TERF activist censors Radical Feminist voices to sneak hate into the classroom. Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) activist, Sheila Jeffreys has written a new academic book that claims to inform readers of the various ways TERF culture, "has all been disappeared from history." Chief among those Jeffreys' claims to have the power to disappear TERFs from history is an "influential men’s cross-dressing rights movement which enforces men’s access to lesbians wherever we seek to meet or network." To support this fact claim,… Read more.

The TransAdvocate produced a short documentary to examine the political right's propensity to focus on bathrooms when it comes to trans equality. The reality is, the political right always focuses on bathrooms, privacy, and sexual safety concerns when taking a stand against equality, no matter the oppressed population. This documentary examines, from a historical perspective, why this political rhetoric works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHzrPGyiwqo Podcast Extra Transcript In Illinois, one of the states that joined North Carolina in suing the Obama Administration for… Read more.

As previewed in the last TransAdvocate podcast, the hip-hop artist known as MIC created an amazing tune about the TransAdvocate, trans advocacy in the US, and the radical feminists who bravely stood by their trans siblings (in the face of sex essentialist violence and attempted murder) and helped inform what became known as "trans advocacy" today. MIC namedrops numerous early radical feminists and feminist organizations, early trans activists and, of course, the TransAdvocate itself. MIC presented this work to the… Read more.

We have the largest trans archive still in the community's hands and we share with you some of the recent acquisitions from the last couple of weeks. This invariably wraps back around to current political narratives about trans people and we notice that anti-trans politicians seem to have a few skellies in their own closets! On the Pod: Cristan Williams, Robin Mack, and Alexis Melvin. Subscribe to the TransAdvocate Podcasts and Audio Essays here: [su_column size="1/5"]… Read more.

In a TransAdvocate article entitled "On the Ethics and Utility of Violence," an anonymous contributor makes the case for such violent acts as punching Richard Spencer, a white supremacist who has invoked Nazi slogans, in the middle of an interview while he was assaulting no one and posed no physical threat to anyone. Far from a "victory," I find that act of violence a surrender to the ethos of patriarchy and domination, as opposed to the values of feminism, democracy,… Read more.

By Alexx Andersen There has been a lot of misinformation about North Carolina’s House Bill 2 through various media outlets, as well as a general lack of coverage in regards to the many Queer and Trans People of Color-led (QTPOC) efforts since the passing of North Carolina’s House Bill 2, referred in the media as “The Bathroom Bill.” The narrative that has been pushed through various media outlets leads people to believe that it is only about the bathrooms. North… Read more.

This was the era of Anita Bryant's crusade against lesbians and gays. "As a mother," Bryant said, "I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children." This was the predominant belief; this notion that gays and lesbians need to "recruit" people to grow in numbers, and therefore are grooming children. It was very effective, as it tapped into primal fears that one's own sons and daughters could be in peril from a menace that the… Read more.

[su_column size="1/2"] [su_button url="http://www.transadvocate.com/part-i-the-rise-and-fall-of-discosexology-dr-zucker-camh-conversion-therapy_n_19556.htm" target="blank" style="flat" background="#333333" color="#ffffff" size="10" wide="yes" center="yes" radius="0" icon="icon: mail-reply" icon_color="#ffffff"]Disco Sexology, Part One: Introduction [su_column size="1/2"] [su_button url="http://www.transadvocate.com/part-iii-the-report-controversy-the-rise-and-fall-of-discosexology-dr-zucker-camh-conversion-therapy_n_19672.htm" target="blank" style="flat" background="#333333" color="#ffffff" size="10" wide="yes" center="yes" radius="0" icon="icon: mail-forward" icon_color="#ffffff"]Disco Sexology, Part Three: Controversy By Cristan Williams   Upon completion of this series, this work will be released, in its entirety, as both an audio and ebook. Installment Preface Welcome to the second installment in… Read more.

Johns Hopkins was an early pioneer in American trans care until anti-LGBT activist Paul McHugh began working at the hospital. In 1979, McHugh was able to end trans care at Johns Hopkins and later wrote that it was his goal to force the closure of the hospital's gender program saying, "It was part of my intention, when I arrived in Baltimore in 1975, to help end it." McHugh went on to describe his professional assessment… Read more.

A trans historian considers the backward progress of the way media represents our dead. By Kat If you are thinking of transitioning but have yet to start the process you have probably spent some time looking for ‘trans stuff.’ Yes, that would include information about how to about the transition process medically and legally; I’m just old enough to remember when the Erickson Educational Foundation pamphlets (remember those?) weren’t too far out of… Read more.

The yearly struggle the trans community experiences with MichFest has been taking place for so long, some of us have trouble remembering why MichFest's "womyn-born womyn" policy was such a painful issue for the feminist and trans communities in the first place. The very notion of "woman-born woman" is now so ubiquitous that many of us have forgotten that its roots span all the way back to when MichFest's organizer took part in attacking a feminism that was trans… Read more.

