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.