By 1969, alongside the questioning of authority, resentment of war and youthful unrest that had been happening with the “hippie” movement, the frustrations of non-heteronormative communities was coming to a boil. The flashpoint would finally be a series of attempted arrests stemming from a law that required people to wear at least three articles of clothing pertaining to their biological gender (a law which still exists on the books in some States, today). While periods of unrest were common in San Francisco, where the Compton’s riot and a few others took place, New York was far less accustomed to what would take place at a gay establishment that June. But ironically, as quickly as their unified strength would empower the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities, they would soon fall into division, with the more-visible gender-transgressive people particularly left on the outside.
There were a number of factors attributed to what occurred on the night of June 28th, 1969. In New York City, police routinely harassed and arrested patrons of gay establishments, with the three-garment law making drag queens and transsexuals easy targets to justify raids.
One of these establishments, the Stonewall Inn, was said to be affiliated with the mafia and using gay Wall Street patrons to gather information to blackmail others - the intent to investigate thus stepped up these raids on the Stonewall (while raids usually occurred monthly, they became more frequent here, the previous one happening only 3 nights prior). Other factors also intensified the atmosphere: studies dating back as 1956 asserted that homosexuality was wrongly classified as a mental disorder, yet the medical establishment refused to budge (it would remain in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual used by the psychiatric profession until 1973). Four other establishments were forcibly closed in Greenwich Village. On June 22nd, 1969, actress Judy Garland, who was a popular figure in the gay community (at the time thought of as a single community, rather than separated into GLBT etc.), died of an overdose of Seconal. One factor that is only mentioned occasionally was that on the day before the incident, Canada passed a law that decriminalized sodomy, with then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau famously declaring that “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” Although seldom mentioned now, one has to suspect that news from not far away of positive change of this magnitude for the gay community would have been fresh on the minds of patrons as well.
1969 - Several police officers enter a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, bar the doors and order everyone into lines. Marsha P. Johnson (1945 - July 6, 1992 - Johnson is one of the many we remember during the Transgender Day of Remembrance) throws a stone or bottle (accounts vary) in retaliation for the harassment at Stonewall Inn; friend Sylvia Rivera (July 2, 1951 - February 19, 2002) follows with a molotov cocktail and then several others join in. The Stonewall Rebellion touches off the gay and lesbian liberation movements, and later becomes the event commemorated at Pride celebrations around the world.
Following the riots, which carried over sporadically into the days following, Rivera helped to found both the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance. By 1974, those organizations would abandon Rivera, seeing transgender people as being an embarrassment and a political liability to the gay rights cause. By the 1990s, political gay and lesbian groups would denounce Rivera’s contribution, even denying that she was present during the riots. Rivera gradually fell into alcoholism, and it wouldn’t be until the turn of the millennium that she would reemerge as a public figure.
1969 also saw the first Gender Symposium, which would develop into the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA).
In 2006, the organization would change its name to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
1970 - Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson form STAR, the first transgender activist organization, which later included a safe-house (at times - in the beginning, it depended on when they were able to find an abandoned trailer).
Virginia Prince, of Tri-Ess, coins the word “transgender,” albeit with a limited definition to describe her transvestitism. “Transgender” originally applied exclusively to gynephile (attracted to females) cross dressers, and a divisive scorn was applied to transsexuals and androphiles (those attracted to males). “Transgender” would later evolve into an all-inclusive term, as both the derision for transsexuals subsided and the desire for a term for transsexuals that didn’t seem to emphasize “sex” emerged.
April Corbett’s (neé Ashley; alternate link) marriage is annulled and she is declared to be legally still a man, in spite of a legal sex reassignment, leaving United Kingdom post-operative transsexuals in legal limbo, unable to marry as either sex, until 2004. Similar occurrences take place in various U.S. states in subsequent years.
Andy Warhol protégé and transwoman Holly Woodlawn debuts in the movie Trash, for which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would be petitioned to nominate her for an Oscar (they wouldn’t). Woodlawn would appear in a few more films and then disappear from sight, but not before being immortalized (along with Candy Darling) in the Lou Reed song, “Walk on the Wild Side.”
