Self-Organizing Man

[UPDATE: I've updated some links. Oh, and the grammar, too!]

In my inbox this morning is press release for FtM 2005: A Gender Odyssey. Check it out, if you can. September 2 through 5 in Seattle.

Among the notable bits of info within the release is an acknowledgement of FtM: Conference of the Americas. Convened in 1995, the conference drew an unexpectedly larger group of people such that the organizers had to find an additional spaces for the overflow.

I knew two guys who attended that conference. There was an air of excitement about the whole event. FtMs putting themselves on the map!

I had been dressing as a man and exploring names and pronouns for some time before the conference. About two years before that I had come across a Transgender Tapestry magazine an FtM on the cover. Knowing that someone else like me existed in the world made it easier for me to do what I needed to do.

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, times were different then. There were about ten known and out transsexuals and intersex people in the Windy City. When I visited Chicago in 2002, I ran into an old pal, Lynnell Stephani Long.

[In our time together, both of us wrote for Nightlines/Outlines. Mountain Moving Coffee House asked her to leave the premises moments before she was to take the stage with A Real Read. She violated their womyn-born womyn only policy. About this same time she began learning more about her own history as an intersex child. What struck me most about the politics surrounding her dismissal from MMCH was the variety of opinion regarding transsexuals within African-American LGBT communities. I learned then, and have been reminded again and again, there is no such thing as the Black opinion. On anything.]

“Do you remember when we were the only trans people around?” The event I attended had dozens of trans-identified people of all types and varieties.

“Yes,” she said. “Now we’re old school.”

Back then, the only option available was hormones and surgeries. That worked for me, except for the dog and pony show required to obtain them. I must have gone through three therapists before I said screw it. In a move that can only be described as ovarian, I approached a gay doctor I worked with who agreed to treat me without any of the necessary paperwork.

I also attended the first True Spirit Conference along with about 90 other people. Now the conference has grown so much I’ve heard they can’t run the conference in a hotel. It is just too big.

Ten years. I’m still awed by the growth of the trans communities, and also by the energy of the youth who attend the conferences I go to.

Had you asked me I’m not sure I would have predicted this outcome. The sheer numbers boggle my mind. Remember I was one of handful of out trans folks back in 1995.

Then the decision to take hormones was radical. Now, I think, many see it as passe or capitulating to the man.

In the words of Marsha P. Johnson, “Pay it no mind.” Teenagers and Young Academic Feminists bring a smile to my face when they attempt to classify my choices. When I’m feeling puckish, I say, “Listen, you were in preschool when I was making these decisions, okay.”

And you what, they were!

One of the benefits of aging is seeing great social change within my lifetime. Thanks to everyone along my path who have made this past decade so wonderful and exciting.

I’m looking forward to the next ten years.