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Queens at Heart
1967, 22 minutes

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Media type
Alternate titles

Queens at Heart: Trans Women in the 60s

Country of origin

United States of America

Production company

Southeastern Pictures Corporation

Technical specs

Colour

35mm

Languages

English/English

Content Warnings
suicide
Description

This short pseudo-documentary offers a rare look at trans life and drag ball culture in mid-1960s New York." According to Jenni Olson, the LGBTQ historian and archivist who rediscovered the film in the 1990s, "Misty, Vicky, Sonja and Simone are four courageous trans women who candidly discuss their personal lives with a lurid, straight cis male interviewer who claims to have spoken to 'thousands of homosexuals' (and who clearly doesn’t understand the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity). While the interviewer’s creepy, inappropriate questioning is often hard to stomach, the women successfully transcend his tone and come across with an incredible sense of dignity and candor. They talk about their double-lives: going out as women at night but living as men during the day, and about how they take hormones and dream of 'going for a change.' One talks about avoiding the draft, another about her fiancé, and another about the torment of childhood as an effeminate youth. Their honesty and vulnerability are truly a gift.

Digital Transgender Archive. “Queens at Heart (1967).” Accessed February 6, 2025. https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/h128nd981.
Archive Items
References
UCLA Film & Television Archive. “Queens at Heart: Rediscovering a Pre-Stonewall Portrait of Trans Lives.” Accessed February 6, 2025. https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/blogs/archive-blog/2021/06/09/queens-at-heart-jenni-olson.