Pronoun Trouble (2004)
Pronouns are powerful. Speaking from experience, I know they can feel like little barbed arrows when they misidentify me. However, I that most pronoun misattributions are done innocently. We should get mad when pronouns are misused deliberately, but there’s no reason to get angry when people happen to make an unfortunate guess. They are, after all, merely reacting to what they see.
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Editorials on J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen (2003-2004)
If Michael Bailey had purposefully set out to write a book that deliberately demeaned its subjects; if he had set a goal of eroding any respect he might have had as a scientist; if he had intended to subject himself to scorn and derision, he could hardly have done better than producing the inappropriately subtitled The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism.
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But It All Seems So Normal! (2004)
I forget sometimes that according to whom you ask, I am immoral, debased, sinful, mentally ill, a fraud, a pervert, a repressed homosexual, or— my favorite—a tool of the patriarchy. I forget I am all this.
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A Word From the Editor, Transgender Tapestry No. 102 (2003)
If we, liberal and conservative alike, don’t fight for our freedoms, there will come a day when we will no longer have them. And when these rights of free speech, assembly, and privacy are taken from us, most assuredly we will find we have also lost the right to freely express our gender identities.
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The Man Who Would Write About Queens (2003)
This year has seen the release of a book that is destined to have the gay and transgender communities up in arms. It’s called The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science and Psychology of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. The imprint is Joseph Henry Press, a division of the National Academies Press, and the author is one Michael Bailey, a sexologist.
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HRC (2003)
HRC is not our enemy. Those who continue to act as if it were should behave in a more moderate fashion. But despite the addition of transgender to its mission statement, it has not yet shown that it is our friend.
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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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The Ross Fireproof Hotel (2002)
The Ross is gone now, and I don’t even have a photo— but forever more, when I think of Nashville, I’ll smile, knowing the Batman-like outline of the BellSouth tower stands as a monument to my almost-girlhood at the Ross Fireproof Hotel.
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The Politics of Diagnosis and a Diagnosis of Politics (1991)
This is one of my most-cited articles.
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The Flip-Flopping Crossdresser (2002)
I firmly believe that when the world is safe for flip-flopping crossdressers, the world will be safe for me.
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Preserving Our History (2001)
Ten years ago I came to realize that as a community we had little sense of our history. There seemed to be no libraries, archives, or repositories for transgender materials, and few of our national organizations maintained archival copies of their own materials. A few organizations, most notably Tri-Ess, had been wise enough to donate archival materials to universities and archives, but for the most part, our history was being discarded and destroyed on a daily basis.
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9/11: Please Take Precautions While Traveling (2001)
To our readers who have lost loves ones, our deepest sympathies.
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Pine Lake
I live in the tiny municipality of Pine Lake, Georgia, population 621, the smallest city in the world with a nondiscrimination ordinance. And I didn’t even have to ask for it.
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Nons
Think about the term: nontranssexual. It says everything, doesn’t it? There are transsexuals, and then there are those who aren’t transsexual. The center, the norm, is the transsexual, and everyone else is not transsexual. It works for all of us: crossdressers and non-crossdressers, transgenderists and non-transgenderists, lesbians and non-lesbians, intersex and non-intersexed.
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GenderPAC’s Implosion (2001)
GenderPAC has exited stage left from the transgender theater— but it still wants our money. What say, let’s not give it to them.
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Fools Rush In (2000)
Bottom line, there are no guarantees in this world, and certainly none for transfolk. Consequently, it’s important that we proceed carefully along our transgender paths, pacing ourselves, burning as few bridges as possible, testing the waters whenever possible, and doing whatever we can to minimize disruption. I’m not saying “don’t transition”— certainly I’m not saying that— I’m merely saying transition can be a mine field. Only a fool would rush into a mine field.
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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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Interview with David Ebershoff (2000)
It’s a remarkable tale, one deserving of wide recognition, but Lili Elbe’s story, although news in the 1930s, had been largely forgotten— that is, until David Ebershoff wrote The Danish Girl, a novel based on Lili and Gerda’s experiences.
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Ivan, You’re Busted! (2000)
When I became editor of Tapestry the office staff passed on to me a packet of correspondence which included several strange letters which seemed to me to be written by the same hand. “Oh, that’s Ivan,” they said. “He’s been sending us letters for years.” Ivan was their pet name for the letter writer. And so, I came up with this. IFGE never received another letter from him.
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A Word from the Editor, Tapestry No. 90 (2000)
Editing this magazine is and always has been a balancing act. Transgender Tapestry is, as its name implies, a blend of human experience. Our contributors are a diverse lot. Some are crossdressers, some are transsexual, some are intersexed, some identify as both genders, and some as neither. Our readers are gay, straight, bisexual, and asexual, young, old, rich, poor, politically conservative, politically liberal, politically disinclined, black, white, Asian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, pantheistic, Wiccan, and every shade in between. Some are mental health professionals, some are ministers, and some are partners, spouses, family, significant others, or supportive others. Those interested in gender expression come from all walks off life.
