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The Peggie Ames House: Preserving Transgender History in the Rust Belt

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The Peggie Ames House: Preserving Transgender History in the Rust Belt The Peggie Ames House: Preserving Jeffry J. Iovannone (he/him) Transgender History in the Rust Belt Christiana Limniatis (she/her) 11 March 2021 Peggie Ames (1921-2000) Photo courtesy of the Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archive of Western New York, Archives & Special Collections Department, E. H. Butler Library, SUNY Buffalo State. Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989) Jorgensen leaving on the S. S. United States (Aug. 7, 1954). Photo Credit: Fred Morgan/New York Daily News. New York Daily News, Dec. 1, 1952. Ames posing in her home at 9500 Clarence Center Rd, Clarence, NY Photo courtesy of the Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archive of Western New York, Archives & Special Collections Department, E. H. Butler Library, SUNY Buffalo State. Dr. Anke A. Ehrhardt Buffalo Courier-Express (Buffalo, NY), July 23, 1972. Reed Erickson (1912-1992) Erickson Educational Foundation (1964-1977) Reed Erickson (1962). Credit: Photo courtesy of the ONE Archives at the USC Libraries. EEF pamphlet (1974) Image credit: Digital Transgender Archive. Zelda R. Suplee (1908-1989) The Janus Information Facility, University of Texas (with Dr. Paul Walker) Photo Credit: WikiTree, “Zelda Roth Suplee.” Abram J. Lewis: “It is important to note, however, that precisely because trans communities were barred from major reform efforts, the strategies they developed to support their lives and work often occurred outside of formal organizations. At times, these strategies do not look like conventional activism at all. Even before relations with gays and feminists became fraught, trans activists prioritized self-determination within their own communities. And rather than seeking access to dominant support structures, informal survival services and mutual aid were priorities, reflected especially in initiatives like STAR House” (“‘Free Our Siblings, Free Ourselves:’ Historicizing Trans Activism in the U.S., 1952–1992”). Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) House Founded in 1970 by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson Located in a tenement at 213 East 2nd Street in the East Village Photo courtesy of NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. The Peggie Ames House Photo from the southwest corner of the residence illustrating the different building campaigns. Photo Credit: Intensive Level Historic Resource Survey of the Town of Clarence by Clinton Brown Company Architecture pc. (2008). ←1866 1880→ Greek Revival Style in America ● 1825-1860s ● Low pitched roof ● Cornice lines emphasized with wide divided band of trim ● Entry or full-width porches ● Columns/pilasters ● Front entries with sidelights or transoms incorporated to elaborate surrounds ● Odd ranking ● Vernacular examples with wings or hyphens National Register of Historic Places ● Federal government's official list of historic resources deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. ● Honorary not regulatory ● Since its inception, more than 95,000 resources have been listed ● Together these records hold information on more than 1.4 million individual resources National Register Criteria for Eligibility The quality of significance in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, and: A. That are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or B. That are associated with the lives of significant persons in or past; or C. That embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or D. That have yielded or may be likely to yield, information important in history or prehistory. Photo of Ames in her craft shop from Louise Leiker’s article “A Transsexual’s Anguish: Alone, Assaulted and Harassed.” Buffalo Courier-Express (Buffalo, NY), May 14, 1978. “Anyone who has lived in an old house, desired so intensely to restore it, will both revel and sympathize with me at all of the challenge and the heartache coupled with the costs and problems that go into such an effort. Nevertheless that was exactly what we started out to do. Pick up from the folks from whom we purchased had stopped when they had to move due to business transfer, and finish a dream. Now this home represents an extension of me, my personality and my work. Folks who visit near immediately react to these forces. They often exclaim how warm, hospitable and much like me, my interests and the comfortableness the entire house projects. It loses its houselike character and becomes a part of the occupant.” THE PEGGIE AMES HOUSE: PRESERVING TRANSGENDER HISTORY IN THE RUST BELT Jeffry J. Iovannone and Christiana Limniatis [Slide 1] Peggie Ames was an early transgender activist and advocate from Western New York. Her career began in the 1970s as part of the emerging gay liberation movement and the increased public awareness of transsexualism in the United States. Though