Topic: Dallas Denny

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.

But It All Seems So Normal!

Here?s a brief overview of my life:

- For the past 13 years I?ve worked for a county agency as a behavior specialist. My job responsibilities include psychological and behavioral assessments, client rights investigations, and the development and monitoring of behavioral intervention plans. I work 40 hours a week and try to cram my other activities and nightly sleep into the remaining hours.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.

In 1979, Boston?s Beacon Press published Janice J. Raymond?s pseudoscientific polemic The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. Based on her Ph.D. thesis at Boston College, Raymond argued that male-to-female transsexuals (or, in her terminology, ?male-to-constructed females?), are tools of a patriarchal medical system, designed to make women obsolete.

Raymond?s book appeared in the same year as a methodologically flawed and almost certainly fraudulent study by Jon Meyer and Donna Reter of Johns Hopkins University, published in the professional journal Archives of General Psychiatry. Together, these two publications?one a 200-page political manifesto masquerading as science, and one a six-page politically-motivated article which also masqueraded as science, dealt American transsexuals a blow from which they are only now recovering.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #105, Spring 2004.

by Dallas Denny

Pronoun Trouble

Several years ago, I went with a friend to a rainy Pride celebration in Atlanta?s Piedmont Park. Afterwards, muddy and damp, our hair frizzed, we decided to get something to eat. My friend pulled her SUV into the parking lot of a high-dollar Mexican restaurant, where we were greeted by a parking valet. He said to my friend, a transsexual woman, ?Good afternoon, sir.? A moment later, having taken a better look, he started over. ?Good afternoon, ma?am.? Inside the restaurant, my friend sat steaming about the perceived insult. I said to her, more or less, ?He just did what all human beings do?when he saw you, he made an immediate gender attribution. Then, when he looked more closely, he changed the pronoun. Maybe he thought his initial impression had been mistaken. Maybe he clocked you and was courteous enough to call you ma?am. In either case, how did he give offense?? She wasn?t able to tell me.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #103, Fall 2003.

When I was (to be historically accurate) a young man, older and supposedly wiser heads told me my political views would change with age. I told them they wouldn?t.

Now that I?m of an age at which it?s customary to look forward to retirement, I find my views remain unchanged. That magical moment at which I was supposed to become a Republican has come and gone. That?s not to say I?m a Democrat, or that this little chat we?re having, although of a political nature, will be about politics in the partisan sense of the word. I?m here to talk about issues which have concerned me all my life, namely the rights to free speech and assembly, and a right that isn?t in the Bill of Rights but should be and doubtless would have been if the Founding Fathers had foreseen the Information Age?the right to privacy.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #102, Summer 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.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #101, Spring 2003.

I first saw our cover girl, Trankila, at Southern Comfort 2001. She was, shall we say, different. It wasn?t the day-glo blue and orange wigs she favored that made her distinct in the midst of more than 500 crossdressers and transsexuals; rather, it was the fact that although she was dressed en femme, she sported afull beard.

This community has a history of being freaked out by male crossdressers who don?t shave. One conference, in particular, was famous for its ?no facial hair? rule. Those who didn?t shave were not only not allowed toparticipate; because they didn?t exemplify the Phyllis Schaffly ideal of womanhood favored by the conference?s organizers, they were dressed down, told they were a disgrace.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #101, Spring 2003.

Introduction to the Transgender Education Section of this Special issue of Transgender Tapestry

The transgender community?s educational nonprofits have always had a difficult time finding the money necessary to do education on the scale they would like. A number of reasons have been cited for this: our community is too small to support national organizations; many of us are in the closet; many of us transition and abandon the community; many of us purge and abaondon the community; community members give disproportionately to the jazzier political groups; the internet has changed everything; and, my favorite (just kidding)?transgendered people are basically selfish and would rather buy another pair of shoes or attend another conference than donate to a nonprofit. Whatever the reasons, nonprofits like FTM International, Gender Education & Advocacy, IFGE, and Renaissance are and have been chronically underfunded, and this situation is unlikely to change.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #099, Fall 2002.

A Word from the Editor

Gender conventions?and I?ve attended more than 50?have always meant work for me. I almost always give presentations and have board meetings to attend, and in many cases I?m involved with the actual running of the event. One of my biggest frustrations over the past dozen or so years has been to fly to fabulous places like New York, Vancouver, Boston, Chicago, Aspen, and Los Angeles and not see my surroundings because I can?t manage to get away from the convention.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #098, Summer 2002

The University-Affiliated Gender Clinics, and How They Failed To Meet the Needs of Transsexual People

by Dallas Denny
? 1991 by Dallas Denny

When the Christine Jorgensen story made headlines in 1952, she and her physicians were immediately deluged by frantic requests from hundreds of men and women, pleading for a sex change (the term sex reassignment had not yet been invented). There was little Jorgensen or her doctors could do, however, for her surgery had been one of a kind. It was considered highly experimental, and its morality and legality were being hotly debated in the pages of medical journals. Her physicians were not prepared to do further surgeries (or at least not more than one or two), and no one else was in the sex-change business.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #098, Summer 2002

by Dallas Denny

Several years ago, at the Southern Comfort conference, I found myself at a reception hosted by the good folks at TG Forum, for whom I wrote a monthly column. As I noshed on veggies and crackers, I chatted with other activists about the dreaded, the ominous, the outrageous flip-flopping crossdresser.