Felicia Elizondo, also known as Felicia Flames, is an American transgender activist who devoted much of her life to advocating for the LGBTQ+ community. Born in San Angelo, Texas, she experienced bullying, sexual abuse, and difficulties related to her gender identity from an early age. Her father, who worked as a sheepherder, died when she was three years old. By the age of five, she already knew she was different. At fourteen, she moved to San Jose, California, with a gay man and began spending time in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighbourhood as a teenager. At eighteen, Elizondo joined the United States Navy and volunteered to serve in the Vietnam War, hoping that military life would either lead to her death or help her reconcile with her gender identity. As she later recalled, she thought, “If the military doesn’t make me a man, nothing will.” After six months in Vietnam, she disclosed that she was gay. She was subsequently interrogated by the FBI and dishonourably discharged in 1965, although she later successfully petitioned to have her discharge upgraded to an honourable one. During the 1960s, Elizondo became a regular at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. In August 1966, she was present during the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, a landmark uprising by transgender people and other members of the LGBTQ+ community against police harassment, which took place three years before the Stonewall riots in New York City.
Her experiences became part of the historical record through Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria, a 2005 documentary co-directed and produced by Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman. In 1974, while working as a long-distance telephone operator, Elizondo transitioned to living as a woman. Throughout her life, she worked in a variety of occupations, including receptionist, clerk, nurse’s aide, and sex worker. She also performed as a drag queen at charity events and in gay clubs under the stage name Felicia Flames. Diagnosed with HIV in 1987, Elizondo became involved with several nonprofit organisations supporting people living with serious illnesses, including P.A.W.S., the Shanti Project, and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. She contributed panels to the AIDS Memorial Quilt, creating approximately 80 panels in memory of people who had died of AIDS, and helped raise funds for organisations such as Project Open Hand and the San Francisco LGBT Community Center. As a Latina transgender woman, she also worked alongside other transgender women of colour to challenge racism within the LGBTQ+ community. Through her activism, charitable work, performances, and efforts to preserve transgender history, Elizondo has become an important figure in the struggle for LGBTQ+ equality and recognition.
Monika: Hello, Felicia, and welcome! Thank you for being here today.
Felicia: Hello, Monika, and thank you for interviewing me. It is an honor for me.
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"Photo of Felicia Elizondo in Red Dress and Boa." Photo. 1990. Digital Transgender Archive |
Monika: Yours is one of the most remarkable legends in LGBT history. The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot broke out in August 1966, well before the more widely known Stonewall Riots of 1969 in New York City, and yet it remains far less familiar to the public.
Felicia: You have to remember it was the 1960s, and a lot of people thought we were sick, mental, trash, and nobody cared whether we lived or died. Our own families abandoned us, and we had nowhere to go. And we were tired of the police harassing us because of who we were meant to be.
We were murdered, killed, thrown in jail, raped, and thrown out like trash by our families and friends. In those days, I hear that the mafia controlled the TL, and all documents were lost to this day. No record of that day survived except for an unknown newsletter that documented it. And nothing else.
Monika: Please take me back to the 1960s. What do you remember most vividly from those years?
Felicia: In the 1960s, my first trip to the Tenderloin in San Francisco was when I was around 16 or 17 years of age. I lived in San Jose, CA, and my sugar daddy brought me here. I found out about the TL, and it was like Oz; there were female impersonators, sissies, queens, hustlers, and Hair Fairies.
Hair Fairies were known for ratted hair, some make-up, Angora sweaters, skin-tight pants, and tennis shoes, which was as close as we could get to becoming female, because it was against the law to wear long hair and dress like a girl. You would go to jail for impersonating a female if you were in full drag. It was fun, and at the same time very dangerous. We couldn’t get jobs, because we were sissy looking or too feminine, so we turned to prostitution, sold drugs, and clipped men to survive, to pay rent, food, and the necessary things.
Monika: Are you still in contact with any of the other Screaming Queens?
Felicia: I still hear about Tamara and Dee Dee.
Monika: You also served in the Vietnam War. Did that happen before or after the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot?
Felicia: It was before. I didn’t want to be this way, and I truly wanted to change. I wanted to be the man my mother wanted me to be, so I volunteered to go to Vietnam. Maybe if I had gotten killed, this pain and confusion would have finally ended. I got engaged to Pamela.
Monika: Tell me about your time in Vietnam and what led you to leave.
Felicia: When I was in Vietnam, I even had sex with two women, maybe that might have changed me. I was working unloading cargo from a ship freezer, and I told myself that if the Navy hadn’t made me a man, nothing would. I said I was done and tired of being who I am not, went to my priest and told him that I was gay, and then went to my captain, and they got me out of Vietnam so fast.
