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Read MoreBody of Work
I’m a prolific writer, and much of my work is archived here. You’ll find my books, essays, magazine and journal articles, book chapters, interviews, and presentations from conferences; my work as editor of two national journals and Executive Director of The American Educational Gender Information Service; and short stories, novels, plays, poetry, and songs. My entire creative output is online here.
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Read MoreBlogs
I’ve been blogging since 2006 and have writen thousands of image-filled posts. One blog is for whatever I find interesting or decide to write about. Another is about my tiny town of Pine Lake, Georgia, and yet another about the 3-D virtual world Second Life. Click Read More to learn about and visit them.
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Read MoreActivism
I’ve been writing about and advocating for transsexual and transgender people since 1988. In 1990 I founded AEGIS, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, where I published and disseminated materials, started a support group, and launched and maintained a telephone help line. In this century I’ve served and continue to serve in leadership positions in other trans organizations. I am still writing prolifically about trans issues.
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Read MoreEditing and Layout
In the 1990s I created, edited, and laid out a magazine called Chrysalis, four or five newsletters, and books. Between 1999 and 2008 I was editor of Transgender Tapestry, a magazine published by the International Foundation for Gender Education. In the early 2000s I edited and laid out a political newsletter in my tiny town of 800 souls. Now I’m designing and populating this website!
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Read MoreMusic and Creative Writing
Fiction and music are a big part of my life. I wrote my first short stories and poems in high school and haven’t stopped. I’ve been performing and writing songs since my teens. My best are posted here as rough demos. My short stories, novels, poetry, and plays are here as well. To view and listen, click Read More or use the menus at top.
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Read MorePhotography
For my fourteenth Christmas my parents gave me a camera. It was inexpensive and flimsy and wasn’t light-proof, but I loved it. These days photography is an absolute joy, thanks to my Canon digital SLR and my virtual camera in Second Life. Click Read More to view samples of my work.
Most Recent Articles
How to Do Effective Gender Communication
Gender Education and Advocacy is a new national non-profit organization with twin missions of education and nonpolitical advocacy in the areas of health and media. By focusing on these areas, GEA seeks to improve the lives of all gender-variant people, regardless of their sexual orientation or individual identities.
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Gender Education Training for the New Millennium (2001)
As a movement, the time has come for us to prioritize our public gender education efforts in order to remove this stigmatization and restore our basic human dignity.
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The Third Sex (1995)
In her view, Denny said, transsexuality was just one more manifestation of the human urge to transform the body.
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Who’s Who in the Transgendered Community (1993)
JoAnn Roberts′ Who’s Who in the Transgendered Community (note the now antiquated ed word ending) was an admirable attempt to list notable persons and resources in the transgender community.
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On the Future of the Transgender Community (1998)
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.
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The Case Against Camping (2008)
Rebecca took great offense at the illustrations and turned her venom on me. She threatened to sue me. Telling her I did not select the images made no impression on her, nor did she seem to understand just what an editorial is. I eventually told her to go f**k herself. It made for a most interesting comments section.
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In the Beginning: How My Photos of 1950s Crossdressers Inspired a Hit Show on Broadway (2014)
In 2013 Andrea was visiting our own Miqqi Gilbert at Miqqi’ s home in Toronto and Miqqi showed her Hurst and Swope’s book. Andrea immediately realized she had taken and developed most of the photos in the book.
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Creating Community: A History of Early Transgender Support in Atlanta (2015)
In which I provide an illustrated and incomplete history of transpeople in Atlanta, ending around 1994.
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Being Virtually Virtual (2011)
Letting people into our real lives can be dangerous. Even if the window into our lives is a narrow one, we must be concerned with issues of privacy, safety, and security.
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Dangerous Curves: The Trouble with Injectable Silicone (2014)
Today silicone injections are occurring in epidemic proportions. Typically, large amounts (liters, sometimes) are administered by non-licensed and usually non-medically trained “practitioners” who use big-bore needles to pump large quantities of non-medical grade silicone into virtually every part of the body.
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All We Were Allowed to Write (2014)
Before 1994 or so, transpeople were excluded from our own literature. We authored no textbooks and had no book chapters or articles in professional journals. What we could get published, at least from the 1950s onward through 1990 or so, were autobiographies.
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Gender Reassignment Surgeries in the XXth Century (2015)
The techniques used in modern plastic surgery—including GRS—were developed almost exclusively by this man, who is considered the father of plastic surgery. His name was Harold Gillies.
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Dismantling the Gender Binary (2015)
This are the notes for my keynote delivered at Transgender Lives: The Intersection of Health and Law, Farmington, CT, 25 April, 2015
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My Self-Nomination for the 2015 Trans 100 List
This year I nominated myself for the 2015 Trans 100 list.
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All We Were Allowed to Write (2014)
There are hundreds and hundreds of trans bios. In this presentation I describe and discuss some of them.
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Dining With the Privileged (2014)
How is it that those who dine most lavishly manage to pay less than they ought?
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Fantasia Fair 2013: The Movie
I appear briefly in this promo for the trans conference Fantasia Fair.
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Trans Bodies, Trans Selves (2014)
Jamison Green and I prepared a 30,000-word chapter on trans representations in the media. As things sometimes go in the book publishing business, it morphed into a series of media spotlights. Anyone interested in a great chapter on trans people in the media?
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The Language of Gender Variance (2014)
In 1998 Jamison Green, Jason Cromwell, and I distributed a questionnaire asking transgendered and transsexual people their reactions to selected terms and asking them what they did and did not wish to be called. One hundred thirty-seven questionnaires were returned, of which 134 were usable responses. We also conducted focus groups in September and October 2001 at the Southern Comfort and Fantasia Fair conferences to discuss our project and ask what message(s) about language usage participants would like professionals to hear. Ten years later we again distributed the survey and received 2651 responses. In our paper, we present our findings.
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The Language of Gender Variance (2001)
This paper presents data from a national survey of attitudes of transpeople about various and assorted terms which had been used to describe them. The survey was done in 1998. Ten years later we again surveyed transpeople about their preference for terminology. The resulting paper is now under review for consideration for publication in the International Journal of Transgenderism.
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Interview for Monika Kowalska, The Heroines of My Life (2014)
Polish transwoman Monika Kowalska publishes a brilliant blog in which she prints interview of people she admires. She’s been at it since January, 2013 and has interviewed more than 100 trans women. I’m happy to be one of them!
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Trans Pioneers to Lead University of Victoria Symposium (2014)
Dallas Denny is one of four pioneers of the trans rights movement featured at Moving Trans History Forward, a three-day symposium starting today at the University of Victoria.
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Preserving Trans History: A Short History and Suggestions for the Future (2014)
Clearly the mere establishment of a trans archive at the University of Michigan has resulted in donations in the form of money and materials—and clearly the university itself is proud of the collection and is motivated to grow it. And clearly, the collection has grown since 2000.
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Interview for University of Missouri Maneater (2013)
This is an audio recording of an interview I gave to reporter Elizabeth Loutfi of the school paper Maneater following my keynote during Trans Awareness Week at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
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Not Screwed Up Enough (2013)
I was honored to be asked by The Triangle Coalition to present this keynote. I was treated like royalty while at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
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InsideOUT Radio 11/13/2013
On 13 November, 2013, I was a guest on the University of Missouri radio show InsideOut.
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