1967 Beauty Contest Stephanie Germain
(midwest.social)
Florencia (she/her)
TransfemSource: https://xcancel.com/EliErlick/status/2025973174454870071
In 1967, a 22-year-old trans woman won a rural Wyoming beauty pageant. She entered the contest just a year after transitioning. Unfortunately, the judges disqualified her when she came out to a competitor. I guess trans women have an unfair advantage in beauty pageants?
As a side note, I'd like to commend Bulletin for doing a better job than the New York Times or BBC and using her preferred pronouns.
Watch out with that comment about trans women having an unfair advantage in beauty pagents, it sounds like hyperbole, but Janice Raymond claimed basically that
Does anyone know if she's still around? I might have to look her up.
Transcript:
Judge Disqualify Results Because ... Winner of Beauty Contest Is a Sex-Change!
by Walt Bradley
When there's a scandal after a beauty contest, it's usually because one of the judges has been bribed.
But the scandal that followed the beauty contest in Atlantic City, Wyoming, wasn't about bribery.
It happened because the winner, Miss Stephanie Germain, 22, isn't a miss at all!
Stephanie won the contest after having a sex-change operation in Sweden!
The scandal occurred when Stephanie admitted to one of the other contestants that she'd had the operation.
"I don't know why," Stephanie told Bulletin, "but I just couldn't keep it to myself.
"I just had to tell somebody that I used to be a man."
When Stephanie told the other girl, Marjorie Sharp, 21, Marjorie rushed out of the dressing room and told the judges about what Stephanie had said.
The judges came to the dressing room and demanded to know whether Stephanie really had had a sex-change operation.
"I told them it was true," Stephanie continued, "because I didn't really think it made any difference.
"I mean, the contest is supposed to be about beauty and whether I used to be a man or not hasn't got anything to do with it."
But the judges didn't quite see it eye to eye with Stephanie.
As a matter of fact, they disqualified her and had to have the contest all over again.
"I didn't really care," Stephanie said, "because I just entered the contest as a joke anyway.
"It made me laugh to think just a year earlier I used to be a man. And there I was, winning a beauty contest!"
Stephanie used to be Stephen Germain until he decided that he ought to be a woman.
"Actually, I decided that a long time ago," Stephanie told Bulletin. "When I was a boy I'd never fit in with the other kids.
"I don't know why, but I just never got a big bang out of playing football and things like that.
"And then, when I got to be about 16, I was really out of it. I mean, I just didn't like women.
"But you've got to understand, it wasn't that I like men. I mean, I wasn't queer or anything."
Stephanie described how he saved up $2,000 by the time he was 21, just to be able to have a sex-change operation.
"The operations are illegal in the States but you can get them in Sweden if a doctor says you're more a woman than a man.
"So I flew to Sweden and I had the operation."
The operation involved actually cutting off Stephan's genitals. A hole was made between his legs and plastic surgery provided him with a vagina.
"After that they gave me hormone treatments. I started developing breasts and my voice got higher.
"Pretty soon I started rounding out just like a woman and the next thing I knew I had a perfect 36-24-36 figure."
Stephanie described how she had all her body hair removed in a special operation using electrolysis later the same year.
"Then I changed my name legally and I registered myself as a female.
"I sort of felt silly living back East where all my friends know I used to be a man, so I moved out to Wyoming.
"And then I heard about this beauty contest and I thought it would be a real joke if I won it."
It was a real joke all right, but the judges aren't laughing.
After all, they must feel kind of stupid if they couldn't even tell the difference between a man and a woman.
October 2, 1967, National Bulletin
Caption to the left image:
Stephanie German, 22, won a beauty contest and then heard that her win was disqualified because she told a fellow competitor she was a sex-change
Caption to the right image:
Stephanie always wanted to be a woman, but she had to go all the way to Sweden before she could find a doc who'd do the operation for her
It's kind of interesting how she describes herself as "(not) queer or anything.". Really amazing how language shifts.
Sounds like Sweden used to be a lot laxer...
might just be relative to the US at the time tbh, Sweden today is probably far more trans friendly than in the 1960s all things considered
unfortunately not true. or well, it's probably not so easy to compare actually. technically any doctor can prescribe hrt, and any doctor can give you a diagnosis and sign off on surgery. an issue we face in scandinavia is that few doctors actually do this and you're forced to go to certain transmedicalist hospitals that do all they can to do as little as possible for as few as possible. Unless you find an alternative ofc
Given the time period and how uninformed the author must be on trans issues, I can look past the fact they use male pronouns and her deadname to refer to her pre-transition, a lot of people still get that wrong today.
There is one odd sentence where they use her chosen name but male pronouns. They were talking about her saving up for surgery, so pre-transition, but they otherwise use her deadname when discussing that phase of her life. Just struck me as odd.
Its just proof that these people have always and will always exist. It isnt a result of LGBT propaganda that modern times like to blame it on.
I think it's because Stephanie described it after all that happened. When Stephanie described it, she had already transitioned.
The saving up happened pre-transition.
Yeah the shift to maintaining post transition name and pronouns when talking about pre translation selves is a relatively recent linguistic shift
Hell, even within my family, I noticed the shift happening. My parents asked how to go about it when talking about pre-transition me.
I thought about it and I think it comes down to personal taste. Some prefer to cut ties with their pre-transition selves entirely, others don't as much or don't at all.
For me, I concluded that using the pre-transition names and pronouns would be suitable only in a certain user case.
That is, if we'd be talking about pre-transition me, with people who only knew me before transition (and likely wouldn't support transition nor meet me again much). Fortunately, that's very few people.
Elsewhere, only use the post-transition names and pronouns.
