Wednesday, November 30, 2011
A Proud Transsexual Under The Transgender Umbrella
Posted by Monica Roberts at 7:00 AM
http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2011/11/proud-transsexual-under-transgender.htmlTransGriot Note: Guest post from Dainna Cicotello. She's an author, lecturer and one of our trans community builders and leaders in Colorado and nationally who mentored me and many of my generation of trans leaders.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was personally involved in many discussions that created the modern definition of the word "transgender". I know exactly why twenty or so of us at one particular conference, specifically chose and agreed on that word, and those definitions, why that word and those definitions were carried back to individual cities and states all across America by trans-activists, why that word and those definitions were written into corporate policy and laws at every level, and why that word and the now historical definitions still have vital importance today and into the future.
Many cities in that era still had anti-cross-dressing laws. You could be put into jail simply for being out in public wearing clothing not associated with your apparent birth sex. You could be denied employment, housing, bank services, even access to public bathrooms, simply for not wearing clothing associated with your apparent birth sex. You would be fired because someone saw you dressed in clothing not appropriate based on apparent birth sex. You would be openly refused a job... You would be arrested, jailed, turned over to a mental institution, subjected to electroshock "therapy", etc., all because someone saw you in public, in a gender role different from that based on assumptions about your apparent birth sex.
