Juneteenth/Pride 2023
Rabbah Rona Matlow writes about the Black trans women who were there at the beginning of the gay rights movement.
Category: Transgender History
Deborah Nicole: My Story, Part One
Deborah Nicole is a TGForum member who is sharing her life story with you. She starts the tale when she was a young lad in the U.K. and takes you along through the years to her current residence in the USA. Readers of a certain age will find aspects of her story to be familiar and younger folks will gain some understanding of our history.
A History of Tapestry Magazine Part V
Dallas Denny wraps up her five part series on the history of Tapestry Magazine with commentary on the role played by transgender publications in the formation of the transgender community.
Tapestry Part IV, Preservation Of Historical Transgender Material
Dallas Denny continues her report on Tapestry Magazine’s history, and expands today to cover efforts to preserve the written matter that comes from countless local group’s newsletters as well as the major magazines that were published in the 1980s and ’90s.
A History of Tapestry Magazine Part III
Part I of this series about the late trans magazine Tapestry followed its timeline across its thirty-year lifespan. Part II discussed the development of transgender personal ads in general and their trajectory in Tapestry in particular. In Part III, Dallas Denny discusses her personal experience as editor-in-chief and why she resigned.
A History of Tapestry Magazine Part II, Personal Ads
Dallas Denny returns today with Part 2 of the history of Tapestry Magazine. It began in the late ’70s as a typewritten newsletter and became over the next decade the go-to publication for information on all things trans. Today Dallas reports on how personal ads became a part of Tapestry, and other transgender publications.
The Origins of Transgender Day of Remembrance
November 20 is the Transgender Day of Remembrance and Ms. Bob Davis writes story of how it came to be. It began as one person’s quest to preserve transgender history and to memorialize those who died by violence year after year. Now it is observed far and wide as transgender people fall victim to violence.
History of Gender Variance, Part Two
Some people might feel that transgender people are a new thing. not so. Chrissy Gann takes us on a tour of history and introduces us to historical figures who moved between genders. Today she introduces people people from the late 19th and early 20th centuries who were not comfortable in the gender they were born into. Read on and meet some of them.
I Didn’t Know Holly
Holly Boswell was an author, a trans activist and a force in the evolving transgender community. She passed away in 2017. For all she did for promoting understanding of transgender issues she should have gained greater noteriety. Today our TGForum contributor Sophie Lynne admits that she had never heard of Holly Boswell. Then she mentions a few other people that should be well known in the transgender community.
Times Do Change: The 1980s
Linda Jensen’s history of crossdressing as seen through her friend Linda’s eyes continues. Spoiler Alert: This supposed history of Crossdressing in the 1980s is going to read more like a history of Linda A. through the 1980s. However, a look below the surface will show how Linda’s life was reflecting the times. Btw, NSFW.
Times Do Change: The 1970s
Linda and her friend, Linda, go through the 1970s with barely a nod to the growing world of crossdressing but for one of them — the other Linda — there happens a relationship and a sexual awakening that allows her to slip into an active and ‘analyst-free’, guilt free CD lifestyle in the 1980s. Warning: this article borders on adult content. Tri-Ess members may be offended.
An Interview with Classic FI Pudgy Roberts
Our Retro Rerun today is an interview conducted for TGForum and LadyLike magazine in 1996 with a noted female impersonator of the ’60s and ’70s, Pudgy Roberts. Ms Bob & Carol Kleinmaier conducted the interview over two days and cover Pudgy’s life from when he was a child dressing up and walking around his neighborhood to his long career in drag clubs and burlesque.
Times Do Change: The 1960s
Linda had recently contacted another Linda — who had told her the story of growing up in the 1950s with trans feelings but very little realistic chance to act on those feelings. That is until one fateful Hallowe’en when three of the cool girls at school intervened to help set the other Linda’s life on an unexpected path. Got it? Linda was keen to learn more.
Fantasia Fair—The “Tribe” You Can Choose
Our intrepid reporter Dana Bevan traveled to Cape Cod last month to attend Fantasia Fair 2021. It’s the grand dame of transgender conferences and has been going on since 1974. First it was just for crossdressers. Over the years changes have occurred. Dana tells you all about the inclusion in this report.
