A quiet Vallejo neighborhood is home to what its founder calls the only independent transgender archive in the country, ABC7 reported.
The Louise Lawrence Transgender Archive began with one magazine. Founder Ms. Bob Davis told ABC7 she bought the first issue of Female Mimics International in 1980. “I just kept buying and buying and buying and accumulating things, trading other people,” she said.
From a garage to a public archive
In the 1990s, Davis began sharing her collection by writing about trans history in community publications. Her personal archive grew to 35 banker’s boxes. She rebuilt a termite-damaged detached garage to house it, founded the archive in 2017 and opened it to the public in 2018.
The collection includes photos of female impersonators going back about 100 years, plus books, posters and original artwork. Davis said visitors have come from three continents and more than a dozen major universities. She was a community grand marshal in the 2026 San Francisco Pride Parade.
Who Louise Lawrence was
According to the archive, Louise Lawrence began living full-time as a woman in 1942, first in Berkeley and then in San Francisco. In 1952 she helped publish the first version of Transvestia, with Virginia Prince and others. Her address book became its first subscription list, and she helped connect the trans community with researchers such as Alfred Kinsey and Harry Benjamin.
“I want people to know when they leave here that they’re not the only one,” Davis told ABC7. Visits are by appointment only; details are on the archive’s website.