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Trans History Timeline

I’ve been putting together a Trans History Timeline for my Transgender Lives class. The idea was to give them an idea of the events that lead up to the modern Transgender Movement (such as it is).

  • 1910 Magnus Hirschfeld coins “transvestite” and “transsexual”
  • 1919 Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research given housing
  • 1930 Lili Elbe undergoes five surgeries, the fifth of which kills her in 1931
  • 1933 Institute for Sexual Research burned by Nazis
  • 1939 – 1945 WWII
  • 1945 Michael Dillon has first FTM surgeries
  • 1951 Roberta Cowell transitions in the UK
  • 1952 Christine Jorgensen headline, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Bombshell”
  • 1959 Virginia Prince starts Transvestia
  • 1961 VP starts Heels & Hose (12 crossdressers!)
  • 1964 Reed Erickson founds the Erickson Institute
  • 1966 Harry Benjamin publishes The Transsexual Phenomenon
  • 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria Riots, SF
  • 1969 Ist Gender Symposia (becomes HBIGDA)
  • 1969 Stonewall, NYC
  • 1973 First Introduction of ENDA (US)
  • 1975 Fantasia Fair starts in Provincetown, founded by Ariadne Kane
  • 1976 Tri-Ess formed
  • 1976 Crossdressing becomes legal in SF
  • 1977 HBIGDA becomes an org
  • 1979 Sandy Stone leaves Olivia Records due to attacks in Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire
  • 1980 Crossdressing becomes legal in Houston, TX (due to Phyllis Frye’s efforts)
  • 1986 FTM Int’l started by Lou Sullivan
  • 1987 IFGE formed
  • 1990 AEGIS started by Dallas Denny
  • 1993 Mosaic web browser
  • 1994 Death of Brandon Teena / Netscape web browser
  • 1995 “All FTM Conference of the Americas” organized by Jamison Green & Jason Cromwell (with grant from Dallas Denny)

I was teaching Jamison Green’s Becoming a Visible Man at the time, which is why it ends where it does, but I’ve been adding to it since, & will continue to do so.

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Gender Crash!

I’ll be at Gender Crash! in Boston tomorrow night, doing what I do at one of the coolest events the trans community has to offer.

  • Where: Spontaneous Celebrations, 45 Danforth St, Jamaica Plain
  • When: Tonight, 12/13, at 7:30 PM

It seemed like a good way to end my semester up in Andover.

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What They Call Me

The issue of whether or not the term SOFFA (Significant Others, Friends, Family & Allies) is used throughout the trans community to describe people like me came up recently in an online discussion group, so I thought I’d share here a list of the terms that are used. Keep in mind this list is drawn from my own experience online & in person, in co-moderating partner support groups at conferences, & in my various conversations with others “like me” in the trans universe.

Historically speaking, it was pretty apparent especially when I first went online as a trans partner, nine years ago or so, that if I found “SOFFA” support I would be quite on my own as a historically-heterosexual female partner of an emerging MTF, & was often directed to more Tri-Ess type organizations when/if I did find them.

So just for the sake of it, here’s some other terms & the way (in my experience) they breakdown in use:

  • SO – most often used to describe the female partner of a CD or MTF of CDing experience
  • SOFFA – short for “Significant Other, Friend, Family or Ally” and is used  predominantly in the FTM community. (note: it is not pronounced like the furniture, but like the O in hot)
  • partner – seems to be used by both
  • chaser/admirer – again, out of MTF spaces, for (mostly) the guys who date/seek out sex with CDs or pre op/non op MTFs. “chaser” is the pejorative; “admirer” is used when their attention is appreciated by the trans person in question.
  • trans-am(orous), transsensual – terms that come out of the FTM universe, for women who date/seek out sex/relationships with FTMs – often intentionally *not* used by FTMs due to the fetishistic connotation, though I find it’s quite a radical idea to describe women who desire MTFs (there aren’t so many of us, so fetishization doesn’t seem to be an issue!)
  • Of recent coinage, which some partners seem to respond to, is NQAL (pronounced “nickel”)- for Not Quite a Lesbian. Used by those of us who either are lesbians but are with FTMs who are stealth, & also by female partners who are heterosexual but are viewed as lesbians when our MTFs transition/crossdress.

