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Galveston LGBTQ+ History
from Culture Clash
Featured Art By Dr. Eric Avery
DR. ERIC AVERY IS A PHYSICIAN, ARTIST, AND MEMBER OF THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY WHO LIVED AND WORKED
IN GALVESTON, TEXAS 1992-2013. Dr. Avery practiced medicine in Galveston as the Consultation-Liaison HIV Psychiatrist at The University of Texas Medical Branch and joined the faculty at The Institute for the Medical Humanities at UTMB.
As of August 31, 2012 he is retired as Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Member of The Institute for the Medical Humanities at UTMB. For forty years, Dr. Eric Avery has worked at the intersection of visual art and medicine. His social content prints explore issues such as human rights abuses, and social responses to disease (HIV and Emerging Infectious Diseases), death, sexuality and the body. In clinical art spaces set up in art museums and galleries, his art medicine actions have explored the liminal space between art and medicine. From 1992-2012, at the IMH in Galveston, he made prints, paper and art actions that reflected his clinical work with HIV/AIDS.
Learn More about Dr. Eric Avery at http://docart.com/
In speaking with Dr. Avery, the Culture Clash crew was clued into the amazing work he and his colleagues took part in at the Galveston Rosenberg Clinic, Texas’ oldest Trans clinic. Learn More…
GALVESTON LGBTQ+ HISTORY
According to Brandon Wolfe with OutSmart Magazine, in 1965, John Sealy Hospital at UTMB began to see patients with gender-identity issues. In 1966, a 23-year-old underwent male-to-female sexual reassignment surgery (SRS). It was low-key and without media fanfare. In 1971, a second SRS was completed. Houston transgender pioneers Toni Mayes and Phyllis Frye were both clinic clients in the early 1970s. Mayes underwent SRS in 1973. When UTMB’s gender clinic closed, Rosenberg Clinic was opened at 1103 25th Street. For years, it was one of the few gateways for persons seeking legal gender changes and/or sexual reassignment surgery. Although the clinic closed in 2010, the building that housed it is still standing and in excellent condition. The two-story blue-stucco structure features influences of the Prairie architectural style and was built circa 1915 in a residential area. One would never guess that it was once a clinic with an annual client base of 450 transgender individuals.