After initial rejection by founder Betty Friedan (who referred to lesbians as “the lavender menace”), the National Organization for Women (NOW) expands policy to include lesbian rights. Embrace of transgender issues does not come until circa 2003, and then only gradually adopts trans-friendly policies (the situation is much better today). As NOW represents much of the core of the feminist movement, feminism as a whole is still somewhat resistant to accepting transwomen as “women,” even after surgery is performed, but conversely has tended to eject transmen from the moment of beginning transition.
1970s (specific year unknown) - Metoidioplasty is developed for female-to-male transsexuals. Phalloplasty had existed previously, but Metoidioplasty was seen as a more affordable option, with better results in sensation.
1972 - John Money (with Anke Ehrhardt) publishes “Man & Woman, Boy & Girl: Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity.” He would go on to publish several more books asserting that gender is learned, and not genetically predetermined. This theory is seized upon by the feminist movement as evidence that women are socialized to be passive against their true natures, and this later becomes a wedge between lesbian feminists and transsexual women. In many of his writings of this time, Money cites his famous “John/Joan case”, which he touts as being a socialization of a boy whose penis had been lost in a circumcision accident, to be raised successfully as a girl. “John/Joan,” however, is David Reimer, who is not settling into his reassigned gender as “Brenda” as well as Money believes. As a consequence of many of Money’s writings, pediatricians mistakenly take up the practice of gender assignment at birth. This is most often determined by the length of the penile / clitoral tissue: if it is smaller than a certain length, the child’s tissue is trimmed and they are assigned to be raised as a girl. This policy continued up to the turn of the millennium, and is a major factor in the origins of many intersexed children.
Jamie Farr’s cross-dressing character, Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger, debuts on the CBS television show, M*A*S*H, the first transgender-related character to appear regularly on TV. Although Klinger was said to cross-dress only as an attempt to be given a discharge from the Army, it is the first moment of particular visibility outside comedians’ sporadic use of cross-dressing for comedic purposes (popularized by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in the movie “Some Like It Hot” as well as by comedians ranging from Milton Berle to Jerry Lewis to Monty Python’s Flying Circus).
1973 - Folk singer and accomplished activist Beth Elliott, aka “Mustang Sally,” becomes vice-president of the Daughters of Bilitis. Soon afterward, she is “outed” as a transsexual, and hounded out of the organization by transphobic lesbian separatists. At the West Coast Lesbian Conference held in Los Angeles later that year, the controversy would continue as lesbians protest the fact that Elliott is scheduled to perform at the meeting. She would mostly abandon activism until 1983.
This division continues, as Sylvia Rivera is followed at a Gay Pride Rally by Jean O’Leary, who denounces transwomen as female impersonators profiting from the derision and oppression of women.
Following this, Rivera leaves the groups she helped to found (except for STAR). Over these years, the exclusionary principles of the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis become the direction of the 1970s gay and lesbian movement, encouraging gender conformity as a political tactic, feeling that a message to mainstream society that “we’re just like you” is necessary to secure protections based on sexual orientation.
Homosexuality is delisted from the medical community’s standard DSM, declaring that it is no longer a mental disorder (and never was). Transgenderism, however, remains listed as a mental disability, termed “Gender Identity Disorder,” to this day.
The earliest version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is introduced as voting legislation. It is not transgender-inclusive at this time, and does not pass.
The stage musical, The Rocky Horror Show debuts in London. Jim Sharman and Richard O’Brien would later translate it to film as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which would become a true cult phenomenon. The theme, “don’t dream it, be it” becomes a rallying cry for many transsexuals as well as many libertarians of all stripes.
