Last month we started with the Stonewall Riots in 1969, and this month we continue discussing the aftermaths that this uprising sparked in recent times, from the mid 1980’s.
1985 - A pink granite monument is unveiled at the site of the Neuengamme concentration camp dedicated to the homosexual victims of Nazism. To some, it stands as a memorial to all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals killed in the Holocaust, as the Nazis did not discriminate regarding individual differences.
1986 - Lou Sullivan founds FTM International.
1987 - Albertan k.d. lang makes her musical debut. lang, whose image is very much a gender-challenging form of androgyny, exemplifies the dichotomy within the lesbian community regarding female-to-male transsexuals: so long as one does not step beyond the “butch” limit to actually transition to male, they are accepted and even applauded, but those who transition are deemed “traitors.” lang herself is out as a lesbian, but does not identify as being transgender.
1988 - Author Pat Califia debuts, the first book titled Sapphistry. Califia would become a prominent and respected lesbian writer, activist and therapist, injecting some new and unexpected views into modern feminism, many of which grow out of Califia’s participation in the leather community. Califia also leads the charge against the exclusion of “butches / femmes” when the lesbian community begins spurning them in an effort to conform to politically correct ideals forming within lesbian feminism. In the mid-1990s, Patrick Califia comes out as a transman, and begins his transition to male. The lesbian community completely rejects Califia as a consequence, virtually erasing him from some queer libraries, and fibromyalgia begins to limit his ability to write.
1989 - Billy Tipton, a well-respected jazz musician, bleeds to death from an ulcer, rather than seeking medical help. He is discovered to be biologically female, after presenting as a man since 1933.
Ray Blanchard proposes the theory of autogynephilia, which he defined as “a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.” This theory catches on with some writers of the time, even controversial transgender advocate Dr. Anne Lawrence. But it is never quite accepted by the medical community as a whole, as it has many gaps in study (and logic), and widely conflicts with the accepted model of gender identity disorder. By the turn of the millennium, it would be dropped in favor of more biological studies of transgenderism, but would gain a boost when Blanchard is invited to oversee the revision of paraphilic diagnoses, including “Transvestitic Fetish,” for the DSM-V.
RuPaul first appears in the Talking Heads video “Love Shack,” and goes on to become a drag queen of worldwide notoriety.
1990 - The term “two-spirit” originates in Winnipeg, Canada, during the third annual intertribal Native American/First Nations gay and lesbian conference. It comes from the Ojibwa words niizh manidoowag (two-spirits). It is chosen as a means to distance Native/First Nations people from non-Natives, as well as from the words “berdache” and “gay” - previously, there were a myriad of words used, different depending on tribe. The phrase “two-spirit” is used to denote all third-gendered peoples, whether gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or non-conforming to sex or gender stereotypes - but the intersexed are held in particularly high regard, and thought to be beings of potentially great power and blessing. The older term of “berdache” had been French in origin, and is derived from Arabic and Eastern words meaning “kept boy” or “male prostitute.” “Berdache” was used by explorers to explain to Western cultures how many Native traditions held a special reverence for two-spirit peoples to the earliest time, especially the Lakota, Ojibwa, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Mojave, Navajo and Cree tribes (others, such as the Comanche, Eyak, Iroquois and many Apache bands did not often recognize the existence of two-spirits).
Traditions vary, but on average, two-spirit peoples were thought to have both male and female persons living within the same body, and a two-spirited child’s gender would be determined at puberty, based on their inclination toward masculine or feminine activities or by a vision. In the last century, modern Christianity had “evangelized,” indoctrinated and destroyed many Native traditions, and two-spirit people are only now just re-emerging from homophobic stigmas.
1991 - Jonathan Demme’s film, The Silence of the Lambs - based on a novel by Thomas Harris - debuts and creates an uproar when the film’s end-story villain exhibits stereotypical gay and transgender habits, intertwined with his homicidal behaviors... creating associations of psychopathy with transsexualism.
1992 - Nancy Jean Burkholter is ejected from the Michigan Womyn’s Festival by transphobic festival organizers. The festival’s policy is that the particularity of “womyn-born-womyn” (WBW) experience comes from being born and raised in a female body. The following year, Camp Trans would be set up outside the entrance to the gate in protest of this policy - and continued three years following.
Author and activist Leslie Feinberg publishes “Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come.” She would later publish the well-known works Stone Butch Blues (1993), and Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman (1996). Feinberg shuns pronoun and gender identification.
