Tell Shelley Anne: Interview with Dallas Denny, transsexual advisor, and author

Hi TGForum members. I am thrilled to become a contributing editor for our wonderful publication. I have been active in various aspects of the transsexual and transgender community the past six years and felt it was time to share my brand of storytelling with you. I enjoy doing Q&A interviews and learning about people in all walks of life. Over the past 10-plus years I have interviewed (all under various pen names), celebrities, athletes, authors, health and wellness experts, business leaders and fetish enthusiasts.

My goal, with your help, is to include interviews monthly in upcoming publications, but I cannot do it without your support. In other words, I need people to interview. You do not need to be a polished writer. Just share your story through the questions I may ask. All interviews are conducted via email. I will smooth out the edges and round off all the corners! I invite you to Tell Shelley Anne.  Contact me at the email posted at the end of this interview.

I was delighted to be introduced to Dallas Denny by our lovely editor, Angela Gardner. Dallas consented to participate as my first interviewee for TGForum. I am certain you will enjoy learning about Dallas and her outlook on life. 

Dallas Denny at home.

Dallas Denny

Biography

Dallas Denny is renowned for her work on advocacy, policy issues, and health practices involving transsexual and transgender people. She has served as adviser to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, The University of Michigan, the Centers for Disease Control, the city of Atlanta, journalists, and filmmakers. She has made hundreds of presentations and delivered many keynotes at universities, businesses, professional organizations, and conferences.

Denny was Executive Director of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service from 1990-1999 and in 1990 founded the still-extant Atlanta Gender Explorations support group. She was one of many founders of the Southern Comfort and Peachtree transgender conferences, and, since 1991 has served a variety of roles, including director, of the week-long Fantasia Fair transgender conference.

Denny is a prolific author. She has written more than 20 book chapters and hundreds of articles for newsletters, magazines, and both refereed and non-refereed journals. Her books Gender Dysphoria: A Guide to Research and Current Concepts in Transgender Identity, were published in 1994 and 1998, respectively, by Garland Publishers, and Identity Management in Transsexualism in 1994 by Creative Design Services. She edited the groundbreaking journals Chrysalis from 1990-1998 and Transgender Tapestry from 2000-2008. Her historical novels about young frontiersman Chance Early are published by Foundation Books.

By Shelley Anne Baker

TGForum: You are well-known for your advocacy work in the transsexual and transgender communities. What programs are you involved in today?

Ms. Denny: First, let me say I am honored to be asked these questions for you and TGForum (waves to Angela Gardner). I am happy to see people I mentored, and others, taking trans issues far beyond anything I or anyone else could have imagined 30 years ago. It is just amazing. I am not nearly as active as I once was, but I keep my hand in. Since 1992, I have been part of the management team of the week-long trans event Fantasia Fair. The Fair has taken place every October since 1975 in Provincetown, on the tip of Cape Cod. I have seen the event mature and increase its scope to welcome every sort of gender diversity and change its focus from fashion to community. It broke my heart when we announced we would not be holding the event this year. P’Town, which is dominated and driven by tourism, has fallen upon hard times due to the pandemic and will likely have a different face when it re-opens. Neither we nor the town thought it wise to schedule this year’s event. We plan to be back, better than ever, in 2021. I attend and present at several other trans conferences, all of which were also cancelled this year. I miss being with my people. I, physicians Carolyn Wolf-Gould and Kyan Lynch, and long-time activist Dr. Jamison Green, are editors of the forthcoming text From Margins to Mainstream: A History of Transgender Medicine in the United States. We have a contract with SUNY Press and chapters are rolling in. It should be released in early 2022. Jamison and Ms. Bob Davis and I are editors of the planned book Not the Only One: How Transgender People Learned to Talk to One Another, which will be a sort of community history.

TGForum: Any policy issues that might be taking place over the next 12-18 months?

Ms. Denny: I was never a big policy person, not that policy is not important. When I came online, in 1989, I saw the fledgling community’s biggest need as education. There were few of us, we knew little about who we were as individuals and as a people, and we had few allies. Good information was almost impossible to find, so I went to work educating cisgender people and helping people like me get information so they could make rational decisions about their lives. I did not want those who came after me operating in the informational vacuum I grew up in.

TGForum: Of all your published writings, what topic(s) stands out the most?

Ms. Denny: I wrote a lot about the medical model of transsexualism and its shortcomings and limitations. I advocated for a healthy transgender model which did not push us into limited life paths. As anthropologist Anne Bolin discovered when she studied a trans group in the American Midwest in the late ‘80s, members were required to declare themselves transsexuals or crossdressers or drag queens and then pressured by their peers to conform to those identities. The late Holly Boswell posited an additional transgender identity, and I saw the wisdom in that. Things have progressed far beyond what even Holly foresaw, and I think we are healthier because of it. I identify and have always identified as transsexual, but I always understood that despite that identity I had a say in how I lived my life. Who was I to fault those who, because of fear, medical conditions, poverty, or dedication to their loved ones chose not to transition?  I think I will be best remembered for my writing about this change from a model that pathologized us to a model that counts us as normal. I am astonished how often my work is cited these days in the literature. I think I have finally become an elder. I can think of three works which I consider my most important on the subject: The texts Gender Dysphoria: A Guide to Research and Current Concepts in Transgender Identity, both published by Garland Press, and the essay The Politics of Diagnosis and a Diagnosis of Politics, which was published in the journal Chrysalis Quarterly. My most quoted article seems to be the chapter Trans Communities of the Late Twentieth Century, which appeared in the 2006 edited text Transgender Rights: History, Politics, and Law. And finally, let me say I have always been about more than trans issues. I dabble in poetry and write songs, plays, and fiction. Ten or so of my short stories have been published, and some have won awards. My historical novel Chance Down the Mountain was published in 2018 by Foundations, LLC. The sequel, Second Chance, is with the same publisher.

