Decades before there was a public internet, people were using the post office and self-published magazines to build communities. An interesting example of this was heterosexual men who liked to cross-dress. In the 1950s and ’60s, it was completely illegal for men to cross-dress, even in the privacy of their own homes with the blinds drawn. When the LAPD wanted to harass the queens (who were presenting as flamboyant males) who hung out in Pershing Square in downtown LA, they would check the labels of everything they had on to make sure that none of it was made for women (for which they could be arrested). This led to a whole industry of extravagant clothing that had tags with the words FOR MEN.

The cross-dressing heterosexual men, who claimed disdain for the LGBT community, were anxious to show the world that they were as red-blooded and normal as their male-attired counterparts. They had no desire to change their pronouns or become women. The first publication aimed at this demographic was founded in 1960 called Transvestia. The early issues were pocket-sized and easy to hide. In 1962 the founder started an organization called The Hose and Heels Club, where members met in affluent homes for cross-dressing parties. Everybody arrived dressed in male attire to avoid blackmail situations. Someone who attended one of these parties described the men as behaving like young bridesmaids gossiping at a pre-wedding party. The founder of the magazine developed a lot of “official” terms to explain their intent. The one that stuck was Femme Personation (or FP for short). When he needed to reach out to the larger world, FP became Full Personality Expression. Before long there was a rival publication called Turnabout, which was prone to mocking these shrill attempts at “legitimacy.”

In the late 1950s a resort in the Catskills started catering to this crowd. Originally called Chevalier d’Éon, the name was changed to Casa Susanna when it moved to a smaller location. It recently gained a certain amount of fame when a photo collector found a box of snapshots showing activities at the resort. A recent documentary, Casa Susanna (2022), tells the tale more fully. The talking heads are the daughter of one of the members (who knew that something was up when her father spent five hours in the bathroom getting ready for Halloween) and two attendees who eventually became women. The current unfortunate panic about drag and men using women’s restrooms can be seen in a new light, when one factors in these heterosexual male cross-dressers. Given how prone conservative politicians are to projecting, their closets might contain some glamorous surprises