Oral history interview with Lavern Cummings and Tony Midnite conducted by Dennis McBride on August 29, 2000 for the Las Vegas Gay Archives Oral History Project. In the interview, Cummings and Midnite discuss their work as female impersonators in Las Vegas, Nevada during the late 1960s and 1970s. They also talk about other impersonators and performance venues in Las Vegas and around the United States. They explain the distinctions between transgender and straight performers, and the perceptions of transgender and straight audience members. Other subjects Cummings and Midnite cover include their early lives and arrivals to Las Vegas, and the history of sex reassignment surgeries beginning in the 1930s.
Archival Collection
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Archival Component
The Las Vegas, Nevada Anti-Gay Counter-Protest Collection (2001) documents the counter-protests against supporters of Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church at their anti-homosexual demonstrations. The counter-protests were held at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus and the Liberace Museum on March 10, 2001. Materials in this collection included a typed excerpt from the journal of Dennis McBride recounting his experiences on the day of the protest. Also included are photographic prints of counter-protestor Joshua Dart at the demonstration, a poster from the demonstration, correspondence between McBride and Dart, and an issue of the
Archival Collection
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Gay Pride 1998 (Dennis McBride, photographer) 2nd annual parade; Will Collins with his son Dacoda Clayton Collins.
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