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31 December 2016

Transgender lexicons: Raphael Carter


Transgender lexicons:


Raphael Carter
 
We looked at Raphael once before. Zir Angel’s Dictionary is well worth revisiting for the obscure and arcane words revived. Here we will look at some of the words and how they have fared in the years since 1996.

Arenotelicon. Presumably from Arreno (Attic Greek for male) and Telicon (Greek for distance or achievement). The word is found in a Renaissance book, the Physiologus where it is used to describe hyenas who were then believed to change sex each year. Carter suggests that the word would apply well to the Gethenians in Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. The word means distancing oneself from maleness, but what would be distancing oneself from femaleness: Thelyotelicon? Arenotelicon has been picked up in SF gaming. Elder Scrolls: Arenotelicon? “Pretty easy: ‘a creature that alternates between male and female’. Why not just ‘phase-shifting tranny’? Well, because sometimes the old words are best, as they ring with implied importance and are all long and spooky-looking.”

Arenotelicon is also sometimes just as a hyena/wolf type monster without any sex-changing – in this usage it was the inspiration for the film Brotherhood of the Wolf.

Baeddel. An old English term for a trans woman. Urban Dictionary says that it is a derogatory term, but any term from that period would have been. Is it connected to our modern word ‘bad’? Some have reclaimed the term for themselves. Some of those who did that have acquired a bad reputation for online aggression, especially against trans men. However not all.

Epicene. From the Greek epi + koinos (common). So by usage: what is common to both genders. Non-binary pronouns are epicene pronouns. Carter comments: “This word has taken on a variety figurative meanings over the centuries (Ben Jonson used it to mean something like 'effeminate'); still, more than any other word I know of, it emphasizes what is common to both sexes. Its Greek root means 'common,' and it shows up in descriptions of garments that either sex can wear, or places both sexes dwell ('Epicene...Convents, wherein Monks and Nuns lived together.' -- Fuller, c.1661).” Zir offers a meditation on why zir prefers ‘epicine’ to describe zirself, rather than androgyne or any other term. A position that I find to be quite coherent.

However. Yes, most definitions support Carter’s usage. However let us look at a couple of usages: Evelyn Waugh in Brideshead Revisited: “He was magically beautiful, with that epicene quality which in extreme youth sings aloud for love and withers at the first cold wind.” Graham Greene in The Confidential Agent: “The little room swung clearly back – the boot cupboard and the epicene girls in black silk stockings and the masculine chairs.” (These two examples from Tom McMorrow in Having Fun with Words of Wit and Wisdom). Then there is the usage, not in the novel The Silence of the Lambs, but is its exegesis, of describing Hannibal Lecter as epicene. Camille Paglia in Sexual Personae, using ‘epicoene’, the 16th century spelling, gives the examples of George Villiers, Byron, Elvis Presley and Michelangelo’s statue, Giuliani de’ Medici. Molly Haskell, in her From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment if Women in the Movies, uses ‘epicene’ to describe the screen personae of Oliver Hardy and Clifton Webb. What is this other ‘epicene’ that is not some type of gender variance? Most dictionaries avoid it, strangely – given their remit to reflect usage. Let us look at The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, where the definition starts with “Etymologically, epicene has had overtones of effeminacy, even decadence”. Such of course is Lecter. Let us also note the following word in the Columbia: epicurean “a person who has a well-developed taste for and an enjoyment of good food and drink”. Even more so is Lecter. It is almost as if there has been a seepage of meaning between two words adjacent in a dictionary.

Salmacian. A term proposed by Raphael for male-to-intersex and female-to-intersex transsexuals. Salmacis was the other person conjoined with Hermaphroditus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The definition has been revised by some to “people who wish to have a mixed genital set” in that intersex is not a condition that can be acquired by surgery. The Intersex Glossary proposes ‘bigenital’ as “a less common and potentially more controversial synonym”. The same source defines Salmacian: “A dyadic person who wishes to transition to a sexually neutral or ambiguous state. Some see salmacianism as fetishistic, arguing that it conceptualises intersex as one set of sexual organs universal to all intersex people, or that salmacians are co-opting the intersex experience. Salmacians themselves simply see themselves as being happier with some form of non-normative genital configuration, androgynous body shape, etc., and it is the author’s opinion that their wishes for transition should be respected.” The best known surgical Salmacian would seem to be Les Nichols, although there is no statement that he identified with the word.

Scat/ Scatta. Like baeddel, of ango-saxon provenence. Ælfric, c.1000 is quoted; “Hermafroditus, waepenwifestre, uel scratta, uel baeddel”. The differences between each are not explicated.

Wiktionary gives scatta as a form of the Italian scattare, to be released – which is appropriate in that most trans persons experience release in transition. Urban Dictionary defines it as a ‘bitch fight’.


Waepenwifestre. According to the Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Weapenlic meant unruly or male. In modern English, ‘weapon’ has narrowed to a tool for killing or harming others, and so ‘Waepenwifestre’ for trans is extremely unlikely to catch on.

29 December 2016

Bernard S Talmey. Part II. Gender Variance in Love, A Treatise.

Continued from Part I.

Bernard Talmey’s major work is Love, a Treatise on the Science of Sex-Attraction: For the Use of Physicians and Students of Medical Jurisprudence published in 1915.

We will start with an overview of the book, and then look closely at each section where examples of gender variant persons are given.

This book recapitulates the three previous books which discussed the evolution of sex, the anatomy of sex, the physiology of sex, the psychology of sex.

Then we get to Part VI, “Pathology of Sexuality”. This contains four chapters based on Krafft-Ebing’s classification:

i) Paradoxia (Sexual desires in the old, in infants, causes of early masturbation);
ii) Anaesthesia (partial or total absence of sexual feeling);
iii) Hyperaesthesia (abnormal intensity of the sexual desire and impulse), 1) Mixoscopy, 2) Erotomania, 3) Satyriasis, 4) Nymphomania 5) Masturbation, 6) Incest;

iv) Paraesthesia. This is subdivided:

A) Heterosexuality divided into Masochism, Sadism, Fetishism, Exhibitionism;
B) Homosexuality divided into
a) Perversity (not congenital) subdivided into 1) out of lust, 2) as a profession, 3) through necessity 4) out of fear;
b) Perversion subdivided into 1) psychical hermaphrodism 2) strict homosexuality 3) effemination or viraginity 4) transvestism;
C) Bestiality.

