Trans Flag Creator Worked at a Porn Shop While 'Transitioning' to a 'Lesbian'

Monica Helms (Robert Hogge) as featured in Google’s 2018 documentary “Umbrella”

Earlier this year, I wrote about the creator of the transgender flag for Reduxx, Monica Helms (born Robert Hogge). In the article, I detail his history with drag, cross-dressing, and his ‘forced feminization’ and erotic short stories, including one about young girls who never age.

I encourage you to take the time to read that article first. When it was published, there were a few details that weren’t included in the finished piece. One passage in particular from Helms’ memoir, More Than Just a Flag, seems more relevant to me now than it did back in March.

Women's Voices @WomenReadWomen

The creator of the trans flag, Robert Hogge (right) who goes by Monica Helms, used to steal their mother's underwear, then moved on to stealing random women's underwear for sexual reasons, and has written a story about an adult man marrying a teen girl who doesn't age.

During the late 1990’s, as Helms began using feminizing hormones to alter his appearance, he was also working at a pornography shop in Arizona that “sold adult videos” and lingerie.

“Around this time [1997], a friend of mine asked if I wanted to make extra money and suggested I apply for a second job at a lingerie shop that also sold and rented adult videos. I then applied for and got the job. The store’s owner didn’t care that I came to work dressed as a woman, nor if I changed into or out of my woman’s clothes while I was there. Another employee ran the lingerie half of the store while I ran the adult video side.

I enjoyed the position because it became a good segue from work to home. I would get up in the morning after Donna had gone to work and the boys had gone to school. Then I could dress as my true self. I would then go to work at Sprint, then to the video store, then home. I would sometimes change back before leaving the video store, because the boys [Helms’ children] would occasionally stay up late, particularly at weekends. On Fridays and Saturdays, I would also go to my favorite drag club in central Phoenix.”

While Helms was moonlighting at a porn shop and attending drag performances on weekends, an incident occurred at his workplace: women began to complain about Helms using the female-only facilities.

Yet ultimately management sided with Helms, who was being allowed to use two out of the three women’s restrooms in the office building, apparently out of concern that he would fight to access all of the women’s facilities.

Management told female employees who felt uncomfortable with his presence to use the second floor restrooms, and Helms was permitted to access both the first floor and third floor facilities.

Describing the first time Helms took his cross-dressing fetish into his public life, he writes, “I will always remember my first day at Sprint as Monica. Everyone looked either stunned or shocked at seeing me dressed as a woman for the first time.”

The implication is that he was encouraged by his concurrent dressing at the porn shop to bring his fetish into the office.

“A number of [co-workers] inquired, ‘Are your breasts real?’

I smiled back, ‘Yes, my breasts are real and so are the prostheses that give me extra size,’” Helms adds.

He explains that on several occasions, he was called into his supervisor’s office for “wearing dresses cut too short.” This he attributes to having entered his “second puberty” at the age of 46.

He also remarks that his supervisor who “picked on” him the most frequently “happened to be an out lesbian, who used to be my friend before I started transitioning.”

In 1999, still working for Sprint, Helms was notified by the Head of HR that there had been complaints about him using the women’s restroom on the third floor.

A few hours later, according to Helms, the Head of HR told him there wouldn’t be any changes to the restroom arrangement, and that any women working on the third floor who were uncomfortable with him having access to the facility would instead have to go to the second floor to use the restroom.

This decision was made after Helms’ supervisor told the Head of HR that if he was not permitted to use the third floor women’s restroom, he would “fight it, and not only win the third floor, but access to the second floor as well.”

Helms at a book signing for his memoir in 2019

Helms explains in his memoir that he was also attending sex clubs in Phoenix during the early years of his ‘transition’, which “afforded patrons the chance to watch people have sex in windowed rooms.” Helms tells of how these clubs “enabled me to fulfill each and every fantasy I had concerning sex with men. This included orgies, hot tubs, you name it.”

Helms goes on to write that once he had “gotten all that out of my system” he began to identify as a lesbian woman. He attended lesbian clubs “three to four times a week” from 1999 to 2000, “flirting” and participating in “sensual dancing”.

“At that instant, Linda heard a heart-stopping scream exploding from the woman’s restroom. Babs came running out, water dripping from her face.

‘Look at me!’ Babs hollered. ‘I’m old!’

Linda gasped, since Babs had indeed become much older in appearance. Her perfectly styled hair had become completely unruly and gray. Wrinkles and liver spots covered a once-smooth and soft face. Holding up her hands, she revealed that they too showed signs of aging.

‘What happened to you?’ Linda held out her hand to Babs.

‘Look at you!’ she screamed.

Linda’s hands and face also showed the same signs of aging and her hair had become gray. ‘Dammit! What’s going on here?’

‘Nothing much,’ answered a young woman’s voice. Linda turned to find the old cowgirl had become young and familiar-looking. She no longer had wrinkled skin and her blond hair looked perfectly cropped.

‘You see, you’re taking our places in this isolated dump.’

A young woman with beautifully styled blonde hair stepped out of the building. ‘And we’ll finally get to leave and take your place.’ The young woman slowly moved her hands along the sides of her curvaceous body. ‘It’s so great to be young again after all these years!’

‘You have my face! And my body!’ the older Babs screamed, then began coughing.

‘I do, don’t I?’ the new Babs smiled. ‘And you now have mine. It’s a fair trade, don’t you think? I’m glad you kept yours in such great shape.’

‘Are you sure you want our lives?’ asked the old Linda. ‘After all, we’re lesbians.’

The new Linda smiled. ‘And so are we.’”

— Nowhere, AZ
Tales from a Two-Gendered Mind, by Monica Helms

Posts made by Monica Helms in a Usenet newsgroup in 2001 suggest that he believes himself to be a ‘true model of femininity’. He describes being thrilled at being called a “b*tch” by a customer, and compares himself to leading women’s rights campaigners such as Susan B. Anthony and Coretta Scott King.

Helms is a widely-celebrated trans activist and has been featured in a 2018 documentary about “trans trailblazers” produced by Google. In 2014, the first transgender pride flag created by Helms was inducted into the permanent archives of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.