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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreTechnologies of Transformation (2011)
The last half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth saw advances in medical procedures that made it possible for men and women to more effectively alter their bodies toward that of the non-natal sex. While none of these technologies were developed with sex reassignment in mind, they were easily adapted and modified by medical professionals and by transsexuals themselves and have come into common use to create somatic changes.
Read MoreThe Real ID Act: A Catastrophe in the Making (2012)
I felt compelled to write this essay because of the effect of the Real ID Act upon a friend. She has had a driver’s license here in Georgia since the 1970s. When she went to the DMV last week she was turned away because she could not produce a birth certificate. Unless she can locate a copy and copies of two divorce decrees she no longer has to show changes to her name, she will most likely lose the right to drive a motor vehicle.
Read MoreCUGA Newsletter (1990-1992)
By the time I moved to Atlanta in 1989 the home computer craze was on the wane. I nonetheless looked up a Commodore users group in DeKalb, my home county: The Commodore Users Group of Atlanta. I remained a member and sometimes board member as we all slowly moved (most of us reluctantly) from our beloved C-64s to Macintoshes and PCs.
Read MoreTranssexualism: Information for the Family (1977-1993)
In the 1970s the Erickson Educational Foundation produced a series of booklets about transsexualism. Rights eventually came to my nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service, and we reprinted and distributed this and some of the other booklets.
Read MorePreening Behaviors of Flies (1984)
Casual observation of the common housefly, Musca domestica or of related species will reveal that these insects spend a good deal of their time in preening movements. Although there is some evidence that preening has functions other than cleaning, the terms preening, grooming, and cleaning have been used interchangeably in the literature, and will be so in this paper.
Read MoreIdentity Management in Transsexualism (1994)
I wrote this book to help transsexuals with the formidable challenge of changing their legal identities from one gender to the other.
Read MoreAEGIS Internet News, Nov. 1997 – Jan. 1998
In May, 1995 when I was Executive Director of the nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service, I compiled and transmitted what I believe was the first transgender-specific online news feed. It was called AEGIS Online News. The News initially went out to several hundred AEGIS members and other subscribers as a plain text file over the fledgling internet.
Read MoreAEGIS Internet News, June – October, 1997
In May, 1995 when I was Executive Director of the nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service, I compiled and transmitted what I believe was the first transgender-specific online news feed. It was called AEGIS Online News. The News initially went out to several hundred AEGIS members and other subscribers as a plain text file over the fledgling internet.
Read MoreAEGIS Internet News, May 1997
In May, 1995 when I was Executive Director of the nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service, I compiled and transmitted what I believe was the first transgender-specific online news feed. It was called AEGIS Online News. The News initially went out to several hundred AEGIS members and other subscribers as a plain text file over the fledgling internet.
Read MoreAEGIS Internet News, April 1997
In May, 1995 when I was Executive Director of the nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service, I compiled and transmitted what I believe was the first transgender-specific online news feed. It was called AEGIS Online News. The News initially went out to several hundred AEGIS members and other subscribers as a plain text file over the fledgling internet.
Read MoreAEGIS Internet News, March 1997
In May, 1995 when I was Executive Director of the nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service, I compiled and transmitted what I believe was the first transgender-specific online news feed. It was called AEGIS Online News. The News initially went out to several hundred AEGIS members and other subscribers as a plain text file over the fledgling internet.
Read MoreAEGIS Internet News, February 1997
In May, 1995 when I was Executive Director of the nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service, I compiled and transmitted what I believe was the first transgender-specific online news feed. It was called AEGIS Online News. The News initially went out to several hundred AEGIS members and other subscribers as a plain text file over the fledgling internet.
Read MoreAEGIS Internet News, December 1996
In May, 1995 when I was Executive Director of the nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service, I compiled and transmitted what I believe was the first transgender-specific online news feed. It was called AEGIS Online News. The News initially went out to several hundred AEGIS members and other subscribers as a plain text file over the fledgling internet.
Read MoreAEGIS Internet News, August 1996
In May, 1995 when I was Executive Director of the nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service, I compiled and transmitted what I believe was the first transgender-specific online news feed. It was called AEGIS Online News. The News initially went out to several hundred AEGIS members and other subscribers as a plain text file over the fledgling internet.