Read more.

It has long been asserted that the iconic TERF opinion leader, Janice Raymond, played a part in bringing an end to the public and private coverage of transgender medical care, resulting in measurable death and suffering within the trans community. Unsurprisingly, Raymond rejects any assertion that she has blood on her hands. Over on TheTERFs.com, Raymond objects to the following assertion: “It was only after the NCHCT published Raymond’s bigotry in 1980 that… Read more.

Yesterday The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History added hundreds of photographs, papers and historical objects to its collection to document the history of trans, bisexual, gay and lesbian people.   And in case you're wondering about it, yes, the trans end was ably represented on this day.  One of the trans items donated was a wooden tennis racket from Renee Richards, who turned 80 years old yesterday and was one of the newsworthy trans folks of the 1970's.  After she was… Read more.

In the middle of a cool August night in 1991, Nancy Burkholder was thrown out of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (MWMF) because she’s a trans woman.  Burkholder was Janis Walworth’s friend and she was outraged that MWMF’s would engage in anti-trans discrimination. Walworth, a cisgender radical lesbian feminist,  immediately began to educate MWMF attendees about trans people. After coping with threats of violence and dealing with having her consciousness-raising… Read more.

What follows is a continuation of my interview with Radical Feminist lesbian icon, Robin Tyler. In the previous piece, Tyler talked about being beaten by TERFs for trying to protect a trans woman from their assault. In this portion of the interview, Tyler describes how a TERF's fist at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (MWMF) led her to conclude that it was time for her to start her own women's music festival.… Read more.

Robin Tyler is an iconic Radical Feminist lesbian who talked with me about the ways she confronted TERF violence and oppression against trans women. We discussed Tyler’s involvement with the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Feminist Conference. For some context on why this particular conference was so important, Susan Stryker sums it up well: Elliott also served on the organizing committee of the West Coast Lesbian Feminist Conference, planned for April of 1973 in Los Angeles, and she had… Read more.

Sandy Stone was a problem that Janice Raymond, author of The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male, decided to take care of. Raymond felt that Stone -- an out trans woman who was part of the radical feminist lesbian separatist music collective, Olivia Records -- didn’t belong. Raymond engineered a smear campaign that nearly destroyed the Collective and put Stone’s life in jeopardy, culminating in armed TERFs asserting their intention to murder Stone. Olivia Records was a successful… Read more.

This is a long-form article on MichFest's co-founder and current producer Lisa Vogel. The article contains extensive text of what Vogel has stated regarding trans people over several decades, as well as analysis and commentary on her carefully evolved language, but unevolved perspective, that trans women are males. Lisa Vogel, a co-founder and the producer of the Michigan Women's Music Festival (known more commonly as MichFest and by the acronym MWMF), has consistently defined trans women as both… Read more.

Back in 2011, Cathy Brennan and I were among a group of people working to pass Maryland's HB 235 (Prohibiting Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination) into law. I developed what I thought was a friendship with her while working on the bill -- this was the e-mail she sent me that changed the tone of our relationship. I asked her in a comment thread on Pam's House Blend, the blog I then contributed to, whether or not she… Read more.

Left to Right: Ariadne Kane, Viviane Namaste, Susan Styker. Photo by Dr. Aaron Devor.   You can never go wrong when you hang out with Ms. Bob Davis. Seriously. Ms. Bob is professor at City College of San Francisco and a serious collector of trans literature. She’s a multi-talented woman, with two of those talents being music and writing. I know her writing well—it has appeared, among other places, in Lady Like, Transgender Community News, and Transgender Tapestry, and… Read more.

Official Souvenir Program of the 1979 National March on Washington, Page 40 It should be noted that the organizer of the 1st MOW was Ray Hill from Houston, Texas. Hill was a significant supporter of both trans inclusion and trans empowerment. Trans Leader from Houston, Phyllis Frye (center, holding American flag) Phyllis Frye, leading the Texas contingent [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/71779612" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] Official Souvenir Program of the 1979 National March on Washington, Page 1 "Gay is… Read more.

The TransAdvocate joins other media outlets in celebrating that most hallowed of Holiday traditions: The Top 2013 List. What follows is a look back of the most popular and most evocative stories we published in 2013. Most Fascinated: Published on February 25, 2013, Matt Kailey wrote Why Do Trans People Make Me Uncomfortable? Misogyny lies behind these concepts. The unwarranted devaluation of women and the feminine, along with the unwarranted elevation of men and the masculine, lies behind these concepts.… Read more.

Sheila Jeffreys has for years claimed that trans surgery is the product of some malevolent conspiracy: could be likened to political psychiatry in the Soviet Union. I suggest that transsexualism should best be seen in this light, as directly political, medical abuse of human rights. The mutilation of healthy bodies and the subjection of such bodies to dangerous and life-threatening continuing treatment violates such people's rights to live with dignity in the body into which they were born,… Read more.

