#tv/ts tapestry

[degenderates]

from “All Transsexuals are Not Alike” by James Green, published in the summer 1994 issue of TV/TS Tapestry

[dogwoodbite]

i think its actually super interesting how quickly terminology changes in the trans community

[pittrarebooks]

Trust in Trans Becomings

This post is written by Vasudha (they/them), a Brackenridge Fellow in the David C. Frederick Honors College and a fourth year undergraduate student majoring in Natural Sciences and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies.

My time with the transgender underground press in the Hillman Archives & Special Collections lead me to think about how trans pasts and trans presents are intertwined, especially with trans people being heavily scrutinized in our current political climate. Bans against gender-inclusive books, drag shows (1), and gender affirming healthcare (2) are being proposed and even passed at state-wide levels in an attempt to eradicate “gender ideology”, at the cost of the trans community’s safety and well-being. In looking through issues of TV-TS Tapestry, which was later renamed Transgender Tapestry, I found one trans political narrative from the past that is still present today, although in different language.

Detransitioning stories have been used often as conservative talking points for why gender affirming care should be limited, framing it as causing irrevocable harm to those who supposedly hopped on the “trans train” without a second thought, and ultimately regretted their decision (3). In a 1988 issue of Tapestry, the term “pseudo-transsexual” was used to describe people who were convinced they were trans, but were instead “very confused” and “emotionally disabled”, in the words of Sister Mary Elizabeth.

(Above) Excerpt from "Sy Rogers and the 700 Club: A Response" by Sr. Mary Elizabeth, n/SSE, The TV-TS Tapestry, Issue 52, pg 46-47, 1988. University of Pittsburgh Library System, Archives & Special Collections.

As a devout Christian nun, the words of Sister Mary may seem like they come from a place of compassion and concern, seeing as she places blame on the religious community for condemning gender-diverse people, turning them away from God (see third paragraph of the above excerpt). But as a White trans woman, Sister Mary’s words only serve to cast doubt on the self-knowledge of trans people of color and other marginalized trans people, whose trans identity is more likely to be written off as false or self-convinced (4). This doubt quickly becomes reason to turn them away from receiving care, giving providers the power to choose who is “really” trans, and who isn’t.

(Above) Image of Sr. Mary Elizabeth with Christine Jorgensen at the International Foundation for Gender Education 'Coming Together' Convention in 1988 from "Sy Rogers and the 700 Club: A Response" by Sr. Mary Elizabeth, n/SSE, The TV-TS Tapestry, Issue 52, pg 46-47, 1988. University of Pittsburgh Library System, Archives & Special Collections.

Today, narratives of detransitioning are covertly doing the same by feigning concern for those who were supposedly coerced into receiving gender affirming care by the “transgender ideology” spread by trans people and enabled by medical caregivers. Politicized detransitioning organizations encourage those who detransition to sue their physicians, effectively scaring well-meaning providers off from treating patients who they deem “emotionally unfit” to transition, and pushing medical practitioners to question the self-knowledge of their patients.

In addition, restricting doubt from trans experiences has related implications. In Transgender Tapestry’s Summer 2005 “Ask Ari” column, a trans woman admits to feeling doubtful about medically transitioning. Ari responds to reassure her that although medical professionals make it difficult to voice these feelings, it is completely normal for trans people to have fears surrounding the process of transitioning.

(Above) "Ask Ari" Column from Transgender Tapestry, Issue 108, pages 18-19, Summer 2005, University of Pittsburgh Library System, Archives & Special Collections.

I resonated with this column as someone who has felt illegitimate for experiencing trans doubt myself, and I realized that we’ve been conditioned to feel that way through medical practices. Throughout the history of trans medical care, diagnostic criteria have included experiencing mental distress in the form of gender dysphoria (formerly known as gender identity disorder) to be eligible for care. Until last year, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) required a psychologist recommendation and diagnosis for patients to be able to receive care. Although this has been removed from their standards of care, a majority of clinics still use this criteria, which in many cases doesn’t allow for trans doubt to be explored without disqualifying patients from care.

Many trans people do have doubts and fears about medically transitioning, and it’s important that these feelings can be spoken about freely so that patients can be honest about their trans experiences and trust providers with their care. If a patient is forced to exaggerate their need for care in order to be trusted and qualified to receive it, there is no space for real conversations about a patient’s needs and what they hope to achieve through gender affirming care, which is what may lead to experiences of detransitioning (in the way that conservatives view it) in the first place.

