Gladys Bentley

Jun 26

Written By malcolm aime musoni

Gladys Bentley was born on August 12th, 1907.
Her mother had hoped for a boy and didn’t want to touch her and refused to nurse her.
Her grandmother fed her from a bottle for the first 6 months before her mother obliged and started taking care of her daughter.
Growing up, she never wanted to be touch by men, routinely running away from her own father.
In a controversial (more on that later) 1952 Ebony Magazine essay she wrote about her up-bringing, detailing her tumultuous relationship with her brothers, wearing their clothes, and not fitting into the stereotypical gender presentation expected from girls, “When my two brothers were born, I began to hate them as we grew up. I suppose the reason was that they were admired while I was scorned . . . At the age of nine and ten, I stole their suits and wore them to school. I think I began wearing their clothes feeling that I was getting even with them, but soon I began to feel more comfortable in boys clothes than in dresses. To the credit of my mother, after my teachers had sent me home to put on dresses several times, she did appeal to my father to stop me from wearing boys clothes. I had withstood the fun poked at me by my schoolmates who followed me in the street. Now, I tried to withstand my parents, but they got after me so often that we finally compromised, agreeing that I would wear middy blouses and skirts.”
Her mother took her to various doctors, trying to figure out what was “wrong” with her daughter.

In 1925 when she was 16 years old, she ran away from Philadelphia to Harlem, in search of a life full of acceptance and love.
She got her start singing remixed versions of popular songs at rent parties. Her remixes were known for their explicit and raunchy nature.
When Mad House, a club on 133rd Street, was in need of a male pianist, she showed up to play. The owner, unaware of her skills but desperate obliged. He was in awe and hired her at the end of the night to play for $35 a week, starting her professional career as performing singer and dancer.
In that 1952 Ebony magazine essay, she recalled her experience, writing, “For the customers of the club, one of the unique things about my act was the way I dressed. I performed in immaculate white full dress shirts, stiff collars, small bow ties, oxfords, short Eton jackets, and hair cut straight back.”
She was very successful, going on to perform at larger Harlem nightclubs, including the popular gay speakeasy, Harry Hansberry's Clam House, as well as tour the country.
Promoters would often advertise her as a, “male impersonator.”
She signed with Okeh Records in 1928 and recorded 8 songs while signed to the label, until 1929.
She would go on to work with other labels, including Excelsior, and Swingtime Labels.
In 1931, she allegedly married an unknown white woman.
Once the prohibition era ended in 1933, her popularity started to dwindle.
Slumming white people, who were behaving in exploitative and voyeuristic ways, were no longer coming to Harlem to enjoy alcohol, 'explore' Black culture, and push their sexual boundaries.
She moved to California and continued performing but, never again at the level of before.
As the years went by and McCarthysim started, she toned downed down her look and eventually altogether abandoned her trademark menswear looks.
In 1952, she penned an essay for Ebony Magazine, “I’m a Woman Again.”
In the essay, she wrote in detail about her childhood, the “personal hell” she struggled in her 20s as she “inhabited that half-shadow no man’s land which exists between the boundaries of the two sexes,” her previous marriage to Don, then-current marriage to J.T. Gipson, and the doctor’s appointment she had before getting engaged to Don.
After telling the doctor of her wishes to get married to Don, he allegedly told her, “Your sex organs are infantile. They haven't progressed past the stage of those of a fourteen-year-old child."
To correct this, he told her she should be injected with “female hormones,” 3x a week for 6 months. She wrote that the treatment was expensive but worth every penny.
She also wrote about her motive for penning the essay, saying, “I am happily married and living a normal existence. But no matter how happy I am, I am still haunted by the sex underworld in which I once lived. I want to help others who are trapped in its dark recesses by telling my story.”
The essay was accompanied by photos of her wearing a a housedress while cooking, cleaning, and making a bed for her “husband.”
Once the article was published, J.T. denied being married to her, he was allegedly already married to another woman, and she married another man, Charles Robert, after 5 months of knowing him.
They would later divorce and Charles would also deny ever being married to her, even though photos from their wedding were in JET magazine.
Many have speculated due to the untrue nature of many of her claims that her Ebony Magazine essay was written to offer protection during the McCarthy era.
In a 1957 Chicago Defender article, she told the reporter that the two photos on her dresser of a man and a woman were of her husband and her wife.
She was a contestant in 1958 on You Bet Your Life and played the piano and sang, “There Them Eyes” later in the episode. Footage of this performance is the only video footage that exists of her performing.
In the last years of her life, she was involved at The Temple of Love in Christ, Inc and was set to become an ordained minister.
Gladys Bentley died of pneumonia on January 12th, 1960.