Casa susanna

In a period when many gender-nonconforming people did not yet have the vocabulary, resources or supportive loved ones to help them understand their identities, a humble farmhouse secreted away in the Catskills Mountains of New York served as a sanctuary for an underground network of transgender women and cross-dressing men. It was a safe haven for those who elsewhere lived under the threat of being ostracized, institutionalized or even arrested.

This beautiful documentary tells the tale of a 1960s resort that offered total freedom to ‘cross-dressing men’ to be themselves. It’s a poignant, celebratory, sad story

Explore spider5552001's 147 photos on Flickr!

Casa Susanna was a private Hunter, New York, club where 1950s heterosexual men could unwind in female clothing

Photographs from inside the upstate New York retreat were discovered at a flea market in 2004, and are now on display at the Barbican

An elegant black envelope arrived in my mailbox last week. Inside is a square, burgundy-colored folder containing a catalogue of 1950 and ’60s snapshots. On the cover, an off-white, hand-lettered logo reads “Casa Susanna.”

© Art Gallery of Ontario If you were to journey to Jewett, NY today, you would find yet another semi-abandoned white hamlet, deep in the hillside, ramshackle and in need of a facelift. Nothing out of the ordinary to the naked eye, but delve further into this particular dwelling's history and you'

Directed by Sébastien Lifshitz (France and USA, 2022, 97 min.).