Susanna Valenti

I guess I’m old fashioned enough to still dream of feminine women and masculine men—to think that the outer-girl we create is the indispensable container from which our heart emits all the feelings that—as men—we have not been able, nor been permitted to express.[1]

     Susanna Valenti was a popular personality within a vibrant subculture of male cross-dressers in the New York City area and among the national readership of Virginia Prince’s Transvestia magazine. Between 1960 and 1970, she wrote a popular opinion column entitled “Susanna Says” for Transvestia. The fifty-three columns Susanna contributed to the magazine featured fashion advice, behavioral guidelines, gossip tidbits, personal experience stories, and philosophical musings on the nature, causes, and culture of heterosexual transvestism. While she could be very opinionated at times, her column carried a carefree tone that refreshingly countered Prince’s more pedantic, intellectual style. This is not to suggest that Susanna’s column lacked an intellectual dimension. In fact, many columns in which she challenged medical expertise and theorized about various aspects of cross-dressing packed an analytical punch equal to the level of sophistication Prince brought to these subjects.

       Along with Prince, Susanna was a prominent voice and critic amidst the contestation that erupted throughout the 1960s among Transvestia’s readership over proper and improper ways to dress and behave. In her columns, Susanna perpetuated the scrutinizing culture of criticism that became a hallmark of the subculture that formed around Transvestia. In particular, “Susanna Says” offers an incisive examination of the dual personality that she and other adherents believed was created as one practiced the art of cross-dressing and improved in the skill of behaving femininely. After all, it was Susanna who coined the apt metaphor of the “girl within” to describe the idea of a transvestite man having a second self—a buried feminine personality that, with desire and practice, could be developed into a three dimensional embodiment. Along with Prince, she would strongly advocate keeping each personality separate and distinct from the other. “If we allow ‘him’ to express himself through ‘her,’” Susanna wrote, “then we are going to create a horrible caricature which is neither fish nor fowl.”

Or should ‘she’ sneak in some of her traits when ‘he’ is around, I’m afraid his reputation won’t be worth a plug nickel around the office. That is why, whether it is scientifically correct or not, for purely practical purposes, I find it most helpful to think and talk as if two different entities were occupying one single body…. It is very useful as a practical tool, as a guide, to prevent Susanna from being nothing but a “man in skirts.[2]

Not only was one’s femme-self to be distinct from the masculine self, it had to be cultivated and improved continually: “Let us, for heaven’s sake, strive to forge a nice, clean cut, real person out of ‘the girl-within.’ Let’s give her a personality of her own. If possible, let’s give her even different tastes than those of ‘the guy within.’”[3] Authentic expression of womanhood was the central component of Susanna’s ideology. She claimed that “one of the nicest compliments a TV can get from a non-TV is not that she looks beautiful or pretty (the friend is probably lying) but that she looks real.”[4] Susanna considered posture, gestures, walk, and voice inflection the four biggest challenges for men who attempted to emulate women. Through practice and professional lessons, Susanna, herself, tried to improve in these areas, and she implored her readership to strive for realness and authenticity, as well. “The real fun about being a TV,” she proclaimed, “is in the CONSTANT IMPROVING.”[5]

      Initially, Susanna resisted Prince’s attempts to draw semantic lines around the desired readership. At the beginning of her tenure as fashion and gossip columnist, Susanna recognized the variety, fluidity, and complexity of styles that comprised the transvestite category. “TV is not a static state of mind,” she wrote in her November 1960 column. “Like everything human, it moves, sometimes forward sometimes backward, but it does not stay the same. This applies to the intensity of the desire to dress, its frequency, and the forms it takes regarding preferences as to styles, make-up, lingerie, hairdo and even as to activities we like to engage in.” Not only did Susanna acknowledge transvestism’s multiplicity, she also evoked a non-judgmental attitude of its assortment when she followed these previous statements with the assertion that transvestism “grows in any of many directions and there are constant subtle changes in the inclinations of every TV I’ve met including myself.”[6] Yet, the relaxed tone of her fashion advice would take a more critical turn two years later. Two events lead Susanna to become an enthusiastic watchdog who guarded the parameters of the identity category in respect to aesthetics, dressing practices, style, and behavior.