Australian showgirl-turned-actress Carlotta (known for her performances in the long-running 1963 Les Girls cabaret, in which she was a founding member) debuts in the soap opera, Number 96 playing Robyn Ross, a transgender showgirl. When the character’s (and actress’) identity is revealed, she is quickly written out of the show due to viewer response. Carlotta later becomes the inspiration for the movie, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
1974 - Jan Morris publishes Conundrum, the story of her quest for personal identity, and one of the earliest autobiographies to shed light on the transsexual dilemma.
1976 - Reneé Richards (August 19, 1934 - present) is “outed” and barred from competition when she attempts to enter a womens’ tennis tournament (the U.S. Open). Her subsequent legal battle establishes that transsexuals are fully, legally recognized in their new identity after SRS, in the United States. Her story would be told in the book and movie, Second Serve, but Richards would later decide that she regretted her transition and the resulting public harassment.
Jonathan Ned Katz publishes Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. and the connection between Jonathan Gilbert’s “H” and Dr. Alan Hart, but asserts Hart as a lesbian, effectively stealing transgender history.
The City of San Francisco clears away antiquated laws about clothing and gender, to make crossdressing legal.
1977 - Sandy Stone is “outed” while working for Olivia Records, the first women’s music record label, as a recording engineer. Lesbian activists threaten a boycott of Olivia products and concerts, forcing the company to ask for Stone’s resignation. Angela Douglas writes a satirical letter to Sister as a protest of the transphobia in the lesbian community in general, and the attacks on Sandy Stone in particular.
1979 - Janice Raymond publishes The Transsexual Empire, a semi-scholarly transphobic attack. In the book, she cites Douglas’ letter out of context as an example of transsexual misogyny, and casts Sandy Stone’s involvement in Olivia Records as “divisive” and “patriarchal.” (Stone would reply to these accusations in her book, The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto.) She championed the idea that gender is purely a matter of “sex role socialization” (an opinion that coincided very much with John Money’s, despite her open attacks on him), writing “... All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves. However, the transsexually constructed lesbian feminist violates women’s sexuality and spirit as well....Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive.”
Johns Hopkins Medical Center closes its Gender Clinic, under the recommendation of new curator, Paul McHugh, John Money’s successor and an opponent to both Money’s idea of gender as being learned, and Money’s support of transsexuals’ need to transition. Over the next two decades, many of the other Gender Clinics across North America would follow suit. The closure was justified by pointing to a 1979 report (“Sex Reassignment: Follow-up,” published in Archives of General Psychiatry 36, no. 9) by Jon Meyer and Donna Reter that claimed to show “no objective improvement” following male-to-female GRS surgery. This report was later widely questioned and eventually found to be contrived and possibly fraudulent, but the damage had been done.
Musician and synthesized music pioneer Wendy Carlos transitions and goes public.
Gays, lesbians and transsexuals, who were previously condemned to death in Iran, are given a new fate under law: they are forced to undergo SRS surgery to “correct” the inclination. Transsexuals are still held with a great deal of derision in Iran, and are encouraged to keep silent about their past.
1980 - David Reimer (as “Brenda”) learns at the age of 15 from his parents that he had been born a boy, and decides to re-establish a male identity. This process would take until 1997, and involve testosterone injections, a double-mastectomy and two phalloplasty surgeries.
Joanna Clark, aka Sister Mary Elizabeth, an Episcopal Nun, organizes the ACLU Transsexual Rights Committee.
Paul Walker organizes the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association to promote standards of care for transsexual and transgender clients. He also founds the Janus Information Facility, continuing the work of Erickson Educational Foundation. Later, he would fall ill, and Joanna Clark and Jude Patton would co-found J2CP Information Services to continue this legacy.
1981 - Model, actress and Bond Girl Caroline Cossey (“Tula”) is “outed” by the British press. She would later become the first post-operative transsexual to pose for Playboy. By 1988, she would be struggling with the European Court of Human Rights to recognize her as a female - she would win in June 1989, but the court would overturn their decision a year later. Recognition would not come until The Gender Recognition Act of 2004.
