A Word from the Editor (Chrysalis, 1991-1998)
Here are the Word From the Editor/Publisher columns from the various issues of Chrysalis.
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JoAnn Roberts: On My Mind (2006)
“On my Mind” was JoAnn Roberts’ column as publisher of LadyLike. Here she remembers and eulogizes a number of transgender community publications, including Transgender Tapestry. I was editor of Tapestry from 2000-2008.
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A Room of One’s Own (2004)
“There is a genre of transgender fiction that is primarily wish fulfillment. Such works are about seeing in the mirror a person (crossdressed) who approximates to some extent the internal reality of the individual. I believe many of our readers would just love for us to stuff this sort of thing between the covers, but I won’t do it. I want to expose the readers to good work.”
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An Interview with Nancy Nangeroni and Gordene MacKenzie (2005)
Here’s my interview with two wonderful people: Nancy Nangeroni and Gordene MacKenzie.
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Ask Dr. GenderFixIt (Tapestry No. 109) (2005)
My off-the-cuff advice from the infamous Dr. GenderFixIt!
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Giving Christianity a Bad Name (2005)
This American Taliban, these Western-Mullahs will not stop even when they have succeeded in packing the courts with judges who will not punish those who intimidate, harass, and kill us. They won’t stop when they’ve passed laws forbidding our behavior and mode of dress and outlawing our expressions of sexuality and gender. They won’t stop even when they have robbed us of the very freedoms for which our forefather fought and died.
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Plain Vanilla (2005)
The transgender community is filled with kinky people. I just don’t happen to be one of them. And you know what? It took a while, but these days I’m happy being plain vanilla.
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The Last Time I Dropped Acid (2006)
And so I proposed an experiment to a pre-op friend with whom I often talked gender theory—or she proposed the experiment to me, I forget which. We would drop the acid, and while we were peaking, we would look at ourselves, naked, in a full-length mirror. If we were frauds, fakes, creatures of artifice or perversion, “really” men, covert homosexuals, sinners, mockeries or stereotypes of women, if we were mentally ill or unnatural or self-deluding in any way, we would instantly know it; with our egos dismantled by the LSD, we would see ourselves as we really were.
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The Naughties (2005)
It’s high time the decade was give a title, and I propose to propose one. Why me, you ask? Why not me? It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.
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Ask Dr. GenderFixIt (Tapestry No. 108) (2005)
Let Dr. GenderFixIt answer your embarrassing questions in a public forum!
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On Brains and Transgender Rights (2005)
Many transgendered people—and for that matter, many gay men and lesbians— direct enormous energy (and sometimes money) to attempts to explain why we are the way we are. This is a guilt thing: if our hormones made us do it, if our chromosomes are the culprit, if our brains are female, it’s not our fault. We can’t help it. We’re not responsible, it’s our darn female brains. (My apologies to FTMs.)
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Ten Years of Transgender Protests Against HRC— At An End? (2004)
On Saturday, 7 August, the Human Rights Campaign announced its Board of Directors had voted to pursue only federal workplace protection legislation that is inclusive of gender identity and expression.
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About the Front Cover of Tapestry No. 106 (2004)
This issue’s cover generated considerable discussion among those responsible for this magazine: myself, Art Director Dave Bryant, IFGE Executive Director Denise Leclair, and Board Chair Hawk Stone. We knew the photograph we were considering would evoke strong responses in some of our readers— after all, it had had that effect on each of us. We asked ourselves a number of questions, ranging from “What is the scope and purpose of Transgender Tapestry?” to “What will this cover say about transgender issues in general, and Tapestry in particular?” Ultimately, we decided to use it.
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Ask Dr. GenderFixIt (Tapestry No. 106) (2004)
Dear Dr. GenderFixIt: My wife is being unreasonable. She severely restricts the amount of female clothing I can keep around the house. I’ve had to move everything to a 20′ x 20′ storage shed. She lets me use only one closet for my femme stuff! Can you give her a clue?
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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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Concerns About Dr. Anne Lawrence (2004)
In June 2003, Andrea James published on her website a disturbing article about Anne Lawrence’s behavior. Although James’ article is in part an ad hominem (i.e. personal) attack, her allegations about Lawrence’s conduct mirror our own long-held apprehensions and provide corroborating evidence to previous allegations we have received about Lawrence’s behavior.
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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 Day the World Changed (2002)
This is the issue of Tapestry of which I am most proud. We finally had an art director who was able to create what I envisioned. I loved the page layout.
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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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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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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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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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Splendor of Gender Workshop (1994)
The Splendor of Gender was a two-day workshop planned and hosted by the Tampa Stress Center and The American Educational Gender Information Service, Inc. We worked together to develop the program and used our contacts to build a powerful team of presenters which included Kimberly Westwood and Carl Bushong, Ph.D. of the Tampa Stress Center; myself, Barbara Warren, Psy. D.; Eugene Schrang, M.D., and Pascual Bidot, M.D.
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