Using the cis- and trans- taxonomy to reference gender behavior was used as early as 1914. The transgender community didn't invent its use, nor is its current use inconsistent with its use in 1914.  When discussing gender, cis simply means same and trans simply means to cross. Whether it was 1914 or 2014, when someone uses cis regarding gender, it is simply a recognition that one is not trans. Likewise, whether it was 1914 or 2014, when someone uses trans regarding gender, it… Read more.

When I learned Routledge Press was planning to publish a book about "transgenderism" by Australian academician Sheila Jeffreys, I was astonished. Why was I astonished? Because Jeffreys considers transsexual surgery a human rights violation, has called medical intervention with transgendered children eugenics and McCarthyism, and refuses to use appropriate pronouns when referring to us, cynically claiming she is seeking “clarity.”  I identity FTMs and MTFs by the pronouns that demonstrate their sex class of origin for the sake of clarity. –FTM Transsexualism… Read more.

America's first out trans judge Phyllis Frye (she was the first out trans judge to be sworn in, in America) just recently won the Lifetime Achievement Award. The award was given at the Transgender Foundation of America's 21st annual Transgender Unity Banquet. Check out her moving acceptance speech: [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/88945075" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] What follows is a post that I made after I processed a number of her personal documents for the Transgender Archive located in Houston, Texas: … Read more.

  No, it's not 'shopped. From what I've been able to gather, Einstein didn't value clothing norms; he instead wore what felt comfortable. It's well known that he hated wearing socks and had foot problems. It could be that he simply felt that these shoes were comfortable and really didn't give a damn if convention held that supposedly only women could wear this particular type of shoe. What are your thoughts? Read more.

Technology on the Social and Ethical Aspects of Transsexual Surgery By Janice G. Raymond Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics and Women's Studies Hampshire College/University of Massachusetts Amherst, Massachusetts June, 1980 Note: If you're looking for the article that proves that Raymond helped strip insurance coverage of trans care from public and private insurers, that article is located here. The subject of transsexualism, whether raised in the public forum or in the academic or medical communities, has been viewed… Read more.

The POTUS noted Stonewall in his 2013 inaugural address: We the people declare today that the most evident of truth that all of us are created equal -- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King… Read more.

August, 1970 Readers knock, praise the big parade Editor: As a subscriber and reader of your paper, I would like to comment on the Christopher Street West Parade held last Sunday (June 23) here in L.A. I consider myself pretty well up on what is happening regarding current affairs relevant to our segment of society, and I felt this type of demonstration was a great idea. I guess I thought too soon. That parade did more harm than good. By… Read more.

What better way to spend Pride week than looking at drag queens on the site where it all began? The Stonewall Inn (formerly New Jimmy's) presents Extraordinary Women, a fab photo exhibit of "the most glamorous" transvestites and transsexuals of New York and Amsterdam by artist Remsen Wolff. Stonewall Inn owner Jimmy Pisano remarked, "Transvestites, transsexuals, gays and lesbians stood shoulder-to-shoulder here, so it's appropriate to salute their fearlessness here." 53 Christopher St. Through June 30 - Outweek, July 3,… Read more.

Another one from the TransGriot The Newspaper Column archives that I pined in February 2005 for Black History Month. We Have a History, Too Copyright 2005, The Letter Ever since I was a child I've loved history. I enjoy looking at past events to get an understanding of how the reality of the present took shape. It is then that you can formulate plans to make a better future. The transgender community is starting to come to grips with this… Read more.

Then-HRC head Elizabeth Birch, August 1998 (in an interview with OutSmart magazine (Houston)): Then-HRC head Elizabeth Birch, September 1, 1999 (in Outlines(Chicago)): Outlines: The concept of trans issues … are they in partnership just like with Black issues might be, or are they integral to the agency? ENDA is just one example of how that manifests itself. Birch: I think that the Human Rights Campaign has done as much if not more on transgender issues than most other national [ gay and lesbian… Read more.

In the wake of the President Obama's historic speech referencing Stonewall, NPR ran a piece asking and purporting to answer the question, "So, what was Stonewall?" The article calls upon Martin Duberman, now 82, to retell the story of Stonewall. Martin Duberman published the first history of Stonewall in 1993. His history significantly featured trans folk. Bizarrely, the NPR author Liz Halloran seems to rewrite Duberman's history, spending many lines minimizing the trans aspect of Stonewall:  "I liked the mix of people," he said. "It was not… Read more.

Twenty years ago, a now defunct trans newsletter captured a really interesting moment in trans history: a linguistic tipping point. As I've noted: "Transgender" has been around since at least 1965 "Transgender" was not "coined" by Virginia Prince Transsexuals have been using the term "transgender" since the 1970s "Transgender" was used in a modern sense as early as the 1970s Trans Terminology Timeline Here Even so, it was between the years 1985 and 1995 that the term… Read more.