We will examine the sections where persons, who would today be regarded as trans, appear.

iv) Paraesthesia, B) Homosexuality:

The modern reader may be somewhat confused by Talmey’s depiction:
“The perversion of homosexuality has, as a rule, the force of a congenital phenomen and is characterized by precocity. … The child shows its anomaly in its tastes, sentiments, and occupations. The boy avoids the company of other boys. He shuns their games and plays. He is found playing with dolls, ribbons, miniature housekeeping, etc., in company with girls. He is more particular about his dress, in fact, he loves to be dressed like a girl as long as possible. He likes to occupy himself with girls' work, such as knitting, sewing or crochet-work. The homosexual girl is found in the haunts of boys and competes with them in their games. She neglects her dress and assumes and affects boyish manners. She is in pursuit of boys' sports. She plays with horses, balls and arms. She gives manifestations of courage and bravado, is noisy and loves vagabondage. … The perverted man has a profound longing for female clothes. He takes the greatest pleasure in the sight of female attire. He tries to dress as a woman at every opportunity. He likes to frequent masquerade balls where he can dress up as a woman and dance with women. In short, the patient has all the feelings and longings of a woman. The inverted woman, on the other hand, likes to imitate male fashions in general attire and in dressing her hair. It gives her the greatest satisfaction if she is able to dress herself entirely in men's attire and disguise her identity. She further prefers the occupations of men and loves at every occasion to play a man's role. When at a ball she likes to dance with women, and when in a hotel, she loves to discuss politics with men. In short, she feels herself a man.”

iv) Paraesthesia, B) Homosexuality, 1) psychical hermaphrodism,
Talmey uses this term for persons who can have sex with either men or women, what we would call bisexuality, without any other suggestion of gender variance.


iv) Paraesthesia, B) Homosexuality, 3) Effemination or Viraginity with psychical perversion only.
Talmey’s description:
“In the third degree of homosexuality, the so-called effemination or viraginity, where the entire mental existence is altered, the man of this type resembles in his mental qualities a woman,  ‘anima muliebris in corpore virile inclusa’. But his body is still that of a perfect man. The woman, on the other hand, resembles in her mental qualities a man, while her bodily characteristics remain still feminine.”
‘anima muliebris in corpore virile inclusa’ is of course Karl Ulrichs’ expression meaning a female soul in a male body.

The first example is:
“very fond of perfumes, likes to powder and paint himself and to pencil his eye-brows. He is very curious, vain, and loves to gossip”.
The second:
“In the homosexual acts he always plays the passive role. He is effeminate in his character, sensitive, easily moved to tears, and is greatly embarrassed and silent in men's company; while among women he feels himself perfectly at home. He feels himself a perfect woman.”
Talmey’s first FTM example cites Havelock Ellis citing an 1883 paper by PM Wise, and we can identity the person as Joseph Lobdell :
 “When she was deserted by her husband, she began to follow her predilection for masculine avocations. She donned male attire and became a trapper and hunter. She considered herself a man in all that the name applies. After many reverses she entered an almshouse and here she became attached to a young woman. When the attachment became mutual, both left the institution for the woods to commence life instar mariti maritaeque. They lived in this relation until the patient had a maniacal attack that resulted in her committal to an asylum.”

iv) Paraesthesia, B) Homosexuality, 3) Effemination or Viraginity with bodily perversion.
This is Talmey’s only MTF example:
 “His habitus is entirely feminine. The body is slight and non-muscular. The shoulders are narrow, the pelvis broad, the hands and feet decidedly small. The form is rounded with an abundant development of adipose tissue. He has few hairs on beard and mustache. His complexion is fine. His voice is feminine, he speaks in falsetto voice. His gait is rocking, womanly. He wears his hair quite long. Since childhood he was actuated by the desire to put on female attire. He always wore female undergarments, such as shirts, drawers, corsets, etc. He generally wears bracelets on his arms. Whenever he can, he dresses up like a woman and takes long walks upon the streets in such costumes. Through his love for feminine attire he came in contact with several transvestites who form a kind of club in this city. But the latter who abhor homosexual practices soon discovered his motive for the desire of feminine attire and avoided his company. In his reveries, dreams and acts the patient always plays the pathicus. For some reason or other, unknown to the author, the patient committed suicide.“
He then gives FTM examples taken from Krafft-Ebing.
“Her connubial duties were first painful and, later on, loathsome to her. She never experienced sensual pleasure, yet she became the mother of six children. Her husband began at that time to practise onanism (coitus interruptus). At the age of thirty-six she had an apoplectic stroke. From this time on she felt that a great change has taken place in her. She was mortified at being a woman. Her menstruation ceased. Her feminine features assumed a masculine expression. Her breasts disappeared. The pelvis became smaller and narrower, the bones more massive, the skin rougher and harder. Her voice grew deeper and quite masculine. Her feminine gait disappeared. She could not wear a veil. Even the odor emanating from her person changed. She could no longer act the part of a woman, and assumed more and more the character of a man. She complained of having strange feelings in her abdomen. She could no longer feel her muliebria. The vaginal orifice seemed to close and the region of her genitals seemed to be enlarged. She had the sensation of possessing a penis and a scrotum. At the same time she began to show symptoms of the male voluptas.”
Talmey finished this section with the well-known cases of Murray Hall, New York politician and Nicholas de Raylan, assistant to the Russian consul in Chicago.


iv) Paraesthesia, B) Homosexuality, 4) Transvestism.

