Cristan Williams's Open Salon Blog

Critiquing Academic “Coinage” Myths: The Virginia Prince Fountainhead Myth is Dead

Mon, 28 May 2012 20:05:54 -0400

I got to spend last week with Dr. Rawson who flew across the country to spend some time with the Houston transgender archive*. We spent a lot of time talking about the Prince fountainhead myth that’s been propagated over the last couple of decades. We talked about how some in the blogosphere have accused academics of being rather lazy in their research, but I’m not too sure that it can be simply chalked to laziness.

As we were going through the archive we found numerous instances of Prince attempting to dictate language, classifications and assert some control over the identities people chose to take on. While neither I nor any other researcher has found even one instance where Prince claims that she and she alone coined the term “transgender,” I have found numerous instances where Tri-Ess linked people assert that Prince had.

Said another way, you trashed grannie [Virginia Prince]! You stole her linguistic contribution to the community from the community and ran down the road laughing. Lordy, lordy, lordy, you incorrigible Texans. Shame, shame shame.

I support the usage of the term “transgenderist” to mean a person living full time in a cultural gender role opposite their biological sex classification, without having altered their anatomy through SRS; “transgendered” to mean having crossed a cultural gender role perhaps permanently without SRS; and other forms of the term to be consistent with those meanings.

- Billie Jean Jones, Publisher of TV Guise, Sacramento, California, 1991

Note: Jones was working on a trans dictionary at this time.

I’ve found instances where Prince seems to believe that she had some right to control how, when and where trans terms could be used, but she always seemed to stop just short of flat out lying about her invention of the term “transgender.” Between Prince’s cheerleaders, Prince’s penchant for self-promotion and policing who used what language and how, Prince’s inflated grandiosity helped cement the Prince fountainhead myth into place. So, I don’t think that academics can be chastised too much for “lazy research”… sloppy perhaps, but certainly not lazy. Dr. Rawson said that he was recently talking with Susan Stryker about the Prince fountainhead myth after they had both read my preliminary post on the history of the word transgender and it seems that they both agree that researchers need to be more cautious when using terms like “coined.”

People can and do build entire identities around coinage myths. Some of us will revere or revile those who are said to have “coined” terms we use for identity labels. TS Separatists have – for years – claimed grave offense over the use of transgender because in their view, a transsexual hating crossdresser (Virginia Prince) coined the term “transgender” to describe people like herself. They asserted that they are not “transgender” because (as the myth goes) “transgender” meant a Virginia Prince-like crossdresser. Without the Prince fountainhead myth propagated by academia, I’m tempted to argue that TS Separatism would never have enjoyed what acceptance it has managed to gain.

“Coinage” is a tricky thing and depending on who is given authorship status, nuances will inevitably be built into the term after the assertion is made.

Some claim that Dr. Benjamin coined “transsexual” in the 1950s:

Harry Benjamin Syndrome (a subset of TS Separatism) site propagating the Benjamin fountainhead myth: http://tinyurl.com/6mctuqp

Others claim D.O. Cauldwell coined the term in 1949:

Peer reviewed paper propagating the Cauldwell fountainhead myth: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/256828

Still others claim that Dr. Hirschfeld coined the term in 1923:

Peer reviewed paper propagating the Hirschfeld fountainhead myth: http://tinyurl.com/czmouhr

None of these sources that assert “coinage” status to any one single source ever note that it took about 16 YEARS for Christine Jorgensen to be referred to as a transsexual in newsprint. The process that took place to make that “transsexual” designation possible is completely ignored. Both academics and non-academics seem content to blindly accept the preposterous notion that some leader invented an identity that we lowly peons just accepted as both personal and group identifiers.

