This site is the most comprehensive on the web devoted to trans history and biography. Well over 1800 persons worthy of note, both famous and obscure, are discussed in detail, and many more are mentioned in passing.

There is a detailed Index arranged by vocation, doctor, activist group etc. There is also a Place Index arranged by City etc. This is still evolving.

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Showing posts with label OII. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OII. Show all posts

27 January 2016

Tony Briffa (1971 - ) engineer, mayor, foster parent, activist

Briffa's parents were emigrants from Malta. When he was born, in Altona, Victoria, outside Melbourne, doctors were unsure of his sex, although the twin sister was definitely a girl. They recommended, as was the practice then, that, as he lacked the male signifier, he be raised as a girl, Antoinette.

Antoinette went to a Catholic all-girls school. She was subjected to a gonadectomy at age 7 – the parents were told that the organs were cancerous. She was on female hormones from age 11. The frequent visits to hospital made her feel like a freak. From age 12 Antoinette was telling the doctors that she was not a girl, and did not want breasts.

By age 18 she had seen her medical records. She did an engineering degree, one of only two women in the year:
"Well, there was one woman, 49 men and then there was me".
She married an understanding man, but they quickly divorced, although on good terms. Briffa worked as an aviation maintenance engineer, and at 26 she was having relationships with women, identifying as a lesbian:
"That wasn't comfortable either, because to be a lesbian, you actually need to be a woman".
At 29 Briffa found a website for intersex women. From this and what she gained from doctors she realized that she had Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (PAIS), not complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, and her body would have masculinised to some extent if medical intervention had not been imposed.
"Doctors made me 5 feet 2 inches (1.58m) on purpose. My estimated height (if I'd been left alone) was between 5 feet 8 and 5 feet 10, and that was considered far too tall for a girl. So now, I'm a very short man. It's something I always feel inadequate about".
Briffa had to come out as intersex and appear on Nine Network's 60 Minutes before being able to get a prescription for testosterone, which was needed to compensate for what would have naturally happened.  Briffa was given an advance copy of the program to show to the family before the broadcast.

Doctors tried to impose a psychiatric assessment as they would for a transsexual.
“They tried to get me to go through the trans process which I completely refused. For a start, I’m not trans and they didn’t have my approval for what they did to me previously and so I wasn’t going to jump through hoops for them to give me what my body naturally had.”
At 30 Briffa decided to live as a man, had the Victorian register of births, deaths and marriages recognize him as male, and changed his name to Anthony. However his birth certificate does not specify a sex.
"It was an interesting experiment but I realised I'm not male - I'm part male and I certainly can't have a relationship as a man. I wasn't socialised as a male, I didn't grow up male and I don't relate to a partner that way, so as Anthony I didn't have any relationships."
“I never had an issue with being raised as a girl, it was all the secrecy, the lies and all the surgeries that were done without my consent that I have an issue with. Atypical genitalia isn’t going to kill a kid, but doing surgery on kids just to make them look male or female and furthermore to make them heterosexual males or females is just unethical and it’s a breach of their human rights.”
Briffa became the public face of intersex in Australia, and also the full-time foster parent to two siblings, a girl and a boy. He ran in Altona for the Greens in the 2002 Victoria State Election and came third with 9%. He did local activism, to save a local park, and then became co-convener of a residents' association.

From 2002-12 Briffa worked in auditing airworthyness, first for the Department of Defence, and then for the Federal Police. Following the local activism, in 2008 Briffa ran for and was elected to the council in Hobsons Bay (which includes Altona). A year later he was deputy mayor, and in 2011, mayor. He is also a Justice of the Peace. In the 2012 Pride March in Victoria, Briffa marched in Mayoral robes. Briffa served for six years in all.

Briffa also served as President of the Genetic Support Network of Victoria, Vice-president of Organization Intersex International Australia and as President of the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group Australia.