Talmey compares transvestism to homosexuality.
“In the degrees of effemination and viraginity, cross-dressing is a prominent symptom. The homosexual pathicus has naturally the impulsive desire to dress like a woman, and vice versa, the Lesbian woman longs to dress like a man. Still, cross-dressing is a pathological entity by itself. Homosexuality is a morbid sex state of gross somatic experiences. … Transvestism, on the other hand, is a sexo-esthetic inversion of pure artistic imitation. Hence it occurs mostly in artists and in men of letters. … Transvestism is more in harmony with the basal esthetic demands. The patient harbors exalted ideas and is striving to secure artistic enjoyment in the appreciation of the beautiful. The attraction is in the mind and has nothing to do with the sex-organs.” He then discusses the same five examples as in his 1913 paper. Talmay concludes the section with his explanation of transvestism: “The longings for cross-dressing in our cases may be best explained, that the feminine strain, normally found in every male, exists here in a greatly exaggerated form. Every normal woman attributes an exaggerated value to clothes and, Narcissus-like, is more or less enamored with the female body.* The same exaggerated value to female clothes is attributed by the male transvestites. The female transvestite, on the other hand, thinks of clothes more or less as men do. Yet, the male strain in her, being a morbid phenomenon, dressing is of more importance to her than it is to the normal man.”
In the associated footnote he gives his explanation of female sexuality:
“The female body has a sexually stimulating effect upon woman. The pride of the female, says Weininger (Sex and Character, p. 201), is something quite peculiar to herself, something foreign even to the most handsome man, an obsession of her own body, a pleasure which displays itself even in the least handsome girl, by admiring herself in the mirror, by stroking herself and by playing with her own hair, but which comes to its full measure only in the effect that her body has on man. Woman desires to feel that she is admired physically. The normal woman regards her body as made for the stimulation of the man's sensations. This complex emotion forms the initial stage of her own pleasure. The female body has hence a greater exciting effect upon women than the male body has upon men. Female nudity produces a greater impression upon her than the male body ever does. … The same emotions are evoked in woman at the sight of female clothes. Woman takes it for granted that her clothes, just as her body, have an erotic effect upon the male. Hence female clothes awaken in women a complex emotion akin to the sight of the female body. Woman becomes sexually excited by her own clothes. For this reason clothes are to woman of the greatest importance. The desire for beautiful clothes is an irradiation of the sex instinct. The purpose of dress is the attraction through covering. For the parts covered are rendered more conspicuous.”
  • Bernard Simon Talmey. Woman; A Treatise on the Normal and Pathological Emotions of Feminine Love. New York: The Stanley Press Corporation, 1906.
  • Bernard Simon Talmey. Genesis; A Manual for the Instruction of Children in Matters Sexual, for the Use of Parents, Teachers, Physicians and Ministers. New York: The Practitioners' Pub. Co, 1910.
  • Bernard Simon Talmey. Neurasthenia Sexualis; a Treatise on Sexual Impotence in Men and in Women; For Physicians and Students of Medicine. New York: The Practitioners ́publishing co, 1912.
  • B.S. Talmey. “Transvestism: A Contribution to the study of the Psychology of Sex”. New York Medical Journal, 99, 1914: 362-8. Partially reprinted in Jonathan Katz. Gay/Lesbian Almanac. Harper & Row. 1983: 344-8.
  • Bernard Simon Talmey. Love, a Treatise on the Science of Sex-Attraction: For the Use of Physicians and Students of Medical Jurisprudence. New York: Practitioners' Pub. Co, 1915. Online at: http://archive.org/details/lovetreatiseonsc00talm.
  • C. J. Bulliet. Venus Castina: Famous Female Impersonators Celestial and Human. New York: Covici 308 pp 1928. New York: Bonanza Books. 1956: 8-11.
  • Harry Benjamin. The Transsexual Phenomenon. Warner Books Edition 1977/PDF: 51/23,29.
  • Bram Dijkstra. Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-De-Siècle Culture. Oxford University Press, 1986: 69, 77, 101, 116, 153, 224, 249, 261, 297. 304, 356.
  • Bram Dijkstra. Evil Sisters: The Threat of Female Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Culture. OWL Book, 1998: 201-2, 210-11.
  • Peter Boag. Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011: 59-63, 73.
------------------------------

Note Talmey’s distinction between Perversity and Perversion. The latter is congenital and imperative. The former is situational and can be terminated: e.g. prison homosexuality or ‘gay for pay’.

Talmey cites and quotes the sexologists, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Albert Moll, Havelock Ellis but never Magnus Hirschfeld.

In turn, Talmey is never cited or quoted by George Henry, also of New York, who wrote on gay and trans persons in the 1940s. Talmey and Henry are certainly the major US writers on the topic in the first half of the 20th century. There is only a one-line mention of Talmey, and none at all of Henry, in Benjamin’s The Transsexual Phenomenon. Later sexologists ignore both Talmey and Henry. Of the three best known histories of transgender in the US, each of which has time to discuss German antecedents, Joanne Meyerowitz ignores Talmey completely and has two lines about Henry, and Susan Stryker and Genny Beemyn ignore them both.

Note that 47 years before Virginia Prince founded the Hose and Heel Club in 1960, there was a club for heterosexual transvestites in New York where androphilic transvestites were not welcome. Talmey seems to anticipate Prince etc by discussing gay transvestites separately in the Homosexuality section – although Prof M does appear in the Tranvestite section.

Note that 30 years before Louise Lawrence’s pioneering networking in the 1940s, Otto Spengler was doing something similar.

The story of the person, who gave birth to six children and then at 36 had an apoplectic stroke and started changing into a man, sounds odd and we would want to know more (but neither chromosomal nor hormonal analysis was available in Krafft-Ebing’s time), but see also Peter Stirling who gave birth and then changed spontaneously.

When Talmey was writing the concept of ‘Invert’ was strong. Thus he assumes that all gay men and lesbians are to some degree transvestic. Similarly in Germany, Hirschfeld regarded both gays and transvestites as ‘sexual intermediaries’. Hirschfeld however was strongly opposed by masculine gay men who were in no way effeminate.

Bulliet, published in 1928, writes: “Dr. Bernard S. Talmey, of New York, … names the impulse ‘transvestism’”. Successful words have many parents.

“Transvestism, on the other hand, is a sexo-esthetic inversion of pure artistic imitation. Hence it occurs mostly in artists and in men of letters.” -- yeah, right. This is an opinion much harder to hold in the 21st century.


As I said, Talmey’s work on gender variance is almost universally ignored.  If you google his name you will find a lot of books etc that take quotes, often out of context, from his first book, Woman; A Treatise on the Normal and Pathological Emotions of Feminine Love.  I have included Bram Dijkstra’s books in the bibliography as probably the best of such books.  

27 December 2016

Bernard S. Talmey (1862 - 1926) gynecologist, sexologist–part 1.

Bernard Talmud (later Talmey) was raised in Poland and Germany and graduated in medicine at the University of Munich in 1892, as did his brother Max Talmey (1868 – 1941) two years later. Max acted as doctor to the Einstein family, and Max mentored the young Albert Einstein, lending him various science books. Bernard and Max emigrated to the United States in 1894. Bernard became a gynecologist at the Yorkville Hospital, New York City. Max became a ophthalmologist at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City,

In 1906 Bernard Talmey published Woman; A Treatise on the Normal and Pathological Emotions of Feminine Love, wherein he investigated whether the degree or the intensity of the amatory emotions is different in men and women, by investigating its pathologies: “If it can be shown that the same pathological entities of the sex-instinct are found in men and women, the inference is justified that the normal emotions are also the same or similar in both sexes”.

In 1910, he published Genesis; A Manual for the Instruction of Children in Matters Sexual, for the Use of Parents, Teachers, Physicians and Ministers, where he discussed the evolution of sex in plant and animal.

