Seattle Now: Trans identity in the Old West

Our popular image of the American West is that the cowboys were the heroes, Native Americans were the villains, women were frail and treated like property and trans people didn't even exist. Except, of course they did. We hear about a new exhibit at the Washington State Historical Society profiling trans people who lived in the American West, including here in Washington.

Patricia Murphy: Hey, good morning. It's Patricia Murphy. It's Wednesday. This is Seattle Now.

Our popular image of the American West is that the Cowboys, who were men, were the heroes. Native Americans were the villains. Women were frail and treated like property and trans people didn't even exist. Now, a new exhibit at the Washington State Historical Society features profiles of several trans people who lived in the American West, including here in Washington State. We'll correct the record in a minute with Washington State University Professor Peter Boag, but first, let's get you caught up.

First, it was Seattle, now King County has crossed the 70% vaccinated line. As of Tuesday, more than 1.3 million people 16 and up got their shots. In two weeks when they're fully vaccinated, the county will drop its recommendation that they wear masks indoors, but officials warn: there are still pockets of South and Southeast King County where vaccination rates are lower. It makes sense to be extra cautious while they're working to get more people immunized.

Here's something I just learned. Up until now take out apps haven't had to get permission from local restaurants to deliver their food. Not anymore. The Seattle City Council passed its fair food delivery bill Monday. Starting in September apps will have to get a signed agreement with a restaurant before taking orders. If a restaurant wants out, the app has 72 hours to remove them or pay a $250 fine. The change had support from owners who said they were dealing with angry customers they had no idea they were even serving.

And somebody get Mackenzie Scott some new pockets because the one she has now have a $2.7 billion dollar hole in them. Scott announced her third round of no strings attached charitable giving yesterday, the money benefits 286 nonprofits and higher education, fighting ethnic and religious discrimination and supporting arts and culture including Seattle's Wing Luke museum. What a great gift.

10 years ago, Washington State University history Professor Peter Boag challenged the popular understanding of the American West. His work was mainly read among academics. Boag's book, Redressing America's Frontier Past adds complexity to our myths about the Old West. Instead of a simple and masculine West, he wrote about one that was messy. Where people didn't always conform to gender norms, and where people who were transgender understood themselves way before broader society knew that was even possible. Now, as America reckons with its past and its truths, Boag's work is taking on new relevancy. The Washington State Historical Society reached out to him about putting an exhibit together about his work.

Peter Boag: So that was two summers ago, they contacted me and we, in those days, we Skyped we didn't Zoom. We had a Skype meeting, and they liked what they heard, and so they decided to go ahead and move forward. And so I started working on the exhibit with them.

Patricia Murphy: The exhibit crossing boundaries, Portraits of a Transgender West, is now open at the Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma. It examines the lives of trans people from 1860 to 1940, particularly people who lived here.

Peter Boag: A good part of the exhibit is focused on trans people in the history of Washington territory and Washington State. So we really tried to highlight those individuals.

Patricia Murphy: I wanted to learn more, so I caught up with Peter. Hey, Peter, thanks for taking the time.

Peter Boag: Oh, you're most welcome. It's my pleasure to be here.

Patricia Murphy: Really glad to have you. So, the exhibit focuses on a series of individuals and their lives. And speaking of the Pacific Northwest, you profile Harry Allen, let's talk a little bit about them.

Peter Boag: We divided the exhibit into four themes, ad each theme, there is one representative trans person or somebody today we would understand as trans that concept didn't exist back then. So, Harry Allen and we chose to represent the theme of visibility, because he was so visible for such a long period of time, and Harry Allen had been born in Indiana, I believe in 1882. And his family he was assigned a female, sex and gender at birth by his parents, and in the 1880s just as Washington was transitioning from a territory to a state, his family moved to the Pacific Northwest. And though they lived in different communities in Western Washington, they pretty much settled in Seattle. And it was about the year 1898, 1899, that Harry finally takes on a male persona, in a sense permanently, and lives the rest of his life as such, and he lives another 20to ---. he died in 1922, so he lived for another couple decades or so mostly in Seattle. And the thing about him is, although he was persistently plagued by arrests for whatever he was doing, including dressing in ways that society believe was not appropriate for his assigned sex, he was arrested for other reasons as well. Whenever he was arrested, a great deal of news sensation as soon as the police and the local journalist found out who this was, there was yet another article to add to the growing list of newspaper articles. There are hundreds, he became so well known in the Pacific Northwest, that newspapers across the country carried his story. So he was visible for a long period of time. Now, what is especially interesting about Harry Allen is that he persisted on being who he was, despite the bad publicity, despite the arrests, despite the sensation that followed him.

