Since I grew up in the 70's I recalled reading the 'transgender' term in many of the articles I'd clipped or read on transsexuality during the 80's, and remembered the debates about the issue in the late 80's-early 90's
I've pointed out that it was transsexuals who advocated that the community use this term because they correctly argued that we shouldn't be defining ourselves and our community, much less be advocating for civil rights coverage using a term created by the medical community to define us.
So I was pleased to read this Ehipassiko post of Cristan's pointing out the 'transgender term had been in use since the mid 1970's and popped up in a 1985 newspaper interview given by none other than the first well known United States transsexual, the late Christine Jorgenson.
Let's take a trip back in time to December 18, 1985 and peruse what Christine Jorgenson had to say about the word 'transsexual'.
The word transsexual irks Jorgenson because the word sex, she believes is only relevant to what one does in bed.. "I am a transgender because gender refers to who you are as a human being."
People who think they wish to switch sexes can go to 'gender identity clinics' where it can determined if they really do want to take the plunge, says Jorgenson.
Daaayum. The world's most famous trans person identified as transgender, and oh yeah, she's post operative to boot.
After Cristan pimps slaps them with several more newspaper article clippings she summarizes her post with this comment:
So, can we please stop with the whole “crossdressers pushed that identity on us” stuff? The word was obviously used by clinicians in the 1970s, in the mass-media by transsexuals in the early 80s and then used to describe transsexuals by media in the late 1980s. Our culture was obviously using the term to talk about atypical expressions of gender, concepts of having gender neutrality, cross-gender expression and transsexuality since the 1970s.
Sadly, I don't think the Transsexual Taliban will cease and desist with their increasingly debunked lies.
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