A Restless Intelligence: The Life and Times of Denise D’Anne

by Isaac Fellman

She was named for a girl she almost married, and spent her last years being cared for by two gay husbands. Denise D’Anne’s life encompassed many decades and many ways of being queer. As a young, closeted trans woman, she tried to live as a straight man, then as a gay one, and then began to spend her evenings as a woman, cruising in what were then called “queen bars.” In 1968, at the age of thirty-five, she transitioned, took the name “Denise” and began a new life as an environmental activist, civil servant and writer.

Bettering the World

Denise D’Anne’s papers were donated to the GLBT Historical Society last year. When working with this stunningly rich collection, I was struck by her restless intelligence. Denise was always trying to better the world and herself, whether that was by running for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, writing folders full of letters to the editor in support of leftist causes, starting a major recycling program for city employees, or throwing herself into a new side hustle: writing for a boating magazine, preparing taxes, starting a restaurant. She wrote two autobiographies and typed up snide poems about her co-workers on the sly.

Once, she won a cart full of free groceries in an advertising contest for Shasta soda—noting in a letter that the prize was a voucher, and the cart heaped with groceries was just for the cameras. Even in this small detail, we see why her papers are so valuable: Denise had an eye for how things worked behind the scenes, whether that was a contest prize or the clinic where she received gender affirmation surgery. And everything she noticed, she wrote down.

Her photographs depict her in all her roles: handsome young vacationer, proud union woman, bathing-suited beauty queen (in the early 1970s, she entered a beauty contest for tall women, run by the Golden Gate Tip Toppers). She poses with piles of goods to be recycled, and much later, as an elder stateswoman of the Harvey Milk Democratic Club. D’Anne was proud of her beauty and style; in her 1969 autobiography Male Façade, she speaks of how men at the seediest drag clubs always gave her her due as an elegant lady. In addition to chronicling Denise’s life, her photos also capture the lives of other people under the broad transgender umbrella. One whole album from the late 1960s is dedicated to various friends, flawless in their day dresses and gowns, with Denise in a neat green skirt suit.

The Story of San Francisco

To me, Denise’s collection tells the story of San Francisco—our bold, stylish, ambitious city, full of restless people trying to achieve their vision of a better world. We are grateful to her adopted grandson and grandson-in-law for donating these remarkable papers and photographs. Denise’s fifty years of gender euphoria is palpable in her collection, as is her desire to draw on that euphoria to care for other women, union comrades and the Earth.

Isaac Fellman is the reference archivist at the GLBT Historical Society. He has worked in archives at the California Historical Society, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Oregon Health and Science University. He earned his MLS from Emporia State University and his M.A. in English from the University of Oregon. Isaac is also a Lambda Literary Award-winning writer.