June is Pride Month.
Hannah Noke’s early life is sketchy. She was born before the Commonwealth of Virginia began issuing official birth certificates. She used her mother’s name — Johnson — as a child, but registered for the draft under her birth name. It is unlikely that she saw any military service.
Hannah was employed as a domestic worker for white families, although she owned a rooming where she rented rooms house for travelers. In 1932, a man named George Crawford spent the night at Hannah’s house. Crawford was accused of murder and Hannah, along with several other of Crawford’s acquaintances, were called as witnesses at his trial. Area newspapers of the time called attention to Hannah being transgender. Twice during the trial, the defense attorney asked Hannah’s nephew if she was his uncle or his aunt. Court reporter notes refer to Hannah as the “red-wigged boy-girl”, “mysterious witness”, “queer witness”, and “negro man who wears women’s clothing”. Transgender identity in public situations was foreign at the time. However, some media outlets were surprisingly more accepting, happily using “Hannah” in printed stories as opposed to those that stubbornly opted to print her birth name.
Hannah died from a heart attack at a Fairfax Virginia hospital at the approximate age of 74. Hannah was mentioned in the Historic Landmark Nomination of the Loudoun County Courthouse in 2024, noting that she was “one of the earliest known instances of an openly transgender person testifying in Virginia court.”