About Veronica Vera

I came to New York in 1969  to be a writer but I failed all the typing tests at publishing houses. So I made a detour into Wall Street for a few years, until I decided to earn an honest living as a  high heeled journalist, porn star, erotic model, and sex workers’ rights activist. My collaborations with artists include the women of Club 90, the first porn star support group: Jane Hamilton (aka Veronica Hart), Gloria Leonard, Candida Royalle and Annie Sprinkle and photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Eric Kroll and Joel-Peter Witkin. In 1984, I testified in Washington, D.C. for freedom of expression before a committee of the Senate Judiciary. My testimony became part of the infamous Meese Report. I wrote about that and all of my experiences and research from 1983-1995 in a monthly column called “Veronica Vera’s New York”, published in Adam magazine, many with photos by my bosom buddy Annie Sprinkle. The opportunity to testify was a high point and I was inspired to begin a memoir of what I had learned about human sexuality through my very personal brand of journalism. As a way to help finance that memoir, I began to guide male to female cross dressers in their transformations. In 1992 I gained international attention when I  officially launched the world’s first cross dressing and transgender academy, Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls, and in 1997 wrote the book of the same name. I followed that book with Miss Vera’s Cross Dress For Success (2002) and Miss Vera’s Cross Gender Fun For All (2016).

College lectures (Harvard, NYU…) keynote presentations (trans conferences) and media conslutant (HBO’s The Deuce, NetFlix’s Crime Scene) are just some of my offerings. In 2014 I became a Doctor of Human Sexuality.