Michelle Hays
Age 405 Nov 1990
Memphis, Tennessee (USA)
Shot
TDoR list ref: tdor.info/5 Nov 1990/Michelle Hays (Joe Michael Hays)
Michelle was shot in the chest.
Michelle had won Miss Gay Memphis in 1974.
The Memphis gay club scene on Monday mourned the death of one of its best-known entertainers.
Joe Michael Hays, who became famous as “Michelle Hays," was shot to death Saturday, and grieving friends called [her] the city’s most-loved female impersonator.
A native of Panama and graduate of Overton High School, Hays performed in drag shows at clubs throughout the city. [She] won numerous awards and contests, including “Ms Gay Memphis" in 1974.
Hays “was very popular in the gay community and it's a great loss for female impersonation in Memphis," said Tommy Stewart, owner of Reflections, a club where Hays often performed.
Black bows hung on the front door of Reflections Monday.
Police were still trying to determine what happened to Hays, 40 of 1591 Cherry Road, who was found Saturday after being shot once in the chest. [She] was found by a passerby at Lamar and Homewood, south of Winchester. No suspects were in custody.
"We're running down leads but we're not close to making an arrest,” Lt. J. D. Douglas said Monday. Police, who described Hays as 5-3 and 135 pounds, urged anyone with information about the case to call the homicide bureau at 576-5300.
Hays was wearing woman’s clothing when [she] was found, and friends said [she] began dressing as a woman soon after graduating from high school in 1968.
"He’s been a woman for so long I don’t think anyone thinks of him as Michael,” Stewart said. "It's like he changed his identity." Hays’s family accepted the change, and, like most of his friends, referred to him as "she."
“She thought she was a woman and I consider him my daughter,” said Hays's mother, Jean Hays. She said her son "dressed like a woman and acted like a woman.” Friends said Hays wanted a sex change operation about 10 years ago, but couldn't afford one.
Hays “was very happy as a woman and he could pass as a woman almost anywhere,” said Summer Holiday, a female impersonator at Reflections.
Since the late 1960s, Hays worked off and on as “a professional female impersonator” at clubs, said Buddy Douglas, [her] first cousin.
The Memphis club scene remained in shock Monday at [her] death. “It really freaked us out,” said Cindy Cooper, manager of Club Tiffany, where Hays used to wait on tables. Hays “was a very well-liked person We can’t understand how someone could have done this to her.”
Hays will be buried Wednesday in Parsons, Tenn. [She] will be buried as a woman.
Dallas Denny of GEA and Cross-Talk #25, June 1991
http://students673.ucr.edu/docsserver/lgbt/trans_remembrance_display_posters.pdf
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10_JeZ7LEIRhvewTCoL5mVkH6MQJzf7fSXl4-P6QJ0v0/edit#gid=0
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-commercial-appeal-murder-of-transgen/143640968/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-commercial-appeal-murder-of-transgen/143641049/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-commercial-appeal-obituary-for-joe-m/143641358/