While Mayor, Tony had met a woman, Manja, a teacher, and they wished to marry. Because of how Briffa is registered in Victoria, they could have married pretending to be a heterosexual couple, but Manja is lesbian, and Tony wished to be open as not being male or female. This was not possible in Australia, but is allowed in New Zealand since 2013, where they did marry that year. Tony is annoyed with Australian Marriage Equality in that what they are campaigning for excludes some intersex people.

Briffa has returned to working in aviation engineering.
EN.Wikipedia    Briffa.org    LinkedIn

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20 May 2013

Waleria Fernanda Torres (1950 - 2019) chemical engineer, sexologist

Torres was raised in São Paulo, and graduated in Chemical Engineering in 1972 from the Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo.  Torres married twice and had children in both marriages. Torres lectured at universities and was a consultant to the petrochemical and fertilizer industries.

After a second divorce, Torres made a spiritual retreat before deciding to transition. She was then in her mid-40s. At first Torres sought advice from other transsexuals, but turned instead to the 'experts'. She was treated at the Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, and had surgery in 1997 from Dr Jalma Jurado at Faculdade de Medicina de Jundiaí.

She made her own study of gender identity and gained a masters degree in sexology from University Gama Filho in Rio de Janeiro. In 1998 she published Meu sexo real using her then name Martha Freitas. A English translation of this book was sent by the publisher to the Frankfurt Book Fair of that year where it was discovered and endorsed by Günter Dörner of Berlin's Humboldt-Universität.

Martha became the leader of Transgender Brazil, which had come together that year, and appeared on several Brazilian television programs, of which the most important was a debate on Ede Viva between Jalma Jurado and Martha Freitas on one hand and representatives of the Catholic Church. However Martha found most television show far too sensational, and declined further invitations.

In 2000 she changed her name to Waleria Torres. She became the only Latin American member of HBIGDA in 2002 and the Organization Intersex International (OII) spokesperson for Lusophonic countries. She edited GID Journal and runs an online gender diagnosis and counselling service for those able and willing to pay. She blogged as Martha Freitas until 2009.

She has proposed the term Neurodiscord for transsexuals. She stresses that
"due to its complexity, the evolution of gender identity for each individual is 'a priori' unpredictable, irrespect of which are the genitals, the chromosomes, and so on. The lack of predictability is for each individual. For the species, for the human colectivity, there are patterns of development, and these patterns may be recognized - through its dynamic signatures."
"the Gender Identity self-perception is something unpredictable 'a priori', even when there is a typical sexual development - when society considers someone 'normal' man or woman - we said also that was a characteristic of a Chaotic System. In chaotic systems, the unpredictability means there are more probable and less probable states for any development inside the system. The lack of previsibility is not related to random noise - external noise - but to inner fractality - a characteristic of the system."

She died age 69 in 2019. 


  • Martha C. Freitas. Meu sexo real: a origem somática, neurobiológica e inata da transexualidade e suas conseqüências na reconceituação da sexualidade humana. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes, 1998. English translation: Sex, the Invisible Reality: Inner Real Sex in Discord with Genital Shape : the Innate, Somatic and Neural Defection Named Transsexuality. Editora Vozes, 1998.
  • Martha C Freitas.  Explicando o Inexplicável - Prova da Origem Somática - Neurobiológica. 1996
  • Martha C. Freitas. O Mito Genital. Belaspalavras, 1998.
  • Waleria Torres. Gênero, do Mito à Realidade.  Masters thesis, Universidade Gama Filho, Rio de Janeiro, 2002. 
  • Astrid Bodstein. "Brazilian Transsexual Odyssey". Transgender Tapestry, 99, Fall 2002.  Online.
  • Martha Freitas. "Gender Identity Disorders".  Online.
  • "Biografias trans da CPLP¹ – Wal Torres". Confissões Agridoces, 24 de marco de 2009, Online.  
  • Waleria Torres. "Queer como Construto". Gendercare em blogue, 28 de marco de 2009. Online. 
PT.WIKIPEDIA

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06 April 2012

Tom Reucher (196?–) psychologist, activist.

