Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
I’m not sure where I read it - I think it was on the wikipedia page of that trans doctor from the 1920s, but I don’t remember his name - but basically, it was talking about this trans man’s experience being trans in the early 20th century, and his family’s reaction. And it made a point of saying how his grandparents were entirely supportive and even wrote him as their grandson on their gravestones. And there’s a similar story for a trans girl, also in a similar time period I believe, where her family took her to a doctor when she started Being Trans and the doctor’s reaction was literally “Okay, she says she’s a girl? Then treat her like a girl! Buy her dresses and call her by whatever name she wants!” and they did!!
Obviously transphobia still existed back then, and it was strong. But throughout time, there have been cases where people heard their loved one say “I am not that gender, that doesn’t fit me,” and their love and trust in that person overrode any prejudice or lack of understanding, and they just accepted them. Whether it’s a doctor encouraging parents to treat their little girl like a little girl, or grandparents marking their grandson’s gender in stone (even when, if I remember correctly, his parents had doubts), trans people have always had people who cared for us and believed us and supported us, despite what the rest of society might have said.
Hart wrote later, in 1911, of his happiness during this time, when he was free to present as male, playing with boys’ toys made for him by his grandfather. His parents and grandparents largely accepted and supported his gender expression, though his mother described his “desire to be a boy” as “foolish.” His grandparents’ obituaries, from 1921 and 1924, both list Hart as a grandson.
Transgender flag creator Monica Helms with her wife Darlene Wagner and fellow trans activist Kelley Winters, presenting the original trans flag to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in 2014
[L to R: Darlene Wagner, Kelley Winters, Monica Helms]
I identify as an FTM, non-hormone, non-op, transsexual heterosexual man. That’s the whole string of it. I was in the lesbian community when I was younger, but I never really fit. That was the 1970s and there really wasn’t the language then about transmen or FTMs or any of that. I didn’t have that accessible to me as an identity. I thought, “I’m the only one on the planet like me,” but then in 1985, Lou Sullivan sent his little booklet through the mail to the archives I was working on. It was “Information for the Female-to-male Crossdresser and Transsexual,” a little booklet that he self-published with a little handwritten note that said, “Maybe some people in your archive would want to read this.” Even though he didn’t know me, he didn’t know who he was sending this to, I read it. I read it and within two hours I called him and I said, “I gotta meet you, because now there’s two of us, you know, on the planet.” And I flew to San Francisco to meet him.
When I got there, I dressed up super masculine. I even wore temporary facial hair, because I wanted to demonstrate to him that I was a man. So, he opens the door and he is this little frail ninety-eight pound gay guy with a t-shirt on and I thought, “Well, he’s a man and he’s kinda like me, but he’s kinda not like me.” We ended up talking for five hours straight in his kitchen. In the middle of it, he told me he had to get up and take his AZT. I hadn’t known that he had HIV/AIDS, but I realized then that I was making the closest friend of my entire life, the most pivotal individual for me, and that I was losing him at the same time. We corresponded until he died and when he died, I started the East Coast FTM Group because I had nobody and he had asked me to head up his group in San Francisco, which I couldn’t do.
I always felt some resistance to the fact that I didn’t transition medically, but over time I started to find transsexuals who had not transitioned medically, or who had transitioned partially and then stopped, like my friend Leslie Feinberg. Eventually I found more people with the idea that, “I’m already me, I don’t need any medical intervention to become me.” It took a ten-year journey with a gender counselor to give myself permission around this, because it is not popular, even in our community.
I’ve done a lot of organizing, much of it pre-internet. I did it the way Lou did it at first, all by mail. I remember the first big conference I went to, a True Spirit Conference, and I think there were 300 guys, FTMs, from all over the country and Canada, and I remember thinking, “It’s starting. The movement for FTMs is really starting, big time.” Now I have a vision for making the Sexual Minorities Archives a national comprehensive LGBTQ educational resource center with a museum and an art gallery with many rooms to show the collections, to have a youth room, to have a meeting room, to have a community room, and to be the preeminent LGBTQ archive on the East Coast. That’s what I’m most looking forward to as I age and that’s what I want to accomplish before I die.
From: To Survive on This Shore
Ben is legendary around here. He’s literally so sweet and everyone knows that.
Interview With Jamison Green. Originally posted on Youtube, by Dr. Lindsey Doe.
TRANSCRIPT: [Jamison Green sitting on a couch, being interviewed by Dr. Doe. He is wearing a suit shirt and a black jacket, and has a grey beard.] JAMISON: When I first transitioned, I thought I was going to go get a sex change, then go home and mow my lawn. I did not ever imagine that my life would change at all, because already people- at least half the time, sometimes more- thought I was male. And so, I figured nothing was going to change, I would just feel more comfortable in my body. I realised that there were all these other people out there who were living in fear and shame, because of their differences. And I thought, that is not right. And so I said to them, I’m going to start using my full name in public, and I’m going to start talking about who we are. Don’t be afraid to change in all kinds of ways. Your self can change. [Jamison and the interviewer high-five.] INTERVIEWER: I’m impressed by what you’ve done. JAMISON: Thank you. END TRANSCRIPT.
Jamison Green was born in 1948. He came out as a trans man the late 1980s and made his transition public, for the benefit of others. He has been an activist since then, and led the FTM community after Lou Sullivan’s death.
His contributions to trans rights have been largely erased by mainstream narratives around trans history.
Mr. Green wrote the book Becoming a Visible Man, exploring his experiences as a bisexual trans guy, his relationships with lovers and family, and his struggle to transition. He was involved in the 2012 documentary TRANS, where he advocated on behalf of trans people, and discussed his experiences with being s*xually assaulted.