Looking into snippets of trans history provided me with a better sense of trans experiences in today’s world, by being able to see similarities at the core of trans issues throughout time. Trans archival materials serve an important purpose of reminding us that trans people have always been here, and have been fighting the same anti-trans sentiments for centuries, although they may seem different today. They give us the strength to keep fighting.

Footnotes & Works Cited

Garnand, Ileana. "How drag bans fit into larger attacks on transgender rights." The Center for Public Integrity, April 14, 2023.

HRC Foundation. "Map: Attacks on Gender Affirming Care by State." Human Rights Coalition, Accessed August 8, 2023.

For a better understanding of more common reasons for detransitioning, see this NIH article: Turban, Jack L., et. al., "Factors Leading to "Detransition" Among Transgender and Gender Diverse People in the United States: A Mixed-Methods Analysis." LGBT Health, May/June 2023; 8(4): 273-280. DOI: 10.1089/lgbt.2020.0437. Accessed August 8, 2023.

For a detailed archive-based history on racialized medical gatekeeping of gender affirming care, read Chapter 5 of Jules Gill-Peterson’s Histories of the Transgender Child, titled “Transgendered Boyhood, Race, and Puberty in the 1970s”.

[artsyape]

My reading list for 2023. * means at least one queer character. GN means Graphic Novel. I think my top three were Welcome to the Monkey House which was short stories by Kurt Vonnegut, Bones Beneath My Skin because TJ Klune writes so gorgeously, and The Skull by Jon Klassen just because it was slightly unhinged and I love kids books like that. Also 7 (7! Like holy cow) were kink novels by my writer friend that I am an arc reader for that were just absolutely perfect.