So what happens to those creation myths now that I found the term “trans-sexed” in newsprint used to describe trans folk in 1915 – years before Hirschfeld used his German version of the term? If we move the coinage date back to 1915, what happens now that I found “transsexual” in print in 1907? But then again, maybe 1907 isn’t right either because I also found “trans-sex” used in print in 1851. Where do we draw the line and who can be asserted to have invented (ie, “coined”) the lexical compounds found in “transsexual”? If we choose to instead focus on meaning, is it proper to claim that an some unknown Chicago newspaper reporter “coined” the in the lexical compound or should we instead claim Hirschfeld “coined” a German version of the lexical compound? If the term is said to have originated from a community-based source instead of medical sources, does the term gain or lose any nuances it may have for some?

If anything, what I’ve found through my research is that we should stop ascribing authorship of trans terms to any specific person. From what I’ve seen, these lexical compounds are simple enough that they are invented, forgotten, abandoned and independently reinvented** – oftentimes repeatedly so. Instead of using the language of authorship, creation and invention, I think that academics should instead simply note those sources which helped to “popularize” trans concepts.

Conferring “coinage” status upon Prince for “transgenderist” in 1978 does a grave disservice to the reality of what a community process looks like. We now have excellent evidence to make the case that THE TRANS COMMUNITY was commonly using this term years before Prince did and it will hopefully repair some of the damage caused by the academic misrepresentation of group identity and community process.

Currently the earliest in-print usage of "transgenderist" discovered: early 1975. Found as a distinct identity category in what is possibly the first trans run survey of the entire trans community.

When ascribing authorship of “transgenderist” to Prince in 1978, the community becomes a top-down model instead of something organic, complex, responsive and grass-roots. I urge those of you who are researchers to re-read that previous sentence. While the idea that Prince invented an identity that she then conferred upon the masses has an almost Mosaic quality to it, the idea is ridiculous if anyone (especially those of us with experience in the trans community) thinks about it for even one moment.

While it can be said that Prince helped to popularize the grassroots identity “transgenderist,” it may not be truthfully claimed that that she created it and then passed it to the trans community. Any of the identity terms the trans community uses were not written in stone by some leader and passed down to us, their devoted followers from on high; that’s a complete distortion of community and such an oversimplification of how self-identity language comes to be used by groups that I’ve found myself tempted to add my voice to those who blame lazy academics for the fallacious origin myths that have spread through the trans community like a disease.

From what I’ve seen, identity language evolves via a somewhat complex feedback system that looks more like this:

Model 1 as seen from a -125° angle.

Until now, we’ve been told that memetic transfer of identity labels happen in the follow way:

Model 2: Linear diffusion from top to bottom

While Model 2 is certainly easier to discuss in that it’s neat and straightforward, it’s a model that dishonors a very real and complex communal feedback process which naturally occurs and gives rise to genuine group identity language. Those angry TS Separatists who bought into the Model 2 myth were right to feel anger about this proposed and propagated view of community and identity. If this simplistic process was really how community and group identities were developed, assertions of colonization, enslavement and assimilation would be absolutely valid.

On the other end, the unfortunate, yet expected, thing about The Transsexual Uprising gaining so much ground means that the attacks and anti-transsexual propaganda we have to endure is getting amped up heavily, but that’s okay, it only means we are doing something right and those who reap the benefits of our enslavement will do everything in their power to keep us ‘picking cotton’ in their unethical and unjust ‘plantation fields’ (keep us hostage in their con-brella). - Ashley Love

Under one version of Model 2,Virginia Prince coined “transgenderist” in 1978, the communist, Leslie Feinberg supposedly coined “transgender” from Prince’s term in the 1990s and these leaders forced the “transgender” identity upon us all. It is only through the propagation of Model 2 can such inane assertions enjoy the veneer of plausibility. Model 2 misrepresents the reality of community so that it becomes a fictional oligarchy. MANY trans people have bought into this ridiculously simplistic (to the point of absurdity!) model. It’s time for researchers to stop using Model 2 no matter how poetically convenient it may be.