In 1912 Neurasthenia Sexualis; a Treatise on Sexual Impotence in Men and in Women; For Physicians and Students of Medicine, he discussed the anatomy and physiology of the male organs of generation. The chapter on pathology dealt only with impotence.

By 1913 Talmey had collected five transvestites whom he regarded as patients, and presented a paper, first to the New York Society of Medical Jurisprudence in December 1913, and then published the next year in the New York Medical Journal.

  1. The first patient was S, whom we now know to be Otto Spengler
  2. The second was then 62. He had been frequently dressed as a girl by his mother, until at age 15 this was forbidden by his father. He left and went west where he worked in construction, became a sheriff and a justice of the peace, and still retained a passion for female attire. He is featured in the opening pages of chapter 2 of Peter Boag’s Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past
  3. The third, known as Blanche/Harold had, through tantrums, managed to stay in female attire until age 18. Blanche was then 32, and always wore female underwear, and at home always dressed female. 
  4. The fourth was a retired female impersonator, “Prof M.”, then 62, who had also been dressed by his mother in girls’ clothes. He lived in Dayton, Ohio, and in April 1905 was arrested for cross-dressing, and at other times had been threatened with mob violence. “A number of years previously he was strong sexually and fond of the opposite sex. Nowadays he cares more for his own sex.“ 
  5. The fifth was an artist who hoped to abandon dressing in female clothing after his then forthcoming marriage.


Talmey’s major work is Love, a Treatise on the Science of Sex-Attraction: For the Use of Physicians and Students of Medical Jurisprudence published in 1915.  We will examine this in detail in Part II.

--------------------------------------

Talmey commented on Prof M.:  “This case throws a certain light upon the psyche of the woman impersonators.  They do not become effeminate through the long habit of masquerading — that would be confounding cause and effect—but their innate anomaly leads them to choose impersonating as a profession. A normal man would hardly select such a profession as his life work”. 

Boag refers to Patient 2 as ‘M’.   This is confusing as Talmey refers to Patient 4 as “M”.  

17 December 2016

2016 Obituaries


Dianne Boileau (1930 -2014) secretary, first surgical transsexual in Canada, first patient at Clarke Institute Gender Clinic.


Michael Seghers (1932 – 2014) sex-change surgeon, Brussels. Over 1600 mtf and some ftm operations.

Janine Roberts (1942 – 2016) journalist, author, TV producer, wicca priestess, bane of diamond companies, campaigner for aboriginal rights. WorldCat     IMDB






















Stephanie Anne Booth (1946 – 2016) business woman, owner of Transformation shops, and trans-friendly hotels in North Wales. Killed in a tractor accident.



















++Petra Henderson (1955 - 2016)  soldier, communications engineer.   After a struggle, Petra was recognized as legally female by the UK government, a few years before the Gender Recognition Act. This and a few other "one-offs" paved the way for the 2004 GRA,

Lady Chablis (1957 – 2016) performer mainly in Savannah, Georgia. IMDB     EN.Wikipedia

Pete Burns (1959 – 2016) androgynous feminised but non-transition performer. Cardiac arrest. IMDB


Alexis Arquette (1969 – 2016) actor, cabaret performer, cartoonist. Part of the Arquette acting dynasty. Complications from AIDS. EN.Wikipedia      IMDB


Alina María Hernández/Cachita (1970 – 2016) Cuban television actress. EN.Wikipedia     Latin Times

Giovanni Arrivoli (1974 – 2016) café owner and Camorristi, Melito di Napoli, Campania. Executed mafia-style. Daily Mail      Friends of Ours

Jonah Berele (1988 – 2016) Chicago. Foster parent to boy with special needs. Accidental death in lake. DNAinfo 

Raina Aliev (1991 – 2016) Chechen living in Dagestan. Had sex confirmation surgery in Moscow, married boyfriend a month later, and murdered on father’s purman a few days later. Daily Mail    Pink News


Alisha (1992 – 2016) trans activist, Peshawar, Pakistan, shot eight times, hospital staff left her untreated using excuse of not knowing whether to put her in a male or a female ward. Daily Mail     Dunya News 
Alisha on right

Hande Kader (1992 – 2016) trans activist, Istanbul. Last seen entering a client's car; body found burned in a forest. BBC

++Lily Jayne Summers (199? - 2016) final year student selected as Welsh Labour candidate for council election.  Pink News



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Transrespect’s Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM) reports 295 killings of trans and gender-diverse people between 1 October 2015 and 30 September 2016. PDF



13 December 2016

Trans & Intersex Sportspersons 2016

IAAF ruled that there to be no no restrictions on trans men in men's activities; surgery no longer required for trans women, but must demonstrate that testosterone level below 10 nanomoles per litre for at least one year.

Kristen Worley, cyclist, successfully challenged rule against artificial testosterone as her body does not produce natural female level.

Lauren Jeska, more former English Women’s Fell Running Champion 2010, 2011, 2012, British Champion 2012, stabbed Ralph Knibbs, head of human resources at UK Athletics, and 2 colleagues, apparently under fear of losing titles after being outed – this despite it being well-known in the fell-running community that Jeska was trans.

Lola Ryan, who rowed for Canada in the Pan American Games in the 1960s, is now teaching dance and theatre at the University of Ottawa.

Amelia Gapin on cover of Women’s Running.

Chris Mosier on US duathlon team, and in Nike advert, and featured in ESPN magazine .

Joanna Harper, runner and medical physicist, advisor to IOC, summarizes arguments re do trans women athletes have an edge. More    more

Caster Semenya became the first person to win all three of the 400m, 800m, and 1500m titles at the South African National Championships. On 16 July, she set a new national record for 800 metres of 1:55:33. The IAAF announced that Semenya was shortlisted for women's 2016 World Athlete of the Year.

Harrison Browne, National Women’s Hockey League player, has come out as trans.

Nattaphon Wangyot, competed in Alaska State Championships.

Ben Christiason, runner, Iowa, on high school men’s track team.

Schuyler Bailar, Harvard swimmer, on men’s team.

Jillian Bearden, cyclist, won women’s Tour de Tucson on first attempt. The Tour de Tucson featured 5 members of the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance (SAGA)/ Trans National Women’s Cycling Team – the first trans women team to be recognized by the IOC. One of whom, Anna Lisk completed the circuit is less time than when she was male 9 years earlier.

Mason Johnson, Quinnipiac University, Connecticut, will delay transition, and continue playing for women’s rugby team.

Catherine McGregor played in Women’s Big Bash Cricket League.