Other notes:

  • One of the reasons I don’t use SOFFA is exactly because lumping together those who date/partner with trans people is already such a mixed bag of people, & because the term can be off-putting to allies who aren’t dating trans people to be seen as only being there for the sexual/romantic partnerships. Also, because there is a big difference between an ally who is trans am & the partner of an MTF or FTM who is transitioning after years of a long term relationship. (The mutual scorn can be palpable.)
  • As support group practice (at least at the LGBT center in manhattan) has dictated, putting the parents/family of trans people in the same room with partners/admirers/trans-am people is pretty disastrous as well.
  • PFLAG’s trans support is referred to as TNET, though I often just use TFLAG (for families of trans).

The good news in all this verbal soup is that there are more & more of us everyday!

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New Piercing

I’m pleased as punch that I got a chance – right after my keynote at Fantasia Fair – not only to meet the Bearded Lady of Provincetown, but to get her to stretch my previous ear piercings so that I could wear these lovely new omegas I bought in her shop.

She tells me that I can make them bigger in a few months, too. Betty’s starting to worry.

If you’re coming here after Fantasia Fair, do remind me of the resources I said I would post. I know some (a lot) of them are probably about sex, so you might want to start by browsing the posts marked s.e.x. on this blog.

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Fantasia Fair 2007

We were planning to go to the whole of Fantasia Fair this year, where I was supposed to present my keynote on Monday, but 2007, being what it has been for us (complicated, frustrating, exhausting) has proved itself more in charge of us then we are. As a result, we’re going to FanFair on Thursday, 10/18, instead.

I will, however, present my keynote on Friday, 10/19, since Stephen Whittle has had to cancel, as has Marilyn Volker.

But the Fair officially starts today for anyone going for the whole week.

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Fear of Flying

Okay, so those of you who know me know I hate flying, & haven’t flown in a couple of years. Interestingly, perhaps, the last time I flew was also to Denver Airport, for Betty’s family reunion, which was maybe summer 2005 (since the incident is in She’s Not the Man I Married, so I knew it was before I wrote the book in the first half of 2006).

& Really, I did incredibly well considering. I took some new anti-anxiety drugs my doctor prescribed, & they helped a ton; I nearly almost enjoyed the trip out there.

BUT, on the way back, there was a thunderstorm between us & Laguardia. & Getting through it wasn’t the bad part; the bad part is that they needed more time between landings when it’s raining so hard.

Do we had to go into a holding pattern above the airport, flew in circles, through turbulence, for an hour, pitching & tossing & UGH.

I vomited & vomited & vomited. & Sweated. & Shook.

I can’t even think about how it would have been without the anti-anxiety meds.

But otherwise it was a lovely trip, and we met some really great people, all of which I’ll blog about in the upcoming days: I have the lovely luxury of being home five full days before we leave for Fantasia Fair early Thursday morning.

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On ENDA, on National Coming Out Day

This is the text of the talk I gave in Denver on Tuesday. It probably won’t surprise anyone that I’ve been busting at the seams wanting to have a say in all of the dialogue going on about ENDA. At least I don’t think it should surprise anyone, not by now.

**

First, let me thank Ed and Jordan and all the students who asked them to bring me here. It’s a pleasure to be here in celebration of National Coming Out Day, a pleasure to see all of you gathered, celebrating who you are. Thanks to all the crossdressers, the gays, the lesbians, the genderqueers, the trans men & women, MTF and FTM, & to their partners. Thanks to all of you who are family, or friends, or allies, for being here.

Betty and I have been on tour a lot this year because I had a book published in March, and we’ve gotten a chance, once again, to meet a lot of people and to talk to a lot of trans people and partners, and this year, we’ve met more gay and lesbian people who aren’t trans than we did before. And it’s been a pleasure all around in hearing people’s stories of their own gender variance, or the stories of how they came out to loved ones, or of their first big crush or the moment when they realized they were trans or gay or lesbian or how they came to understand the first identity they understood themselves to be was not quite accurate in the long run. What I love to hear the most is about how queer people find one identity fits for a while and then not at all; like Oliver Wendell Holmes’ chambered nautilus, queer people build themselves bigger chambers, bigger categories, labels that are not so confining, over time.

That’s how it’s been for us, certainly. By the time people get used to what we’re calling ourselves our identities have shifted a little, changed usually by experiences we never expected and wouldn’t trade for anything. Continue reading “On ENDA, on National Coming Out Day”