The transgender community IS NOT one symmetrically monolithic mass; rather, it’s an exquisitely diverse and interlocking system of smaller and smaller interlocked groupings all linked by gradations of common experiences and history. Model 2 asks us to believe that somehow an identity pronouncement can be made from on high and that all of these very, very different groupings with very, very different interests and needs – for some inexplicable reason – then simultaneously accepts and takes on this pronouncement of identity. The trans community contains within it disparate groups which would have virtually no contact with each other outside of the realm of a shared experience and history. These shared gradations of experience and history facilitates communication and hence, the reality of community itself. The ham-fisted propagation of Model 2 not only erases this historical truth for future academics, but it also distorts the way in which the trans community views itself.

In fact, I would assert that any type of identity peri-meme is doomed to fail if it cannot successfully navigate through a communal vetting process like the one I’ve represented in Model 1. Disregarding this communal vetting process virtually erases what community really is. Moreover, it sacrifices what is important about community language to an apparent academic need to assign fountainhead status to one single source.

Take Prince’s trans+genderal lexical compound that appeared in print just 5 months prior to the 1970 TV (Television) Guide’s trans+gendered lexical compound. Princes “transgenderal” – a term she claimed to represent only people like herself – never caught on and she completely abandoned the term. No lateral transference evidence has been found to exist wherein Prince’s 1-use term is linked to a later use of that same term (especially when the term was used in 1977 to describe transsexualism) nor is there evidence linking Prince’s abandoned term to other later trans terms. Since this one instance (and immediate abandonment of) the lexical compound of trans+genderal (genderal, being a term Prince liked to use) appeared 5 months prior to “transgendered” showing up in the TV Guide to reference a transsexual character, should academics therefore assert that Prince is where all transgender terms come from? If that’s the top-down model academics wish to cling to, should we also now assert that the 1850s trans+sex lexical compound is where the term “transsexual” comes from? Again, I assert that if academics want to affix coinage status to any one place, it must be conferred upon something like the continuous process I detailed in Model 1. Prince’s transgenderal failed the community vetting process in the same way that other early trans terms (eg. Phyllis Frye’s transgenderous) failed to successfully navigate that process. Only those identity terms which resonate sufficiently throughout and between the various gradations of groupings will become real identity terms.

Seriously, academic folks. Stop it with the ridiculous Mosaic simplicity! Please stop misrepresenting how community functions in the development group identity!

*Dr. Rawson has traveled to practically all trans archival repositories known to exist. He said that the Houston trans archive is absolutely unique - that there literally isn’t another trans archive like it anywhere… which is kinda cool.
**What was wonderful about the visit with Dr. Rawson was that we also discovered the earliest know in-print usage of “transgenderist” yet known to exist (pictured above). Working off of a clue found in one of Phyllis Frye’s personal letters, we tracked down an early 1975 community survey – possibly the very first trans initiated survey of our own community – published in a trans newspaper wherein the survey asks how the respondents self-identified. The choices were: Transvestite, Transsexual, Transgenderist and Other. It’s obvious that the term “transgenderist” was in wide usage within the community by early 1975 and furthermore, it’s obvious that at that point in time, “transgenderist” was a distinct category from transvestite.

Additionally, we turned up a couple of early 1970s usages of “transgenderal” as well. From the context, it’s clear that those using this term did not get it from Prince. Most interesting to my was a 1977 academic usage Dr. Rawson found which used “transgenderal” to describe transsexuals who are going through genital reconstructive surgery. We also came across a tantalizing clue wherein “transgender” may have been used as early a 1965 (the source I’m tracking down) and possibly even 1955 (the source Dr. Rawson is tracking down).

I’ll be posting the new usage instances on my research blog.

