New York Woman Teaches Men How to Be Girls

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Written by Jesse Whitman

There are few places in the world where men can leave behind their old spice and hairy legs and come out in high heels and sashaying skirts. For Veronica Vera, the proprietor of Miss Vera's Finishing School for Boys who want to be Girls, this is her life's work.  Veronica Vera, a genetic woman, sex journalist, and former porn star, started the academy in 1992, the first of its kind in the world.

    Miss Vera didn’t grow up with the dream to start the first cross-dressing academy.  She actually started out wanting to be a writer and after working on Wall Street she sold her first story to Penthouse Variations.  Miss Vera has also served as a sex worker activist.  In 1984 she testified on the behalf of American prostitutes, imploring Senator Arlen Spector to decriminalize prostitution and in 1986 she attended the Second World’s Whores Congress, which took place at the European Parliament in Brussels.

    Surprisingly, the students who flock to her Manhattan studio are not aspiring RuPaul's who dream of performing on the drag queen circuit, but rather are highly educated heterosexual CEO's, lawyers and scientists. "Most of my students don't identify themselves as drag queens," Vera explains.  "They want to be the opposite of their real world persona and enter a fantasy world."  Drag queens are generally gay performers, while cross-dressers or transvestites are typically heterosexual men who like dressing in drag.  

    With a full professional staff including a dean of cosmetology, dance, photography, home economics, voice, “femmenergy,” and high heels, the students take their studies very seriously. Miss Vera's Finishing School isn't a place for wild bachelor party antics or for men looking to humiliate their straight friends for a laugh. "This is a very serious exploration of their femme selves," Vera says.

    Aside from counseling, helping blend makeup, and teaching ladies in waiting how to walk in heels, the academy has also served as a reference for Johnny Depp during the filming of "Ed Wood," as well as for actors and athletes, including an actor from the daytime drama, “Guiding Light.”

    Students also learn about practicalities.  In Miss Vera's book "Cross-Dress for Success," published by Villard, she explains to an aspiring cross-dresser how to tuck testicles.  "A lady in waiting," she writes, "can push his testicles up into his abdomen, then tuck his penis down and back between his legs, so that the scrotum envelopes it and forms what looks like a vulva."  The issue of hiding the package can be summed up in her award-winning 1996 ad campaign, “Even the simplest evening gown can be ruined by a penis.”

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