1993 - Cheryl Chase founds the Intersex Society of North America. ISNA would develop the stigmatizing terminology “Disorder of Sex Development” to try to replace “intersex.” This would generate a number of controversies, and the group would disband in 2008 so that Chase could form Accord Alliance and encourage rather than discourage the surgical assignation of gender to intersex infants.
“March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation” organizers include bisexuals, but refuse to include transgender in the name of the march, despite months of work to try to get inclusion.
Trans activists working for many years with gay and lesbian activists successfully pass an anti-discrimination law in the State of Minnesota, protecting transsexual and transgender people along with gays and lesbians. This is the first instance of trans inclusion in legislation in North America, despite the number of human rights motions since the 1970s to protect rights based on sexual orientation.
Brandon Teena is raped and later murdered by members of his circle of friends, when they discover his female genitalia. The story is later retold (with an Oscar-winning performance) in the movie, Boys Don’t Cry.
Anthony Summers publishes Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, in which the rumor that Hoover was a transvestite is finally put into print. In the book, a Mrs. Susan Rosenstiel alleged that in 1958 she and her husband met Hoover and McCarthy lawyer Roy Cohn, both in drag. Several writers since have strongly discredited Mrs. Rosenstiel, and it is most likely that Hoover’s cross-dressing is merely an urban legend. He may have been gay, however, as some (possibly circumstantial) information about he and right-hand man Clyde Tolson is more credible.
1994 - Transgender activists protest exclusion from Stonewall25 celebrations and The Gay Games in New York City. The Gay Games later rescinds rules that require “documented completion of sex change” before allowing transgender individuals to compete.
Assotto Saint (Yves Lubin), a Haitian gay and trans poet and author of colour dies of HIV-related illness. The pioneering author and publisher had penned several influential works, and was on the verge of completing two anthologies by the time of his death.
Several cities on the west coast of the US pass anti-discrimination statues protecting transsexual and transgender people.
Hijras in India are given the right to vote. Within 5 years, a hijra will be elected as a Member of Parliament (Shabnam “Mausi” Bano, in 1998). Hijras are third-gender persons, usually male or intersex in origin, and living as female. Estimates range between 50,000 and 5,000,000 hijras currently living in the Indian subcontinent alone. Although early English writings referred to them as eunuchs, not all undergo castration. Hijras are limited by caste, must train under a teacher, and are considered low class. Violence against hijras is common, and the authorities continue to be slow to do anything about the problem.
1995 - Transsexual activists protest Oregon’s Right to Privacy (now known as “Right to Pride”) political action committee to cease using Alan Hart’s old name as an award given out to lesbian activists. Over the following years, some of his legacy would be regained by the transgender community, and his preferred male name would regain recognition.
Tyra Hunter dies following a traffic accident in Washington, D.C. Her injuries should have been minor, but when the responding EMT team (a crew of D.C. firefighters) arrives on the scene, cut away her clothing and discover her genitalia, they withdraw medical care, uttering epithets and taunting her as she bleeds. When she is finally taken to D.C. General Hospital, she is also given inadequate care and dies from blood loss. In 1998, a jury awards Tyra’s mother $2,873,000 after finding the District of Columbia (via both the EMTs and Hospital) guilty of negligence and malpractice. Several activist groups form in her memory.
Georgina Beyer becomes New Zealand’s (and the World’s) first transsexual Mayor of Carterton, where she remained until 2000. She later becomes a Member of Parliament (see part 6).
The Triangle Program opens in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, designed for GLBT students at risk of dropping out or committing suicide because of homophobia in regular schools.
As the GLB and T communities began to enjoy their newfound freedoms, there was a lot of self-differentiation that took place. Each community wished to distinguish themselves from other communities, sometimes at those other communities’ expense. Transgender people were not the only ones adversely affected. The lesbian community went through a period in the politically-correct 1980s of ejecting lesbians who fit the “butch” and “femme” paradigms, because they were seen as creating “bad stereotypes” of that community as well (although this still has some root in the expression of gender). Most tragic of this was that it was often those “butch / femme” lesbians who had been first to “come out” and become involved with their community. But while many of these divisions would sow resentments and infighting, they would eventually become recognized as growing pains as the various communities redefined their new place in the world, and those divisions would gradually start to be overcome.
Next: Toward the Future.
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.