What Inclusionism Means

Sun, 13 May 2012 17:05:39 -0400

I wanted to take a moment and address what it means to be a non-Separatist; that is, what it means to be an Inclusionist - part of the transgender community. The Houston transgender community has been an explicitly Inclusionist community since the 1960s. We toyed with separatism in the mid-1980s when West-Coast Separatists tried to force the Houston trans community to give up our native Inclusionist values and the result was disastrous. Instead of letting Separatists tell you what it means to be an Inclusionist, I thought I’d talk about with it means here in Houston.

What Inclusionism looks like:

FTM-only groups
Post-op MTF TS-only groups
Mixed groups
Youth-only groups
Significant others-only groups
Intersex groups

Inclusionism looks like having different TS and transgenderist e-groups. Inclusionism is being okay with the myriad ways in which human beings identify with and express gender. Inclusionism is about allowing people to follow their own path without pressuring them to take steps they shouldn’t take or that they’re not ready to take. Inclusionism is about respecting and affirming our differences while standing together as a community who gives a shit about each others’ welfare. Inclusionism is about unity, not uniformity. In Houston, all kinds of trans folk are included in and work together as one powerful community that takes care of business. When you hear someone talk about the transgender community, this is the concept they are talking about. When I identify as a transgender person, this is what I’m talking about. I’m identifying myself as being part of this community in the exact same way I might refer to myself as a Texan.

Inclusionism IS NOT about asserting that everyone is exactly the same and that nobody has unique needs. When you hear a Separatist tell you differently, they are lying to you. Inclusionism IS NOT about telling you how you must self-identify, again… Inclusionism not about telling you who you are; rather, it’s about supporting your authentic self in whatever way that looks like. Inclusionism affirms the norm that each one of us has worth, purpose and value – wherever you are on the gender spectrum.

As a community, we’ve been able to do stuff like put together 2 low-cost trans medical clinics with a 3rd on the way, start the nation’s first trans shelter, have the first federally funded trans-only homeless program, open our own transgender center (offering trans-run social services), open our own transgender archive to the public, get our City’s mayor into politics, etc. We do stuff like run for public office, we’re out and open Judges, we chair city and county meetings and can organize at the drop of a hat to respond and defeat anti trans bills. We’re doctors, students, fortune 500 company executives, homeless people, sex workers, housewives, bodybuilders, - we’re everyone. Come to one of our Friday socials and you’ll see ALL OF US hanging out enjoying each other’s company.

Remember, the Houston community is where trans law and trans medical care was born.

What Separatism looks like:

Ashley "I'm Colonized" Love, Separatist Opinion Leader

Here’s a quick review of the reality separatists assert to be true…

“The coiner of the term transgender was Virginia Prince, a heterosexual crossdresser who held those of us who had sex reassignment surgery in contempt. Virginia was particularly vicious in her opinion regarding WBTs who were lesbian after sex reassignment surgery. She called us freaks and mistakes.” – Suzan Cooke

“Feinberg, a Marxist… [asserted that] True transgender liberation requires the overthrow of capitalism, just as any truly revolutionary social change must address the question of transgender liberation. In simple non-dialectic terms, Feinberg believes that capitalism and transgenderism are mutually exclusive. You must be a socialist, or a communist, or maybe even an anarchist if you are truly transgendered.” – Lisa Jain Thompson

“We are not legally, socially or definitely not genetically bound to abandon the medical and patient rights, science or affirming and understanding doctors who support our transsexual medical condition’s accurate narrative just because a group of individuals say so.” – Ashley Love

For those of you who’ve not bought into the idea of a global conspiracy that’s trying to take away transsexual health care, turn transsexuals into commies while simultaneously forcing all of us to give up self identifying as a transsexual, then I suggest you read the following:

Tracking Transgender:

The Historical Truth

(Note: While Separatists claim that I’ve faked my above research because I have a “male ego“, thus far, Drs. Milton Diamond, Susan Stryker and David Valentine have all told me that my research is remarkable. So, I’d just like to point out that this represents yet another divergence of world views between Separatist ideology and what many of us might call reality.)