Patricia Murphy: What can we learn from Harry's story about what it was like to be transgender in the West?

Peter Boag: Yeah, well, Harry, you know, and this also kind of goes back to his biography, actually, Harry gave birth to a child in Seattle, in 1898, as a woman, his given name was Nell Pickerel, and had an affair with a male at one point and gave ---and became pregnant and gave birth, and then he turned his son over to his parents to raise. So Harry Allen can teach us a lot about the complexity of trans people's lives. So he, he was a mother, as well as being trans. He also was very marginal in society, because of his arrest records and his sensationalism. So he, as a working class person, he had to move around quite a bit to different jobs to support himself. And then we also learn a lot about when you look at all the various newspaper coverage, as well as other legal documents, we also learn about a lot about how society understood or misunderstood what today we would call trans people. So they had different terms. Nobody-- very few people in the newspapers, in any case ever categorized Harry Allen as a man. They always saw him as a female masquerading as a man. And so through these types of materials, we also kind of learn about larger societies, understandings, and terminologies for trans people and how that's evolving over the late 19th and early 20th century.

Patricia Murphy: You also profiled Alan Hart. Tell me a little bit about Alan, and what's interesting about this story.

Peter Boag: Yeah, so Alan Hart, what's, yeah, there are many interesting things about all these people. So Alan Hart's kind of like on the other end of the social spectrum. He was raised in a middle class existence. He was highly educated, he went to college and he eventually went to medical school, the University of Oregon Medical School, so he became a doctor and it was while he was in medical school in Portland, in the 19-teens that he finally began to permanently transition. He dabbled as a man wearing men's clothing earlier, but it was while he was in medical school that he finally decided that this is when he would transition and he actually was able to see a psychiatrist so he had --Harry Alan was never able to see health professionals and-- luckily Alan Hart was able to find a very liberal progressive medical doctor who is a psychiatrist in Portland who helped him transition. So Alan Hart, he went to medical school. He worked in Washington state for many years in Seattle and Tacoma and also Spokane and he was a specialist in tuberculosis, and eventually left the Pacific Northwest and lived in Connecticut. He was married. He married twice actually divorced from his first wife and married a second time he died in 1962. And his second wife survived him, and he was cremated and his ashes were strewn across Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula. During his life, he wrote four novels published by major presses in the United States, and they are set all set in the Pacific Northwest, either Oregon or Washington.

Patricia Murphy: Wow, that's fascinating. What lessons can we draw from your exhibit about our popular understanding of the American West versus what it was really like?

Peter Boag: Well, that's partly the purpose of the exhibit is to rewrite early Washington Pacific Northwest American West and American history by including people who were either ignored or when they were included, because some of these individuals have been their stories have been told in Western history. But Western historians and other people not necessarily historians who want to tell a good tale have changed the narrative about them, and so our exhibit is attempting to rewrite stories to put them back in to the more interesting and more complicated story of the region and then nation.

Patricia Murphy: Peter Boag, giving us a more complete history of the early West. Washington State University history professor, really great to talk to you thank you for your time.

Peter Boag: Oh, Patricia, but it's my my delight. Thank you.

Patricia Murphy: Thanks for listening to Seattle now, if you like this show, tell a friend about us or leave a review. We check them obsessively.

Caroline Chamberlain Gomez produced today's show. Our production team is Claire McGrane, Diana Opong, and Jason Pagano, Matt Jorgenson does our theme music.

I'm Patricia Murphy. See you tomorrow.

Guest: Peter Boag, Washington State University history professor and co-curator of 'Crossing Boundaries: Portraits of a Transgender West'

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