Read MoreAEGIS Internet News, Nov. 1995 – July 1996
In May, 1995 when I was Executive Director of the nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service, I compiled and transmitted what I believe was the first transgender-specific online news feed. It was called AEGIS Online News. The News initially went out to several hundred AEGIS members and other subscribers as a plain text file over the fledgling internet.
Read MoreAEGIS Online News, May 1995 – Feb. 1996
In May, 1995 when I was Executive Director of the nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service, I compiled and transmitted what I believe was the first transgender-specific online news feed. It was called AEGIS Online News. The News initially went out to several hundred AEGIS members and other subscribers as a plain text file over the fledgling internet.
Read MoreAEGIS Medical Advisory: Blanket Criterion for RLT Before Hormones is Unethical (1992)
AEGIS periodically released medical advisories. This one addressed the then-common practice of therapists to require an (often extensive) period of real-life experience before initiation of hormonal therapy. Our advisory board felt this constituted unnecessary risk for transsexuals and set them up for failure.
Read MoreElectrolysis in Transsexual Women: A Retrospective Look at Frequency of Treatment in Four Cases (1997)
This study is, so far as I am aware, the only empirical study of electrolysis in transsexuals.
Read MoreGender Dysphoria: A Guide to Research (1994)
I didn’t realize it as I was preparing the manuscript. It was only when I was listening to Phyllis Frye speak at her International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy in Texas that it came to me: I was the first transsexual to produce a book-length nonautobiographical contribution to the medical and psychological literature of transsexualism—the only out-of-the-closet transsexual, anyway. It astonished me.
Read MoreIntroduction to Gender Dysphoria Syndrome (Sister Mary Elizabeth, 1990)
In 1992 Sister Mary Elizabeth passed on to me the privilege and responsibility of reproducing and distributing the publications of the Erickson Educational Foundation, a clearinghouse for information on transsexual issues. That included this paper, which she distributed through her nonprofit (with Jude Patton) J2CP. I distributed it throughout the 1990s.
Read MoreAn Annotated Bibliography of Gender Dysphoria (1992)
My efforts to catalog materials which I had located in my efforts to learn about transsexualism slowly grew into a huge computer file which was published in book form in by Garland Press with the title Gender Dysphoria: A Guide to Research.
Read MoreDo Transgender Issues Affect the Gay Community? (1992)
Margaux Schaffer and I wrote this article in response to the murders in Atlanta of three crossdressed women of color in Atlanta in as many months.
Read MoreThe Strange Case of Mimicry in the New World Coral Snakes: A Review (1985)
This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature of coral snake coloration and examines the plausibility of the various proposed causal mechanisms. Natural selection operating on predators is proposed as the mechanism which is most likely to be responsible for the evolution of and maintenance of coral snake mimicry.
Read MoreChrysalis Quarterly Issues (1991-1998)
Chrysalis Quarterly was the house journal of the nonprofit AEGIS, The American Educational Gender Information Service. It averaged sixty pages, with glossy cardstock cover. The cover, and, when we could afford it, the interior pages, were printed with gray ink and a burgundy spot cover.Each issue was themed.
Read MoreFemale-to-Male Reassignment Surgery in the ’90s (1991)
In 1984, the publication of an article by T.S. Chang and W.Y. Hwang marked a major improvement in phalloplasty techniques. The radial forearm flap provided a hairless donor site, allowed sufficient material for construction of an urethra, and required but a single surgery.
Read MoreAre Transsexuals as Reliable as Other People? (1990)
Are transsexuals reliable? That is the theme of this issue of Insight. The question might as well be “Are relatives reliable?” or “Are politicians honest?” The answers, or course, are yes and no.
Read MoreWalk a Mile in My Shoes (1982)
Throughout that evening the vans and station wagons trickled back in. They discharged the ride-weary but happy individuals who were eager to try out new ideas, programs, and projects they had seen in operation.
Read MoreMy Transsexual Experience (1997)
This article was prepared for and rejected by Allure magazine; editor Linda Wolf informed me they had already “done” transsexualism.
Read MoreHow To Start and Maintain a Gender Support Organization (With Holly Boswell) (1992)
For many of us, finding a support group is the lifeline we need, for there we meet people who we scarcely dared believe existed— those who are like us.
