17 February 2010
Tamara Rees (1924 - ) stripper, housewife.
http://zagria.blogspot.com/2010/02/tamara-rees-1924-stripper-housewife.html (http://zagria.blogspot.com/2010/02/tamara-rees-1924-stripper-housewife.html)
From Los Angeles, the father of two children, Rees was wounded and decorated as a paratrooper in WWII.
Tamara transitioned in 1954, with surgery in the Netherlands, a year after the media sensation around Christine Jorgensen. She was mobbed by the press when her ship returned to New York. She played to the press and claimed that her ex-wife's children had been fathered by someone else. At the end of the year she published a short autobiography.
Back in Los Angeles, she worked as a stripper in burlesque clubs. In 1955 she married James Courtland, a makeup artist, and hairdresser. This was regarded as the first transsexual wedding, but lasted only a short time. She married again and adopted children.