Thursday, February 28, 2008
RIP Steve Dain - FTM Pioneer
Posted by Max Wolf Valerio
http://transgroupblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/rip-steve-dain-ftm-pioneer.htmlSo, I found out recently, that Steve Dain died of cancer at the age of 68. Steve Dain was an FTM who transitioned in the late 70's and lost his teaching job, he was a gym teacher in Union City. This was a big scandal and made the San Francisco papers, including the gay paper that was then -- "Coming Up" instead of "The Bay Times". I remember being 24, in late 1981, and reading about Steve in the local gay paper "Coming Up" and feeling an odd mixture of shock, excitement and queasy fascination. I remember accounts of him changing his ID, and speculation by the lesbian and gay press as to his motivations for changing his sex from female to male. Of course, I had heard of sex change, even female to male sex change. but what I had heard was vague. Later, I saw a picture of Steve, it was scratchy and dark in the San Francisco Chronicle. I had never, ever seen a photo of an FTM before in my life. I found it disturbing and unspeakably magnetic.
