Lucy Hicks Anderson

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

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4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 November 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Known for her smashing parties, lighter-than-air souffles and comedic wit, Lucy Hicks Anderson never let anyone tell her how to live her life – not even the courts. When her gender was put on trial in the 1940s, the publicity around her case made her one the first documented Black transgender figures in American history.

Guests:

Ashleigh Coren, Acting Head of Education for the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative

C. Riley Snorton, author of Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX and Lizzie Peabody.
0:24.4	Make sure a courtroom, it's hot, crowded, at the front of the room, a square-shouldered
0:30.4	prosecutor paces back and forth in front of the witness stand.
0:35.2	In between questions, he pauses to glare at the woman sitting there.
0:39.5	She's elegantly dressed, gloves, tailored skirt suit, clearly fashionable.
0:44.3	She's making full eye contact, and no real smile.
0:50.2	This is C. Riley Snorton, a professor of English and gender and sexuality studies at the University
0:55.2	of Chicago.
0:56.5	She absolutely has a face of steely resolve.
1:01.8	It's the mid-40s, Southern California.
1:04.3	The woman on the stand is Lucy Hicks Anderson, a philanthropist, award-winning cook, and
1:09.6	socialite known for throwing the best parties in Ventura County.
1:14.4	And now, she's on trial for lying about her gender.
1:19.4	The prosecutor is trying to prove that she cannot be a woman.
1:23.4	He asks, do you ever wear a wig?
1:26.2	Lucy says, if I think I look better with a wig, I do.
1:30.2	The court chuckles along with Lucy's quip.
1:32.8	The prosecutor regroups, pauses, looks at her marriage certificate and asks another question.
1:39.2	You were married, he says, to a Mr. Clarence Hicks.
1:43.6	Was he a man?
1:45.2	When Lucy replied, well, he's supposed to be.
1:49.0	And I just think about the reaction.
	...

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