Ashley ‘I’m Colonized’ Love

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:05:56 -0400

For example, this Spring a few self-promoting and self-aggrandizing “transgender” bloggers, authors and “gender outlaw” entertainers (who actually financially and professionally profit by enforcing transgender socio-politics and umbrella-ism theory) are obsessing over how to stop the inevitable transsexual liberation by creating petty drama, speculating, concocting ‘out of this world’ and laughable history revisionism, taking actions and quotes out of context, presuming to know one’s intentions as if they are telepathic, unrobing and degrading the bodies of women born with transsexualism and behaving like unstable, over compulsive and anti-social pesonalites, fueled by their amazing male egos and desire to get attention, although it’s negative attention. Their desperate behavior is obviously a backlash to the realization that their fantasy “transgender umbrella reservation” mandate is coming to an end. They are dealing with their ‘bubble being popped’ like most imperialists do when their colonies breaks free: Retaliating with [mental] violence, back tracking, faking evidence and agreements, mispspesking for deseased transsexuals & others, and transparent [and failed] character assassinations against numerous women of transsexual history that are being seriously listened to. Their over the top cyber bullying is very telling in how they lack genuine facts to back up their opinion based frame work, as well as not having authentic or sincere intentions, just the typical crafty lies most politicians spit when they want to CON-vince the people of something they know dang well is *hog wash*.
- Ashley “I hate citing evidence” Love, May 6, 2012

… And this is why the TS Separatist movement – as it has existed over the past 5 years – is dead. Love has just proven my point. Did I not say that Separatists have lost their historical narrative – the very centerpiece of their argument – and has thus been reduced to the trans equivalent of fringe conspiracy folks (like birthers) or the young earth creationists who believe what they believe because their belief tells them to believe? Did I not predict that Love would have this EXACT response? About a month ago I predicted the following behavior from Love:

Deny! Deny! Deny! I-CAN’T-HEAR-YOU! LALALALALALA! Some will simply pretend that the truth is not the truth (I predict Ashley Love will take this course) and/or that any/all evidence which disproves their narrative will be asserted to have been faked. Therefore, evidence disproving the narrative will magically become evidence supporting the idea of a conspiracy against transsexual identity.
- Me, just a little more than month ago

Let’s not forget that Love is aware that her narrative doesn’t align with reality. She’s apparently happy to try to convince you that transsexual history isn’t real. For her, the actual historical record should be hidden and regarded as being suspect because Love needs YOU to turn YOUR back on reality to support HER in HER belief that she’s been wronged and moreover, that she’s a heroic leader in some imagined epic crusade she believes herself to be fighting.

The reason the TS Separatist movement – as it has existed over the past 5 years – is dead is because the cat is out of the bag. The fictional history Separatists have propagated has been exposed and furthermore, it’s been noted by those who write the history books. That can’t be undone.

Love claims that non-Separatism ”lack[s] genuine facts to back up their opinion…” Really? Because I’ve been through a lot of Love’s blog and I can’t ever recall her making citations for her phantasmagorical fact claims. Not only is she’s demonstrably wrong about GLAAD’s position on the use of the term transgender, she’s demonstrably wrong about her assertion that “transgender” came from Virginia Prince. The reality is that today, “transgender” means what it meant in 1974. I mean, I guess it’s possible that I’ve written and artificially aged thousands of books from 1974 and have gotten google books to become part of the TG Borg in our effort to “fake evidence.” Or, maybe I time traveled so that while I was visiting the past, I forced and Drs. King and Ekins to write on page 3 of their 2006 book, Transgender Phenomenon:

There was talk that would take 20 years to become widespread: of transsexuals seeking ‘gender alignment’; of ‘trans-gender’ and ‘trans.people’ [sic] used as umbrella terms to include both TVs and TSs.

Or maybe Drs. King and Ekins were in on the conspiracy from the start!!!

