If you’re a researcher or provide services to a target population, how do you  work with identity vs reality vs definitions?

How does your datasets deal with:

• White people who do not identify as white
• Non-transsexuals who identify as being transsexual
• Transgender people who do not identify as being transgender
• Black people who do not identify as being black

In other words, how do you work with self-identity?

For instance, Hispanic people are counted as being white and not Native American even though their physical morphology comes directly from their Native ancestry. I – a white person who does not appear to be anything other than white – am generally counted as being Native American because my grandmother was “full-blood” and my grandfather was “half”.

When tracking the HIV epidemic, I’ve seen folks put a white person under a HIV grant for African Americans because their great-great grandmother was black even though they’re as white as I am. At the same time, I’ve heard of providers excluding white African-Americans (white people from Africa) from services funded to serve African-Americans.

If you are funded to research transsexuals, do you include the data from someone who identifies as being transsexual but lives part-time, doesn’t want to take hormones and who is disgusted at the idea of having genital surgery? If you’re funded to provide transgender services – say free medical care – do you provide services to a transgender person who does not identity as being transgender?

I’ve seen some providers claim that they go with whatever definition the person chooses. However, I’ve seen that value system chunked out the window when someone like a chronic injection drug user (IDU) with Hep C needs help from a program funded to help addicts with Hep C even though the person does not self-identify as being an addict. Likewise, some people refuse to self-identify as being an HIV-positive person even though they’re HIV positive. Here’s a video of POZ people rejecting that self-identity for religious reasons.

Several months ago, I began exploring identity issues within the trans population. Some non-cisgender people claim to be cisgender; some non-transsexuals identify as being transsexual; some non-intersex people identify as being intersex; some transgender people do not identify as being transgender and some reject any and all self-identifiers (which is a self-identity in and of itself) and ALL of the claim grave personal insult and even injury if their self-identification is challenged due to actual definitions.

I realize that some think that the self-identity vs reality vs definitions issue only affects a some within the trans community, but it’s a common issue in all sorts of fields that work with communities of people.

There are HIV, Hep C, African-American, Native-American, transgender, gay, addiction etc. communities. That’s a fact. If an addict refuses to self-identify as being an addict, are they still and addict? If a white person born in Africa self-identifies as being an African-American, are they? If a non-cisgender person refuses to self-identify as non-cis, does it make it so? If an HIV+ person self-identifies as being HIV- for reasons of faith, does it make it so? If someone who doesn’t live full-time, take HRT or want genital surgery self-identifies as being transsexual, are they?

What are your thoughts?

While Perry and his 3 ring circus of anti-queer hate is gearing up to congratulate each other for passing the buck to Yahweh Elohim in what he’s calling “The Response”, the GLBT community in Houston came together to remember those we have lost to hate and to dedicate a small garden as a lasting place of reflection. This effort was sparked to life as a reaction to a recent murder that took place in Houston. A young gay man named Aaron Scheerhoorn had been stabbed as was running from his attacker. Upon seeing a nightclub, he ran to the club’s entrance seeking help. The doorman turned him away… whereupon Aaron’s attacker pushed him down and in front of dozens of onlookers, commenced to stabbing Aaron over and over again… the onlookers did absolutely nothing to stop the attack and allowed the murderer to escape without hindrance.  

This place of remembrance is significant to me because 1/3 of those remembered that night were transgender. I’ve known more than one trans person who fell victim to hated. It helps me knowing that others will at least remember their names. I hope is place of remembrance might inspire others to consider the price the innocent pays for our culture’s need to cling to hate.

I love looking observing the language we use to describe ourselves and I love our history. However, I tend to feel like I’m listening to a young earth creationist when people on the extremist end of the TS-not-TG group because both would rather live in a fantasy world than to deal with reality.

