The Story of Annette
The Story of Annette
“I am Annette…. I have been aware of a desire to wear girl’s clothes since I was four years old.”[1]
Annette wrote this in November 1960, when she was the first cover girl of Transvestia. Across many issues of Transvestia are traces of Annette’s life in the 1960s and 1970s, including photographs taken of her in her living room perched on chairs or standing with her hands on her hips, others sitting with friends or her children. There are stories about gatherings of trans woman she hosted at her home in the Idaho hills, the descriptions of which are the only clues we have as to where in the state she lived. For example, in 1970, a visitor to her home wrote: “High on a hilltop, dominating the city yet secluded from it…, in the rolling, barren and almost treeless regions of the Northwest, one of the very few green groves in that city line the crest of that strategic hilltop, and allow those within a view of the awesome scenery, yet effectively block outsiders from seeing the wide lawns and lovely home that lies within their protective branches.”[2] Through her words and those of her friends, her wife, and at one point her mother, the pages of Transvestia paint a picture of Annette’s life as a trans woman in Idaho, a life that was private, not revealed to many when she was alive, but which we can gather was still full of desire, exploration, bravery, and community. Through her letters, which allow us a glimpse into the fabric of Annette’s life as a woman, we also confront the attitudes and preconceptions of 1960s Idaho, which likely dictated that her life as a woman would be lived in private.
[1] Transvestia, Sep. 1960, 4.
[2] Transvestia, Apr. 1963, 34.