The International Foundation for Gender Education

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.

Transgender Tapestry 098 Summer 2002 Table of Contents

by Gordene O. MacKenzie
and Nancy R. Nangeroni

(from Tapestry 098)

In the second half of the last decade, the board of directors the Boston-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) decided to look closely at the emerging arena of gender and transgenderism, in hopes of incorporating some of the perspectives emerging from that movement into their work. As a group of attorneys litigating key cases in hopes of setting far-reaching precedents in defense of LGBT persons, the GLAD board made it their mission to advocate on behalf of those who had been denied justice because of their gender.

Four years ago, they offered a job to a trans-identified attorney from Chicago who had been helping transpeople with legal concerns in her spare time. That attorney was Jennifer Levi. Since that time, Jennifer has been involved in?and won?a number of high-visibility court cases in the New England area, establishing far-reaching precedents on matters dear to the transgender heart. She was the primary drafter of Rhode Island?s transgender-inclusive non-discrimination law. She has been instrumental in winning favorable rulings for transpeople in employment, health care, lending, public accommodations, and education. Her arguments produced a legal victory in the Brockton, MA case where a biologically male transgendered student won the right to attend school wearing ?girl?s? clothing. She is working to ensure transpeople are included under federal sex discrimination law. We spoke with Jennifer about gender case law, and about her own gender identity and beliefs.

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.

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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Life in the Contra Lane

Living contrary to society?s norms, transgendered men find peace in the unique lives they have built.



by Li Anne W. Taft



This column appeared in Da Kine magazine, April 2001 and was reprinted in Transgender Tapestry #098 in Summer 2002.



When David fell in love with Leilani, he was a woman. Born female, a lifelong gender identity struggle troubled Linda and her lesbian relationships. Then, at age 32, guided by a powerful urge for resolution, Linda began taking testosterone and began to appear in public as David?oftentimes with Leilani at his side.

by Miqqi A. Gilbert

12 November, 1996



Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #098, Summer 2002



It?s the day before my first time ever going to work dressed en femme. This is a major part of my coming out process?not, as you might imagine, as a transsexual who is going full-time, but as a crossdresser who is public about his pastime. I am, just so you know, quite nervous about the whole thing. I?m also excited. It?s going to be a wild, crazy, emotionally tumultuous day that I will remember forever.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #098, Summer 2002



by Monica F. Helms



It will be a long time before these words appear in Transgender Tapestry. Today, in early March, the weather is unseasonably cold and uninviting here in Georgia?but summer will have set in by the time you peel back the cover of this magazine. Somewhere across this country, pre-op MTF transsexuals will be standing in front of mirrors, modeling new bikinis the world may never see them in. Been there, done that.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR


Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002





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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.