Recently, a TS-not-TG extremist did what creationists do: stick their fingers in their ears a shout “LALALALALALA” as loudly as they can in order to preserve their beliefs about the world. In her response to my recent post on the historical record of the term “transgender” at the Bilerico Project,  this creationist TS-not-TG extremist said:

The claims in the article are questionable.  I honestly find it a bit hard to believe that the references are credible.  It seems a bit suspicious that, just when the concept of "transgender" is on the ropes, there is this "sudden" and "convenient" discovery of the term being used to refer to transsexuals dating back to 1970.  It also seems just a wee bit fishy that images of the articles are provided, not just quotes.  That, of course, reduces the likelihood that someone would bother to actually check out the citations, which are almost all from obscure sources.  I am not saying that they are fake, but it certainly seems possible, perhaps even likely.

Apparently I’ve possibly created fake documents and the reason they’re likely faked is because I provided the actual article instead of simply quoting the article.

While I find the evolution of the terms we use to talk about our experience fascinating, this type of dogma is tiresome, obtuse and counterproductive. People like this make those in the moderate TS-not-TG group look like nuts.

It’s one thing to say, “Hey, I don’t like being referred to as transgender because transsexual is a more exact description of my experience. I don’t care what you call yourself, but please respect my self-identification.” – which is the reasonable stance of moderated TS-not-TG people. But it’s another to attack objective facts when presented with tangible evidence though baseless innuendo and ad hom attacks.

She goes on to write:

It appears that transsexual activists are getting desperate.  The umbrella is falling apart, and it is increasingly obvious that transsexuals do not belong in the same group as a bunch of men in dresses.  But that does not mean they will give up…

If she didn’t like the article on the historical record of the term “transgender”, I’m guessing that her head will explode with she reads my next Bilerico article on the historical record of the TG community.

First, WATCH THIS VIDEO:

So, if you like metal you may have heard of Life of Agony. They are one of those mature bands that tend to be spot on with their delivery; controlled… focused. When they play with tempo, sounds, and the baseline, they generally get it right. 

Well, as you might have guessed by watching the above video, their singer is trans and she is supposedly transitioning after their tour.

Caputo’s coming out tweet

I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a piece of media art that captures the essence of what it’s like to be trans more than this. Caputo hit it out of the park with this video.

Transgender Retablo Ex Voto

Retablos are small oil paintings on tin, wood or copper that venerate Catholic images of faith. The below retablo is an excellent example of an ex-voto, which is a votive offering of devotion, or in this case, gratitude for divine intervention.

This retablo depicts a hate-crime being interrupted by a man sent by divine intervention. The man holding the gun below the divine presence is saving the transgender person from men who are attempting to brutalize her.

University of Houston’s Professor of Linguistics, Malcolm Williams interpreted the retablo’s narritive as follows: “On my way back from a party I ran into a couple of bastards who wanted to hit me for being gay. I raised a prayer to the Virgin of San Juan not to let them do anything to me and a gentleman came out to defend me. He was Ricardo “La Carisma”. Barrio of Minas De Cristo, Mexico. May 17, 2000.”

The crossdressing Robin Hoods of real history:1839-43  #transgender #history #queer

Rebecca was a small army of gender transgressing folk heroes that numbered in the thousands. Rebecca fought for justice against an oppressive legal system that crippled the ability of common people to live fruitful lives.

A Note From Rebecca:

June 1843

Reverend Sir,

I, with one of my daughters, have recently been on a journey to Aberayron, and amongst other things have heard many things respecting you, namely, that you have built a schoolroom in the upper part of the parish, and that you have been very dishonest in the erection of it, and that you promised a free school for the people, but that you have converted it into a church, and that you get £80 by the year for serving it. Now, if this is true, you may give the money back, every halfpenny of it, otherwise if you do not, I with 500 or 600 of my daughters will come and visit you, and destroy your property five times to the value of it, and make you a subject of scorn and reproach through-out the whole neighborhood. You know that I care nothing about the gates, and you shall be like them exactly, because I am averse to every tyranny and oppression.