1982 - Boy George (George Alan O’Dowd) and Culture Club emerge on the pop charts with the song, “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?” His cross-dressing image is not totally new (androgyny had been played with by the likes of David Bowie, Steve Tyler and Aerosmith, Hall and Oates, Elton John...), but had certainly never been taken to the same extreme. By 1986, however, the disintegration of his relationship with drummer Jon Moss and drug problems would hamstring him and Culture Club would be disbanded. Despite some resurgences (he had a hit with the Roy Orbison song for the movie “The Crying Game,” for example), he would never reach the same heights, and would continually encounter legal troubles.
1983 - Jessica Lange wins the Best Actress Oscar for her role in “Tootsie,” a Sydney Pollack movie in which Dustin Hoffman plays an actor who takes on a female persona in order to secure work in a soap opera. Hoffman and Pollack are also nominated in the Best Actor and Best Director categories but do not win an Oscar. Although not a portrayal of the transgender community, the movie is the first gender-transgressive one to be recognized with such an honor. Lange also later appears in the transgender positive made-for-TV movie, “Normal.” Later recognition for transgender-related film works include a win for Hilary Swank (Oscars, 2000, “Boys Don’t Cry,” Best Actress), a Golden Globe win for Best Picture (“Ma Vie En Rose”), and nominations for Jaye Davidson (Oscars, 1993, “The Crying Game,” Best Supporting Actor; Neil Jordan won the Oscar for his screenplay but lost the Directoral nomination), Felicity Huffman (Oscars, 2006, “Transamerica,” Best Actress; Golden Globe win for same category), and Edouard Molinaro (Oscars, 1980, “La Cage Aux Folles,” Best Director).
1984 - The International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE) is founded, becoming the first major transgender organization to welcome both transsexual and cross-dressing members, along with dual inclusion in its magazine, Tapestry (later, Transgender Tapestry Journal).
Heavy Metal band Twisted Sister brings gender-bending to the fore in a different music genre, although glam rock had been somewhat previously popularized by Aerosmith and KISS in the 1970s. Censorship contributes to the failure of their follow-up album, and front man Dee Snider spends two years heavily occupied with the music industry fight against the PMRC music labeling movement.
The Folsom Street Fair is organized as a continuing show of resistance to San Francisco’s redevelopment plans, which would drive poorer working-class folks from the area. It would become a counterculture Mecca, attracting the gay, leather and transgender communities. Originally entitled “Megahood,” it draws some inspiration from George Orwell’s novel, “1984.”
Mid-1980s - Bugis Street, in the city-state of Singapore, is renovated, bringing to an end its reputation as a gathering place for transsexual women. It had been a major tourist attraction for this reason since the 1950s, being particularly popular with American G.I.s. During the “disco” era, it would be nicknamed “Boogie Street.” Transsexual tourism gradually becomes limited to Thailand and “safe” parts of Rio de Janerio.
Futanari, a genre of Japanese comics featuring characters with fully-developed versions of both male and female sex organs (which is literally impossible), develops during this time, growing out of manga and often being highly pornographic.
Next: Part B, 1985-1995.
Partial Bibliography:
Much of this had been compiled over time, and not all the sources have been recorded. Some online sources have been involved as well, although I search for more corroboration in these cases.
• Bullough, Vern: Homosexuality: A History From Ancient Greece to Gay Liberation
• Califia, Patrick: Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism
• Colapinto, John: As Nature Made Him: The Story of a Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
• Currah, Paisley; Richard M. Juang and Shannon Price Minter: Transgender Rights
• Feinberg, Leslie: TransGender Warriors
• Fletcher, Lynne Yamaguchi: The First Gay Pope (and other records)
• Kessler, Suzanne; and McKenna, Wendy: Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach
• Rudacille, Deborah: The Riddle of Gender
• Walker, Barbara: various works
• Williams, Walter: The Spirit and the Flesh


Mercedes Allen is a writer who blogs at http://dentedbluemercedes.wordpress.com/, has been featured on bilerico.com, PageOneQ and others, and has also developed the website at AlbertaTrans.org as a resource for transgender information and support.