Virginia Prince

Virginia Charles Prince (November 23, 1912 – May 2, 2009), born Arnold Lowman, was an American transgender activist.

She published Transvestia magazine, and started the Foundation for Personality Expression (FPE)

and later the Society for the Second Self for male heterosexual cross-dressers.

Prince was born on November 23, 1912, in Los Angeles, California to a Protestant family.

She was assigned male at birth and given the name Arnold.

At around the age of twelve, Prince began cross-dressing, first using her mother's clothes.

During her time in high school, Prince began cross-dressing more frequently and found herself passing as a girl in public.

This came to a crux when Virginia, at the age of 18, went to a church Halloween party—not only in a woman's outfit but indeed passing as a woman—and won first prize.

This marked "...the first occasion in which [Prince] willingly appeared before others as a girl..."

The daughter of a surgeon father and a mother who worked in real estate investment, Prince's early life was one of privilege, with a family that was in her words "...socially prominent..."

Prince enrolled at Pomona College in Claremont, California, in 1931.

She joined a fraternity and graduated in 1935 with a degree in chemistry.

Prince was not as open with her transvestism as she became in later life, however it was thanks to a psychiatrist she consulted—at age 30—that she began to live a more comfortable, open lifestyle.

Despite having been previously diagnosed with an unresolved Oedipus complex, Prince confided to her doctor, Karl Bowman, about her inclination of crossdressing, who in return advised her to "...learn to accept [her]self... and enjoy it."

Prince credits this psychiatrist, who reminded her that there are many others that live a similar lifestyle, with Transvestia's overarching, recurring theme of self-acceptance.

Prince gained her PhD in pharmacology in 1939 from the University of California, San Francisco.

The two were married on August 16, 1941 in Los Angeles, yet their marriage, according to Prince, "failed because of [her] transvestism".

In July 1951, the two divorced.

The news that Prince was served with divorce papers due to her transvestism came as a shock to her "...socially prominent family" who threatened to disown her both "...financially and socially..."

if she could not keep the news from leaking to the media—which it ultimately did.

After her marriage ended, Prince returned to the University of California, San Francisco and began working as a research assistant and lecturer in pharmacology.

During this time, Prince took advantage of the university's small collection of medical literature on transvestism.

This was also around the time that Prince began using the name Charles Prince, a name used in order to hide her civil identity.

The name stems from her father's first name, Charles, and her address on Prince Street.

The exact time at which Prince took on the name Virginia is unclear, however one of her earliest known writings, the article "Homosexuality, Transvestism and Transsexualism: Reflections on Their Etiology and Difference" published in 1957, is credited to "C.V. Prince".

In 1960, the first issue of Prince's magazine "Transvestia" was published.

Prince acquired the means to fund the publication after assembling a list of 25 acquaintances, each of whom were willing to donate four dollars to her start-up.

Working with one hundred dollars, Prince then launched her first issue, published by her own Chevalier Publications, and sold it by subscription and through adult bookstores.

"Transvestia" was published bi-monthly by Prince between the years of 1960 and 1980, with a total of 100 issues being created.

In 1963, the inside jacket of the magazine stated the publication as "dedicated to the needs of the sexually normal individual who has discovered the existance [sic] of his or her 'other side' and seeks to express it."

Rather than relying on a team of professional authors, this magazine was to be"...written by... the readers..."

with the editor's (Virginia Prince) job to be organizing and categorizing these submissions as appropriate.

With a readership of mostly white, middle-to-professional-class crossdressers, the magazine offered, among other things, dozens of published life stories and letters contributed by other crossdressers.

Over the years, the publication also gained several international subscribers, notably from England, Scandinavia and Australia.

This was also around the time that she met Dorothy Shepherd (March 30, 1909 - May 13, 1985) whom she would marry and have a son, Brent Lowman (July 1, 1946 - October 1976) with.

Prince herself, wrote an autobiographical article for the magazine's one-hundredth issue in 1979.

This final issue edited by Virginia Prince, was unusual among "Transvestia" issues as it was solely an autobiographical account of Virginia's life, in which she recounted her early experiences with crossdressing, her divorce, and her work creating and maintaining "Transvestia".

The magazine operated on three core objectives: "To provide expression for those interested in the subjects of unusual dress and fashion... to provide information to those who, through ignorance, condemn that which they don't understand... [and] to provide education for those who see evil when none exists."

These three objectives—education, entertainment, and expression—were promoted in order to "...help... readers achieve understanding, self-acceptance, [and] peace of mind".

The subsequent 11 issues were edited and published by Carol Beecroft (the co-founder of Chevalier publications) until 1986.