Rebecca

The Rebecca riots took place in the rural parts of west Wales, including Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire, and Carmarthenshire, in 1839-43. They were a series of protests made by tenant farmers against the payment of tolls (fees) charged to use the roads. Turnpike Trusts, or groups of businessmen, owned most of the main roads. These men fixed the charges and decided how many tollgates (turnpikes) could be built.

During the riots, men disguised as women attacked the tollgates. They called themselves ‘Rebecca and her daughters’. This is most likely to be after a passage in the Bible where Rebecca talks of the need to ‘possess the gates of those who hate them’ (Genesis XXIV, verse 60). People at that time knew the Bible well.
Tolls were a big expense for small farmers, who used the roads to take their crops and animals to market, and also to collect lime (a chalky mineral). Lime was used to improve the quality of the soil so farmers could grow better crops. It could cost as much as five shillings (25p) in tolls to move a cart of lime eight miles inland. The people of west Wales did not want to pay to use their roads.

The main trigger for the Rebecca riots came from farmers having to pay high tolls to use the roads, but there were other reasons for their discontent. Wales had seen a population increase since the start of the 19th century. This increased competition for land and jobs and added to unemployment and poverty.
Most of the farmers in these areas were small holders who grew enough to support their families. They rented their land from wealthy landlords. The landlords wanted to make more money and started to reduce the number of smallholdings available to rent. They created larger farms that could only be rented at a much higher price.
The income of tenant farmers was further reduced because they had to pay tithes. Tithes were payments made for the support of the parish church. These payments were made in kind, for example crops or wool. Tithes were paid to the Anglican Church in almost all Welsh parishes once a year. In 1836, an act was passed replacing payment in kind by a money payment that was fixed by the vicar or sometimes by the local landowner. As 80% of the population of west Wales was Non-Conformist, they resented having to pay tithes to a church that was not their own.
Another cause for discontent was the new Poor Law set up in England and Wales in 1834. The rioters attacked workhouses (poorhouses) as well as tollgates. The law meant that poor relief (money) was no longer paid to the able-bodied poor. Instead, they were forced to live in a workhouse where conditions were deliberately made harsher than the worst conditions outside (the government believed that the cause of poverty was laziness or a bad character).

Poor harvests in 1837 and 1838 increased shortages and poverty. There was a good harvest in 1842, but the benefits of this were lost because that was a year of economic depression, so industrial workers could not afford to buy agricultural goods.

For more information on the Rebeccan Riots:

• http://www.archive.org/stream/rebeccaherdaught00evanuoft#page/n7/mode/2up
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Riots
• http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Rebecca_Riots
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Rebecca_riots.aspx
• http://history.powys.org.uk/history/rhaeadr/rebecca.html

By Cristan Williams

As some of you know, Brenda Thomas and I began working with Covenant House to get them to house trans youth back in 2000. Sadly, Brenda passed on in 2006 without seeing her dream of having a safe place for homeless trans youth to get help come to fruition. However, neither I nor the community gave up. We continued to fight for years and as we fought I continued to see young lives destroyed as Covenant House would toss out one trans person after another after another after another. However, things have changed!

Today was the most recent meeting between Covenant House and Transgender Community representatives. We met to evaluate the progress Covenant House has made over the past 5 months and I am impressed!

L – R: Josephine Tittsworth (TG Community) Andrea Moore (CH Board), Mary Peppeard (CH Staff), Jolanda Jones (City of Houston Council Member), Chris Kerr (MCC), Jack Valinski (Jones Staff). I took the photo.

