13 Facts About Virginia Prince

Virginia Charles Prince was an American transgender woman and transgender activist.

Virginia Prince published Transvestia magazine, and started Full Personality Expression, which later became Tri-Ess, for male heterosexual cross-dressers.

At around the age of twelve Virginia Prince began cross-dressing, first using her mother's clothes.

Virginia Prince enrolled at Pomona College in Claremont, California, in 1931.

Virginia Prince joined a fraternity and graduated in 1935 with a degree in chemistry.

Virginia Prince was not as open with her transvestism as she became in later life.

Virginia Prince gained her PhD in pharmacology in 1939 from the University of California, San Francisco.

The news that Virginia Prince was served with divorce papers due to her transvestism came as a shock to her family who threatened to disown her both "financially and socially" if she could not keep the news from leaking to the media, which it ultimately did.

Virginia Prince acquired the means to fund the publication after assembling a list of 25 acquaintances, each of whom were willing to donate four dollars to her start-up.

Virginia Prince herself, wrote an autobiographical article for the magazine's one-hundredth issue in 1979.

Ultimately it was not until Virginia Prince "found an offset printer" and gathered more subscribers that Transvestia became a success.

Virginia Prince firmly rejected these associations, and was strongly opposed to the notion that true transvestites are psychiatrically disturbed.

Virginia Prince died in her hometown of Los Angeles on May 2,2009.