Whatever Happened to Transgender Support Groups and Conventions?
It is almost early fall again and time for the Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta, probably the most well known transgender meeting place. This will be my 5th SCC and I will again be presenting a workshop on Thursday, September 4. So it is time to evaluate the means by which the transgender community communicates. Our meeting places have changed over the years, adapting to new technologies and circumstances.
As part of the support group movement in the 1970s, transgender support groups started in order to provide a safe place to crossdress and to provide educational opportunities. Education was aimed at developing our transgender presentation and to help us deal with the problems created by family and cultural rejection. Transgender groups literally took over hotels or churches for the night and provided places to dress and be in a safe environment. Support groups actually started with Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) in the 1930s to discourage the behavior of drinking. However, many of the support groups in the 1970s were there to actually encourage various behaviors including gardening, BDSM, quilting and sewing. But the formats were all similar to AA. The meetings included personal introductions, educational presentation, questions and problems. Transgender groups typically added a field trip after the meeting to a local transgender-friendly bar or restaurant in order to give new members an opportunity to go out to public places in the safety of the group. When Lynn Conway made the first accurate estimates of transgender people in the United States in 2000 she started with a count of transgender support group members. I am not sure what she would find today.
I always looked forward to attending support group meetings across the United States whenever my travel schedule allowed. My favorite was Crossroads in Detroit but I also attended meetings in Washington with the DCEA group and even attended Androgyny in Los Angeles. I even got “adopted” by the Crossroads couples group because it met on weekdays that fit my schedule. It was there that I met my mentor, Milesa Phar, who helped me understand myself and transgender behavior. I still keep in touch with her from time to time. She was my first transgender friend.
Paralleling the development and operation of support groups, various computer-networking technologies provided meeting places for transgender people, even if they are virtual in nature. These places started with computer “bulletin boards” which provided chat rooms, bulletin boards and articles on transgender presentation and news. Computer savvy transgender people would set up these computer systems that allowed people with personal computers to dial in. Tricky part was finding a board in the local dialing area to avoid long-distance charges. My first computer was a Heathkit that I built myself in 1981 and when I was not on travel, I would be on a board every night. Of course bulletin boards were just a precursor to today’s Internet social media which allows instantaneous communication around the world. Today’s social media programs developed after Internet list servers, usegroups and chat rooms (mIRC) showed what might be possible.
Support groups provide a valuable service to those new to the transgender community but once a new member gets her/his feet on the ground, there is less reason for her/him to stay. Some volunteers stay on to keep a group operating but once transgender people feel comfortable in public alone, they can form their own informal groups and meet on the Internet or local public places. This turnover process makes support groups vulnerable to extinction and, indeed, my Crossroads group is no more. There has been no recent survey of transgender support group members that I know about but it appears that the formation of new groups and membership has not kept pace with population growth. If support group membership is not keeping pace, it would not be such a bad thing. Communications on the Internet have more than compensated for this steady state. It probably also is an indicator that public acceptance for transgender people has improved.
With regard to convention meetings, such as Southern Comfort Conference, there has been a significant decrease in the number of conventions in the past few years. Yes, First Event, Fantasia Fair, Gender Odyssey and the Pennsylvania Keystone Conference are still with us but IFGE, Be-All, Chicago Pinkfest, California Dreamin’, Houston SPICE, Kansas City Fall Harvest all appear to be gone. Others are on a year-to-year basis. Some of this decline can be attributed to the downturn in the economy but there are indications that successful meetings are becoming more specialized and offer new themes such as the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference.
The state of face-to-face transgender meetings appears to be continuing but informal groups and the Internet more than fill in any gaps. Question is: What do we have to say to one another?
Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Opinion
