Out of the Closet, With Style (1999)
Felix Carroll, the author of this article, didn’t understand how varied the attendance of Fantasia Fair was. To him, everyone was a crossdresser. Aside from that, though, it’s not a bad article. I do wish it didn’t consist almost entirely of one-sentence paragraphs.
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Pride Special (1994)
Member of the Atlanta Gender Explorations Support Group, including myself, passed out thousands of these flyers at Atlanta Pride events during the 1990s—and we distributed them to activists and organizations around the world for use at their local events.
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New Survey Changes Trans Politics, Activists Say (2002)
My feeling about the survey in questions was—and remains—that HRC hoped to gather data to back up their “we’ll come back and get you later, we promise” approach to ENDA—and it blew up in their face.
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Counseling Transgender Youth Workshop, Southern Comfort Conference (1999)
As information and support have become more widely available, young people with transgender issues, both male-to-female and female-to-male, have begun to come forth in increasing numbers. The concerns of transgender youth are in some ways similar and in some ways strikingly different from those of adults. In this, the third year of the Counseling Professionals’ Workshops, we examine the difficult issues faced by transgender youth and their families.
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A Diary of Fantasia Fair (2002)
For more than twenty years Fantasia Fair has been the high spot of my year.
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Fantasia Fair Program Book / Participants’ Guide
For five years I edited, laid out, and published the program guide for the transgender event Fantasia Fair.
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IFGE 2004 Conference (2004)
I knew I was in for a memorable time as soon as I looked up after taking my seat in the Delta jet at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. Making her way up the aisle was none other than 91-year-old Virginia Prince.
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Trankila (2003)
Our community is about nonconformity to gender stereotypes. We chafe when those stereotypes are applied to us. We must not show the same lack of sensitivity and compassion to those who don’t meet our own expectations.
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Transgender March on Washington (2002)
The true significance of the first transgender lobby day was not what it accomplished externally, but what it meant to the community. It gave us pride, a sense of what was possible. the March for Gender Rights has the potential to build upon that pride. If the organizers are smart, they’ll elect not to have the march in Washington, D.C., where it will have zero impact outside of our own community, but in a place where a thousand people will fill the streets and frighten the horses.
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Christine Hochberg (2001)
If, as Dianna Cicotello says, our movement is about freedom of gender expression, then we must support the right for a 50-year-old man to dress like a 15-year-old girl. When we are affronted by Christine’s appearance, it’s a measure of our own internalized transphobia, our own uncomfortableness with who we are.
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Review of Tsing Lee, Mother of All She-Boys (2000)
“I did the layout myself, but I hired an artist to do the cover. Do you think the penis in the design is too subtle?” Paige asked anxiously. “The jacket designer thought it might hurt sales if it was too obvious, but I’m afraid some readers won’t notice it.” I didn’t see a penis at first glance, but considering the subject matter, I said, “I think subtle is better. Definitely.” Paige beamed.
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Fantasia Fair / Transgender Week (1999)
I wrote this at a time when the Board of Directors of Fantasia Fair was considering transitioning the event to a new format and a new name. In the end, it remained simply Fantasia Fair. I remain enthusiastic about the event.
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Union of Spirits: An Inclusive Event (1995)
For some time now small groups of transgendered folk have been gathering for intimate sharing that is not available in support groups or at gender conventions. The first of these was the New Woman Conference, a gathering for post-operative women and their partners. The second was called Kindred Spirits. The third was the Pink Moon Gathering, and the fourth was Union of Spirits, an event organized by Melanie Shaline and myself and recently held at historic Sunnybank Inn in Hot Springs, North Carolina.
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The Mother of All Transgender Events (2010)
Fantasia Fair, a week-long annual transgender event held in Provincetown, MA, has been called The Mother of All Transgender Events. It has been running since 1975.
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Fantasia Fair ’94: An Event to Remember
The week-long annual transgender event Fantasia Fair is unfailingly remarkable. I go there every October for rest and relaxation and to visit with friends. This is one of several articles I’ve written about the Fair.
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Pioneer Award Acceptance Speech (2009)
The Pioneer Award is an honor bestowed upon lifelong leaders of the transgender community by the board of directors of Real Life Experiences, Inc., the nonprofit that oversees the annual transgender event Fantasia Fair. It’s an award I in fact proposed to the board back in 2001. The first award was given in 2002. I was honored to receive it seven years later.
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The 1992 Southern Comfort Conference and 1992 Holiday en Femme (1993)
Atlanta is the central city of the Southeast. It’s a magnet that attracts transgendered people like Cincinnati attracted out-of-work Kentucky coal miners in the earlier part of this century. It’s been characterized as a northern city that happens to be in the South. That’s true, and yet it’s not. There are more northern immigrants here than native Georgians, to be sure, and it’s a city where the bottom line is the bottom line, where legions of yuppy puppies in their German-made automobiles make owning a BMW or Mercedes a stigma rather than a status symbol— but it’s also a city of great elegance, with more trees than people, green parks, slow-talking sales clerks, restaurants serving down-home food like grits and collard greens, and friendly neighbors.
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Dallas Talks Transgender (2003)
Few know this more than Dallas Denny, a Southern-born transsexual and longtime supporter of Fantasia Fair, who has witnessed first hand the mobilization of the TG community, and in fact helped initiate it.
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Trash Fish Banquet (1996)
And now the codfish all are gone / And still the fishermen fish on / And species once considered trash / Are looked upon as source of cash
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Sarah in a Suitcase (1997)
I wrote this poem on my way home from the transgender event Fantasia Fair, having witnessed a profound awakening during the week and an emotional crash when it was time to go home.
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Beyond Our Slave Names (1999)
You know what a slave name is, don’t you? That’s the name given to you because your master can’t be bothered to learn your real name. Transsexual is my slave name. It was given to me by doctors. It’s not the name I might have chosen for myself, but I’m stuck with it.
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XV HBIGDA Symposium: Vancouver Highlights (1997)
Dr. Holly Devor set the tone for the conference by pointing out that gender variability is not prima facie evidence for psychopathology, but can be a healthy adjustment to restrictive gender roles. Dr. Devor brought many attendees to their feet with a call for HBIGDA to acknowledge and serve the many kinds of gender-variant people.
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