female impersonator who gained fame on Broadway and in Black Vaudeville.

In the twentieth century, some gender impersonators, both female and male, in the United States became highly successful performing artists in non-LGBTQ nightclubs and theaters. There was a concerted effort by these working female and male impersonators in America to separate the art of gender impersonation from queer identity, with an overt representation of working gender impersonators as heterosexual. Some of the performers