Interview with Felicia Elizondo

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Felicia Elizondo, also known as Felicia Flames, a transgender pioneer, diva, icon, and a Screaming Queen, 27 years survivor of AIDS and a Vietnam Veteran - one of the participants of the 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot, which was one of the first documented instances of transgender resistance to authority in the USA. Hello Felicia!

Felicia: Hello Monika and thank you for interviewing me, it is an honor for me.

Monika: I must say you can boast one of the most impressive LGBT legends. The Compton's Cafeteria Riot occurred in August 1966, so it preceded the more infamous 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City. However, it is not so well-known …

Felicia: You have to remember it was in 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. And in those days, I hear that the mafia had control of the TL, and all documents to this day were lost and no record of that day survived except for an unknown newsletter that documented that day. And nothing else.

Interview with Aleshia Brevard: Part 3

 
Monika: Aleshia, in our previous conversation you stated that your true acting career took place in the theater. How would you compare these two artistic worlds?

Aleshia: Ah, Monika, that is a subject on which I could easily drone on for hours, one on which someone could write a book – and indeed many have. Accomplished actors still argue over whether performance styles must differ markedly between stage and film. I tend to agree with those artists who argue successful acting for film is more self-contained. The film is the more intimate medium. Obviously, on stage, the play’s ideas are projected into a three-dimensional space peopled with actors whose goal is to reach and move the theater audience. This requires a project of both voice and manner. Even with a long run of the play, the actors must speak their lines as though they had just thought of them, the “illusion of the first time.” I would further contribute that theater appeals to feelings first and to intellect second.

Interview with Aleshia Brevard: Part 1

Monika: Hello Aleshia! I am very happy that you accepted this interview to be included in my series of “Interviews with Transgender Icons”.
Aleshia: Thank you for asking that I participate, Monika. I blush a bit at being labeled an “Icon”, but hopefully by my age, one has learned to embrace any and all positive comments that come along – while summarily dismissing the negative.
Monika: What are you doing these days?
Alexia: I recently turned seventy-five, hooray-hooray, so thankfully as a rather long-in-tooth retiree my time is pretty much my own. Gone are those bothersome pressures of younger years. Much of my time is now spent writing, having just finished the first novel. It comes on the tail of my two published memoirs and several produced plays. Most importantly, however, I’ve found contentment which I never even dream might be possible when I began my transsexual odyssey in the late 1950s.