’t understand the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity). While the interviewer’s creepy, inappropriate questioning is often hard to stomach, the women successfully transcend his tone and come across with an incredible sense of dignity and candor. They talk about their double-lives: going out as women at night but living as men during the day, and about how they take hormones and dream of 'going for a change.' One talks about avoiding the draft, another about her fiancé, and another about the torment of childhood as an effeminate youth. Their honesty and vulnerability are truly a gift."

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Item Information:

Identifier: h128nd981
Collection: Audio and Video Clips and Transcripts
Institution: UCLA Film and Television Archive
Publisher: UCLA Film and Television Archive
Date Issued: 1967
Dates Covered: 1960 to 1969
Genre: Motion Pictures
Subject(s): Jay Martin
Places: New York
Topic(s): Drag
Drag balls
Drag queens
Femininities
Gay bars
Gender affirming surgery
Homophobia
Homosexuality
Hormones
LGBTQ+ suicide
Medicalization
Sex (Act)
Trans women
Transphobia
Resource Type: Moving image
Language: English
Rights: Copyright undetermined
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