Rio Olympics

IAAF rules re maximum testosterone levels of 10 nanomoles per litre, apply for all female contestants. This rule is challenged and may lapse in 2017. Some cis women exceed this amount. “The IAAF said more than 30 female athletes had so far been caught up by the hyperandgrogenism regulation and that four had already undergone surgery and other treatments in order to lower their testosterone levels to what the IAAF said would qualify them as women. … it is not coincidence that all of the athletes who have so far been caught up in this issue are brown women from developing countries. Globe and Mail

Despite the supposed advantages that trans women have over cis women, they totally failed to qualify despite being permitted to do so. A few known or rumoured intersex (hyperandgrogenism) women did qualify, but only one won a medal.

María José Martínez-Patiño, CAIS, who was excluded from the 1988 Seoul Olympics after a sex chromatin test: “It’d be easy to believe because of the difficulties of that past that I would be opposed to any rules. That’s not the case. That would not be fair, not be ethical. I understand the positions of other people. I am in favor of rules.” She testified in favor of the IAAF’s upper limits before the arbitration court.

Opening ceremony hosted by model Lea T. ++and the German team was led in by Fabiola.

Caster Semenya won the gold medal in the women's 800 metres with a time of 1:55.28.

Dutee Chand, permitted to run under revised IAAF rules, but eliminated in first heat (50th out of 64).

Nothando Vilakazi, on South African women's football team, accused on social media of being a man.


It was reported in the Mail on Sunday that there were two unnamed trans women who have competed in a European championship, and were on the verge of being selected for the UK Olympics athletics team. “But worryingly for British sports fans, they have revealed they are so fearful of being exposed and ridiculed under the Olympic spotlight, they would ‘probably drop back’ if they found themselves in a medal-winning position”. If they were selected, it was not confirmed, nor were they outed. The story was based on statements by Delia Johnson, a diversity consultant for Trans In Sport, Northamptonshire Police and England Netball.

11 December 2016

Dana Rivers (1955 - ) teacher.

David Warfield was raised in California. After school he joined the US Navy, where he did a lot of drugs and alcohol. He was a baseball coach and a white-water rafting instructer. David had three wives and a daughter.

At 35 he became a teacher in Antelope, outside Sacramento, California, and won awards for providing inspiration to at-risk teens in what became the award-winning Media Communications Academy. He was awarded an $80,000 grant for his program, won the school's award for the teacher who most inspires students and received a standing ovation from the district's staff at its annual meeting in 1998.

Warfield started transition to Dana Rivers early in 1999 with the intention of returning to school in September as Dana. This was supported by the school, and other teachers read a letter from Dana to their classes, and Dana was interviewed by the school newspaper. However all of four (out of 1500) parents complained that their religious and moral standards had been violated when Dana explained herself to students. They were supported by the Pacific Justice Institute (a right-wing activist legal organization that would be designated a hate group in 2014 by the Southern Poverty Law Center). The PJI threatened the board with lawsuits if they did not try to fire Dana. At a school board meeting a parent said that her 16-year-old daughter was traumatized from hearing about transexualism. However the daughter stood up and told the board that her mother was wrong.

Dana was fired by the school board. Her students protested her suspension with frequent phone calls to the local radio station and marched to the state capitol. Three school-board trustees were threatened with election-recall petitions in protest. Dana was honored with a $10,000 grant from the Colin Higgins Foundation for courage in the face of discrimination. She sued the school board and settled for $150,000 – they also agreed to drop all charges and expunge Dana’s record of all reference to the dismissal. They agreed to use only her new name in all record keeping, and to support her future employment as a teacher by giving to prospective employers an accurate history of her teaching career. Thus she had permission to return to teaching at a different California school.


Dana completed surgery in June 2000 with Dr Eugene Schrang. For three years she was a trans activist appearing on various media including Oprah. People magazine named her one of the 25 most intriguing people of 1999, and Jane magazine named her one of the Gutsiest Women of the Year. She met with Congressman Barney Frank who later dropped trans persons from the campaign for employment non-discrimination right (ENDA) for supposed tactical reasons. There was talk of a book and a film, but they never happened.

Dana then moved to San Francisco and found employment teaching social studies and history at a county jail Charter School.

In November 2016, an Oakland female couple, 56 and 57, and their 19-year-old son, died after being stabbed and shot. Their garage was set on fire. Rivers was arrested outside, covered in blood. She was charged with murder, arson and possession of metal knuckles.

Matt & Andrej Koymasky.

07 December 2016

Books on gender variance in 2016


$£¥ €=Excessively overpriced books. 

Note, of course, the high correlation of high prices and being published by Routledge.


I would like to mention Transgress Press which has a growing catalogue of books about trans topics, and has several trans persons on its board and staff.
  • $£¥ € Walter Pierre Bouman, Annelou LC de Vries & Guy T’Sjoen (eds). Gender Dysphoria and Gender Incongruence. Routledge, 2016.
  • Trystan Cotton. Below the Belt: Genital Talk by Men of Trans Experience. Transgress Press, 2016.
  • $£¥ € Lucas Crawford. Transgender Architectonics: The Shape of Change in Modernist Space. Routledge, 2016.
  • Anne Givaudan. Singular Loves. Kindle, 2016.
  • Lee Harrington. Traversing Gender: Understanding Transgender Realities. Mystic Productions, 2016. 
  • $£¥ € matthew heinz. Entering Transmasculinity: The Inevitability of Discourse. Intellect Ltd, 2016.
  • A King. Gender is Fluid and not fixed at birth: A look at Gender Dysphoria - Previously known as Gender Identity Disorder. Kindle, 2016
  • $£¥ € Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel & Sarah Tobias (eds) Trans Studies: The Challenge to Hetero/Homo Normativities. Rutgers University Press, 2016.
  • $£¥ € Tobias Raun. Out Online: Trans Self-Representation and Community Building on YouTube. Routledge, 2016.
  • Eve Shapiro. Gender Circuits: Bodies and Identities in a Technological Age.
  • $£¥ € Jemma Tosh. Psychology and Gender Dysphoria: Feminist and Transgender Perspectives. Routledge, March 2016. Routledge, 2015.
  • ROC Tree. 50 Questions NOT to Ask a Trans Man. Kindle,
  • $£¥ € Carlo Trombetta, Giovanni Liguoti & Michele Bertolotto (eds). Management of Gender Dysphoria: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Springer, 2016.
  • $£¥ € Francisco Vazquez Garcia. Sex, Identity and Hermaphrodites in Iberia, 1500–1800. Routledge, 2016.
  • Morgan Mann Willis. Outside the Xy: Black and Brown Queer Masculinity. Riverdale Avenue Books, 2016.
Spiritual
  • Christina Beardley & Michelle O’Brien (eds). This Is My Body: Hearing the Theology of Transgender Christians. Darton Longman and Todd, 2016.
  • Vaughn Roberts. Transgender: Christian compassion, convictions and wisdom for today's big questions (Talking Points). Kindle, 2016.
  • Megan Rohrer. Transgender Children of God. Lulu, 2016.
  • Rhiannon Tibbetts. Listening to God's Healing Love Song: As Heard by a Downhearted Transgender Woman in an Uplifting Major, (Heavenly) Transgender Key. Kindle, 2016.
See also autobiographies by Michael Dillon, Lei Ming and Upasaka Devamitra.


