Virginia Prince
Virginia Prince was a significant figure in the history of transgender advocacy and is credited with coining the term "transgender." Born Charles Prince in 1912 in Los Angeles, she began cross-dressing in her youth, a practice she later described as a means to connect with neglected aspects of her identity, which she termed Full Personality Expression (FPE). After completing her education and marrying a woman, Prince discovered a community of transgender individuals in the 1940s, which profoundly impacted her journey. In 1952, she co-founded "Transvestia," a newsletter focused on transgender issues, and established the Hose and Heels Club to support heterosexual cross-dressers.
Despite ultimately identifying as a woman and undergoing hormone treatments in the late 1960s, Prince chose not to have gender reassignment surgery. She advocated for the understanding that gender identity is distinct from biological sex, famously stating, "gender is what's above the neck and sex is what's below the neck." Her contributions have left a lasting legacy in the field of transgender rights and identity awareness. Virginia Prince continued to be an active member of her community until her passing in 2006.
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Virginia Prince
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- Born: November 3, 1912
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, California
- Died: May 2, 2009
Biography
When Richard Ekins and Dave King edited Virginia Prince: Pioneer of Transgendering, they chose their subtitle well. Not only was Prince a pioneer in the field of transgendering, but she is said to have coined the term “transgender” and all of its variations. This book, published in 2005, as well as Richard F. Docter’s From Man to Woman: The Transgender Journey of Virginia Prince, published in 2004, both recount Prince’s transformation from male to female.
Born in 1912 in Los Angeles to a prominent physician and his wife, a successful realtor, Charles, as he was named, was biologically male. Around puberty, however, he began cross- dressing and by the time he was ready to enter Pomona College, where he received his bachelor’s degree, he had amassed a considerable wardrobe of women’s clothing. Prince sometimes ventured out furtively dressed as a woman and derived sexual gratification from such ventures. He developed a theory of Full Personality Expression (FPE), claiming that cross-dressing went beyond erotic pleasure. Rather, Prince contended, it put one in touch with parts of one’s self that society usually encouraged people to ignore. Prince did not equate cross-dressing with homosexuality and, indeed, he married a woman shortly after completing his Ph.D. in pharmacology in 1939 from the medical school of the University of California in San Francisco.
At this point, he had no inkling that other transsexuals existed. In 1942, however, he attended the presentation of two transgender case studies at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Clinic, where he met Barbara Richards, a male-to-female transsexual, and Louise Lawrence, who ran a national network of transsexuals in which Prince soon participated, realizing for the first time that he was not alone in his predilections. In 1950, Prince and his wife divorced because his cross-dressing distressed her. Soon afterwards, Prince married a woman from the United Kingdom who was better able to accept his transvestism. By this time, Prince was president of his own company, a medical manufacturing business, and had a commodious home in the Hollywood Hills.
In 1952, deeply involved in the Southern California branch of Lawrence’s transgender correspondence network, Prince and other network members published Transvestia, a newsletter that survived for only two issues but helped launch Chevalier Press, which went on to publish a number of publications on transgendering. Prince established a social and support organization for heterosexual cross-dressers like himself, calling it the Hose and Heels Club.
Prince’s second marriage ended in the mid-1960’s. By this time, he was unwilling to balance the roles of businessman and transvestite, so he sold his business in 1966 and in June, 1968, underwent facial electrolysis and estrogen treatments. At this point, she made it clear that she was Virginia Prince and would live out the rest of her life as a woman. Prince was staunchly opposed, however, to using surgery to reassign gender and retained the male organs with which she was born.
In 2006, Prince continued to live in Los Angeles and remained active. She is remembered for her statement that “gender is what’s above the neck and sex is what’s below the neck.”