largely unknown within broad narratives of transgender history, Ames influenced the advancement of transgender rights and acceptance on both a local and national level and helped to lay a foundation for contemporary transgender, LGBQ, and feminist movements. Most importantly, Ames created a blueprint for trans activism and advocacy in mid-sized cities and rural communities. Early Life and Transition Born in 1921 in Buffalo, New York, Ames was identified as male at birth. Beginning around the age of 12, she sensed she was “different.” She dressed in her mother’s and sister’s clothes and borrowed their cosmetics when alone. Ames enrolled in Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, and joined a fraternity in an attempt to fit in with her male peers. It was also at Westminster where she met her future wife, Gladys. The pair married and had a child, David, before Ames was drafted into the Air Force during World War II. Honorably discharged a year later, she completed dual degrees in Business and Psychology at the University of Buffalo, opened, with Gladys, an insurance business, and had three more children: Cynthia, Marsha, and Daryll. The Dietterichs appeared to be a happy and successful family, but Ames lived a dual existence. When she traveled for business trips, she presented herself as male, but was Peggie the remainder of the time. [Slide 2] She followed the story of Christine Jorgensen, the first trans celebrity who brought the concept of “sex change” to the forefront of American consciousness, in the media. [Slide 3] Jorgensen served as a role model for many other transsexuals, like Ames, to understand themselves and pursue medical transition. Ames, however, observed that although Jorgensen was celebrated by some, many saw her as little more than a freak of nature. Her suspicion that the attitudes of the general public in Cold War America were not conducive to a public declaration of her identity was confirmed, and she chose to remain closeted. [Slide 4] It was not until 1973 that Ames learned the word “transsexual,” and the feelings she described as “incessant, continual, obsessional, and always intensifying” became undeniable. That same year, Gladys discovered Ames dressed as her true self. Now that Peggie was “outed,” Ames decided to live full time as who she was. The couple initially discussed living together platonically as two women, but Gladys, a deeply religious woman, could not reconcile the fact that Peggie identified as a lesbian. Her children took the news even harder, effectively cutting her out of their lives and denying her access to her eight grandchildren. As part of the divorce agreement, Ames retained ownership of the family home, while Gladys became sole owner of the Dietterich Insurance Agency. As a result of losing the family business and being rejected by her community, Ames struggled financially for the remainder of her life. To support herself, she opened a furniture refinishing and antique restoration business, Pyne Crafts, that she operated out of the barn located at the back of her property, and taught adult education courses on woodworking. After consulting with doctors at the Harry Benjamin Foundation in New York City, she underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1974. She saw the same doctors as tennis player Renée Richards, one of the first out trans athletes. In her writing, she noted that while she admired Jorgensen and Richards, she had to forge her own path because, living in a rural community, her life was different from theirs in significant ways. She realized that staying quiet or closeted would do little to advance acceptance in Western New York. Local Advocacy In 1970, Ames joined the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier, Buffalo’s first gay and lesbian civil rights organization. She was elected secretary of MSNF in 1973 and 1974 and was praised for the efficiency and skill with which she performed her duties. She also participated in MSNF’s peer counselor training program, organized panels on transsexualism for Buffalo’s annual Gay Pride Week, and joined MSNF’s Speakers Bureau. In a 1978 profile of Ames written for the Buffalo Courier-Express, she estimated that she had lectured to around 12,000 people on the topic of transsexualism, primarily medical, nursing, and Psychology students at the University at Buffalo and other area campuses and medical centers. National Advocacy [Slide 5] Ames’s advocacy also had national reach. In 1973, she became involved in the counseling programs offered within the gender identity unit of the psychoendocrinology clinic at Buffalo’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital. The clinic was established by Drs. Anke Erhardt and Heino Meyer-Bhalburg, clinical psychologists who worked under Dr. John Money at Johns Hopkins University, then a leader in the study of gender identity and transsexualism. Ames frequently lectured alongside Erhardt in her work to educate medical students in New York State about transsexualism.
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