Topic: Generic

Appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002

by Holly Boswell
? 1991 by Holly Boswell

From time to time we will reproduce in The Journal articles which have proved to be particularly popular or influential?or, conversely, articles which have been largely overlooked. We start with articles by your editor and Holly Boswell.
The influential ?The Transgender Alternative? appeared simultaneously in Tapestry (as it was then called) and Chrysalis Quarterly, a magazine I edited. In it, Holly planted the seeds of the transgender revolution that today bears such sweet fruit. The version we reprint is from Chrysalis, V. 1, No. 2., Winter 1991-1992.
The very next issue of Chrysalis contained my essay on the university-affiliated gender programs of the 1960s and 1970s. We are reprinting it because many transgender scholars seem unaware of it, both because they weren?t around when it was written and because there is no easy way to acquire a copy.


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Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002.

Several new detection devices were deployed in Orlando International Airport yesterday (March 15, 2002). These prototype machines will be tested here to determine whether similar machines should be deployed nationwide. These machines may potentially expose cross-dressing or cross-living individuals to public challenge, humiliation, detainment, not to mention flight delays!

Transpeople should be aware of these machines, and may want to oppose their deployment on the grounds that they pose a violation of privacy. Information on how to register opposition is given below.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002.

by Paisley Currah

In December the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) of the City University of New York convened a roundtable on transgender law and policy, bringing together activists, attorneys, and academics at the forefront of transgender rights advocacy, and a handful of lesbian and gay rights attorneys recently involved in transgender law.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002.

by Janice Josephine Carney
? 2001 by Janice Josephine Carney. All Rights Reserved.


For V-day, and all the transgendered who have been violently abused.
For my own childhood that never was, due to incest and painful penetration.
If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?
My vagina would wear a sun hat. Yes, a sun hat, I want my vagina to be out in the sun, basking in all its glory.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002.

by Lisa M. Hartley
? 2001 by Lisa M. Hartley. All Rights Reserved.

Author?s Note: I refers to a voice from the transgender community and you refers to culture, which includes all of us.

I was betrayed?betrayed by you and betrayed unto myself. For half a century I struggled without understanding, without hope, without help. Now I know. Now I?m free. I share my knowledge with you, but still you betray me. You push me into the margins of society. You don?t see me when I?m near. To you, I am invisible. To you, I?m less than I was before. Somehow my victory in becoming the real me has offended you. You think I?m crazy. You think I?m gay. You think all kinds of things, almost all of which is steeped in a kind of mythology, reflective of your fear. You deny me a place. You deny me meaningful work. You take away my standing and greet me with a jaundiced eye.
Strangely, I still love you. I still want to share my story with you. I still need you. I don?t want to be alone any more. So please listen to me. Listen with an open mind and an open heart. This is what happened.

True-Life Experiences at the Gender Clinics

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002.

Sharon

Sharon, who was interviewed in the last issue of Chrysalis Quarterly, is a 41-year-old post-operative male-to- female transsexual person. She has lived full-time as a woman for nearly two years. She works in a professional capacity, and says she has never been happier. This is what she tells us about her experience with a gender clinic in a large mid-southern city in the late 1970s.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #097, Spring 2002.

by Carl Tripp

This is the text of a speech given at Southern Comfort Convention 2001?Ed.
In the summer of 1993, I was on a quest for balance. I had just finished reading Leslie Feinberg?s Stone Butch Blues, a novel about a male-identified transgender person in the 50s and 60s. Although it was a novel, Stone Butch Blues was based on Leslie?s life. I respected and admired Leslie?s struggle and eventual acceptance of herself as an individual who embodied both genders. From my perspective, Leslie was someone who could live at peace right in the middle of the gender continuum. I elevated this unique individual to hero status. I thought perhaps I could do the same thing, integrating maleness into my identity while remaining female. It?s interesting to note that although I aspired to this middle ground, as I look back I was slowly but surely creeping closer to the male end of the gender continuum, leaving my femaleness behind. In the name of balance, I minimized my femaleness as much as possible. My struggle with personal integration was already beginning.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #096, Winter 2001.