Here are just a few changes that have been made:

• Trans youth are housed according to their gender identity
• A trans youth is referred to by their preferred name using preferred pronouns
• Anti-crossdressing policy has been replaced with GLBT supportive policy
• All staff have received policy trainings
• Covenant House now has an official Safe Zone and staff wear pins identifying themselves as GLBT allies
• A clear grievance procedure is in place and the outcomes of these grievances are reviewed by us (above pic)
• GLBT kids are allowed to attend HATCH
• Staff have undergone GLBT cultural competency training
• GLBT supportive signage is now posted throughout the Covenant House campus
• ALL youth are informed that this is a safe place for GLBT youth and that GLBT harassment is not tolerated
• There’s now ongoing educational programs for all shelter residents with an emphasis on GLBT bullying issues

Here’s an excerpt of the new Nondiscrimination Policy:

Covenant House Texas values the complexity and diversity of the world in which we live and seeks to be a community that recognizes the dignity and inherent worth of every person. Covenant House Texas is committed to the principles of fairness and respect for all and believes that a policy embodying these principles fosters a community that favors the free and open exchange of ideas and provides its residents and staff with the best environment for study, work and fellowship. Accordingly, no employee, volunteer or individual sheltered at Covenant House Texas shall willfully harass, discriminate against, or interfere with the activities or legitimate rights of any person in a way that deprives that person of due consideration as an individual. In compliance with Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal, state and local equal opportunity laws, and in accordance with our values, Covenant House Texas will not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, disability, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or gender expression in any phase of its admissions, programs or activities.

And do you know what’s best about all of this? This is about to become national policy for all Covenant Houses throughout America. Yes, that’s right…

After 11 years of fighting, the Houston transgender community has not only won equality for Houston GLBT youth, we’ve won equality for GLBT homeless youth seeking help at Covenant House locations throughout our nation.

The national Covenant House leadership will attend our next meeting scheduled for November. OutSmart Magazine published the following story about this victory this month:

For the many transgender youth who become runaways, the streets of Montrose may seem to offer a place of freedom and refuge. But the dark side of freedom is usually a harsh life of poverty and homelessness. While homeless shelters such as Covenant House Texas (CTH), on Lovett Blvd. near Westheimer, offer hope to straight runaways, transgender youth have often faced bigotry and harassment at the hands of insensitive staff members, and some end up returning to the streets.

 

Thanks to a series of recent meetings between the leadership at Covenant House and LGBT advocates, youth from across the LGBT spectrum now have a safe place to go. The result of those meetings is a new Covenant House policy requiring sensitivity training for its staff, as well as recognizing the preferred gender expression of any clients who request it.

 

“Our goal is for all members of the CTH community—staff, volunteers, and residents—to treat one another with mutual respect, free of any form of harassment,” said Andrea Moore, a member of the Covenant House board of directors and chair of their human resources committee. “I don’t know who can take issue with that.”

 

For some advocates, trying to get Covenant House to change its policy of identifying its transgender clients according to the gender shown on birth certificates, and to stop ignoring complaints of bullying and discrimination, seemed like a Sisyphean feat. Previous reform efforts inevitably ended with the center reneging on promises to change its policies.

 

“Throughout the years, I’ve watched one young life after another destroyed because Covenant House refused to work with the homeless transgender youth population,” said transgender advocate Cristan Williams in an email to supporters.

 

Williams and several community members have lobbied for change for more than ten years, and she believes serious change did not occur until Houston city councilmember Jolanda Jones became involved in the issue.

 

Covenant House’s reticence to embrace change may be partly because of its religious affiliation. It was founded in New York in the late 1960s by a Franciscan priest as a faith-based program for runaways and the city’s poor; it eventually became a nonprofit organization with many centers throughout the country.

 

Since the leaders who followed its founder were Catholic nuns, its service has always included a religious component. With little official acceptance of gay people coming from the Catholic Church, Covenant House has not been encouraged to focus on LGBT-specific programs and training.

 

Houston activist Jack Valenski said the specific issues facing gay and transgender runaways who entered the program had never been addressed before the recent meetings.

 

“This [situation] had been a thorn in the side of the community for many, many years,” he said. “[Covenant House] came into the community where there’s a big gay presence and they’ve been here for many years, but they did not offer anything to the [LGBT] community. That has changed a bit over the years, but still the holdover was their treatment of transgender kids.”

