The International Foundation for Gender Education

Sylvia Rivera



Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #098, Summer 2002



Obituary by Bebe Scarpinato and Rusty Moore

Photography by Mariette Pathy Allen



Sylvia Rivera, Stonewall riot veteran and life- long activist for transgendered people, died during the dawn hours of February 19, 2002 at New York?s St. Vincent?s Hospital, of complications from cancer of the liver. She was fifty years old.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002.



Shannon Minter, the Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, took time out of his busy day to interview Lisa Mottet, the Legislative Lawyer for the brand new Transgender Civil Rights Project, which she created with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Shannon and Lisa first met in early 1999 in Washington, D.C. Although Shannon didn?t know it at the time, Lisa immediately identified Shannon as someone from whom she could learn a lot. Three years later, Lisa consults regularly with Shannon about language of proposed bills and ordinances and developments in litigation. She works with him on a variety of collaborative projects relating to transgender civil rights issues.

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.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002.



by Carla Fong

? 2001 by Carla Fong. All Rights Reserved.



Ever since I was very small, I?ve been fascinated with women?s clothing. I?m a crossdresser?but you already knew that. I?ve been in the closet since my early teens, and finally, about five years ago, got the gumption to go out in public.

After conquering the heebie-jeebies and the willies, going out in public dressed as a woman was and is a lot of fun! The only problem? The more I did it, the more I wanted to do it. It was a vicious circle indeed?but oh, what fun!

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002.



by Dallas Denny



It was not transsexual people themselves but the system which arose for their treatment which resulted in so much human tragedy: bitter and unfulfilled transsexual men and women, disillusioned and disgusted physicians and psychologists, and a literature which unfairly stigmatizes persons with gender dysphoria. We must all of us, service providers and consumers alike, strive to understand what has happened and what continues to happen in too many instances today, for only by acknowledging the problems of the past and the present can we hope to move into the future.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002.



by Tabbas



Transsexual people experience clash between subjective and objective conditions on a personal level. Specifically, their spiritual I occupies a body which materially impedes I?s goals. True?by scientific application, the body can be changed in accordance to I?s need. But science is seldom generous. Scientists are people, and people are political.

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.