On Monday, April 20, 1908, the front page of the Coeur d’Alene Evening Press heralded the arrival of a celebrity.
“Nell Pickrell, notorious throughout the west by reason of her escapades while masquerading as a man, together with two companions arrived in the city from Spokane today,” the report went.
Then, “Shortly after her arrival in the city her identity became known to Chief of Police McGovern, who ordered her to leave town, and she departed with her companions on the afternoon boat for St. Joe.”
Harry’s story is real, demonstrated in 45 newspaper clippings collected and exhibited as a projected slide show by the contemporary artist Chris E. Vargas, himself a trans man who lives in Bellingham with his cis gay male partner.
Who is trans? What is trans? Harry wasn’t called “trans.” The media dubbed him a “bad man” and “itself,” so to find him in the archive, you have to chase down details and codes. Vargas gives him a place: Harry is trans. Vargas is trans. They face across time. I see you.
The place that Vargas gives Harry is contained in a museum within a museum in Seattle right now.
