Ariadne Kane, 1974 Photo Session. The Cigarette Was a Prop
In 1973, Boston’s Cherrystone Club emerged from the ruins of the Gamma chapter of crossdresser Virginia Prince’s Foundation for Full Personality Expression. Unlike FPE, the Cherrystones were open to individuals regardless of their gender identity and sexual orientation. Newly out thirty-six-year-old Ariadne Kane, who identified as bisexual and as an androgyne, was one of the founders. In 1974, Ari was given a job: using monies raised for the purposes, she was to plan and execute a ten-day-long event for people we today call transgender. The event would take place in October 1974 in Provincetown, a fishing village and tourist resort at the very tip of Cape Cod. Ready, set, go, Ari!
Despite some unusual startup difficulties, the event, which was named Fantasia Fair, took place as planned, with about forty attendees. It was a great success, and word immediately spread throughout the still-forming transgender community. Fantasia Fair immediately became a fixture and desired destination.
Ariadne Kane, Mid-1970s Television Appearance
Ari, with help from Betty Ann Lind, Merissa Sherrill Lynne, Georgia Sanders, and others, ran Fantasia Fair for nearly twenty years, but she did much more than that. In 1975 she formed the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Outreach Institute for Human Achievement (later the Outreach Institute for Gender Studies), which provided financial oversight for Fantasia Fair and worked to educate professionals, the general public, and transgender people themselves about all aspects of gender identity. She was successful in educating the community of American sexologists by presenting papers at conferences of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists and becoming friends with many of them. Her appearances on national and local radio and television programs resulted in many trans people reaching out to her for referrals and information. She eventually set up a Theseus Counseling Services to provide for their needs. She held professional symposia and published the results as booklets. Outreach published a paperback version of Harry Benjamin’s The Transsexual Phenomenon, a newsletter, and the well-done Journal of Gender Studies and, in the early 1990s, Full Circle of Women, a gathering for post-operative transsexual women. Also in the 1990s, Ari earned the Doctor of Education degree from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and published, with co-editor Vern Bullough, a book of transgender personal histories titled Crossing Sexual Boundaries: Transgender Journeys, Uncharted Paths. With psychologist David Prok, she developed the Gender Attitude Reassessment Program course and, with David, held training sessions around the country.
The Outreach Institute functioned until 2001.
Ari Kane. Image Courtesy of Mariette Pathy Allen
Ari’s influence on the transgender community cannot be understated. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about her was that at a time when the entire world was stuck in a black-and-white, this-or-that-and-nothing-in-between binary model of gender, she was outside the box in regard to both her gender identity and her sexual orientation, and was secure in her identity. Nonbinary was not then a term that was applied to people, but Ari was essentially identifying as nonbinary as early as 1971.
Ariadne lives today in Albany, New York. She was an honored guest at the 50th anniversary of the launch of Fantasia Fair, Trans Week 2024.
Works Cited / For Further Reading
J. Ari Kane-Demaios and Vern Bullough (Eds.). (2005). Crossing Sexual Boundaries: Transgender Journeys, Uncharted Paths. Prometheus Books. ISBN 9781591023883. (Accessed September 18, 2024).
Ariadne/Ari Kane talks Fair with Tim. (2002, 17 October). Lip Magazine, cover, 8-9, 20. 2002-10-17, Lip Magazine, Interview with Ari. (Accessed September 18, 2024).