Since the series of meetings organized over the years by LGBT advocates and their supporters didn’t appear to resolve the issue, the row drew the attention of councilmember Jolanda Jones because Covenant House receives some funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

 

“One of the hooks on this thing was that [Covenant House claimed] their money came from private donations so they can do what they want, but this is not true,” said Valenski, who works for Jones. “Some of their money has been coming from HUD.”

 

“Organizations that accept HUD money must agree to avoid discriminating against a variety of groups that includes transgender people, and Jones learned that the nonprofit was violating federal law by being insensitive to the needs of its transgender clients.”

 

Jones, who chairs the city’s housing committee, attended several meetings, including the pivotal December and February meetings.

 

Ronda Robinson, the executive director of Covenant House, initially met with a group including Chris Kerr from the Montrose Counseling Center and Josephine Tittsworth, a transgender advocate. Robinson then sent board member Andrea Moore to the final meetings as the Covenant House representative.

 

“The December meeting was quite intense, to say the least,” Williams said. “I felt that [Moore] was somewhat taken aback with the level of frustration we expressed. While she initially toed the Covenant House line about there not being a problem at Covenant House, and that no policy changes were necessary, she began to change her tune around the second hour of the meeting.”

 

Moore said in an email that she had researched the issues faced by LGBT people in shelters before meeting with the group.

 

“While I didn’t feel that CHT should have a GLBT policy per se, the discussions clarified in my mind that CHT should enact a harassment and nondiscrimination policy with a specific code of conduct and a means of enforcing it,” she said. “My impression hasn’t changed. I just recognized that there was more that CHT could do to make GLBT clients feel safe. And, there was also more it could do to teach tolerance and mutual respect.”

 

At the February meeting, Moore reported that the Covenant House board of directors approved the inclusion of LGBT-specific protections its policy, and provided documentation affirming the change. The policy includes two key phrases: “Covenant House Texas values the complexity and diversity of the world in which we live and seeks to be a community that recognizes the dignity and inherent worth of every person. Covenant House Texas will not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, disability, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or gender expression in any phase of its admissions, programs or activities.”

 

“I am incredibly happy to be at the end of a decade-long battle with Covenant House,” Williams said. “It still feels wonderfully strange to think that homeless trans youth have a place to be. I can’t express how sweet this victory is for me, or how meaningful it is to our homeless youth.”

 

A followup meeting is scheduled for June 1, in which the policy and its changes will be reviewed and discussed with the group. The Transgender Center and MCC will receive feedback from LGBT youth, and will help them file complaints if necessary.

 

Williams said the changes have opened the doors to a better relationship between Covenant House and the LGBT community.

 

“While it took more than a decade, Covenant House should be congratulated for doing the right thing,” Williams said, adding that she will be reworking her Covenant House watchdog website, covhou.com, to be a resource for LGBT youth at the center.

 

“As Covenant House continues forward as a safe place for our homeless youth to seek shelter,” Williams added, “I intend on becoming a huge Covenant House supporter.”

 

- OutSmart Magazine

For a detailed history of the struggle, click here.

Dear Readers –

As you know, the transsexual community is under constant attack from the Borg collective known as the “transgender community”. I have now uncovered undeniable proof that those damn nonsensical transgender people have been working to enslave the transsexual community since at least 1986 when this group of gender terrorists declared their treasonous intentions. Behold the evil that is the transgender Borg collective:

It’s chilling! This decoration of war was issued to the transsexual community in issue number 49 of something called the “TV-TS Tapestry.” You know the magazine seeks to subvert the transsexual identity because it lists Transvestites first in their name before Transsexuals. Obviously this reflects the desire of transvestites to obfuscate what it means to be transsexual! 

Clearly these goals, should they be achieved in any form, would destroy the lives of each and ever transsexual (and by “transsexual” I of course mean TRUE post-op transsexuals). Thank goodness that the “transgender community” has been completely ineffective in obtaining any of their selfish goals!

(Do I really need to explain that my commentary on this mid-1980s peek into the goals, values and vision of the transgender community is satire?)