1. Everleigh’s Ring *

2. Malibu rising *

3. Legends and lattes *

4. One true loves

5. Meet Me By The Fountain

6. An unexpected kind of love*

7. I Exaggerate my brushes with fame

8. Carrie Soto is back

9. Check please books 1 and 2*(GN)

10. The reservoir

11. Teen titans: beast boy (GN)

12. Teen titans: beast boy loves raven (GN)

13. Everything is beautiful and I am not afraid *(GN)

14. Quiet girl in a noisy world(GN)

15. Everything is ok (GN)

16. Ashes(GN)

17. New Kid (GN)

18. Best short stories 2022

19. Mazebook (GN)

20. House of many ways

21. Castle in the air

22. Not If I Save You First

23. Heartbreak Hockey*

24. Lessons

25. Wild Akers *

26. Wild ash *

27. Teen titans: Robin GN

28. My aunt is a monster GN

29. Welcome to the monkey house

30. Rosalin Palmer Takes the Cake *

31. Cats cafe GN

32. Belle of the ball GN *

33. Other Boys GN*

34. Murder most actual *

35. The greatest thing *

36. Gender queer *

37. The tea dragon society GN*

38. The tea dragon festival GN *

39. Hungry Ghost GN

40. The Tea Dragon Tapestry GN*

41. A first time for everything GN

42. The best we could do GN

43. In limbo GN

44. Squire and Knight GN

45. Why Didn’t You Tell Me

46. Snapdragon GN *

47. Anya’s Ghost GN

48. Sensory life on the spectrum GN*

49. The girl and the glim GN

50. Why are you like this GN

51. The Dragon Warlord *

52. Always Never GN

53. In the lives of puppets *

54. Chefs Kiss GN *

55. Moonstruck vol 1 GN *

56. Moonstruck vol 2 GN *

57. Moonstruck vol 3 GN *

58. You Better Be Lightning (poetry)*

59. The Bones Beneath My Skin *

60. Avant Guards vol 1 GN*

61. The language of seabirds*

62. The fiancée farce *

63. Wintering the power of rest and retreat in difficult times

64. Avant Guards vol 2 GN*

65. Avant Guards vol 3 GN*

66. The electricity of every living thing

67. Aquicorn cove GN*

68. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

69. Nice and accurate good omens tv companion *

70. The Waste Land (ts Elliot)

71. Dodger

72. Unmasking Autism *

73. Brothers of reckoning *

74. Demon Copperhead *

75. Things in the basement GN

76. Paris Dalliencourt is about to crumble *

77. Dr. Who Pest Control

78. Dr. Who The Forever Trap

79. Dr. Who Feast Of The Drowned

80. The skull Jon Klassan

81. The rock from the sky

82. The personality brokers

83. Dr. Who The Resurrection Casket

84. Light carries on* GN

85. Northranger * GN

86. Basil and Oregano * GN

87. Keeping two GN

88. The magic fish * GN

89. Good omens *

90. Dr. Who the last dodo

91. Dr. Who the stone rose

92. Fangirl vol 2 GN

93. Fangirl vol 3 GN

94. My happy marriage Vol 1 GN

95. My happy marriage Vol 2 GN

96. My happy marriage Vol 3 GN

97. Faint of Heart GN

98. Us *GN

99. Four Color Heroes *GN

100. Merry-go-round * GN

101. Hedra GN

102. But you have friends GN

103. Bear otter and the kid *

104. Queer: a graphic history*

105. The Ojja Wojja *GN

106. Across a field of starlight *GN

107. The moth keeper * GN

108. Going remote a teachers journey GN

109. Hot dog (Caldecott winner 2023)

110. Boom box mix tape

111. Haruki murakami’s manga stories

112. Princess princess ever after *

113. All systems red -murderbot

114. The Infinity Particle

115. Famous in a small town

116. Starborn Husbands *

117. Artie and the wolf moon *

[hailmaryfullofgrace55675]

I am disagreeing with you. Your idea of transmasc and transfem as meaning trans with a masc presentation and/or identity and trans with a fem presentation and/or identity is incorrect (not what the words mean, if somebody told you this is what they mean they were incorrect, either because they guessed the meaning without checking or because they have decided that their redefinition is better and more important than the past two decades of trans community conversation) and serves no benefit (we already have language to refer to someone having a masculine identity and/or presentation, it’s “masc”. The way to talk about trans people with masc identities or presentations is to say “masc trans people”. It is a solved problem.)

Redefining transmasc and transfem from their assignment based definitions to “masc and fem” does not further the cause of inclusive trans discussions. The assignment based definitions already serve a very important purpose in trans discussions, which is to provide a group name/identity for people in the position of having been assigned male and having developed a fem identity, presentation, or transition path from there. The term “transfeminine” was coined to cut through divisions between “transvestites” and “transsexuals”, already serving multiple purposes in uniting people who were biomedically transitioning/nontransitioning, people who identified as women per se/feminine but not necessarily women, and people who were more invested in identity/presentation. See Jane Nance in the TV-TS Tapestry Issue 47 pub. 1985. It continues to serve these purposes.

People-who-were-assigned-male-crossing-toward-femness-somehow and people-who-were-assigned-male-crossing-toward-mascness-somehow have vested interest in continuing to articulate these experiences through these common, usually well-understood terms. Redefining them as merely meaning masc/fem while trans technically makes them include a larger number of people, but only by making them not mean the thing that they are useful for anymore. The issue with redefining them isn’t exclusion, it’s deprivation of language. Redefining transmasc and transfem to each mean “human” would also include all people who previously identified as transmasc or transfem while including a larger number of people, and would render the terms completely useless for trans discussion.

Successfully redefining transfem and transmasc to mean fem-while-trans and masc-while-trans would functionally force everyone who uses the established meanings to constantly clarify their assigned genders or switch to new language that replicates the previous meanings. It would not open up new avenues of connection, people are already free to connect with each other over similar feelings and presentations, already do so, and already effectively use language to do so.

“The definitions of transfem and transmasc involve assigned gender” is not a traditionalist sacred boundary that can be overturned for the purpose of liberation. It’s a statement about community jargon that is useful for discussions.

FRIENDLY REMINDER:

transfem ≠ a trans amab person

transmasc ≠ a trans afab person

an afab person can be transfem

an amab person can be transmasc

an intersex person can be transfem/transmasc

someone can be transfem and transmasc

these labels aren’t talking about genitals, they’re talking about the intersection of being trans and identifying/presenting in a masc/fem way

I get that we normally use these terms in this way, but it just presents another form of binary thinking if there is no flexibility to these labels, which is pretty ironic considering these labels were made to be inclusive of nonbinary people.

By limiting the meaning of these labels, we only hurt Trans people. We exclude nonbinary people, multigender people, trans intersex people, trans systems, and so many more.