Legal & Imprisonment
  • Ally Windsor Howell. This is Who We Are: A Guide to Transgenderism and the Laws Affecting Transgender Persons. Ankerwycke, March 2016.
  • $£¥ € Ally Windsor Howell. Transgender Persons and the Law 2nd Edition. American Bar Association, May 2016.
  • Andrea Pelleschi. Transgender Rights and Issues. Essential Library, 2016. 
Arts
  • Donald Albrecht. Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture in New York. Skira Rizzoli, 2016.
  • $£¥ € Simone Chess. Male to Female Crossdressing in Early Modern English Literature. Routledge, 2016. 
  • Laura Horak. Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908-1934. Rutgers University Press, 2016.
  • $£¥ € Maki Isaka. Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater. University of Washington Press, 2016.
Guidebooks
  • Thomas E Bevan. Being Transgender: What You Should Know. Praeger, 2016.
  • Hannah Lane. Transgender Voice Workbook: A voice course for MTF trans people. Kindle, 2016.
  • Sky Logan. Transgender Transition: Introduction. Kindle, 2016.
  • Sky Logan. Transgender Transition - Quick Start Guide. Kindle, 2016.
  • $£¥ € Z Nicolazzo. Trans* in College: Transgender Students' Strategies For Navigating Campus Life and the Institutional Politics of Inclusion. Stylus Publishing, 2016.
  • Katherine Reilly. The Road to Femininity: A New Life for a New Woman. Akakia Publications, 2016.
  • Veronica Vera. Miss Vera's Cross Gender Fun for All. Greenery Press, April 2016.
Transphobic
  • Alex P. Serritella. Transgenda - Abuse and Regret in the Sex-Change Industry. Bookstand Publishing, 2016.
Trans Children
  • Michele Angelo & Alisa Bowman. Raising the Transgender Child: A Complete Guide for Parents, Families, and Caregivers. Seal Press, 2016.
  • Stephen A. Brill & Lisa Kennedy. The Transgender Teen. Cleis Press, 2016.
  • Diane Ehrensaft. The Gender Creative Child: Pathways for Nurturing and Supporting Children Who Live Outside Gender Boxes. The Experiment, 2016.
  • Mya Vaughn. Transgender Youth: Perceptions, Media Influences and Social Challenges. Nova Science Pub Inc, 2016.
  • Hillary Whittington. Raising Ryland: Our Story of Parenting a Transgender Child with No Strings Attached. William Morrow Paperbacks, 2016.
Couples
  • Lyn Merryfeather. You've Changed: An Evocative Autoethnography. FriesenPress, 2016. About the lesbian wives of trans men.
  • $£¥ € Carla A Pfeffer. Queering Families: The Postmodern Partnerships of Cisgender Women and Transgender Men. Oxford University Press, 2016.
Cross Dreamers
  • Transcender Lee. Woman Incognito: Transsexual Without Transition. Transcender Lee, 2016. 
  • Felix Conrad. How to Jedi Mindtrick Your Gender Dysphoria, 2016.
  • Felix Conrad. Is a Transgender Woman a Woman? 2016.
  • Felix Conrad. Quantum Desire: A Sexological Analysis of Crossdreaming, 2016
AutoBiography
  • Lisa Alexandra. Becoming Lisa: A Transgender Journey. CreateSpace, 2016.
  • Buck Angel. Buck Wild West. Kindle, 2016.
  • Michael Dillon/Lobzang Jivaka (Jacob Lau & Cameron Partridge eds). Out of the Ordinary: A Life of Gender and Spiritual Transitions. Fordham University Press, 2016. LamdaLiterary Decades after Liz Hodgkinson’s biography, we finally get his original account.
  • Paula J Coffer. Sandbox to Sandbox: A Walk in Confidence. CreateSpace, 2016.
  • Rubi Danish. After Life As A Shemale Prostitute. CreateSpace, 2016.
  • $£¥ € Upasaka Devamitra. Confessions of a Transvestite Buddhist: A Quest for Manhood. Achilles Publishing, 2016. Review
  • Katie Rain Hill. Rethinking Normal: A Memoir in Transition. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2015.
  • Makie Hoolboom & Chase Joynt. You Only Live Twice: Sex, Death, and Transition. Coach House Books, 2016. Review LamdaLiterary
  • Daliah Husu. I Am Woman: Surviving the Past, the Present, & the Future. CreateSpace, 2016. YouTube
  • Jazz Jennings. Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen. Crown Books for Young Readers, 2016.
  • Liam Klenk. Paralian: Not Just Transgender. Troubador, 2016. Webpage
  • Edward Leighton. Daryl is offline: Memoirs of a twice-disabled transman. CreateSpace, 2016.
  • Everett Maroon. Bumbling Into Body Hair: Tales of an Accident-Prone Transsexual. Lethe Press, 2016. Webpage
  • Melanie Phillips. The Transition Trilogy. Kindle, 2016. The daily journals of her transition, previously available online.
  • A Revathi & Nandini Murali. Revathi: A Life in Trans Activism. Zubaan Books, July 2016. Webpage, Second book by A Revathi.
  • Trevor MacDonald. Where's the Mother?: Stories from a Transgender Dad. Trans Canada Press, 2016. The noted Manitoba trans dad. Webpage YouTube
  • Lei Ming with Lura Frazey. Life Beyond My Body: A Transgender Journey to Manhood in China. Transgress Press, 2016. Webpage Finds solace in a Christian church in China.
  • Liz Roberts & Alison Mau. First Lady: From Boyhood to Womanhood: The Incredible Story of New Zealand’s Sex-Change Pioneer Liz Roberts. Upstart Press, 2015. Review, Extract
  • Leslie Richelle Scott. Outside In, Inside Out: A Transgender Journey. Lulu, 2015. Newsarticle Newsarticle
  • Anastacia Tomson. Always Anastacia: A Transgender Life in South Africa. Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2016. Newsarticle
Biography
  • T. Buburuz. Lady Chablis Trivia: 220+ Questions Inside! Kindle, 2016.
  • $£¥ € Sara Davidmann. Ken. To be destroyed. Schikt Publishing, 2016. Schwulesmuseum Family archive reveals that Ken, a Scottish optician in the 1950s was trans.
  • Susan Faludi. In the Darkroom. Metropolitan Books, 2016. Faludi’s father, at age 76, moved back to Hungary and after a forced-femininity phase, had surgery in Thailand.
  • $£¥ € Marty Gitlin. Chaz Bono. Rosen Young Adult, 2016.
  • Kirk Frederick. Write That Down! The Comedy of Male Actress Charles Pierce. Havenhurst Books, 2016.
  • Ian Halperin. Kardashian Dynasty: The Controversial Rise of America's Royal Family. Gallery Books, 2016. DailyMail “The real reason Caitlyn Jenner IS considering returning to being a man ... Kardashian biographer says Christian belief that it would be sinful to date women is behind gender struggle”. TheWrap
  • $£¥ € Jeff Mapua. Lana Wachowski. Rosen Young Adult, 2016.
  • $£¥ € Erin Staley. Lavern Cox. Rosen Young Adult, 2016
GLBT history
  • Stuart Feather. Blowing the Lid: Gay Liberation, Sexual Revolution and Radical Queens. Zero Books, 2016. Features the political drag of the early 1970s in London. Review
  • $£¥ € Patrizia Gentile, Gary Kinsman & L Pauline Rankin. We Still Demand!: Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles. UBC Press, 2016. The Canadian story. Paperback edition in 2017.
  • Clayton J Whisnant. Queer Identities and Politics in Germany: A History, 1880-1945. Harrington Park Press, 2016. 
Photography
  • Mark Seliger. On Christopher Street: Transgender Stories. Rizzoli, 2016.
Written by a trans person  
  • $£¥ € Aoife Assumpta Hart. Ancestral Recall: The Celtic Revival and Japanese Modernism. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2016.
 