     The first event occurred in 1961 when Susanna became indirectly mired in a postal investigation. That ordeal would force her to close ranks to a greater degree and issue demeaning remarks to those cross-dressers whom she perceived as disreputable types. Susanna did not write in great detail of the events that led to her summons by postal officials. What she did tell her readership was that two of her former pen pals had been charged with mailing obscene material through the mail. In the course of the postal inspectors’ investigation, Susanna’s name “came up,” and she was called in for an interview with two postal inspectors. What Susanna described about the interview and the lesson she imparted to her readers illustrate the politics of respectability waged by many heterosexual transvestites, even those who were open-minded as Susanna generally was. She wrote:

I did my best to explain what we are and how we feel and how utterly opposed we are to those practices which can only perpetuate the social antagonism towards TVism. I feel the need here to beg all TVs to immediately report to their postal inspectors any violation of our postal laws. We have to weed out the undesirable element to keep our sorority clean as I’m sure every sincere TV wants…. I have always avoided entering into correspondence with anyone who has begun to send out feelers into muddy paths. So be yourselves, be discreet, and keep those pretty skirts clean.[7]

In regards to the desire for respectability and disassociation from homosexuals, fetishists, and kink enthusiasts, Susanna came to share many of Prince’s beliefs and goals. She wanted to help make heterosexual male cross-dressing a dignified practice and divorce it from its medical and cultural associations with deviant sexuality. In this respect, she defended cross-dressing against the charge that it was done merely for sexual gratification. She acknowledged that while a sexual component existed, transvestism entailed a way of life, an avenue for relaxation, and a way to escape from the pressures of social manhood more than it represented a form of erotic expression. “You are in the midst of a fascinating adventure” Susanna argued, “and breathing life into a totally new individual, teaching her (or allowing her) to do new things. All the facets that make human beings are now at play—social, intellectual, physical, aesthetic. They are all finding new channels for expression.”[8]

     The second event that led Susanna to jump on Prince’s taxonomic bandwagon was the famed October 1962 “convention” of around seventy transvestites, several wives, and a few doctors at Susanna’s resort in the Catskills of upstate New York. Susanna and her wife, Marie, operated the 150 acre “Chevalier D’Eon Resort” during the summer season for a marginal profit. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, they hosted small numbers of transvestite friends on weekends during the off-season. The resort was a self-described “TV haven”—a place where transvestites and their wives could visit and be completely free to cross-dress around the resort grounds. In her columns, Susanna extended an invitation to her readers to visit the resort. She suggested that if enough transvestites could get together at the same time, then they could hold classes on make-up, sewing, dancing, and poise. Many adventures were had by those who managed to find their way to the resort. The stories recounted by Susanna and the readers indicate that it provided a space for self-expression for many of those who visited. The resort inspired self-definition and created a sense of normalcy for visitors.

      In 1962, Susanna hosted a large convention of transvestites on her resort grounds during a cold weekend in October. In their respective columns, Susanna and Prince wrote about the momentous affair and commented on the guests. One cross-dresser, in particular, evoked the ire of both of them. According to Susanna, this guest didn’t bother shaving and wore a simple knee-length night gown. But what really shocked and infuriated her was when this lazy cross-dresser lit up [gasp] a cigar. The sight of so many renditions of femininity, some of which did not fit the respectable mold promoted by the magazine, focused Susanna and Prince’s attention on the fact that variety was more the norm of transvestism than previously realized. The convention weekend, then, was not only a defining moment in the history of heterosexual transvestism, it became the second event that explains Susanna’s move towards policing the lines of respectability drawn around the magazine’s image of “true transvestism.” The weekend’s motley group of participants compelled Susanna, along with Prince, to close ranks to an even greater degree.  Following the retreat weekend, Susanna unleashed a series of hard-hitting columns centered on themes of self-improvement, on dressing tips, and on guidelines regarding appropriate conduct and behavior.  Susanna would become increasingly annoyed by those who did not try to look and act the part of a proper woman. “What I can’t understand,” she complained, “is that we all know what we should try to achieve. We know how vital proper posture, gestures, walk, and voice inflection are.”[9]  For Susanna, it was not enough just to wear women’s clothes, make-up, and a wig. The cultivation of “inner femininity” was what distinguished a true transvestite from drag queens and clothing fetishists.

