Annette in her Idaho home, published in Transvestia, Sept. 1960. Courtesy of University of Victoria Libraries.

Annette was a self-proclaimed male to female crossdresser and transvestite who spent the majority of her public life in Idaho, presenting as a male named Sheldon.

I discovered Annette while searching through archival materials for pre-1970 traces of queer and trans people in Idaho, one of the many states in the United States where conservative political forces have made, and continue to make, life increasingly unsafe for LGBTQ+ people. People in Idaho are facing waves of legislation banning healthcare for trans youth,[1]attacks on “critical race theory," [2]and an influx of "re-doubters,"[3]a political migration movement of conservative Christians from progressive states to more rural and conservative ones, including Idaho and Montana. During this critical moment in American politics, false narratives of an “American dream” are creating powerful waves of nostalgia for a homogeneously heterosexual, cisgendered, and nuclear family populace that never was. Uncovering and making accessible evidence that queer and trans people have existed, are existing, and will continue to exist everywhere is threatening to the current project of the American far right, which is attempting to strip rights and histories from queer and trans communities. It also addresses the scarcity of representations of same-sex intimacy and gender nonconformity in communities where these stories have not always been visible. 

[1] Audrey Dutton, “New Law Makes It a Crime in Idaho to Provide Gender-Affirming Care to Transgender Youth,” Idaho Capital Sun, April 5, 2023, https://idahocapitalsun.com/2023/04/04/it-is-now-a-crime-in-idaho-to-provide-gender-affirming-care-to-transgender-youth/.

[2]  James Dawson, “Idaho Governor Signs Bill to Ban Critical Race Theory in Schools,” National Public Radio, May 1, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/05/01/992761507/idaho-governor-signs-bill-to-ban-critical-race-theory-in-schools.

[3] Odette Yousef, “Idaho’s Fight against the Far Right, Then and Now,” National Public Radio, June 27, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/06/27/1106828549/idahos-fight-against-the-far-right-then-and-now.