Previously Announced for 2016:
  • $£¥ € Michel J Boucher. Transgender Representation and the Politics of the Real in the United States. Routledge, delayed to December 2017.
  • Michael Brownstein. Medical Maverick: 35 Years of Transgender Surgery. Transgress Press. 2016 - disappeared
  • Donna Gee. Why Is My Dad Not Answering Her Phone?CreateSpace, 2015. Preview - disappeared
  • CN Lester. Trans Like Me: A Journey for All of Us. Virago, 2016. - disappeared
  • Bruce D Smith. Yours in Liberation: The Queer Life of Trans Pioneer Lou Sullivan. Transgress Press. Delayed
Announced for 2017:
  • $£¥ € Eric Anderson & Ann Travers. Transgender Athletes in Competitive Sport. Routledge, 2017.
  • Corona Brezina. Coming Out as Transgender. Rosen Publishing Group, 2017.
  • $£¥ € Domitilla Campanile, Filippo Carla-Uhink & Margherita Facella (eds) TransAntiquity: Cross-Dressing and Transgender Dynamics in the Ancient World. Routledge, 2017.
  • $£¥ € Lynne Carroll & Laurn Mizock. Clinical Issues and Affirmative Treatment With Transgender Clients, An Issue of Psychiatric Clinics of North America. Elsevier, 2017.
  • Laura Erickson-Schroth & Laura A Jacobs. "You're in the Wrong Bathroom!": And 20 Other Myths and Misconceptions About Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People. Beacon Press, 2017.
  • $£¥ € Eyler. Transgender Healthcare. Springer Publishing, 2017.
  • Declan Henry. Trans Voices: Becoming Who You Are. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2017.
  • Ephraim Das Janssen, Phenomenal Gender: What Transgender Experience Discloses. Indiana University Press, 2017.
  • $£¥ € Jon Ingvar Kjaran. Constructing Sexualities and Gendered Bodies in School Spaces: Nordic Insights on Queer and Transgender Students. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
  • Rebecca T Klien. Transgender Rights and Protections. Rosen Publishing Group, 2017.
  • Wenn B Lawson & Beatrice M Lawson. Transitioning Together: One Couple's Journey of Gender and Identity Discovery. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2017.
  • Amanda Lepore & Thomas Flannery. Doll Parts. Regan Arts, 2017.
  • $£¥ € Lynda Johnson. Trans Gender, Sex, Place, and Space: Geographies of Gender Variance. Routledge, 2017.
  • Susan Meyer. Health Issues When You're Transgender. Rosen Publishing Group, 2017.
  • Matthew Mills & Gillie Stoneham. The Transgender Experience: Voice and Communication Therapy from the Inside. Jessica Kingslay, 2017.
  • Janet Mock. Firsts: How My Twenties Helped Me to Redefine Realness. Atria Book, 2017.
  • $£¥ € Candace Moore. Marginal Production Cultures: Infrastructures of Sexual Minority and Transgender Media. Routledge, 2017.
  • Elijah C Nealy. Transgender Children and Youth: Cultivating Pride and Joy with Families in Transition. WW Norton, 2017.
  • Kate Norman. Socialising Transgender: Support for Transition. Dunedin, 2017.
  • Barbara Penne. Transgender Role Models and Pioneers. Rosen Young Adukt, 2017.
  • $£¥ € Christina Richards. Trans and Sexuality: An existentially-informed enquiry with implications for counselling psychology. Routledge, 2017.
  • Leonard Sax. Why Gender Matters, Revised and Updated: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex Differences. Harmony, 2017.
  • Sara Woods. Identifying as Transgender. Rosen Publishing Group, 2017.
  • $£¥ € Jolene Zigarovich. TransGothic in Literature and Culture. Routledge, 2017.
Announced for 2018:

  • Michael R Kauth & Jillian Shipard (eds). Adult Transgender Care: An Interdisciplinary Approach for Mental Health Professionals. Routledge, 2018.

27 November 2016

Transgender lexicons: Jack Molay


Transgender lexicons:
Jack Molay

 
  • Jack Molay. A Creative Crossdreamer Vocabulary: Reflections on Transgender. Amazon Digital & Blurb, 2015.
Jack Molay is from the ancient Hanseatic city of Bergen. His writings, starting in 2006, were originally, but ambivalently, about autogynephilia, the concept bequeathed by Kurt Freund and Ray Blanchard that disparages gynephilic trans women. Molay transvalued what is useful in the concept and came up with Crossdreamer:
“the act of dreaming about being ones target sex or getting aroused by the idea of being ones target sex. Crossdreamer is a subcategory under the wider umbrella term ‘transgender’ … Crossdreamers may be assigned male or female at birth. Their sexual orientation varies. There is no clear and distinct boundary between crossdreamers and other transgender people.”