      But what about the cigar smoking guy at the convention and others who dressed completely but who did not subscribe to the girl-within philosophy and who did not aspire to authentic and sincere representations of virtuous femininity?  In 1968, one of the magazine’s columnists, Sheila Niles, coined a new term to describe those transvestites who dress completely but who don’t strive to improve or behave femininely. According to Sheila, these individuals were really fetishists; however, instead of one or two articles of clothing, they ‘got their kicks’ from wearing an entire outfit, sometimes even with make-up and a wig. The term Sheila created for this category was “whole girl fetishist.” The whole girl fetishist classification amounted to semantically branding and symbolically distancing those transvestites who, for whatever reason, did not cultivate a feminine persona to match their outer appearance. By Susanna’s own estimates, the overwhelming majority of transvestites were, at best, whole girl fetishists. She argued that this disrespectable majority may have gone beyond the hosiery and lingerie phase or high heel fixation of the typical fetishist, but they had really only extended their fetishistic desires to include the complete wardrobe with its accessories. Susanna described whole girl fetishists as crude individuals who did not try to speak more softly or modify their mannerisms and bodily movements. Susanna wrote that she would not condemn this group if they would remain behind locked doors. However, she believed that they did go out in public, and she offered the following harsh words to those who made a public spectacle of themselves:

The WGF [whole girl fetishist] does not—repeat—does not help our common cause when he carries his WGF attitude into social circles integrated by non-TV’s. The pipe smoking, swearing, and bread devouring WGF can create the same type of shock with his incongruous behavior as the shock we get when someone draws a moustache on a portrait of Sophia Loren…. And if the WGF cannot or simply does not feel like modifying his behavior to match his appearance, then my mostly friendly advice is stay behind your locked doors and enjoy your appearance to your heart’s content…. But if you feel lonely and experience the need to meet others—at that very moment you must make up your mind that you are entering into a social commitment which demands from you a great deal more than just being made-up and wearing a dress.[10]

This idea of entering into a social commitment was a key articulation of a rapidly forming group consciousness among Transvestia's community of heterosexual transvestites, one that demanded accountability and respectability. Transvestites who associated with feminiphilia often policed the boundaries of their group and socially managed the stigma of cross-dressing by keeping other members in check in subtle and not so subtle ways. Susanna used the gossip function of her column to admonish ‘unruly’ TVs who misbehaved in some manner that threatened the security or reputation of the entire group. For example, the following gossip tidbit Susanna divulged in her column functioned to keep the transgressor in line and within the bounds of discretion and good taste:

New York TV’s are talking about a girl who finally managed to get permission at home to indulge and how she is overdoing it, drives around dressed up all over the place, while the truth of the matter is that she does not pass half as well as she thinks she does. There’s danger there, gal! You are courting disaster. The same can be said about other friends who are pushing their luck just a bit too far. Going around dressed is wonderful, but please more discretion!” [11]

While most transvestites remained in the “locked-room stage,” meaning they cross-dressed secretly in their homes or in motels, a sizeable number ventured out in public. This usually came about in stages, beginning with a quick but risky walk around the neighborhood block at night. As they developed confidence, they would progress to other kinds of public outings, including driving around town, window shopping, riding the bus and eating at restaurants.  As one writer stated, “Confidence, of course, leads to adventures.”[12] Transvestia's letters and histories contain information about the routines, rituals, experiences, and practices of those who ventured out in public dressed as women. Public excursions were risky but most transvestites believed they could pull them off successfully if they displayed confidence and behaved appropriately. “Being unsure of one’s appearance or actions,” explained a writer named “Jo Anne,” “is the easiest way I know of to be detected. As long as I conduct myself in such a way as not to attract any undue attention I will never, I hope, have any consequences to suffer.”[13]

      Susanna was concerned with the image cross-dressers projected to non-transvestites and to the public at large. “What makes a TV pleasant company for others AND ESPECIALLY FOR NON-TV’S,” she wrote, “is his honest exposure of that femininity he carries within his heart….and femininity is sweet, serene, quiet, lady-like. We cannot make a mockery of that femininity; we must not be a vicious cartoon—grotesque and monstrous.”[14] For Susanna, gaining acceptance and understanding from non-TVs was a delicate process that involved projecting a respectable and sincere expression of femininity “We have to ‘baby’ them into accepting us and understanding what we have gone through,” she wrote. “We want to show them the feminine side of our personality and convince them that this side is real, is true, and is a sincere form of expression.”[15]  With these calls and pleas for respectable renditions, Susanna helped shape the contours of heterosexual transvestism, specifically the dual personality mode of expression that Prince had named "femme-personation."

      Having a recurring column in Transvestia certainly gave Susanna a huge platform to issue her demands for respectability, sincerity, morality, and good taste.  Although it is difficult to measure exactly the power “Susanna Says” may have exerted over readers’ choices in fashion, style, and conduct, it is reasonable to assume that the column did influence at least some of her readers’ choices and behaviors. Readers may have heard her, but did they listen and follow?  Ample evidence from Transvestia's letters and histories show that some did not, whereas many others avidly joined her in policing the boundaries of true transvestism.