[mirekat]

Em and I are going through all the back issues of Transgender Tapestry for our bedtime reading (thanks Digital Transgender Archive) and finally, in the mid-1980s, we’ve come across an article by someone we know personally. Hell of a feeling. I write about the 1950s in my Work Life, and don’t have any trans connections that run that far back, so this is one of the first encounters I’ve had with an acquaintance speaking straight out of the foreign country of the past. 

And that got me wondering what it’ll feel like when we reach the mid-2000s issues, when I was tentatively out as trans myself. Like this is not very far away, in normal space. It’s been a decade and a half since I started thinking of myself in nonbinary terms, a decade since I started capital-T Transitioning. And yet some things about the worlds I occupied--the uneasy ‘what-are-we-if-we’re-not-lesbians’ fringe of San Francisco’s mid-2000s gay scene and the Very Online cadre of people who were young enough to sneer at TS Roadmap but still old enough to be fucked up by it--are as alien now as the world of the New England bridge ladies who edited Tapestry. I don’t think I could have been who I am now, back then. I know I thought about it--having the kind of body I have while occupying a gender-space that doesn’t have much to do with manhood--but even in c.2006 San Francisco that didn’t feel like a thing I could do. At least not in the subculture I was in. At least not wanting the kinds of people I wanted. 

So when I go to my trans support group--which I’ve started doing again, at least until I pick up some new friends--I don’t know how to talk about myself. The majority of people there are in their first years of transition, and I fit that mold in some ways. I’m learning how to be nonbinary in 2022, and learning how to make sense of myself as someone who feels lesbian-adjacent in a complicated historical sense and as someone who’s running on estrogen again after years of running on T and regrets precisely nothing about that. But in other ways--in trans time--I am old. People talk about seeing themselves in the mirror and knowing they’ve come home and I’m like, I don’t know what that means, I’ve been living on on a short-term lease for sixteen years. 

And I’m still here. And I’m not. And the person who wrote an article in the typewritten hand-stapled 1985 issue of TV/TS Tapestry is still here and, maybe, in a sense, she’s not. I don’t know; I’m not in her head. Maybe for some people time doesn’t change anything. It changes everything for me.

So anyway, moral of the story, from a trans historian of trans people: save your shit. Save your diaries and self-insert fanfic and the cringe memes you shared on Something Awful before you got the good ending and transed yourself. Save yourself for yourself, and if you’re willing save bits of yourself for future historians so that they don’t end up stuck where I am, trying to hear echoes of real people through insurance paperwork and memories reconstituted at a remove of forty years. Because memories are great, but memories are fundamentally about the present, and, as I learned last night, hearing stories about How Things Used To Be isn’t the same as catching someone in the fragile, fleeting moment of becoming the past. 

[transgender-history]

From TV-TS Tapestry issue 21 (March, 1980)

[flyingcatstiel]

Salty Ask list! 

@60r3d0m said on this ask:

hmmm particular arcs...maybe purgatory? human cas? mark of cain? how did you feel about those?

I didn’t mention these because either I think they’re popular enough or I don’t like them. Let’s see. I watched the show live, with tumblr fandom, since 8x01. So, my opinion of all these arcs is tinted by our expectations at the time and how they matched up with the show. The problem with Supernatural is, that the show never lives up to fandom speculations, never surprises me in a good way. I love good story. I can enjoy a good, clever story even if Cas is not there. Unfortunately, the show never delivers on its potential. 

Purgatory. The idea was marvelous - Dean and Cas alone in purgatory, so much potential for talks, adventures. What if they meet some old adversaries there? Gordon, Emma? The reality - obligatory chaperone and new best friend Benny spent more alone time with Dean than Cas. I think, that was our clue, our hint, that the show will never deliver proper deancas, only tease it. They were pretty honest about it, promoting Benny more than Cas at SDCC. But we didn’t see it at the time. I think Purgatory arc is popular in fandom for it’s aesthetics and very sexy Dean. I know that the other half of fandom has successfully bleached out “”Where’s the angel?” lines out of their brains and they think that Dean spent all time there eager to get back to Sammy. So, they also like it. In conclusion - purgatory arc was too short. Another example of how the show created something they didn’t expect fans to like so much. 

