"My husband didn't necessarily like me being a male," Vavra says. "But when he's cross-dressed, it works out for him. The only thing that doesn't work very well is if we're both men together."
Having a continued sexual connection with her husband, though, makes it difficult for her to find a relationship with a woman, she says. Particularly since straight women aren't often interested in someone transgendered, and lesbians often disapprove of her involvement with a male.
Her appeal to the world -- a difficult and sometimes lonely one -- is that people not pay attention to outer appearances. Which happen to be the lifeblood of the culture.
"The more understanding there is about transgendered people," she says, "the better it will be for all of us."
"If you were a flower, which flower would you be?" the Klubstitute judges ask contestant Jonathan Newt.
"A voodoo lily," Newt replies. The crowd listens expectantly for an explanation. "They smell like meat, and they only flower once or twice a year," Newt says, obliquely.
Judge Lu Read ponders the answer, and tries to block out thoughts of all the work ahead. Not only is there a winner to pick tonight, but Read is the promoter of Merkinstock on Oct. 8, a drag event at the Transmission Theater that aspires to be the West Coast's "Wigstock," only wilder, since lots of performers will wear merkins (theatrical pubic hairpieces). Justin Bond has signed on -- he's in town doing The Moon in the Gutter, a pulp noir performance piece playing at the Climate Theater. And Joan Jett Blakk and Elvis Herselvis and Patsy Cline are coming. But there's the rest of the lineup to organize.
"What's the most pressing problem in the world today?" Read manages to ask Ronnie Earl.
Earl, the macho thug, flexes in his sleeve-free jeans jacket with the Motorhead patch on the back. "There ain't enough guns out there," Earl croaks.
Not much more can be said. All three semifinalists have answered their questions. It is nearly 2 a.m. A slip of paper is handed up to Elvis Herselvis.
"And the second runner-up," Herselvis declares, "is Ronnie Earl!" The first runner-up, she continues, "is Jonathan Newt! And the winner" -- she pauses, as she must at a time like this -- "is PIERRE BYRD!"
Pierre Byrd can hardly believe it. She waves her arms in joy, then holds them out so Elvis can secure the Mr. Klubstitute '95 belt around her waist. Byrd cradles the gold trophy she is handed. Her fellow kings and queens harrumph and cheer her victory.
Only days later, back at the candy store, can she sum up her feelings.
"I was tickled to death, and I was shocked," Byrd says. Just two years ago, she was still a corporate administrator, driving a church bus, leading a Girl Scout troop, "living in the same town I grew up in, carrying my little briefcase every day to the same job I'd had for 20 years."
By chance, her company transferred her to San Francisco. "I started meeting people who were really free, and I knew I had all these things deep inside me that I had beat down all my life," Byrd says. "I'd thought it was evil and of the devil and I would be cast into hell forever, and so it was something I fought like crazy."
Now she doesn't have to fight anymore. Except that, in keeping with the savage-male, macho tone of the Klubstitute contest, Byrd has heard faux rumors on the street that someone wants to knock her off.
"They're going to try to steal my crown," says Byrd, with her apple-pie voice. "I don't know what that means, but whatever it is, I'm looking forward to it.