Apparently when someone like myself points out that “transgender” has been around for more than 20 years and that it’s been, in fact, used in its modern sense since at least 1974 such perceived aspersions constitute “mental violence” in Love’s reality. Yurp… It’s all part of one big ol’ conspiracy that only Love and a few of her acolytes are aware of. Furthermore, anyone who dares poke a hole in her conspiracy theory has a male ego, is seeking negative attention, is desperate, an imperialist and a colonist.

So, yah… that’s one version of reality.

Another version of reality might be that Love is mistaken about a great number of things and needs YOU to reject reality so that she can continue playing the part of the heroic victim.

Which is more likely?

MY CHALLENGE TO ASHLEY LOVE:

Produce objective evidence proving that Virginia Prince used the word “transgender” in the 1960s or 70s.
Produce objective evidence proving that Virginia Prince used the term “transgenderist” before 1978.
Produce the objective evidence which led Love to conclude that the historical record has been faked.
Produce objective evidence proving that “transgender” wasn’t used in its modern usage back in 1974.
Produce objective evidence proving that the term “transgender” is only 20 years old instead of at least 42 years old.

I promise you… Love will NOT respond to the above challenge in any rational way. She can’t; Love has nothing but fantasy to fall back on. My guess is their she’ll either pretend that I’ve not made this challenge or she’ll respond with yet more ad-hominem attacks. The closest Love could hope to come in meeting my above challenge is to simply quote someone else who is mistakenly asserting (without evidence) that Prince coined the term transgender to refer to crossdressers. She can’t respond with anything like a well-reasoned, evidence-based, citation-heavy reply. The historical record just doesn’t support the Virginia Prince fountainhead narrative. She is unable to support any of the truth claims she’s made about the term “transgender”.

I encourage rational people to consider that there is a truth to be known about Love’s assertions. Either I’ve faked evidence (and have apparently time traveled) in an effort to revise history to misrepresent the transsexual experience because I have no real evidence, have a male ego, am seeking negative attention, am desperate, an imperialist and a colonist or maybe Love’s reality isn’t congruent with the factual historical record.

Fantacy VS Reality, Part Deux

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:04:21 -0400

Fantasy:

“GLAAD’s rule ‘only say transgender, never say transsexual’” – GLAAD according to Ashley Love

Reality:

From GLAAD's Media Guide

”… some transsexual people still prefer to use the term to describe themselves… It is best to ask which term the individual prefers.” - GLAAD according to reality

Just say’n.

My Response to Love’s “Transsexual” Rally

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 02:04:21 -0400

Ashley "I'm Colonized" Love

So, Ashley Love supposedly held a rally outside of a GLAAD meeting. She writes:

Though GLAAD does some good work, primarily for gays and those who support transgender socio-politics, we hold this education rally to inform attendees that the medical condition transsexualism is actually not about third gender politics or homosexuality. Our legitimate birth challenge stems from being born with chromosomal and/or anatomy diversity, and is treated by affirming doctors who aide us is ensuring our body is aligned with our mind.

Simply asserting that transsexualism doesn’t deal with issues of gender or sexuality doesn’t make it so and considering all the evidence to the contrary, it makes this assertion absurd! A simple PubMed search on “transsexual gender roles” and “transsexual sexuality” returns hundreds of studies that can speak to transsexualism as it intersects with non-binary, non-heteronormative expressions of gender and sexuality. In what non-solipsistic universe can Love seriously claim that American transsexuals do not challenge gender and sexual stereotypes? Yes, I get that Love likes to PRETEND that being a transsexual doesn’t entail a social transition which breaks practically every gender stereotype known to American culture, but it kinda does.

GLAAD has concocted and is militantly pushing an opinion based framework that unravels public understanding, promotes transsexual-phobia and even impedes and erodes our legislative advancements and medical rights.

Militantly? Did Love actually say MILITANTLY?

Militantly… as in, “engaged in warfare or combat”? Even to suggest that GLAAD is being aggressive is sheer hyperbole. Posting online press releases and using the word transgender in a manner consistent with the English language is NOT “militant” in any conceivable manner.

