This thread certainly evoked lots of memories for me since I started transition in 1973 on the streets of DC. It was a very different place back then. I lived in a sketchy apartment building (now a pricey co-op) near Dupont Circle. Back in the early 70s Georgetown was a very cool, very welcoming place to hang out for assorted misfits. There were street musicians, artists, wild & crazy queens, and a good sized group of us young party girls who simply lived our lives without reference to our birth gender. We hung out in various cheesy bars (all gone now) and also in some of the big clubs in the horrible neighborhoods on the waterfront in SW DC. We were often denied entry to those clubs (collateral damage due to their anti-drag policy) but once in awhile we got in. Ironically, a hostess/waitress at one of those clubs was a glamourous transwoman named Dee Dee who was kind of a local celebrity and one of my early mentors and trans friends.
On my last visit to DC a few months ago I was amazed to find that Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown now looks more like Rodeo Drive than Haight-Ashbury and seedy ol' New York Avenue where all the strip joints used to be (including one where the staff and most of the female customers were transwomen) is now lined with gleaming office towers. Then again, I'm now a female executive in a high profile position and I have no doubt that my colleagues would be shocked to learn about my checkered past!
Oh well, it was quite a place to come of age back in the day and I'll always hold the memories. Sorry to derail the thread with my nostalgic babble.