Human Cas. First of all, a supernatural being losing their powers and adapting to human life is a staple of genre TV. When you see this trope, you have expectations - jokes and philosophical musings about human nature, insights in what makes us human. Parallels with people having hard time to adapt in other cultures or coming back from war. It’s a treasure trove of genre TV. Some TV shows are based only on this trope. Third rock from the Sun. Spike in season 4 of Buffy, etc, etc. Add to this the fact that for years TPTB told us that the only reason why Cas is not around more, is because  he’s too powerful. In season 9 Cas was human and bros had bunker. My and fandom expectations were very high for human Cas arc. But when you are SPN, all you get is urination jokes and most of human Cas happening off screen. I was so pissed of about urination gag because it excludes women - Cas is experiencing this huge paradigm shift and it is male body coded. Cas centric 9x03 is an atrocity and the only episode I tag with ”for ts”. With years, my opinion is changing about 9x06 as well. I love Steve!Cas if only for his blue vest, but the episode was another successful con by Carver. Let’s just say that framing the episode around ”jilted lover” note was a very clever way to misdirect fans from the fact that 9x06 didn’t tell us anything about how Cas survived after 9x03 or if even Dean gave him a bit of money&ID cards before kicking Cas out. This was another clue that the show is not interested in telling Cas’ story for Cas sake or developing proper, sub textual deancas story where Dean actually cares about Cas. In conclusion - I was interested in human Cas story at the time, but, after seeing how the show executed it, I’m against it. 

Mark of Cain. I actually don’t have much opinion about this. It was too long, to convoluted, too many threads. We got very short demon!Dean arc, we got Sam doing very bad things that were never mentioned again, we got what the heck they’re trying to do with Cole arc, we got Cain and Colette parallels that went nowhere, we got Cas and Crowley parallel nobody was asking for, we got Dean beating the shit out of Cas that was resolved by Cas beating the shit out of Dean. We got random drunk hunter Rudy getting spot next to Cas in Dean’s mirror of regrets. We got Dean killing Death and that changed nothing in the show universe. A��whole season and half and it ended with the worst season finale IMO, 10x23. That’s when destiel meta community fell apart and we lost some really good meta writers. Hiatus after season 10 is when ”anything goes, let’s just have fun fun” approach to meta started. So you could definitely say that Mark of Cain left its mark on destiel meta community and we are still living in its shadow. 

The way I see SPN the show now is something like a random collection of lovely things, precious stones, marbles = great actors, lovely character scenes, some great cinematography. They’re catchy, precious. Then fandom comes in and weaves a tapestry and incorporates all these trinkets. Fandom makes story, connects the dots, fills in the gaps. The problem with SPN is that fans have to spend way more effort to make a coherent picture than the fans of some other shows. SPN elements are so self contained, that you can make a destiel tapestry while other fans make their wincest tapestry from the same bin of  trinkets! It’s just a matter of picking and choosing right trinkets and ignoring the ones that doesn't fit. 

[spectraspecs-writes]

The article can longer be found on TrekCore (the above link), but it can be found on Archive dot org!

Transgender Tapestry - Summer 1997

[windowsalad8-blog]

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[divdevdump]

RuPaul's recent controversial comments heightened tensions between two communities that were once closely allied. What happened? Last week, in an interview with The Guardian that hyped the “radical message” of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the superstar drag queen was asked whether he would allow people whose gender identity was female to compete on the show. Regarding transgender women who have had breast implants or undergone hormone replacement therapy, RuPaul said they would “probably not” be eligible to compete on the show — “it changes the whole concept of what we’re doing” — and doubled down on Twitter by comparing trans drag queens to steroid-abusing professional athletes, before apologizing amid a wave of backlash. Whereas the drag and trans communities were once closely allied, this sort of antagonism has colored trans people’s perceptions of drag for years, especially among younger trans women and transfeminine people. The day before Drag Race All Stars’ season three premiere in January, a user of the subreddit r/Asktransgender asked “Who else has a problem with drag?” to describe the hurt she felt at being lumped in with the “man in a dress” by cisgender audiences. Responses were mixed: Some laid blame with individual performers, but many seemed to think the well itself was poisoned. One user called drag “frequently somewhere between casually and blatantly misogynistic,” while several went so far as to compare it outright to blackface. According to Ben Power, executive director of the Sexual Minorities Archive in Holyoke, Massachusetts, the last time in recent memory that drag itself was under such heavy fire was when it became a target of lesbian separatists in the 1970s. The only major difference today, he says, is that “the people doing the judging changed.” How did this happen? At what point did drag become the source of so much controversy under the queer umbrella? And most important: What do we do, now that there’s no going back?

