Letter to the Editor, The Journal of Sex Research (2002)
Dr. Robinson writes that the various points we made about the Standards are unsubstantiated. This is not true; with one exception, our reference section contains citations which corroborate our various points. The exception is our assertion that the Standards place restrictions on access to body-altering medical treatment “without empirical evidence that such restrictions are necessary or even advisable”. We are not sure just what source we could have cited to confirm this lack of data. We believe the burden of proof here is on HBIGDA and Dr. Robinson. Where are the data?
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Letter to the Editor, Femme Forum (2001)
In her interview in the October issues of Transgender Community News, Jane Ellen Fairax dodges the question of Tri-Ess’ exclusionary membership policy by making it appear that it is the focus of the organization which is under attack. No one, to my knowledge, challenges Tri-Ess’ focus on heterosexual crossdressers and their female partners
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Transsexuals Just Want to Feel Comfortable in Their Own Bodies (1997)
It’s offensive when heterosexuals attempt to explain homosexuality, having never been there, and it’s equally offensive when nontranssexuals attempt to explain transsexualism. I’m sure Mr. Varnell’s intentions were good, but his opinion is ill-informed and in my opinion should never have seen print. Quite frankly, transsexuals neither need nor want facile analyses of transexualism by nontransexuals.
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Letter to the Editor, Out Magazine: Response to Biberpeople (1995)
Elizabeth Cohen’s article “Biberpeople” in the May, 1995 issue of Out reminds me of nothing so much as a 1920s National Geographic piece in which white North American journalists try to convey the essence of being African to other North Americans. My goodness!
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Letter to the Editor, Psychiatric Times (1994)
It’s very like the old Sufi parable of the blind men and the elephant, but with all of the blind men standing in the same spot, experiencing the same part of the elephant. Until outdated notions about crossdressing and transsexualism are discarded, we’re never going to see the elephant
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Letter to the Editor, San Francisco Bay Times (1995)
Having been out for so long, perhaps Ms. O’Hartigan has forgotten that most post-process transsexuals become woodworkers and assimilate into mainstream society. While stealth transsexuals are fueled by shame, it is arrogant and harmful to not respect their decisions to leave anonymous lives. For this reason, it is incumbent upon others to be damn sure that someone is out before putting their names in print.
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Letter to the Editor, Southern Voice: Response to Chris Crain (2001)
Chris Crain has it backwards. Transgendered people will not be protected by an Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) without language protecting gender variance—nor will any gay man or lesbian whose dress, speech, or mannerisms vary from the ideal heterosexual norm.
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Letter to the Editor, Southern Voice (2002)
The results show great similarities in attitudes toward transgendered people and gay men and lesbians. In plain language, the same people who dislike you also dislike us, and your supporters are our supporters. These results significantly weaken arguments that the transgendered are a political liability for the movement. It would be an injustice to ignore them.
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Letter to SEXNET e-group RE Posting by Ken Zucker (1995)
Now that I have vented my spleen, I would like to urge you to be a good scientist and look at the biases reflected in your posting, and think about how your assumptions have impacted your work with transsexual and transgendered persons. And I would like to invite you to swim out to the boat before it completely leaves the harbor.
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Letter to APA Monitor (1998)
The murder of San Diego therapist Rita Powers by one of her clients and the subsequent suicide of the client was a tragedy, and we deplore the actions of the client. However, we find insensitive and unprofessional the Monitor’s use of male pronouns and descriptive terms like “gunman” and “the man” to describe the client.
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Letter to the Editor, RE Michael Alvear’s He Said, She Said, Washington Blade (2003)
Michael Alvear should be called to task for his bigoted “He Said, She Said” column of April 11, and the editor of the Washington Blade should think twice about allowing any more such transphobic drivel in future issues.
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Letter to Editor Myrna Blyth, Ladies Home Journal (1997)
I happened to channel-surf onto C-Span a week or so ago as you were speaking on women in the twentieth century. You were talking about the internet, dismissing it by saying that in your opinion people primarily turn to and will continue to turn to print sources (i,e, I suppose, LHJ) for information and entertainment, and that electronic forms of communication will never replace them.
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Letter to Editor Jack Pelham, Etc. Magazine (1995)
There is an unfortunate tendency for female-to-male transsexuals to be reclaimed as lesbian after their deaths. In Brandon Teena’s case, as in Billy Tipton’s, who was discovered to have a female body only after his death, there is no room for doubt that they identified as men. It does them, and all transsexual people, a grave disservice to dishonor them after death by turning them back into women.
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Letter to Cincinnati City Beat: Got it Backwards (1997)
Mr. Hunter shows his true colors when he writes, early in his article, ” I believe in equal rights for all. But…” There is no such thing “equal but.” Either we are all equal, or a privileged elite looks down on and exploits the rest of us
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Letter to Boy’s Own (1998)
Under the Benjamin model, it is easy for those who consider themselves to be “true transsexuals” to disparage those who do not profess a desire for those technologies as frivolous or non-serious or unsure of their identity.
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Letter to NBC (1996)
This letter was AEGIS’ response to the Weekend Update feature on Saturday Night Live, 24 Febuary, 1996.
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ENDA Without the “T” is Toothless For All (2001)
This letter was a response to an editorial by he ever-clueless Chris Crain.
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Transgendered Won’t Stop ENDA (Letter to Editor, Southern Voice, 1999)
While a few trans activists are actively opposed to a non-inclusive ENDA, the rest of us are merely working toward our own inclusion
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Equal Rights (Not Special Rights) (1994)
I wrote this letter in counterpoint to an essay by Kristine Holt. I sent it to the editor of Mirror Images, the newsletter of the Erie Sisters. where it appeared in the April, 1994 issue alongside Ms. Holt’s article. Later that year Ms. Holt’s piece appeared in issue No. 5 of Davina Anne Gabriel’s TransSisters magazine; my letter ran in the next issue.
Read MoreLetter to the Editor of The Human Side (1991)
We recycle whatever we can. Our concession serves more than 150 clients and 30 staff. We have a large garbage can in which we place our aluminum cans. Even though our clients are mentally retarded, they are very conscientious about putting their soft drink cans in the proper place. Some even being aluminum from home.
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The Letter (2012)
When I learned Routledge Press was planning to publish a book about transgenderism by Australian academician Sheila Jeffreys, I was astonished.
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(With Jamison Green) Letter to Taylor & Francis RE Sheila Jeffreys (2012)
We are writing out of concern about the impending publication of Sheila Jeffreys’ and Lorene Gottshalk’s book Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism by Routledge Press.
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Letter to Texas Medicine (1995)
The interdisciplinary team approach to transsexualism has given clinicians forty years to study the outcome of the treatment of transsexualism. Forty more years will not lead to much enlightenment unless clinicians begin to listen to what anthropologists, sociologists, and transsexual persons themselves are saying about this remarkable condition.
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Letter to Paul McHugh (1994)
I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that despite the immediate effect of causing other clinics to close, the closing of the gender clinic at Johns Hopkins caused the rise of a consumer-centered movement which has made hormonal and surgical treatment available to any American who desires it. You actually did transsexual people a favor by moving to Hopkins and working to close the clinic there.
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My Letter to National Academies (2003)
My question to you is: why has the esteemed National Academies of Sciences lent its credibility and dignity to such a discreditable and undignified work as The Man Who Would Be Queen?
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Letter to HBIGDA (1993)
I am convinced that the peculiar relationship between persons requesting sex reassignment and those who are placed in the position of gatekeepers result in both false presentations by the clients and false expectations by the caregivers.This translates into a literature so far removed from reality that much of it cannot be taken seriously.
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