This book, most of which originally appeared on www.crossdreamers.com is in the form of a dictionary or lexicon. There are in fact three parts:

1. The Creative Crossdreamer Vocabulary;
2. Words that do not belong in a crossdreamer vocabulary;
3. Appendix: Transgender Dictionary.

We will take these in reverse order.

Appendix: Transgender Dictionary.


Unlike the main Vocabulary, this section has several words per page. Quite a few of the terms here are also found in the Creative Crossdreamer Vocabulary, but with a different emphasis. This is mainly a dictionary in the standard sense of attempting to define how other people (other trans persons) use words.

As in other lexicons that we have considered, it is light on history, for example She-Male, described as a derogatory term used in pornography, is defined: “A genetic male who has physical characteristics of both male and female. This term should never be used for a real life non-op MTF transsexual (to whom it may refer).” In addition to ignoring RuPaul, this of course ignores how the term was used by and about Christine Jorgensen and Coccinelle. Only later was the term appropriated in pornography. The definition also denies the choice of the term to trans women working in pornography.

Jack defines Gender : “(1) In social studies: the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women. (2) In biology: the state of being male or female. The biology of gender is a scientific analysis of the physical basis for behavioural differences between males and females. “ But then defines Transitioning: “Wikipedia defines this as the process of changing genders - the idea of what it means to be female or male. I am using the term for the process of changing ones biological sex, arguing that an M2F transsexual woman is a woman/has the female gender both before and after the transition (see also sex reassignment surgery).” There is a serious equivocation here. What a transsexual woman has before and after is not the socially constructed roles, etc. Everybody has that. What she has before and after is a gender identity. The HBS people repeatedly conflated gender and gender identity, and it is part of their legacy that many today make the same conflation.

He defines Transgenderist as per Virginia Prince’s usage, as promoted by Richard Docter and IFGE, but does not mention that Vivian Namaste uses the term with no Princian connotations at all. He does add the useful comment: “Some deny that transgenderists exist, arguing that they are either misled transsexuals or ‘autogynephiliacs’. The term must not be confused with ‘transgender’, which is an umbrella term for all gender variant people.”

Jack has an excellent section on the different types of Separatists: 1) Classic transsexuals 2) HBS 3) transkids (Blanchardian) 4) Princians 5) truscum.

Words that do not belong in a crossdreamer vocabulary


This section has only four entries: Autoandrophilia; Autogynephilia; Homophobia; Transphobia.

The section header is of course a rhetorical flourish. We very much need to talk about these four to be able to counter them.

There is a honest evaluation of crossdreamers:

“Many crossdreamers are transphobic in the sense that they express strong negative feelings about transgender and transsexual people. This may come as a surprise to outsiders, as it is pretty clear that crossdreamers themselves are transgender (in the wide sense of being gender variant). Some are even transsexual. 
The explanation for this paradox is found is normally found in their upbringing and social conditioning. They have been brought up to believe trans equals perversion. Now they try to dismiss any doubts about their own sexuality and identity by dismissing all those who may undermine their self-image.”

It is a pity in a way that there is no discussion of Anne Vitale’s concept of Gender Deprivation Anxiety Disorder, which would fit in well here.

The Creative Crossdreamer Vocabulary


Normally in a dictionary, neologisms are avoided in that the point of the book is to record other persons’ usages. However the point of this book is to articulate the Crossdreamer philosophy, and to that end there are many new words, most of which are considerately marked with a *.

However let us first look at the words that appear both here and in the Appendix: Transgender Dictionary.

Separatist. The heterosexual male-dressers (a la Virginia Prince) has been moved to (1), and an extra category added: “6) Some crossdreamers believe their cross-gender erotic fantasies are purely fetishistic, and that they therefore have nothing in common with transsexual people. Alternatively: They believe all trans people are fetishists, and fetishists only. The operative phrase here is ‘We are normal men/women with a sexual kink’.

Transsexual, a one-paragraph entry in the Appendix, is now a full-page essay. It mentions the therapies available, and that “most of them are deeply anchored in one, fairly distinct, sex identity”. He continues: “transsexual men and women are different from many other transgender people, some of whom may be more ‘gender fluid’, and concludes: “It seems to me that many, if not most, transsexuals have been crossdreamers, in the sense that they have had sexual fantasies about having sex as their target sex. There is simply no other way for them to fantasize about having sex. But note that not all crossdreamers are gender dysphoric. Moreover, not all gender dysphoric crossdreamers transition.”

Some of the new words are not Jack’s and thus are not marked with a *. This include Transgifted (proposed by Esther Pirelli); Quackaphilia – for the attraction to quack theories such as autogynephilia (proposed by Felix Conrad), Cistem – the social naturalness of non-transgender (proposed by Christine Marie Jentof).

Some of the new terms:

Ambiviolence – those who attack in others what they are afraid of in themselves.

Creative Crossdreaming - using artistic creativity to express and understand the crossdreamer self, and to engage in crossdreamer erotic fantasies.

Crossgrief – “a deep and intense feeling of grief and sorrow from that comes from the realization that your real life is in some way misaligned with your inner life”.

Dark Crossdreamers – “Dark crossdreamers are people who have managed to suppress their transgender side completely. They are not even aware of splitting (i.e. a mental compartmentalization of their other side). … The existence of dark crossdreamers makes it impossible to determine how large a proportion of the human population is actually crossdreamers (or transgender, for that matter).”

Hormony – “The feeling of peace, calm and harmony transgender people often feel after starting taking the hormones of their target sex. This applies to transsexuals, but also to other male to female and female to male crossdreamers who take such hormones in order to get relief from their dysphoria.” Jack does not mention that this usage is a reversal of the joke that Harry Benjamin made when he met Sigmund Freud in the 1930s.

Ideofluster - “words used to describe him or her cease to make sense. This can cause much confusion and uncertainty, and may lead to an identity crisis.”

Normailien - “they try to adapt to the gender identity and the gender roles their friends, families and colleagues expect of them”.

Splitter – “crossdreamers who split their minds in two, leaving one part for the inner sex and one for the outer.”

This is just a sample that I have selected.

There is narrative power in the Crossdreamer vision. It deconstructs the barrier between trans and cis, and perhaps unifies transsexual, transvestite, drag and dreamers more so than the word ‘trans’ does. It especially allows for the fact that we each dream of gender in our own way, and find different solutions. The transsexual path is not for all.


This book is short and an easy read. It will repay being visited more than once.