Aleshia Brevard - Bilbo's Bend

2015, Aleshia Brevard, English, Interview,

Full title: "Bilbo's Bend" by Aleshia Brevard.

"Trey Bilbo spent his early life on a Tennessee farm, the son of a loving Appalachian-born mother and a distant blue-blooded father. Young, handsome, and talented, he wins an art school scholarship that takes him to San Francisco. He finds himself an affordable place to live in the nefarious Tenderloin district, where he is befriended by a male street hustler with a flair for fashion design, a Cajun stripper who performs with his pet boa, and an assortment of 1960s social activists.

Trey experiments with several personas in his search for identity-as the boy-toy of a wealthy male art connoisseur, the husband of a pregnant friend, an ally to a transsexual high fashion model-all the while struggling to find himself. Does sleeping with another man mean he's gay? Why does that feel not quite right? In this coming-of-age novel, Trey Bilbo wrestles with probing questions about his sexual uncertainty, as he revisits many of the San Francisco haunts and wilder sides of streets that Ms. Brevard herself knew in her pre-gender-transitioning days.

Author Aleshia Brevard transitioned from male to female in 1962, not long after sex change surgery, as it was called then, became available. In the years since, she has often wondered what life as a boy might have been if gender reassignment had not been possible. This novel is her answer."

I still cannot believe that Alessia is not around anymore. She was my best friend and my second mother. In 2013, we did a very long interview about how she coped with all challenges related to being transgender, and this is what she told me: "When I transitioned the term “transgender” had yet to be invented. At that time, in fact, “transsexuality” was generally thought of as a ‘condition’, an awkward period through which one must pass, like some bothersome adolescence. Our goal was to move forward, as seamlessly as possible, easing into mainstream society to live as our authentic selves. We wished to live among, work alongside, and compete on an equal footing with other women, including those who had been born female.

Through Dr. Benjamin I met and became friends with Charlotte MacLeod, who had followed Christine Jorgensen’s transforming surgery in Denmark. Charlotte and another close friend from Finocchio’s, Kathy, whose surgery followed mine by a year and who was another patient of Dr. Benjamin, offered friendship and support. We shared our dreams and to them, I owe a great deal. At that time I was also aware of Bambi, in France. Bambi’s beauty and accomplishments offered me hope for the future. At that time, of course, transsexuals were few and far between. I’m fond of saying that few houses had yet to be built in the gender community."

Aleshia Brevard (December 9, 1937 – July 1, 2017) was an American author and actress of stage, screen, and television. She worked as an entertainer, actress, model, Playboy bunny, professor of theater, and author. She also underwent one of the early sex reassignment surgery procedures performed in the United States. Brevard was born in Erwin, Tennessee and grew up in a religious family in a rural part of central Tennessee. She always felt different from other children, like a girl inside, and prayed nightly to wake up a girl. After a romantic disappointment in high school, she left right after graduation for the West Coast. In San Francisco, Brevard found a job as a female impersonator at Finocchio's Club under the stage name Lee Shaw in the early 1960s, doing Marilyn Monroe impressions.

She began her transition at 21 under the care of famed gender specialist Harry Benjamin in the late 1950s. At Benjamin's recommendation, Brevard underwent the surgical reassignment procedure in Los Angeles's Westlake Clinic under the care of surgeon Elmer Belt. Brevard later worked as a stripper in Reno and as a Playboy bunny. After a year's recovery post-surgery, she enrolled as a student at Middle Tennessee State University for her undergraduate education. During this period, she became more comfortable with her womanhood, got married, and took classes. This was at a time when she was a working actress, touring the U.S. doing theater, and working in film or television. She gained membership in Hollywood unions, and ultimately got her master's degree in Theater from Middle Tennessee State.

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and The Heroines of My Life

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