"Until the lions have their historians, tales of hunting will continue to glorify the hunter ' African proverb cited by Tom Reucher

Reucher first worked as a computer programmer-analyst. In the late 1980s he joined Joseph Doucé’s Centre de Christ Libérateur which helped him overcome his shame and become an activist.

In 1994 he was a co-founder of the Association du Syndrome de Benjamin, which grew to over 300 members. (This is apparently the first use of the term Syndrome de Benjamin). They asked for the syndrome to be removed from the bailiwick of psychiatry, that the term ‘transsexuality’ not be used as it is stigmatizing. They drafted a bill to harmonize changes of civil status. From 1997 they marched in Paris, the first Saturday in October under the label Existrans. They also marched with Gay Pride.

Tom Reucher did a diploma and then a masters in psychology at the University of Paris 8, applying ethnopsychiatry and queer theory to allow transsexuals to speak for themselves.

In September 2001 the magazine Res Publica published an article on transsexuality by Colette Chiland, and the magazine accepted a reply by Reucher, but the management then changed its mind and the reply did not appear, apparently to oblige Chiland.  Reucher’s article was presented at the HBIGDA symposium in September 2003.
“Speaking out by transsexual or transgender individuals in order to counter the professionals who speak in their place is a novelty in France. This goes hand in hand with reclaiming their identity by the act of self-naming, as well as with the founding of organizations to protect their rights. (When ‘Shrinks' are Frightened by Transsexuals ..) “
In 2002 he was a co-founder of VigiTrans, and of the Groupe Activiste Trans, and the next year set up the website Transidentité. From 2003-2006 he worked with the first trans radio program, Bistouri oui-oui , on Radio Libertaire FM 89.4 Mhz.  In 2004 he left the Association du Syndrome de Benjamin following internal dissent, and has been working with Sans contrefaçon. By 2005 the Existrans march was attracting over a thousand marchers.

Since 2005 he has preferred the term transidentity rather than transsexuality or Benjamin Syndrome. In 2007 he completed training in Reichian analysis. In 2008 he moved to Brest where he works as a psychologist and analyst. He is an active member of OII-France.
“My academic career and my background therapy led me to question the medical practices and to understand what was effective and ineffective for transsexes. I also met with transgender men and women and exchanged with them.There are many commonalities.”(Mon parcours thérapeutique et ma formation universitaire m'ont amené à remettre en cause les pratiques médicales et à comprendre ce qui était efficace et inefficace pour les transsexes (transsexuelLEs). J'ai aussi rencontrer des transgenres et échangé avec elles et eux. Il y a beaucoup de points communs. -- Qui Suis-Je? at Transidentité: le site de Tom Reucher)
“The writings of these experts arise from their fright, poor knowledge of the various processes of  transidentity, and heterocentric theories now set up as "standards" in defiance of human rights. In evoking the idea of psychopathology, these words of experts generate social and political consequences for transgender people, such as rejection by family, friends and neighbours, and society in general. These writings also show an inability to learn from patients." ("Les écrits de ces experts découlent de leur frayeur, d’une méconnaissance des différents processus de transidentité et de théories hétérocentrées qui se sont érigées en « normes » au mépris des droits humains. En évoquant l’idée d’une psychopathologie, ces paroles d’experts génèrent des conséquences sociales et politiques pour les personnes transsexuelles, telles que leur rejet par la famille, l’entourage et par la société en général. Ces écrits montrent également une incapacité à apprendre des patients." - Quand les trans deviennent experts)
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The Association du Syndrome de Benjamin  was formed in 1994.  The Harry Benjamin Syndrome founded by Charlotte Goiar happened a decade later and was initially called Síndrome de Benjamin.   I have not been able to find any mention of Goiar acknowledging the prior existence of Association du Syndrome de Benjamin.    While the ASB was radical, queer and inclusive, HSB was mainly conservative, homophobic and separatist.  It is very difficult to imagine the HBS crowd in a thousand-strong march with gays, socialists and greens.