While starting with crossdressing in Shakespearean-era theatre might seem a little too far back, it’s vital to note drag’s early, chimeric history before we get too far in the weeds. (This overview should not be considered comprehensive; as a white trans woman, I yield analysis of drag’s relationship with race to transfeminine people of color.) At one point, “female impersonation” was one of the most commonplace ideas in Western performing arts; young boys played female roles as a matter of course, and nobody would have thought to question their sexuality or gender. Drag as specifically queer performance did not yet exist, because the necessary context had yet to arrive.

By the 1800s, that context was well on its way in America. White men often portrayed female minstrel show characters, milking “man in a dress” humor alongside the shows’ racism. Yet even as the public devoured female impersonation in entertainment, cross-gender expression was otherwise thoroughly policed. In Columbus, Ohio, laws against public crossdressing were established in 1848, spreading to other cities in the following decades — partially an attempt to stop women from enlisting in the military but also meant to shore up God-given gender roles and discourage sodomy, too.

As “dressing up” in public became more dangerous, fledgling 19th century queer communities naturally sought to circumvent the new laws. Some of the earliest, albeit suspect, information we have about explicitly queer drag dates back to 1893; in Gay American History, Jonathan Katz reprints one doctor’s letter to a medical journal warning of “an annual convocation of negro men called the drag dance, which is an orgie of lascivious debauchery.”

Over ensuing decades, lines between drag, crossdressing, and transsexual identification blurred significantly, separated only by semi-porous membranes of politics and genderfuckery. As minstrel shows gave way to the rise of vaudeville and radio, drag drifted away from the mainstream to become a staple of gay nightlife, bringing with it a new paradigm for queer identification. In How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States, Joanne Meyerowitz notes that the 1950s “female impersonator” community served as a safe haven for prospective trans women to sort out their gender issues. Queens of the time did more than carefully impersonate celebrities and replicate “feminine” mannerisms: Many underwent early hormone replacement therapy to grow real breasts, and would provide “purple pills” to their less experienced charges along with “encouragement to pursue a woman’s life offstage.” One trans woman who worked as a female impersonator asserted in an interview that although most queens had once denied any desire for bottom surgery, she knew “half a dozen impersonators…[who were] saving for the operation” by the mid-1960s. Knowing others who had surgically transitioned, she believed, had mollified their fears. Perhaps nobody was more emblematic of drag’s nebulous placement within queer identification than Sylvia Rivera. Widely considered to be one of the instigators of the Stonewall riots in 1969, Rivera is today revered as something of a saint within the transgender community — somewhat ironic, as Rivera herself rejected that term and others. “I’m tired of being labeled. I don’t even like the label transgender,” Rivera wrote in a 2002 essay. “I just want to be who I am.” Rivera’s sense of gender seemed too expansive for any one word, and she drifted through countless categories over the course of her life. But one identity the STAR co-founder never disavowed was “queen.” These fluid dynamics of identification and belonging are evident in America’s first transgender periodicals. Drag magazine printed tips on hormone therapy, gender identity clinics and gender-affirming surgeons. Later issues gave pride of place to erotic centerfolds but still celebrated civil rights successes, like a disabled trans woman’s 1980 request for bottom surgery — “the first time a federally funded medical care program [Medicaid] has recognized transsexuality.” The reverse was true for magazines like Transgender Tapestry (originally TV/TS Tapestry), published from 1979 to 2008. Much of each issue focused on building “transvestite/transsexual” community, but drag featured prominently in its news coverage and analytical essays. Even drag queens who didn’t necessarily identify with transsexuals or crossdressers fought for the rights of both. A 1975 Drag special supplement opened with “The Drag Times,” a short news section dedicated to transgender civil rights struggles. One story told of drag queens and allies who picketed a hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district to protest housing discrimination and police mistreatment. That spirit would continue for decades; in an essay for Transgender Tapestry’s Summer 1997 issue, “What Do Drag Queens Want?,” Tim Denesha writes that “drags want...to make the world a better place,” noting the thousands raised for AIDS research yearly through the drag circuit’s grassroots Imperial Court system. A primary reason for much of this inter-community cooperation was the consolidation of political power. Drag queens, transvestites, and transsexuals of the 1970s shared an obvious set of common goals, which include abolishing the myriad of laws that outlawed crossdressing across America. Gender-conforming gay men were no help; a 1975 Drag essay noted that “the gays in their movement for liberation seemingly feel that drags have a worse public image, and so have virtually disowned us.” But those networks had more practical day-to-day purposes, such as keeping people alive. STAR, the organization founded by Rivera and fellow queen Marsha P. Johnson, served homeless queer youth of color, regardless of categorical identification. This would become invaluable during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s; trans women were among those frequently cast out from their disease-fearing biological families, finding their way to drag families instead (as can be observed firsthand in Jennie Livingston’s iconic documentary Paris Is Burning). The early 1990s saw an explosion in the East Village drag scene, stoking flames for a comeback of female impersonation in cisgender-friendly contexts. But it was a San Diego–born queen who built them into a roaring bonfire: RuPaul. After releasing his hit single “Supermodel” in 1992, drag exploded, becoming a mass-media sensation for much of the decade. “RuPaul was the cover girl of the ’90s,” as sociology scholar Suzanna Danuta Walters notes in her book All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America. Elsewhere in pop culture, films like To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995) and The Birdcage (1996) were opening-weekend hits, and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) became a national touchstone. “[C]ross-dressing, straight-talking drag queens emerged as our Dear Abbys — providing sassy but affectionate insight into the vicissitudes of heterosexual romance,” writes Danuta. Yet though the “curious cultural fascination” with drag performers burned hot, it did “not necessarily entail a challenge to traditional definitions of gender. [....] In films and popular culture generally, drag becomes a safe and circuitous way” of dealing with queerness, rather than a radical cross-gender experience. A major part of this was clearly the emphasis on cisgender drag queens; in the 1990s, no trans queen could hope for RuPaul’s level of fame and acceptance. The drag boom dimmed by the mid-’90s, but it came with more than its fair share of cultural osmosis. For one thing, drag no longer had a “public image” problem — at least, not as far as gay men were concerned; a quick rewrite of drag history was all that was needed. Julian Fleishman’s 1997 book The Drag Queens of New York, compiled through interviews with RuPaul and his contemporaries, casually opines that “when a man who wishes to be a woman…succeeds in becoming one, he is no longer a drag queen” and that though real queens might “experiment” with transitioning, “they invariably stop short of the surgical point of no return.” But though the historical revisionism of gay men’s relationship with drag was damaging, another component of the ’90s drag boom had deeper effects: Cisgender Americans now had a whole new way of looking at and talking about transgender people, and many manipulated that vocabulary to twisted ends. Read more