TGForum: According to your Wikipedia bio you were adopted. What challenges might adopted children face when they come out as transsexual or transgender?

Ms. Denny: To be clear, I was conceived out of wedlock and my mother heroically, considering the times, chose to bear and raise me. When I was three, she married, and the man I have always considered my father adopted me. Like all children, I occasionally speculated about being adopted, but I never seriously considered that I was. My mother told me when I was thirteen, and it came as a shock. She was afraid I would be angry with her, but to be honest, it did not affect me that much. I did not consider myself any less than a full member of my family. I think I might have had a different reaction if I had been a child adopted from another family altogether. To give my family credit, although they were absolutely opposed to my gender identity, they did not reject me until I finally transitioned. I can only imagine how a trans child would feel if they were rejected by their adopted parents. It would be the ultimate slap in the face.

TGForum: You are a retired applied behavior analyst. Sounds interesting.

Ms. Denny: I had a career as a master’s degree psychologist (I was licensed at that level in Tennessee) and applied behavior analyst. I worked with adults with developmental disabilities, doing intellectual evaluations and developing and implementing plans to cope with dangerous and problematic behaviors. More often than not, the root cause of behavioral outbursts was the behavior of staff, so often I was writing programs to control staff members. My sympathies were almost always with the client, and not staff, so this bothered me not at all. I liked the work. I felt I was part detective, figuring out why behavior was occurring, and part sumo wrestler, as out of control clients would, on occasion, attack me. I soon learned to defend myself without in any way harming them.

TGForum: What is the best advice you ever received and who did it come from?

Ms. Denny: Someone once told me what others were saying about me was none of my business. It took me years to understand what they meant, and I now consider it good advice. I certainly heed it. I cannot control what others think or say about me, and I do not concern myself about it.

TGForum: Is there something about you people would find surprising (maybe other than the obvious)?

Dallas in 1977.

Ms. Denny: Perhaps the fact that I had a sporadic and episodic but authentic existence as a young woman. I was going out in public by age 16, and with my baby face, I passed without difficulty. People with whom I interacted treated me as the girl or young woman I appeared to be and not as a trans person. I loved that and found it instructional.

TGForum: Is there a golden rule by which you live by?

Ms. Denny: I look for the broadest win when conflict occurs. I am not interested in vanquishing others, merely with living at peace with them. I consider those who are unwilling to compromise or apologize weak and foolish, as they assuredly are. I nonetheless stick by my convictions, but I am willing to change my mind about things if presented with convincing arguments and data. I have never studied the martial arts, but I recognized when my brother took judo that the most important lesson was to control the ego. It gets you out of bad situations and can usually stop violence. But if it should come to a fight, if you cannot avoid it, go all in. Do not hold back. So far, controlling my ego has kept me out of danger. I recommend it as a strategy.

TGForum: If a major motion picture were made about you, which actor would you want to play you and why?

Ms. Denny: Wow. A tough question. I have never even remotely thought about this! If Rosanne Barr had not gone all nutjobby, I would think perhaps her. So, let me say Rosanne, the 1995 version when she was still apparently sane. For the younger me, Marlo Thomas in her own younger days. I went through a definite That Girl phase when I would not go out the door without false eyelashes.

TGForum: In our crazy world, what makes you laugh?

Ms. Denny: Lots of things make me wince or cry, but I see humor in just about everything. I have an absurdist outlook. I was an avid reader of National Lampoon and have always loved the work of dark cartoonists like Gahan Wilson, Chas. Addams, Rodriguez, and John Callahan. I was never more pleased than when the magazine Whole Earth Review chose Callahan to illustrate one of my short stories. I have always loved Mark Twain’s sense of humor and draw upon it when writing fiction. My favorite songwriters include Shel Silverstein and Warren Zevon, both of whom were darkly humorous. My spouse, Heather, and I play off one another, becoming more and more ridiculous. Laughing is good medicine, and we are always sure to take our daily dose.

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Shelley Anne Baker has been part of the transsexual and transgender community for six years. Wandering about the California BDSM community, she finally found her stride in making the transition to dresses and hi-heels. Today, her women’s apparel, and shoes outnumbers her male apparel (that she just has to have for certain occasions, but such is life).   She is a professional writer and experienced corporate brand marketing and public relations consultant. For interview consideration and participation email Shelley Anne at [email protected].

Tags: Dallas Denny, featured, History, Transgender

Category: Interview