We ask involved parties to take a deeper look at GLAAD’s social engineering that seeks to erase transsexualism from classrooms…

What the… WHAT?!? Social engineering to erase transsexualism from CLASSROOMS?!?

… and public discourse in favor of their gay and gender deconstructionism only politics, and examine the science, data and literature that supports our transsexual medical condition’s accurate narrative. Be aware of the unrest and resistance in the transsexual community against this blatant revisionism and co-opting of our lives by non-transsexual entities that has lasted almost twenty years.

Right… Because this…

From GLAAD's Media Guide

… Is what constitutes “blatant revisionism and co-opting of our lives by non-transsexual entities” in Love’s mind. Yes, isn’t it just AWFUL?!? GLAAD has the audacity to assert that “… some transsexual people still prefer to use the term to describe themselves… It is best to ask which term the individual prefers.” Oh, yah… total militancy.

As to her puerile implication that transsexuals are being co-opted by the supposed 20 year old term, “transgender”… Love knows that this isn’t true. Here’s the proof that she’s aware that claim is false. Furthermore, here’s the real history of the way in which transsexualism relates to “transgender.”

This colonialism of transsexualism by gay and transgender ideology groups is irresponsible, psychologically abusive, sexist, and detrimental to the mental and physical health of people born with transsexualism.

Colonialism?

This coming from the person who wants to make every transsexual believe that their own history is not their history?

Colonialism, you say?

This coming from the person who wants to pull YOU into HER victim delusion and presumes to speak for all transsexuals?

COLONIALISM?!?

How about we talk about how people like Love colonize the transsexual identity in an effort to eviscerate our historical narrative and replace it with her own verbal gesticulations. Let’s talk about the kick-ass transsexuals who busted their ass putting on the first TRANSGENDER conference in 1974. Let’s talk about the amazing transsexuals who understood that the path to freedom wasn’t found in separatism. Let’s talk about this or this or this. No, none of that was real, meaningful or relevant in the world Love wants YOU to live in.

No, Ashley Love wants YOU to turn YOUR back on all of that proud history. Love wants to blight out the radical voices of transsexuals like Carol Riddell who, in a 1972 speech said that transsexuals and transvestites should join “with other sexually persecuted minorities, particularly homosexuals, in confrontation with the police, the legal profession, the psychiatrists, the capitalist nuclear family, the capitalist gender roles… ” She doesn’t want you to not know that iconic transsexual leaders like Christine Jorgensen publicly identified herself as being transgender.

On page X of the 1996 book Transgender Warriors, Leslie Feinberg wrote, “Today the word transgender has at least two colloquial meanings. It has been used as an umbrella term to include everyone who challenges the boundaries of sex and gender. It is also used to draw a distinction between those who reassign the sex they were labeled at birth, and those of us whose gender expression is considered inappropriate for our sex.” Ashley wants to lie to you so that you’ll believe that the definition of the term transgender was somehow different in the 1970s or better yet, that the term didn’t exist because it’s supposedly only 20 years old. Ashley Love is willing to sacrifice our proud history on the alter of her own ego. If there’s any colonialism going on, Love is most certainly not on the receiving end of it.

Colonialism? I say totalitarianism for it is Love who’s asserting that our historical narrative isn’t real. Our past as transsexuals didn’t happen and it is Love who will tell you what to think about our past without even one – NOT ONCE – supporting ANY of her assertions with any objective evidence. She demands obeisance in the form of YOUR unquestioning assimilation into her fraudulent victim narrative.

We’ve had enough.

Yes, well… I’ve had enough of Love’s malformed arguments and her unadulterated hubris. I’m tired of her active erasure of transsexual history. I’m tired of her LYING to the public and most of all, I’m tired of her using transsexuals to prop up her own private fantasy world wherein she exists as some sort of victimized freedom fighter.