Visible Man
Jamison Green offers a man's POV on life in the trans lane. Opinion,
advice, and information from an internationally respected leader of the
FTM community.
The transgender phenomenon may seem to have come from out of nowhere in
the
last few years. But there's a long history of transgender experience
and
activism all over the world, though it wasn't always called transgender.
Social scientists have been studying human sexual behavior for less than
200
years, and for much of that time transgender experience has been
connected
with and understood by "outsiders" as gay and/or lesbian experience or
behavior. Why? Simply because often the most obvious or available
transgendered subjects were attracted to people of the same sex but
usually
opposite genders, as in butch/femme. It seems as though gender wasn't
considered part of the equation because people were defined by their
genitals
alone. In the last 50 years we've learned how problematic that is, and
the
landscape of sexual history and behavioral studies is receiving a gender
overlay.
In the early 1900s in the U.S., a number of female-bodied individuals
were
documented as living as men. Much of this record is summarized in the
work
of Jason Cromwell, himself a contemporary FTM pioneer, in his book
Transmen
and FTMs: Identities, Bodies, Genders & Sexualities (University of
Illinois
Press, 1999). Cromwell's book is reflective of considerable scholarship
as
well as a strong, deeply-felt personal statement of the author's anger
and
frustration concerning the ignorance and dismissiveness with which FTMs
have
been typically treated in life and in scholarly work. It is well worth
reading for anyone who wishes to understand the contemporary lines of
thought and discourse within the FTM world.
By far the most influential transsexual person in the 20th century was
the
now virtually unknown Reed Erickson (1917-1992). Erickson's personal
wealth
financed most of the early scholarship and medical research that created
the
modern transsexual individual, and led directly to the contemporary
transgender movement. You can read more about Erickson, one of the first
modern FTMs, by following links from the Transhistory site (see below)
to the
work of Canadian sociologist Holly Devor.
FTMs got their first shot at national media exposure in the mid-1970s,
when
Steve Dain lost his teaching job in Northern California. But the very
next
day after his story became public, the Renee Richards story broke in New
York, and blew Mr. Dain off the front page. Steve went to court and
ultimately won the right to retain his teaching credentials, but though
he had
received considerable public support from parents and students, skittish
administrations were unwilling to hire him. He pursued an alternative
career
for many years, and now he is teaching again part time in a community
college.
Like many individual FTM people, Steve Dain made himself available to
other
transsexual men who were looking for information about the process. He
even
offered his home to people who were coming to the area to have surgery.
He
never advertised himself. The theory was, in those days, that if someone
really
needed to find him (or one of the other "helpers"), it would just happen
somehow. Plus, we were all brainwashed to believe we had to keep our
transsexualism a secret because to do otherwise would make us freaks.
I saw Steve Dain on television in 1977, and I was astounded by his
incredibly
masculine appearance, his poise, and his grace under pressure. I hoped
to meet
him someday, and was able to do so 10 years later when I was finally
seeking
the concrete information I needed to help me make the decision whether
to
change my body from female to male.
I met Steve through Lou Sullivan in San Francisco. I found Lou through
subscribing to a little magazine (more like a pamphlet) called "The
Transsexual Voice," published by a transwoman in Georgia. Lou had
placed a tiny ad in that publication offering "Information for the
Female-to-Male Cross Dresser and Transsexual. Send $6.00 to P.O. Box . .
. San
Francisco." How ironic, I thought, that I should have to subscribe to a
Georgia publication to find information in my own backyard. I sent in my
check and received a very informative little booklet, and a note from
Lou
giving his phone number and inviting me to call him for information
about the
gatherings he was hosting every three months. Steve Dain was scheduled
to
speak at the next meeting, so I decided to attend. Through Lou and Steve
I
learned of several other FTM pioneers who had been offering information
and
emotional support to others for some time -- men like Rupert Raj in
Canada,
Mario Martino in New York and later Florida, Jude Patton in San
Francisco,
Los Angeles, and later Portland and Seattle, Jeff Shevlowitz in Los
Angeles,
Jason Cromwell in Seattle, Johnny A. in New York, Stephen Whittle in
England,
Armand Hotimsky in France, and Masae Torai in Japan. And I know there
have
been more men scattered throughout the world who have made themselves
available to others over the years whose names are lost due to their own
modesty, their desire for obscurity, or their outright fear of exposure
as
transmen.
The contemporary network of transmen around the world has been built on
the
shoulders of these men who started with the support group model and
sometimes
expanded into publishing, as Lou Sullivan did with his "Information"
booklet
and his "FTM Newsletter." That FTM Newsletter had reached hundreds of
people
around the world by the time Lou died in 1991. This community was formed
out
of the desire to offer assistance to others, without asking for anything
in
return. Its foundation was built by altruistic men whose compassion led
them
to want to spare others the level of frustration they themselves had
experienced in their own pre-transition isolation.
Today, aided by the Internet and the media, we have an FTM network that
spans
the globe. It is a loose fraternity of men who share some part of a
common
path. Not everyone subscribes to any particular belief system, or is a
member of FTM International, or any other transgender or transsexual
group;
not everyone has the same goals or dreams. The entire trans community is
indebted to these pioneers, and every time we offer assistance,
information, or friendship to another transperson we honor them, whether
we
know it or not. Most of these pioneers are still alive, and I believe
the
citizens of our global community should be aware of them, aware of what
they
have done for us, and acknowledge them while they can still appreciate
it.
Readers who are interested in more transgender history should check out
these
Web sites: Center for the History of Sexual Diversity at www.glhs.org,
Gender
Education and Advocacy, Inc. at www.gender.org (where you can find the
GLAAD
Media Award–nominated "Remembering Our Dead" site), and Candice
Brown's very
informative site on Transhistory, www.transhistory.org.
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