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    03 April 2011

    Joanne Proctor (1947 – 2011) HBS activist.

    Proctor was raised in Kaikoura on the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, the second of four children. After a difficult adolescence he was drug dependent for seven years, culminating in a suicide attempt. Neither parent accepted his femininity, and both died before he transitioned.

    In 1980s, Proctor worked as a crane driver at the port of Lyttelton outside Christchurch during a period of strikes.

    He starting female hormones and became Joanne when she started a BA at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, and then qualified as a lawyer in 1990 at the University of Waikato Law School.



    An unsympathetic psychiatrist told her emphatically that her stature and looks eliminated her as a potential candidate. However she persevered. She was on an invalid's benefit when she was scheduled to have surgery at Waikato Hospital in May 1997, but the local health authority decided to stop funding sex changes less than a week before.

    In 2000 the Chief Ombudsman, Brian Elwood, ruled that Joanne had been unfairly treated, but it still took two more years before the surgery was done by New Zealand's sole sex-change surgeon, Peter Walker. Without consulting her, Walker decided to do a colovaginoplasty rather than a penile inversion, and left Joanne with post-surgical complications, which ended up costing the New Zealand Health Service as much again as the vaginoplasty had done.

    The Chief Ombudsman had to appeal to the Broadcasting Standards Authority in that TVNZ edited an interview with him about Joanne to imply that the decision was a landmark and unusual when Elwood had in fact emphasized that it was neither.

    Joanne lived at an isolated country home with minimal human interaction: "six or seven 'contact hours' with people a month, including grocery shopping and GP visits" (Martin 1/6/02).

    She became an HBS activist on the internet, and the HBS liaison to OII in February 2009. She was also active on TS-SI, and was one of the major authors of the short-lived HBS Wikipedia page.

    In 2010 she closed down her personal blog, and the New Zealand HBS site, and wrote Trans-Fried-Fluff, then deleted its contents, and rewrote it as Trans-FriedFluff. She has claimed that Wikipedia should be treated as the publishing arm of CAMH, she was an admirer of Jan Wålinder, and of Thomas Szasz, and presented 'gender' as a creation of Robert Stoller and her co-patriate John Money, and transgenderism as a social construct similar to multiple-personality disorder and false memory syndrome. Sometimes she posted using the name P. J. Schrödinger.
    "Professor Wålinder’s definition fell out of favour solely due to John Money’s duplicity over the outcome of the Reimer case. It was not the definition that was wrong. It was John Money. (Schrödinger,2010)"

    Joanne died at age 63 of medical problems.
    The TS-Si obituary says that Joanne served "with distinction as a barrister".  However this is not confirmed by the numerous articles in the NZ press.
       "Wikipedia should be treated as the publishing arm of CAMH". Does this mean that she thought that, say, Andrea James, is a spokesperson for the CAMH?

      Wålinder's definition of transsexualism was:
      1. A sense of belonging to the opposite sex, of having been born into the wrong sex, of being one of nature’s extant errors.
      2. A sense of estrangement with one's own body; all indications of sex differentiation are considered as afflictions and repugnant.
      3. A strong desire to resemble physically the opposite sex via therapy including surgery.
      4. A desire to be accepted in the community as belonging to the opposite sex.

      I agree that Jan Wålinder should not be so forgotten.  Even the Swedish Wikipedia does not have an entry for him.  However to connect his lapse into obscurity and Money's behaviour in the Reimer case is going out on a limb. True, the ICD definition of transsexualism was originally that of Wålinder and later adopted a John Money type wording based on gender identity, but that was because Wålinder had slipped into obscurity.

      She doesn't apologize for, explain or even mention Szasz's transphobia.

      Joanne's account of 'gender' totally ignores its use before the 19th century when it was reduced in scope to grammar, and also ignores how feminists took the concept and turned it into something quite different from what Money had intended.
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