June is Pride Month.
Lee Brewster was born in a log cabin in southwestern Virginia. He worked as a file clerk for the FBI until he was fired for being a homosexual.
Unfettered, he took his meager savings and headed for Manhattan, where he joined the Mattachine Society, a fledgling gay rights organization. Lee organized drag balls and fundraisers for the organization. However, a faction of the gay community frowned on cross-dressing, so Lee put on his own events outside of the society. At one of his balls — held on Halloween 1969 — Lee announced that he would be opening a business to cater to cross-dressers.
At first, he sold exclusively by mail order, but folks regularly stopped by his Hell’s Kitchen apartment for personal service. Lee opened a shop nearby his residence. He moved his boutique several times, but each location never had a ground floor entrance. He said he want people to find him. It was also an effort to protect his customer base.
Over the years, Mr. Lee (as he preferred to be addressed) catered to costumer designers for such films as Tootsie and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar, as well a conservative-looking businessmen and other non-descript clientele. His customers boasted: “Lee’s will turn you into the girl you’ve always wanted to be.”
Lee founded Queens Liberation Army, a civil right organization that helped persuade the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs to delete homosexuals from a list of people who could be removed from any public place. He also published Drag Magazine in the 1970s and 80s.
In 2000, Lee succumbed to cancer. He was 57.