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April Ashley’s Odyssey (2000)
As a result of Corbett v. Corbett, British transsexuals have been denied the right to marry. Ironically, as Texas transsexuals lose that right, the pressure group Press for Change is making inroads in the UK and may soon drag that country into line with the rest of the European Union.
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Virginia’s Ordeal (2000)
This year Virginia was invited to be the keynote speaker at S.P.I.C.E., a conference for the female partners of heterosexual crossdressers. A condition was placed on her participation, however— she would be required to attend the conference as “Charles.” She agreed to this, she told me, because she had something important to say to the wives.
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Your Editor Spouts Off
Mark Twain once said it’s better to keep silent and let others think you’re a fool than to open your mouth and have everyone know for certain. He didn’t say anything about telling the whole country by way of an ignorant letter to a newspaper.
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A Word from the Editor (Tapestry #89) (2000)
I would like Transgender Tapestry to be of interest to anyone who has ever questioned any aspect of their gender role, from desiring a job that isn’t “gender appropriate” to being ridiculed for wearing hair that’s “too short” or “too long” to having a voice that’s “too high” or “too low” in pitch to loving someone of the “wrong” gender.
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Shoshanna Gillick: A Remembrance (2000)
Shoshanna chose to go out in a public manner. I can imagine being the first one in the clinic that morning, coming through the door and seeing her hanging there in the foyer. It wasn’t easy on anybody. But you know, if she had to do it, I’m proud of her for doing it that way. It was her way of saying “Fuck you, world! I’m Shoshanna. You’ve abused me, you’ve beaten me down, you’ve called me he and will probably call me he after I’m gone, but you can’t take away the incontrovertible fact that inside I’m a woman.”
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“Traditional Families” (1997)
The true “traditional” family is the extended family, and I believe it is the model we should be working to preserve.
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Never Give Up… (2000)
One Saturday afternoon in late July I was wakened from a nap by the telephone. It was my mother. By the time I was fully awake, we were chatting as if it had not been eleven years since we had spoken.
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My Female Brain (2004)
Maybe it’s time for us to quit claiming we have female brains or male brains and just be honest— we identify as members of the non-natal sex. We have every right to do so. Let’s stop using our brains as justification.
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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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Passing Transsexual (2002)
Unlike some transsexuals, I don’t really care who knows about my past. I just live my life, surrounded by those who don’t know, those to whom I’ve disclosed, and those who have learned of my transsexualism from others or from my various activities and writings in the transgender community. Whatever happens, happens, and is just fine with me. No one can hurt me by outing me, yet because I can pass I’m able to participate fully in life’s rich banquet without fear of finding myself in a dangerous or uncomfortable situation because I’ve been read as transsexual.
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VIC-20 is a People Pleaser at Scales School (1986)
On April 14 the VIC-20s were going at Scales Elementary School in Brentwood, Tennessee, near Nashville. Members of the Nashville Commodore Users Group lined the walls of the cafeteria, each manning a VIC, and explained various aspects of the rainbow machine to fascinated members of the Parent-Teacher Association. One Machine played music, another spoke with the help of a Votrax Type ‘n’ Talk speech synthesizer, a third drew beautiful Super Expander graphics, and a fourth showed how helpful the VIC can be in keeping track of information like grades and attendance. One user had written a program that told where to look in the sky at any time to find satellites.
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Interview for International Transcript Magazine (1992)
I’m not certain, but I believe JoAnn Roberts’ magazine International TransScript folded just before this interview was scheduled to appear.
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From A to Zeta (1996)
“I always take survey results with a grain of salt, but I find it remarkable that a Tri-Ess chapter has 64% of its membership who would like to magically transform themselves into women; 36% who would like to live full-time if circumstances were perfect; 21-24% who have experimented with female hormones or electrolysis; and a huge 73% who have even fantasized about TS surgery. That’s a helluva lot of real and fantasized transforming going on in an organization devoted to the ideal of heterosexual crossdressing without a taint of transsexualism in its ranks. A less diplomatic person than myself might even say this particular sorority of Tri-Ess girls are a bunch of secret transsexuals.”
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When Heteropocrisy Comes Home to Roost (1996)
Tri-Ess is not really an organization of and for heterosexual crossdressers. It is an organization with a membership and a leadership which contains a significant number of underground transsexuals and bisexuals. Those who are willing to lie about their gender and sexual issues and those who for all practical purposes have a sex change but describe themselves with the words “heterosexual crossdresser” are welcome; while those who are honest about their issues or use other terms to describe themselves are shown the revolving door. The organization is based on a fundamental deceit.
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Heteropocrisy: The Myth of the Heterosexual Crossdresser (1996)
Because of their steadfast denial of the true nature of their members, many organizations for heterosexual crossdressers are at bottom hypocritical organizations—heteropocritical organizations, I would say. Their mission statements are at considerable variance with the actual nature and needs of their members. They exist to serve heterosexual crossdressers, but many of their members identify as something other than heterosexual males. They serve only by turning a blind eye to the actual needs of their members, and by excluding many who would help them to serve their focus population of heterosexual crossdressers.
