Venus Xtravaganza

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Venus Xtravaganza, circa 1987, in a still from the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning.
Venus Xtravaganza, circa 1987, in a still from the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning.

Venus Xtravaganza (died 1989) was a transgender Latina saving up money for sex reassignment surgery while earning a living as a prostitute in New York City. She appeared in Jennie Livingston's Paris is Burning, a 1990 documentary film about New York City ball culture.

While her birth name and date of birth remain unknown, her last name was given to her because of her membership in the House of Xtravaganza. The house, like similar houses, is named in the style of European fashion houses (e.g. House of Chanel) and is an affiliation of young drag queens and transgender youth who have come together around the Harlem drag ball scene.

During a 1987 interview in Paris is Burning, she says she wanted to be "a spoiled, rich, white girl living in the suburbs." [1] She shares a story of her time as a prostitute where one of her clients became enraged upon the discovery that Venus was not a biological woman. Venus fled through a window and, fearing for her life, claims to have left the prostitution business as a result, opting instead to work as an escort.

According to her drag mother Anji Xtravaganza, Venus Xtravaganza was found strangled and stuffed under the bed in a New York hotel in 1989. [2] Her body was discovered by a stranger four days after her death.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston (eds.), Posthuman Bodies. Indiana University Press
  2. ^ Butler, J (1993) 'Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion', in Thornham, S (Ed) (1999) Feminist Film Theory, a Reader, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
  3. ^ Shopping For a Change:The House of Mirth and "Paris is Burning"

[edit] External links


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