Every so often I have encounters with the TS-not-TG group. I cherish these encounters because they often inspire me to do research. Sometimes transsexuals who argue for the destruction of the transgender community make statements that cause me to question my assumptions – which is a good thing!

I will take your community apart bit by bit until the day that it ceases to represent transsexuals. Let my people go and leave my people the fuck alone!

I enjoy having my perspective influenced by evidence and when people in the TS-not-TG camp make certain claims about the word “transgender” (eg, crossdressers forced it on transsexuals and therefore transsexuals are victims of a “Borg collective assimilation process”) I am inspired to look at what the evidence has to say.

Those who embrace the “Transgender as Umbrella” are more like the Borg of Star Trek: the Next Generation. Dealing with the Transgender Borg is like that.  Push the right buttons and their program spits out the exact same response. Like the Borg, “Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.”

Recently, I uncovered never-before documented (in the discussions about the term “transgender”) reports that cast some serious doubts about certain claims made by some TS-not-TG people. Prior to posting about the evolution of the word “transgender” in the 1970s and 1980s, many in the TS-not-TG group repeated variations of the following:

Now, Virginia Prince is to the Transgender Borg Collective what L. Ron Hubbard is to Scientology.   That is to say the basis for much of the ideology although people have added to the dogma since.

and…

Christine Jorgensen was not transgender. Just as I am NOT transgender. She was like I am transsexual. Transgender is a social construct. A political identity that grew out of the heterosexual transvestite movement founded by people like Virginia Prince.

In other words, Prince coined the term, so the current term still implies Prince’s attitudes.

After discovering that people like Christine Jorgensen did indeed self-identify as transgender, one TS-not-TG person said:

The real issue is the transgender movement that came about in the early 90′s, purporting to represent everybody while steadily representing far less than that over time. This movement is what is poisonous, not the terminology.

While some of you might feel as if this seems like moving the goal post, that’s not the point; rather, the above statement by a TS-not-TG person is intriguing. The fact that the community now has access to new historical documentation is a direct result of this TS-non-TG person sharing their point of view with me… and I appreciate it. Had they not spoken up, I probably wouldn’t have had my interest directed toward this research.

The “transgender movement” as this commenter calls it is what I mean when I talk about a “transgender community”. In other words, we are both talking about individuals who support and work towards the same goals and can therefore be grouped together . I define this “movement” as a community, using the dictionary definition of community:

The above quote makes a number of assertions:

• There is a transgender community that “came about” in the early 1990s
• By stating that it “came about”, the author connotes that the post-1990s transgender community is different than the pre-1990s transgender community – so much so as to be singled out due to their difference.
• One difference between the post-1990s TG community and the pre-1990s TG community is that they purported “to represent everybody”.
• Another difference between the post-1990s TG community and the pre-1990s TG community is that they “steadily represent[ed] far less than that over time”.
• And yet another difference between the post-1990s TG community and the pre-1990s TG community is that the post-1990s TG community is “poisonous”.

Unfortunately, the author of this statement generally does not cite evidence to support their sentiments. This, of course, inspired me to look into what the TG community looked like prior to 1990 in order to see what, if anything, was substantially different. The result was that I’ve uncovered yet more never-before published evidence to add to the marketplace of ideas.

One charge I consistently hear from the TS-not-TG group is that grouping all individuals of non-cisgender background, experience or expression is something that is new. As another TS-not-TG put it:

Trying to retroactively apply the label to people who lived their lives prior to the creation of the social construct "transgender" violates their lives.

So, prior to the 1990s, did the TS and non-TS groups work together to form a larger group in order to pursue “common social, economic, and political interests” (see definition of “community”)? I can unequivocally say YES. In fact, that drive to pull different types of trans people together in order to, as a community of diverse people,  improve our quality of life for everyone seems to be an idea that predates 1990 by a number of decades.

Consider this plea from a national transsexual organization to the transvestite and drag community in 1975:

… The courts and legislative people refuse to rule in favor of transsexual persons even when they are legally right. These so-called professional people act solely on the basis of their own emotions and repulsions rather than medical or legal reasons. We consider their actions to be arbitrary, capricious and prejudicial be denying people their God-given right to live in happiness and peace as a human being.