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Murders of Five Transgendered Persons: Do We Have Another Serial Killer? (1992)
But even for the disenfranchised, there is a limit beyond which it is impossible to ignore their mistreatment. In the past eighteen months, five transgendered people have been murdered in the Atlanta streets, their bodies found alongside the interstate or in back yards or in empty lots. All were black, all were shot in the head, all disappeared from the inner city, and at least four of the five were apt to get into cars with men for money or kicks.
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My Sex Change in Brussels (1991)
Dilation. It’s a new fact of life. My custom equipment is indistinguishable from factory-installed, but it does require some extra maintenance. Four times a day for six months, and daily for the rest of my life, I must insert a metal or plastic device into the depths of my new anatomy. Otherwise, the vagina will lose depth and diameter. As dilation is necessary, then perhaps it shouldn’t be called masturbation, but as I find it pleasurable, then perhaps it should.
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Sex Reassignment Surgery: A Matter of Individual Choice (1995)
The decision to have or not have genital surgery is the right and responsibility of the individual. It’s important, however, that at some point in their transgender or transsexual career, each individual realize that it is just that: an individual decision, and not a validation, not a merit badge, not a red badge of courage. Surgery, or the desire for it, is not a mark of one’s “realness” or dedication, but one of many options that we can choose from in our transgender careers. If we choose to have it, then we should be supported in our decision, and we should support the decision of others not to have it.
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Transition and Individual Choice (1999)
Much human misery is caused by the insistence of some people that things be done a certain way. Transsexuals have certainly suffered from such notions, which have been forced on them by helping professionals who were often neither helping nor professional. For many years, the coin of the treatment realm was subjectivism and caprice as transsexuals had their feet figuratively held to the fire by psychologists and physicians who required their transsexual patients to restructure their lives according to their often naive and sexist beliefs. It was not unusual for therapists to dictate to transsexuals the clothes they must wear, their occupations, the sex of their lovers, which surgeries they would and would not have, and even their names. If the patients didn’t comply, they were denied hormones and surgery.
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Millenimania (2000)
We’re about to turn a corner. A year is ending. A decade is ending. A century is ending. A millennium is ending. We all know it, and we’re all excited and a bit frightened by it. We’re wound up like clockwork toys, ready to party like it’s 1999, ready to see the great comet come out of the sky and smash into the earth. We’re prepared to meet Jesus.
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The T-Shirt That Changed the World (1998)
The Transexual Menace t-shirt doesn’t have universal acceptance. It’s upfront and in-your face, and some transpeople don’t like that. Certainly, not everyone would want to wear one, but then those who don’t want to wear them don’t have to. But they can, with pride and in relative safety. And that’s what the black t-shirt has given us.
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The Transgender Community’s Lack of Consensus Around Identity Politics (1998)
When we fight for our rights on the basis of our constructed social identities, we of necessity exclude those with other identities. This leads to a series of political movements in which groups campaign separately for their rights rather than uniting to fight for rights which encompass all categories.
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My Drug Habit (1999)
Of all the drugs with which I experimented, estrogen was without doubt the most potent. Not only was it psychoactive, opening doors of perception otherwise closed; it was a metamorphic drug, taking my body through the physical changes of the feminine puberty I had been denied. It reshaped by body and my mind. And subtle it was, marking changes not in minutes or hours or even days, but over months and years, so a decade after I had begun taking it I was an entirely different person than I would have been without it.
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Jessica Xavier and Riki Ann Wilchins Are Taking Heat They Don’t Deserve (1998)
Jessica Xavier and Riki Ann Wilchins are taking heat they don’t deserve.
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The Clarke Institute of Psychiatry: Canada’s shame (1998)
The Clarke is a Jurassic gender clinic, an anachronism. It is a national embarrassment, a holdover from the dark ages of the early gender clinics, when transsexuals were treated with contempt and impunity– a place which should be censured rather than licensed as Canada’s ultimate experts on transsexualism– for, you see, despite its opinion to the contrary, The Clarke in fact knows very little about transsexuals or transsexualism, and most of what it does know is wrong.
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Nobody’s Transvestite Fantasy (1999)
My personal decision to change sex wasn’t an easy one. It was predicated on a number of factors, including the aforementioned feminine facial features, a long history of successfully passing in public while crossdressed, being unencumbered by marriage (Lynne and I were divorced in 1977), children, social circumstances, education, or career, and by my lifelong desire to be a woman.
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Beyond the Media Circus: A Perspective on Transsexualism (1999)
Rather than seeing transsexual people as crippled, we should see them as enabled. They have overcome or are setting out to overcome something that has made them miserable for their entire lives. They should be proud of themselves, and whether or not we approve of what they have done, we should be proud of them.
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Annotated Bibliography: Selected Readings on Transvestism, Transsexualism and Related Subjects (2000)
The bibliography presented is divided into two major categories: professional and popular publications. The professional category contains objective scientific research literature, whereas the popular category contains works of a more general nature, some of them very subjective. Because transsexuals and transvestites cross the line between gender roles, works discussing femininity and masculinity are also included. Not all of the works listed here present transvestism or transsexualism in a positive manner.
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Remembering JoAnn Roberts (2013)
I knew and admired JoAnn Roberts. I wrote this piece a week or so after her death on June 7, 2013.
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