Is There a Transgender Movement?
Dana Bevan has found that there are five transgender movements: Male to Female Transsexuals, Crossdressers, Indigent Street Transgender People, Female to Male Transsexuals, and Religious Recovery Movements. In this post she gives the story on each movement.
Classic Female Impersonation Gallery
In the dusty halls of the TGForum Archives there are to be found many pictures of the female impersonators of days gone by. In the 1990s TGF editor Cindy Martin put together photos to create pictorials of those long ago stars. Here are just a few.
The TGF Friends Pictorial from 1999
Back in the early days of TGForum Cindy Martin would put together pictorials of photos TG users sent in. (Side note: We’re working on a way to bring back the pictorials with 21st century tech.) This pictorial is from 1999 and it’s titled Friends. See if you can spot the current TGForum editor and a contributor among the friends pictured.
An Interview with Publisher Margot Wilson
Shelley Anne interviews Margot Wilson, a Canadian anthropologist who runs a publishing business focused specifically on transgender manuscripts, both fiction and nonfiction. Ms. Wilson is a cisgender ally of the transgender community and is helping to preserve the life stories of aging members of the community, saving their history for others to read and perhaps be inspired.
Transgender Issues in Guatemala
Our blogger Sophie Lynne is working on an advanced degree at Penn State University. The amount of reading and writing for a PhD can be overwhelming. That means that Sophie has had to take a break from writing her normal blog and wait for the carpal tunnel to calm down. In place of a normal blog Sophie is sharing one of her academic papers, an investigates of what it means to be transgender in the global south. Take notes as there will be a test.
An interview with . . . Mariette Pathy Allen
Shelley Anne interviews Mariette Pathy Allen, a photographer, author, activist, film collaborator and world traveler who has spent decades documenting the lives of the many people who fall under the umbrella term transgender. Ms. Allen first met members of the heterosexual crossdressing community in 1978. That led to many photos of that segment of the trans world and led her to explore crossdressing and the differently gendered in other cultures.
How We Got Here, For Transgender People in a Hurry
This is a short story about how we got here as free transgender people with political and economic rights. It is an overview of from a much longer, more detailed story. Although our pursuit of freedom and rights has not yet reached perfection, we have made great progress.
No Smoking Gun, Part 1
Chrissy Gann devotes her The Butterfly Chronicles blog to exploring why we are who we are. She feels there is no “smoking gun” that we can point to and say ‘look here is proof that being transgender is not a choice or lifestyle”. In every study that has been done they have concluded that while the study in itself is not positive proof, still there is something going on we don’t understand.
Diary of a CD — Princesses of the Night — Drag and Gender
Today Katherine Diaz, our Columbian Correspondent, looks back briefly at the roots of drag as performance and part of street culture. As long as there have been different attire for the sexes there have been males who adopt feminine presentations to entertain, to express their own femininity, or to poke straight culture in the eye. And Katherine, as always, provides a video to go along with the blog.
Drag in Cinema: 2004 and More
Today’s Drag in Cinema starts in 2004 with the film Connie and Carla and takes us through the first decade of the 21st century till 2007. In between we look at Stage Beauty, Kinky Boots, Big Momma’s House 2 and several more. We also talk about a trilogy of underground films produced by and starring RuPaul that she made in the ’80s but rebooted in 2007.
The Mean Reds and Other Insecurities
Chrissy Gann devotes today’s Butterfly Chronicle to her own progress in transition and then goes on to acknowledge the contributions to transgender visibility and and rights by those who came before. For a short course on the progress of trans people in modern times be sure to take a look. You may find validation and inspiration in what Chrissy has written.
Political Urgings
TGForum’s Mr. Spock is our in-house scientist and fact-based life form, Dana J. Bevan. Today she applies science and logic to the manner in which transgender people are exploited by politicians. She does not recommend or endorse one party over another but presents factual information about where we are today and what should be done to achieve full rights for transgender people. Give her blog a read and use the comment area to weigh in with your opinion.
