On the Future of the Transgender Community (1998)
Source: Denny, Dallas, & Xavier, Jessica. (1998, April). On the future of the transgender community. AEGIS News 1(13), pp. 1-17. Reprinted on TG Forum, June, 1998.
On the Future of the Transgender Community
By Dallas Denny and Jessica Xavier
In mid-1995 The International Foundation for Gender Education—with an annual budget of about $350,000, the trans community’s largest organization—did an assessment of the transgender community. They called it Vision 2000, and I thought the final report the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen. Issue no. 6 of AEGIS News began my own assessment, which ended two years later with issue no. 13. The series was called, tongue-in-cheek, Vision 2001: A Gender Odyssey. It was fact-based, at least as much as possible considering the scant data that were available. Jessica Xavier was invaluable as a collaborator and author. The conclusion (in issue no. 13) contained my speculations (and Jessica’s) about the community’s future.
Why I Wrote This
By the mid-1990s I was growing convinced the nonprofit community would be transformed by the emerging internet. What I called brick-and-mortar 501(c)(3)s, which to get their message spent most of their income on rent, utility builds, office equipment and supplies, postage, and printing fees would soon realize they could deliver an almost infinite amount of information to an almost infinite number of individuals instantly and at no cost beyond that required to develop and maintain a website. Small nonprofits like those of the transgender community (IFGE had by far the largest budget, with an annual income at one point of $350,000) would be disproportionately affected. AEGIS, the nonprofit I had founded and of which I was director, would of course be affected.
Considering the profound nature of the change I expected, I thought it expedient to begin with a look at the transgender community as it existed at the time I began writing and end with speculation about the community’s future. And so, Vision 2001 came about.
Click the button below to view the entire run. The conclusion, which wasn’t technically a part of Vision 2001, appears below the button. As with Vision 2001, I have not included the text, only the issue of AGEIS News in which it appears. That’s because the layout is essential to presenting the assorted pieces as a coherent whole.
On the Future of the Transgender Community (PDF)