Topic: Generic

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.