Chrysalis, an organization of transsexual persons, has decided to fight. In order to di this we need your help and support. You many not consider this your fight, However, whenever any person of any sexual minority is denied their right, we all begin to lose those things we have. It wasn’t long that none of us could be proud and stand up for what we are.

Its about time the gays, TVs and TSs break down the barriers between us and work together. United we stand; derived we stand still wishing something would happen.

- Drag Magazine, 1975

That 36 year old statement by a transsexual sounds an awful lot like the tune the current transgender community sings.

In the mid 1970s, another inclusive organization formed. This one was called the United Transvestite and Transsexual Society (UTTS).

Years before that in 1970, the Transvestite/Transsexual Action Organization formed.

In 1971, the “Androgynous Organization” set up a “transsexual help center” that was sponsored by the Gay Liberation Front.

In the mid-1970s, a Los Angeles political group called the Transsexual/Trans-Gender Rap Group” was formed.

Another 1970s group called themselves simply “Transsexuals and Transvestites”.

Lets not forget about the long, yet explicitly inclusively named “Transvestite, Transsexual, Female Impersonator and Gender Identity Program of Gay Community Services” in California.

In fact in 1974, UTTS said, “None of us want to split the transvestite and transsexuals from within…” They went on to state that they believe in “change through the channels and informing the public…”

Again, all of these sentiments sound rather familiar in the modern post-1990s transgender community.

Now, lets consider how these sentiments played out in real life back in the 1970s:

Did you catch that inclusivity? If you didn’t let me quote the words written by a transsexual woman: “By the time you read this letter, cross-dressing should be legal in the City of Detroit. I, along with another transsexual and a transvestite, decided to do something about the law in Detroit.”

I’ve heard some TS-not-TG people rail against Leslie Feinberg for trying to invent non-gender specific pronouns. Consider this Chicago Tribune article from the 1970s:

As one researcher notes, the attempts to create English language gender-neutral pronouns aren’t anything new:

Besides the centuries-old instinctive use of "their", people have been formally concerned about the gendered pronoun problem since at least 1795, and have been coining new pronouns for about the last century and a half. The first, sometime around 1850, were "ne, nis, nim", and "hiser". In 1868, "en" appeared, followed by a rush in 1884: "thon, thons", "hi, hes, hem", "le, lis, lim", "unus", "talis", "hiser, himer", "hyser, hymer", and "ip, ips". These things come in bursts, with a flurry of interest in certain circles while many try their hand at neologism, then an eventual dying out, only to be revived by another person in the future. (See the charts below.) Many more coinings followed between 1888 and 1891, then interest died for two decades. Interest picked up again during the thirties and forties, then died once more. Interest exploded in the seventies with the rise of a new international feminist consciousness, but it seems to have mostly died out again around in the 80′s backlash. (Note that the data in the graphs is incomplete, and comes from a book that was published in 1986.) Nevertheless, interest persisted at a lower level, and has flowered into international usage in some pockets of the net. The pronouns "sie, hir, hirs, hirself" seem to have been the most widely adopted, found mainly in Usenet groups involving romantic relationships, and the alternative forms "zie, zir, zirs, zirself" also have a following. The set "ey or e, em, eir, eirs, eirself or emself" has found more limited use.

Others have railed against the current transgender community for inventing the idea of gender-identity. But was it really the current transgender community that tried to popularize this idea?

Is this out of some 1994 transgender manifesto? Nope. It comes from a 1977 booklet titled “Information for the family of the transsexual and of children with gender identity disturbances”.

As is the case in the post-1990s transgender community, was there a recognition that there were distinctively different types of people of a non-cis history, experience or expression who still, nonetheless shared commonality in the pre-1990s transgender community? Lets see what they thought in 1971:

The above is an piece from a professional female impersonator writing for a magazine called Female Mimics. She goes on to explain that while there are many different types of trans people, we do share some common problems and for that reason, she is making herself available to help where and how she could.

