Casa
Susanna - Transvestite Ranch 2012,
8,09 min
Casa
Susanna was
a popular weekend destination in Hunter, NY for transgender women in
the early 1960s. The bungalow camp was run by Susanna Valenti and her
wife Marie, who also ran a wig store in town. Marie purchased the
150-acre property in the mid-1950s, and she and Susanna originally
dubbed it Chevalier D'Eon Resort. They charged $25 for a weekend, which
included food, lodging, and makeup lesson. Hidden away in the rural
Catskills, Casa Susanna provided much-needed privacy to its guests in a
time when being publicly transgender was a criminal offense. However,
guests occasionally visited the town of Hunter to shop, where they were
met by a range of reactions. Some were negative, but many locals saw
them as reliable customers. Casa Susanna was a haven for its guests to
go to and celebrate their "inner girl" without persecution. There, they
could be happy and comfortable, participating in activities like
gardening and Scrabble in elegant 1950s-style heels and dresses. Most
guests at Casa Susanna were married and considered themselves
heterosexual men who enjoyed cross-dressing, but many others later
identified as transgender and lived out their lives as women, including
Virginia Prince and Susanna herself.
Photography for
transvestites in the 1950s was both affirming and extremely dangerous.
Sending negatives to a professional developer who might call the police
was out of the question, so Casa Susanna appointed an official
photographer from one of its own: Andrea Susan. Andrea took many
photographs of her fellow guests and developed them at home.[6]
Although Polaroids were popular for their instantaneous development,
Andrea's photography was of higher quality, and she could be trusted.
She put the negatives in the possession of her mentor Dick, who had
gifted her her photo development equipment. When Dick threw them away,
they made their way to a Manhattan flea market in the mid-2000s. There,
they were found by Robert Swope,[7] “a gentle punk rocker turned
furniture dealer,” who bought every photograph he could find and
published them into a book with his partner Michel Hurst.[6] The
release of this book fifty years later led many former attendees of
Casa Susanna to come forward and share their experiences, allowing the
resort to be documented. Without this chance encounter, Casa Susanna
may have been lost to history.
Casa Susanna also inspired the Tony-nominated play Casa Valentina by
Harvey Fierstein.
Youtube
http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/3987/inside-the-secret-world-of-casa-susanna
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/garden/07trann.html
Casa Susanna
Casa Susanna (Fotoboek)
The Story of Casa
Susanna, a 1960s Escape for Gender Non-Conformists
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