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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Transsexualism at Forty (1993)
Forty years ago, Christine Jorgensen was in Copenhagen, Denmark, and not just to see the sights. She was undergoing the final stages of a series of hormonal and surgical treatments that would enable her to live the rest of her life as a woman, even though she had been raised as a boy, had duly grown into a man, and had even served a hitch in the U.S. Army. Her “sex change,” as it came to be called, was hardly the first, but when the story was leaked to the newspapers, the headlines shocked the world, creating a media circus which has lasted for forty years.
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Where is Our History? (Censored Editorial, 2004)
Rikki Swin has been absolutely irresponsible and has violated trust by not keeping the community informed of the collection’s condition and whereabouts. It could, for all we know, be poorly stored, shredded, or lost.
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A Word from the Editor: HBIGDA (2002)
In this postmodern age in which more and more of us are strong and sure of ourselves, I’m no longer sure of the appropriateness of the Standards of Care, and I’m becoming more and more certain that it’s unethical to apply constraints to a class of people without solid evidence that they are needed.
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Behavioral Treatment in Gender Dysphoria (1994)
If you have a bit of imagination you can see this man, this crossdresser, wild-eyed and perspiring from the amphetamines, smelling of vomit, going into cardiac distress. It’s a scene straight out of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange—but let me remind you that the protagonist in the film brutalized and killed people. Cooper’s patient merely sometimes wore women’s clothing.
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Cheekbones from Hell (1992)
If the FDA has maintained for more than 25 years that injected silicone is dangerous even when given by physicians, it stands to reason that it is unthinkable to seek it from a nonphysician. Those who are desirous of enhanced body contours should seek a plastic or cosmetic surgeon.
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Review of Caroline Cossey, My Story (1992)
The fact of Caroline’s gender reassignment was something she quite effectively put behind her, but, alas, her anonymity was not meant to last. A photographer who had known her briefly in the early days, when she was a showgirl, tipped off the British tabloids…
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Review of Chris Bojalian, Trans-Sister Radio (2000)
Popular author Chris Bohjalian’s mainstream novel Trans-Sister Radio has been getting good press, but I have rather a problem with it.
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Review of Joan Roughgarden, Evolution’s Rainbow (2004)
Roughgarden shows us how the limiting beliefs of researchers has resulted in a view of the animal world that is based on human social systems and how in this way the lessons animals can teach us are lost.
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