So, lets move forward in time to see if this idea of grouping all non-cis people continued:

Well, it looks like the so-called “Borg Collective” was alive and well in 1979. So, did this approach kill the ability for transsexuals to gain their civil rights? Nope. Within just a few years of writing this letter, Houston’s crossdressing ordinance was revoked and all trans people could walk outside without being arrested.

So, this brings me to…

I will concede a point to the individual I initially quoted. From the evidence I see, it does indeed seem that the post-1990 transgender community is different than the pre-1990 community. The evidence seems to indicate a fairly enormous step forward in terms of rights, employment protections and acceptance by the general population since 1990. And perhaps most germane to the point of this post, this post-1990 step forward seems to have been built upon attitudes towards trans community-building that were 20 years old by the time 1990 rolled around.

At this point, I think I’m going to see what sort of actual evidence the TS-not-TG folks are able to bring to the marketplace of ideas.

So, before you begin slamming my comment section with how wrong I am, let me repost a recent response I made in another post:

This is a good example of the type of behavior I encounter with the TS-not-TG group. For many of them, if they’re not pressing their point peppered with emotionally appealing buzz-words like "assimilation" and "Borg Consciousness" to bowl you over with BS, they tend to resort to logical fallacies (usually strawman, moving the goal post and/or a non sequitur) and if that doesn’t work, they attack using ad homs.

Seriously folks, if all you have are baseless conjectures (If ABC was the way I want it to be, then XYZ would be the result. Why? Cuz I say so!) then you have no argument. Conjecture, fallacies, various appeals to emotion, buzz-words and personal attacks ARE NOT arguments; they are what people use when they have no argument.

I’d love to see some evidence-based claims from the TS-not-TG side of the road. Start with reporting on an apples-to-apples example of how transsexuals alone achieved what the Houston transgender community (TS people working with non-TS people as equals) has achieved – in one of the most inhospitable parts of the country, I might add.

Offer some historical documentation proving that TS and non-TS people never wanted to form a more inclusive community that worked together for a common cause. When you make an assertion about something, back it up with evidence. If the TS-not-TG group can not do that, I can not take their arguments seriously.

So, I just wanted to share an 1985 article in which out transsexual woman, Christine Jorgensen states the following:

I am a transgender because gender refers to who you are as a human.

The Leader-Post Regina reprint of mass-media article, Wed., Dec. 18, 1985

Oops! I guess we can’t go blaming non-transsexuals for using the word “transgender” to describe transsexual people anymore. Looks like the most popular transsexual in the world may have been responsible for that one…

Also, consider how the word was used in the 1970s…

This was the context used in 1974 by Dr. Novello in the book, A Practical Handbook of Psychiatry.  

When debating about who began to use the term and what the term meant in society, you might want to consider the cultural context of the 1970s and 1980s:

Chicago Tribune, Aug. 23, 1975

The Sun, Apr. 26, 1975

In the 1980s world of gender transgressing fashion:

Ellensburg Daily Record – Sep 25, 1984

And in the 1980s world of transsexualism:

Anchorage Daily News reprint of LA Times, Aug. 1, 1988

So, can we please stop with the whole “crossdressers pushed that identity on us” stuff? The word was obviously used by clinicians in the 1970s, in the mass-media by transsexuals in the early 80s and then used to describe transsexuals by media in the late 1980s. Our culture was obviously using the term to talk about atypical expressions of gender, concepts of having gender neutrality, cross-gender expression and transsexuality since the 1970s.

All of the concepts covered in the above media pieces exist in the modern usage of the word transgender, so please lets stop pretending and/or claiming that our modern use has nothing to do with its use over the majority of the last 40 years. Our current use of the word evolved in the context of a culture that was using the word “transgender” in a way more closely aligned to the word’s current context than what Virginia Prince had ever intended.  Virginia Prince may have coined the term, but our American culture defined it.