As more and more transgender stories surface onto our screens, we realise that no two of them are ever the same. Some people’s transitioning journeys are so extremely unique that they not only challenge many of our perceptions, but also make us re-think gender-fludity yet again.
Brian Belovitch’s story is one of those. Born in Massachusetts in 1963 into a large Russian/Portuguese family who moved to Providence, Rhode Island when Brian was young. As an effeminate boy he was bullied at school, beaten by his father , and screamed at by his mother when he was mistaken as ‘her little girl’.
As a teenager Brian met his first boyfriend, Paul Bricker in one of Providence’s few gays bars. Their friendship blossomed as Bricker’s own family was so accepting, and his mother Gloria adopted Brian as one of her own and is still in touch with him to this day.
Before Brian left for NY when he was 18, he lived for a while in the Lola Apartments (what Belovitch calls a “trans ghetto”) in Providence, and that is where he began dressing as a woman.
In NY he tried to live as gay man, but after his relationship with Bricker ended, Brian decided decided to commit to being a transgender woman, and thus ‘Natalie Belo’ was born. Funded by her sex worker earnings, Natalie spent “thousands” on physical transformation, including electrolysis, breast augmentation, butt implants .
And then Natalie entered yet another phase of her life, when she met her first husband, David in 1979, and they married in 1980. So after David joined the Army, and the couple moved to Germany, where David was stationed and Natalie completely accepted by all the other wives as one of them, became a “Tupperware lady.”
That however didn’t suit her for long and she and David broke up after they moved back to New York City.
Fast forward again an Natalia reinvented herself again this time as “Tish” Gervais a cabaret singer/celebutante in Manhattan’s burgeoning nightlife. And lo and behold she was quite the success in her new world, and one of people befriended her in this very ‘in crowd’ wa celebrated queer journalist Michael Musto who remains a good friend of hers to this day.
That world also introduced Tish to alcohol and drugs in a very big way and she became uncontrollably dependent on her addictions. She eventually got sober in 1986, and that process made her seriously made her question all the insecurities that she had about her own gender fluidity.
Eventually now in his 30’s Brian decided to go back to being a gay man. It wasn’t just his sobriety but his whole struggle with his self-acceptance since childhood that came from his fear of being average .He is far from that even now working as a addiction counselor who’s happily married to second husband Jim, but it still hard to completely comprehend why his journey was so full of extremes and self-imposed obstacles.
Director Karen Bernstein is also a friend of Belovitch and she allows him to tell his part of the story uninterrupted and in his own words. He is without doubt a charming, intelligent and articulate man who seems not only have survived the physical and emotional very tough journey, but actually to have prospered and grown from it all.
Being a trans woman out in public is never easy but back then it was nigh on impossible even for someone like Natalia/Tish that could easily ‘pass.’ Belovitch decided he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life being a spectacle and curiosity to others who he decided would only really accept and tolerate him on their terms. In the end this simply wasn’t good enough for him .
For details of future screenings https://www.bernsteindocumentary.com/
P.S. You may also like to check out https:// queerguru.com/markie-in-milwaukee/ a tale of re-transitioning back that makes for uncomfortable viewing
