Lucy Hicks Anderson (; 1886–1954) was an American

socialite A socialite is a person from a wealthy and (possibly) aristocratic background, who is prominent in high society. A socialite generally spends a significant amount of time attending various fashionable social gatherings, instead of having traditio ...

and

chef A chef is a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term ''chef de cuisine'' (), the director or head of a kitche ...

, best known for her time in Oxnard, California, from 1920 to 1946.

Assigned male at birth Sex assignment (sometimes known as gender assignment) is the discernment of an infant's sex at or before birth. A relative, midwife, nurse or physician inspects the external genitalia when the baby is delivered and, in more than 99.95% of birt ...

, she was adamant from an early age that she was a girl. Her parents, based on advice from doctors, supported her decision to live as one. She later established a boarding house in Oxnard, where she became a popular hostess. In 1945, a year after she married her second husband, she was arrested, tried and convicted of perjury, as the government said she had lied about her sex on her marriage license. After her release from prison, she and her husband moved to Los Angeles.

Early life

Lucy Lawson was born in

Waddy, Kentucky Waddy is an unincorporated community within Shelby County, Kentucky, United States. This place lies along the intersection of Kentucky Routes 395 and 2867, approximately south of Interstate 64 off exit 43. Although it is an unincorporated town, ...

, in 1886. From a very early age, Anderson was adamant that she was not male, identifying as female in a time period before the term

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

existed, and naming herself Lucy.Lester Fabian Brathwaite,
The Fountainheads: Lucy Hicks Anderson, Mother of Marriage Equality and Transgender Rights
'', October 12, 2018, ''NewNowNext'' Doctors told Anderson's parents to let her live as a young woman, so they did, and she began wearing dresses to school and being known as Lucy.Anita Sarkeesian, Ebony Adams,
History vs Women: The Defiant Lives that They Don't Want You to Know
'' (2018), page 31

Marriages and time in Oxnard

At the age of 15, Anderson left school and did domestic work as a means to support herself. At age 20, she headed west to Pecos, Texas, where she worked in a hotel, and then to New Mexico, where she married her first husband, Clarence Hicks, in Silver City, New Mexico, in 1920.Tess deCarlo, ''Trans History'' (), page 58: "She later moved to Texas, then to New Mexico, where she married Clarence Hicks, then to California" (also has 1886 birth year). She later moved to Oxnard, California, at the age of 34. A skilled chef, she won some baking contests. Her marriage to Clarence lasted only nine years, but during the course of the union, she saved up enough money to buy property that was a boarding house front for a brothel; it also sold illegal liquor during the prohibition era. Outside of her time as a madam, she was a well-known socialite and hostess in Oxnard, and would later use her connections to avoid serious jail time. According to scholar

C. Riley Snorton C. Riley Snorton is an American scholar, author, and activist whose work focuses on historical perspectives of gender and race, specifically Black transgender identities. His publications include ''Nobody is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on th ...

, "When the sheriff arrested her one night, her double-barreled reputation paid off—Charles Donlon, the town's leading banker, promptly bailed her out ecausehe had scheduled a huge dinner party which would have collapsed dismally with Lucy in jail." In 1944, Hicks married Reuben Anderson, a soldier stationed in Long Island, New York.

Trials

In 1945, a sailor claimed that he caught a

venereal disease Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and oral se ...

from one of the women in Anderson's brothel, so all of the women, including Anderson, were required to undergo medical examination. When the Ventura County district attorney learned from this examination that Anderson was transgender, he chose to try her for perjury, arguing that she lied about her sex on her marriage license and impersonated a woman. During the trial, she stated "I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman," and "I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman." However, the court convicted her of perjury on her marriage license and sentenced her to 10 years of probation. At the time, marriage in the United States was only considered legally valid if between a man and a woman, and as Anderson was considered a man, the marriage was declared invalid. As a result, the federal government charged her with fraud for receiving the financial allotments wives of soldiers got under the GI Bill, and initially also with failing to register for the draft, until she proved she had been too old to register. In this trial, she and Reuben were found guilty and sentenced to a men's prison, where Anderson was forbidden by court order to wear women's clothes.

Death and legacy

After being released from prison, Anderson was barred from returning to Oxnard by the police chief, who threatened further prosecution. She and Reuben relocated to Los Angeles, where they resided quietly until her death in 1954, at 68. The ''Handbook of LGBT Elders'' calls Anderson "one of the earliest documented cases of an African-American transgender person". One episode of the HBO TV series ''

Equal Equal(s) may refer to: Mathematics * Equality (mathematics). * Equals sign (=), a mathematical symbol used to indicate equality. Arts and entertainment * ''Equals'' (film), a 2015 American science fiction film * ''Equals'' (game), a board game ...

'' is based on the life of Anderson.

References

External links

Lucy Hicks Anderson on BlackPast
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Lucy Hicks 1954 deaths 1886 births American socialites American transgender people Chefs from Kentucky Discrimination against transgender people African-American LGBT people American people convicted of perjury LGBT people from Kentucky People from Shelby County, Kentucky Transgender women People from Oxnard, California African-American chefs Transgender history in the United States 20th-century African-American women 20th-century American LGBT people 20th-century African-American businesspeople 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesswomen