Above: a poster for the pseudo-documentary I Was a Man. Few of these promos were made, fewer would have been displayed, and the movie is rare too. We can’t locate it. But we’re sharing the poster for obvious reasons, the same reason we’ve always shared tabloid stories dating back to the 1950s about transvestites and transsexuals—as a reminder that trans culture has always existed. Moreover, until recently it was the subject of little more than idle curiosity from the wider public.
In this case, the star of the film, whose name is Ansa Kansas, was a hermaphrodite. Kansas dramatizes various complicated aspects of daily life before going to Finland and returning surgically altered to be a woman. What happened afterward is not known, since apart from the film itself there’s little info about Kansas available. But I Was a Man remains a cult landmark. It premiered today—in a select few cinemas—in 1967.