Read MoreA Discussion of Stereotypic Behavior in Normal Infants And Developmentally Delayed Individuals (1985)
This paper defines stereotypic, or rhythmic, behavior. The stereotypies of normally developing infants are discussed and compared with the stereotypies of institutionalized individuals with developmental delays. Animal studies are cited, where relevant.
Read MoreHalfway to Where? Why Halfway Houses for Transsexual People Aren’t a Good Idea (1993)
Rather than dream of transsexual halfway houses, we should focus on helping those transsexual men and women who are already in society to stay there by serving as advocates and educators rather than as landlords.
Read MoreTheir Fifteen Minutes in the Sun (1995)
The takeover of the Transgender Health Symposium wasn’t born out of concern for transgender and transexual health issues. It happened because of the decades-old rage of Margaret O’Hartigan against the transexual program at the University of Minnesota. It happened because her colossal ego caused her to believe only she was capable of addressing transgender health issues.
Read MoreTransgendered Youth at Risk for Exploitation, HIV, Hate Crimes (2003)
Many transgendered and transsexual persons are rejected by their families or are victims of hate crimes, rape, persecution, discrimination in employment and housing, and denial of social services based either on their appearance or because others possess knowledge that they are transgendered.
Read MoreChanging Models of Transsexualism (2004)
The transgender model has opened a middle ground that was not possible under the medical model it replaced. Before about 1990, transgendered persons were expected to declare themselves to be crossdressers, who were not expected to seek sex reassignment; or transsexuals, who were expected to and who came under pressure from peers when they didn’t.
Read MoreLetter 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.
Read MoreThe Girl With No Name (1992)
… and the girl-with-no-name was dismembered as effectively as if we had cut her up and thrown her chunk by bleeding chunk from a speeding car on a moonless summer night.
Read MoreThree Levels of Transgender Health Care (1998)
Obtaining routing health care can be a problem for transexual and transgendered people, who often find that medical treatment is denied them simply because of their status.
Read MoreAccommodating Trans Students in Colleges and Universities (1998)
It’s safe to say that sooner or later almost every post-secondary school will be confronted with the issue of gender-variant students.
Read MoreOutcome of Five Cases of Transsexualism (1997)
Why have there been few studies outside of clinical settings? Is it because non-clinical populations of transsexuals are unavailable? I think not. Perhaps there are no such follow-up studies because non-clinicians have not had funding sufficient to conduct such studies. Or maybe it’s just that nobody has bothered to look.
Read MoreResults of a Questionnaire on the Standards of Care (1995)
We prepared and distributed a questionnaire which solicited the opinions of transgendered and transexual persons about the HBIGDA Standards of Care. In this paper, we present some results of that survey and discuss some of the issues involved in imposing such standards on transexual bodies.
Read MoreBad Advice (1992)
It will behoove you to spot bad advice and avoid it. You only go around once, Esmerelda, and you’ll have to live with the consequences of your actions for years to come– the ones who are giving your bad counsel won’t, and neither will they be around to hear your laments.
Read MoreCheekbones 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.
Read MoreLetter 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.
Read MoreReview of Stephanie Castle, Feelings (1991)
Once I was able to concede to myself that Ms. Castle had written the book she had written, and not the book I wished she had written, I was able to settle down and enjoy it.
Read MoreReview of Jason Cromwell, Transmen & FTMs (1999)
When anthropologists turn their attention to contemporary Western culture and, in particular, to subjects studied by Western social scientists, it would behoove social scientists to pay attention.
Read MoreWhat’s That Transsexual Doing Here, Anyhow? Part II (1994)
I may be transsexual, and I certainly won’t betray your confidence, but that doesn’t mean I’ll condone foolish and illegal behavior. If you are feeling gender dysphoric, then fine. Explore it. Do so honestly, and let it take you where it will lead you. But don’t go skulking around in the shadows, deluding yourself and those who love you and breaking the law when there is absolutely no reason for you to do so, and becoming angry when someone innocently speculates about what is becoming more and more obvious every day.
Read MoreThe Case Against Camping (2008)
Rebecca took great offense at the illustrations and turned her venom on me. She threatened to sue me. Telling her I did not select the images made no impression on her, nor did she seem to understand just what an editorial is. I eventually told her to go f**k herself. It made for a most interesting comments section.
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