Monika: Coming home must have brought its own struggles. What happened once you left the Navy?
Felicia: I came home broken, because no matter what I did, it was not going to change who I really was. I got an undesirable discharge, and later, after my surgery in 1974, I requested that it be overturned and changed into an honorable one, and they changed it to an honorable discharge.
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| Courtesy of Felicia Flames. |
Monika: Despite being HIV+ for many years, you never gave in to the disease and became deeply involved in awareness campaigns and other actions.
Felicia: In 1987, when I was diagnosed HIV+, I thought I deserved it because of who I was, so it wasn’t a shock to me. I told my family, and it didn’t bring me any closer to them. I needed love and I needed to be taken care of, but it made me stronger. My dogs were my strongest loves and friends, Sammy and Shadow, the loves of my life.
Monika: What pushed you to become an activist for the transgender community?
Felicia: The Transgender Community was known as prostitutes, thieves, drug addicts, and just plain no good, and I decided that I would educate the gay and lesbian communities about transgender persons, that we grew up with them and that we wanted to be good, respectable persons in our community. I have been an activist for over 30-50 years. Things I did were not for fame or money, because it was in my heart to do it. I was in the hivstopwwithme.org in 2004, I think. You can YouTube it.
Monika: Drag shows became part of your life in the 1980s. Tell me about your stage career.
Felicia: It started when I moved to Chicago, Ill. In 1969-70, I wanted to try it out, and I performed at a gay bar as a stripper. And in 1987, when I became HIV+, Nicki Nations asked if I wanted to join her group to raise money for AIDS, and I did, and I performed at different bars in San Jose, CA. When I moved to San Francisco in 1992, I met Vicki Marlane, after knowing about her in the 1960s when she performed at the 181 Club.
Monika: Which stages did you perform on once you settled in San Francisco, and are you still performing today?
Felicia: I performed at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge with the Hot Boxx Girls and Dream Queen Revue. And now I perform when I am asked to do the Gay Pride show “The Center Stage Divas” for Laguna Honda Hospital for gay seniors who can’t join the San Francisco Pride Parade. I was involved with the SF Ducal Organization, and we raised a lot of money for different organizations here in San Francisco. Miss Debutante 2005 and 2006, I became Princess of Akukan and Royal Crown Princess. This was a way to raise money for all non-profits.
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"Photo of Felicia Elizondo in Pink Jacket." Photo. 1970. Digital Transgender Archive |
Monika: You champion a myriad of causes that touch on transgender rights. Which other initiatives have you been involved in?
Felicia: The San Francisco Transgender Task Force, and since 2006 we have been celebrating the anniversaries of the 1966 Gene Compton’s Cafeteria Riot. Recently we added Vicki Marlane to the 100 Block of Turk St. Vicki Marlane is the first transsexual woman to have her name added to a San Francisco street or anywhere in the United States. I am involved with the San Francisco Trans March and the SF Transgender Day of Remembrance, and I am working on a mural on the corner of Turk St. and Taylor St. to celebrate, in less than two years, the 50th Anniversary of the 1966 Gene Compton’s Cafeteria Riot.
Monika: When did you transition to living as a woman yourself, and how difficult was the process?
Felicia: I was 28 years old when I became the woman I was supposed to be. In the 1970s, I started working for Pacific Telephone, and I heard about a Gender Dysphoria Clinic at Stanford University. Dr. Donald Laub was holding a clinic at Chope Hospital in San Mateo, CA. In those days, Stanford didn’t allow sex reassignment surgeries in the medical center. All surgeries were done at Chope Hospital.
I transitioned in 1974, but it would take two years before they would consider me for surgery. I would have to live as a female and work as a female before they considered me, but I knew what I wanted, so I went to Tijuana, Mexico, and got castrated. Six months later, I got my surgery in November of 1974 with Blue Cross of California. I paid for my surgery, my breast implants, and my nose. Pacific Telephone was so good to help me transition in the early ’70s, they made it a good experience for me.
Monika: Were there any transgender role models you looked up to when you transitioned?
Felicia: When I was in Chicago, Ill., I saw the Christine Jorgensen movie. In 1970, I knew who I was and that I was going to be who I was meant to be. I didn’t know how the hell I was going to get there, but I was determined to do it. At the time, I didn’t know if it was ever going to happen, but it did.
Monika: Coming out is never easy. What was the hardest part for you?
Felicia: My family. To this day I talk to my family once in a while, and they are so distant, and one of my sisters tells me “I miss my brother.” Hurting my family. And if you know about Mexican families, they are so traditional. They find it very hard to accept change.
