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It's a dog day afternoon: today's episode profiles the bank robber John Wojtowicz, who infamously (and as memorialized in Sidney Lumet's 1975 film DOG DAY AFTERNOON) held up a bank in 1972 to pay for gender-affirming surgery for Elizabeth Eden, his trans girlfriend. Or did he? We take a look, using the story to think through 1972 as a fault line for emerging attitudes about homosexuality and trans femininity, Wojtowicz' surprising involvement in early gay liberation activism in New York City, the DOG DAY AFTERNOON phenomenon and what it says about growing distinctions between gay men and trans women and how they were represented and compensated, and the ethical complications of Wojtowicz as a figure in history and in historical memory.\n----more----\nUpdate: \nThanks to listener Ziz for pointing out that trans actress Elizabeth Coffey \u2013\u2013 one of the legendary ensemble of Dreamlanders who starred in the films of extremely good gay John Waters \u2013\u2013 was up for the role of the character in Dog Day Afternoon based on Eden and was turned down for looking \u2018too feminine.\u2019 This adds important context regarding the filmmakers\u2019 transphobia and questions of representation and compensation in the film. \nSOURCES\nCheck out trans historian Zagria\u2019s three part series on Eden and Wojtowicz, with links to some fantastic digitized primary sources at the end:Zagria, \xa0"Liz Eden and Dog Day Afternoon,\u201d (three-part series), Gender Variance Who's Who.\xa0\xa0- \xa0https://zagria.blogspot.com/2020/08/liz-eden-and-dog-day-afternoon-part-i.html\n- https://zagria.blogspot.com/2020/08/liz-eden-and-dog-day-afternoon-part-ii.html\n\xa0- https://zagria.blogspot.com/2020/08/liz-eden-and-dog-day-afternoon-part-iii.html\n\xa0\nCheck out Morgan M. Page\u2019s show One From The Vaults, you might want to start here with her three-part series on Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries:\nMorgan M Page, \u201cOFTV 3: STAR House, STAR People,\u201d accessed March 1, 2022, https://soundcloud.com/onefromthevaultspodcast/oftv-3-star-house-star-people-1.\nAnthony Macias, \u201cGay Rights and The Reception of Dog Day Afternoon (1975),\u201d Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal 48, no. 1 (2018): 45\u201356.\nArthur Bell, \u201cLittlejohn & the Mob: Saga of a Heist,\u201d The Village Voice, Vol. XVII, No. 35, August 31, 1972, https://www.villagevoice.com/2011/03/11/the-bank-robbery-that-would-become-dog-day-afternoon/.\n\u201cThe Boys In The Bank,\u201d LIFE Magazine September 22, 1972, LIFE Magazine\xa0\nGarance Franke-Ruta, \u201cThe Prehistory of Gay Marriage: Watch a 1971 Protest at NYC\u2019s Marriage License Bureau,\u201d The Atlantic, March 26, 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/the-prehistory-of-gay-marriage-watch-a-1971-protest-at-nycs-marriage-license-bureau/274357/.\nLisa Photos, \u201cThe Dog and the Last Real Man,\u201d Journal of Bisexuality 3, no. 2 (March 1, 2003): 43\u201368, https://doi.org/10.1300/J159v03n02_04.\nLiz Eden Papers, Collection 6, The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center Archive, New York City, New York (digitized)\xa0Morgan M. Page, \u201cIt Doesn\u2019t Matter Who Threw the First Brick at Stonewall,\u201d June 30, 2019, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/trans-black-stonewall-rivera-storme/.\n\u201cThe Man Who Robbed a Bank for Love,\u201d BBC News, February 16, 2015, sec. Magazine, https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31457718.\nRegan Reid, \u201cTalking To the Directors Who Made a Doc About the Real Guy Behind \u2018Dog Day Afternoon,\u2019\u201d Vice (blog), August 18, 2014, https://www.vice.com/en/article/bn3pd5/talking-to-the-directors-who-made-a-doc-about-the-real-guy-behind-dog-day-afternoon-342.\nSusan Stryker, Transgender History: The Roots of Today\u2019s Revolution second ed., (New York: Seal Press, 2008).\nOur intro music is\xa0Arpeggia Colorix\xa0by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons\xa0Attribution-ShareAlike License. Our outro music is by DJ\xa0Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.