The Beaumont Society Press Cuttings were deposited at Bishopsgate Institute by Alice Purnell OBE in 2018, along with organisational papers of the Society and her personal papers (the Purnell Collection).

The cuttings were collected by Purnell and other members of the Beaumont Society (of which Purnell was a founding member), to document how transgender and gender non-conforming individuals were portrayed in the printed media. Originally founded in 1966, the Society began as a UK Chapter of the secret American organisation “Full Personality Expression” (FPE). From those early roots, the UK Chapter eventually became the Beaumont Society, named after Chevalier d’Eon de Beaumont. The Society began as a cloistered MTF group for cross-dressers and their partners but is now open to any section of the transgender community who would like to join. More about the Beaumont Society’s aims and objectives can be found on their website www.beaumontsociety.org.uk

The cuttings were taken from a wide range of independent and mainstream magazines, newspapers and journals, from the early 1960s to the early 2000s, mostly published in the United Kingdom but also in Europe and the United States.

The Beaumont Society cuttings are organised into five general areas:

• Transgender (A)
  
• Cross-dressing (B)
  
• Gender & Sexuality (C)
  
• People (alphabetical) (D)
• Geography (all non-UK countries) (E).

The cuttings are further organised within each of the first three areas (A, B & C) by subject, (e.g. Advice, Marriage & Divorce, Drag, etc). Those cuttings which mention noted individuals (e.g. April Ashley or Danny La Rue) are organised alphabetically by surname. All those cuttings set outside of the UK are organised geographically by region.

The Collection contains language and terminology which would now be considered inappropriate.