[yunna654-blog]

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[transgender-history]

Wisdom from trans elders. From TV-TS Tapestry issue 19 (January, 1980)

[hailmaryfullofgrace55675]

Hi, mossydog. A crucial piece of information that it seems that you are missing is that “transfeminine” doesn’t mean “trans, with a gender identity that is feminine in some way”. “Transfeminine” is an umbrella term for trans women (women who were assigned male at birth) and people who were assigned male at birth who have transitioned toward womanhood and/or femininity in some way. “Transfeminine” was invented by Jane Nance writing in The TV-TS Tapestry (Issue 47) in 1985 as an umbrella term for (AMAB, toward-femininity/womanhood/femaleness) transvestites and transsexuals.

Patricia-Taxxon appears to be pattern-matching Punkitt’s anon to this thing AFAB trans people do sometimes where they don’t identify as women exactly so they want to identify as trans women - as though a trans woman isn’t just a woman! As though a trans woman is something off from a woman, a third gender freak with an inherent maleness.

Identifying as transfeminine instead of just identifying as feminine follows the same pattern. Transfemininity is the off version, the different version, the version that isn’t like the femininity of cis women. A femininity that comes from being something else first. This is a transmisogynistic misunderstanding of transfemininity! Transfemininity isn’t cool gender transgressive weird something-else femininity, it’s regular-ol’ femininity (with all the diversity and complexity that entails) in someone who happens to have been assigned male! Like trans womanhood is regular-ol’ womanhood in someone who happens to have been assigned male!

Patricia-Taxxon is being short with people because addressing lots of people’s misunderstandings of basic trans stuff is exhausting.

it's really disappointing when someone who you respected the opinions of says something that just really sucks and then refuses to even acknowledge criticism

[transgender-history]

From TV-TS Tapestry #19 (July, 1979)

[transgender-history]

Rules for a trans gala in the 1970s.

From TV-TS Tapestry issue #8 (February, 1979)