Monika: How do you see the current situation of transgender women in American society?
Felicia: I think it is great, and more are coming, but the young transgender people of today don’t know the history of what we went through to get where we are today. They have it much better than we did.
Monika: There is a view that transgenderism may be the new frontier of human rights. What is your take on that?
Felicia: Every year we gain more power and influence a lot of people, and what we do is not a game; it is our true feeling.
Monika: A few months ago, Jared Leto received his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for playing the transgender Rayon in “Dallas Buyers Club.” How do you feel about the way transgender stories and characters have been portrayed in films, newspapers, and books so far?
Felicia: I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I will see it now.
Monika: Your LGBT advocacy has been recorded in many documentaries and publications. Which ones come to mind?
Felicia: I don’t know, to tell you the truth. Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco Examiner, Chronicle, New York Newspaper, and many others, I am sure.
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"Photo of Felicia in White Gloves." 1993. Digital Transgender Archive |
Monika: The transgender cause is usually presented together with those of the other LGBT communities. As the last letter in the abbreviation, is the transgender community able to promote its own cause within the LGBT group?
Felicia: Yes! Look at the Trans March and Transgender Day of Remembrance. In order to add Vicki Marlane’s name to the 100 Block of Turk St., I needed the entire LGBT community and the straight community to back us up on this historic event.
Monika: What part did transgender women play in the early gay movement in San Francisco?
Felicia: A lot of people don’t know that it was the transgender women of San Francisco, we Mexican, Black, Asian, and White trans persons, who started the Gay Movement in San Francisco, simply because lesbians and homosexual men stayed in the closet, got an education, and made a lot of money. And the Transgender had to be who they were meant to be. If we had stayed in the closet, we wouldn’t be who we are today. Poor, but with a rich history that you all could be proud of, all the girls from the 60s.
Monika: Harvey Milk was a pivotal figure in gay activism in the 60s and 70s. Does the US transgender community have someone whose actions could be compared to his?
Felicia: I feel that Harvey came ten years after us, and the gay community needed a hero, and since Harvey Milk did get assassinated, they made him a hero. The Gene Compton’s Cafeteria Riot girls and boys rioted that day, but our history was forgotten for 40 years. Check the documentaries: “Screaming Queens,” “The 1966 Gene Compton’s Cafeteria Riot,” “Tenderloin: A Forgotten History,” “Coming Out in the 1960s,” “Felicia,” and, hopefully, another one, “Before Stonewall.”
Monika: Does politics play a role in your life? Are you involved in any lobbying campaigns, and can transgender women genuinely make a difference in that arena?
Felicia: No way, I am not into politics. And yes, we need to support some of our trans women and men to get them into politics. A lot of organizations use the T in LGBT to get funding, and to tell you the truth, they rarely help the Trans Community. A lot of it is for the white lesbians and homosexual men.
Monika: What role does love play in your life?
Felicia: Girl, what can I tell you about love? I looked for love in all the wrong places. I have been married nine (9) times, some to straight men who didn’t know about me. I haven’t had sex in almost 20 years, give or take. And with being HIV+, people know about you, so it is very hard nowadays to get a man to love and settle down with a trans woman who is HIV+. I get all the love that I need from my two dogs, Gypsy and Simon.
Monika: Memoirs are a popular way for transgender women to tell their stories. Have you ever considered writing a book of your own?
Felicia: After all I have said, do you think I should? I started many times, but I never had the time to finish. I am making sure that the T in LGBT is never forgotten.
Monika: What projects are you working on at the moment?
Felicia: Check this out: Working on Tour of Tenderloin: 1. Hanging banner on the corner of Turk & Taylor. 2. Name Project. 3. Sidewalk sale. 4. Fundraiser. 5. TDOR. 6. Trans March. 7. Organize my history. 8. Show on Sept. 20 in San Jose. 9. 50th Anniversary of Gene Compton’s Cafeteria 1966 Riot.
Monika: What advice would you give to transgender girls who are struggling with gender dysphoria?
Felicia: Watch the Christine Jorgensen movie, and watch Vicki Marlane in “Forever Gonna Start Tonight.” And watch all the documentaries about real trans women, and know your history, and be very proud of all the trans women and men who came before you and paved the way for all of you to be who you were meant to be, without shame or guilt.
Monika: Felicia, thank you for sharing your story with me!
All the photos: courtesy of Felicia Elizondo unless specified otherwise.
© 2014 - Monika Kowalska
Ms. Felicia Elizondo has left this world, but her legacy of love and kindness will live on. May she find the same happiness and love in the next life that she shared so generously with others. Thank you, Felicia, for everything you have done. You will not be forgotten.
15 May 2021
