Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Looking Back: RIP Steve Dain - FTM Pioneer
February 28, 2008
by Max Wolf Valerio
So, 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.
Those two articles were about Steve Dain and his fighting for his job as a teacher, a battle that he lost. Although the court would eventually decide in his favor, and allow him to go back to teaching, he was not able to find a school that would hire him.
After hearing about Steve, I did not hear of female to male sex change for another 7 years. The next time I saw anything about transsexual men would be in "On Our Backs", the lesbian sex magazine in 1988. There I spied the tiny ad that Lou Sullivan placed in the back pages for a support group for "Female to Male Transsexuals and Cross Dressers". He also offered information with a newsletter and handbook. I wrote to the address he listed in time, and began my own transition. . . .Read More
by Max Wolf Valerio
So, 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.
Those two articles were about Steve Dain and his fighting for his job as a teacher, a battle that he lost. Although the court would eventually decide in his favor, and allow him to go back to teaching, he was not able to find a school that would hire him.
After hearing about Steve, I did not hear of female to male sex change for another 7 years. The next time I saw anything about transsexual men would be in "On Our Backs", the lesbian sex magazine in 1988. There I spied the tiny ad that Lou Sullivan placed in the back pages for a support group for "Female to Male Transsexuals and Cross Dressers". He also offered information with a newsletter and handbook. I wrote to the address he listed in time, and began my own transition. . . .Read More
‘Top Model’ to feature transgender contestant
Isis identifies herself as ‘a woman born physically male’
Tyra Banks is known for breaking down walls in the world of modeling, and the supermodel-turned-television mogul is at it again — this time doing something she’s never done in the previous 10 cycles of “America’s Next Top Model,” adding a transgender contestant.
Access Hollywood
Aug. 13, 2008Tyra Banks is known for breaking down walls in the world of modeling, and the supermodel-turned-television mogul is at it again — this time doing something she’s never done in the previous 10 cycles of “America’s Next Top Model,” adding a transgender contestant.
The reality show about a host of pretty faces vying for a modeling contract and an advertising campaign, will feature Isis, a transgender contestant, a rep for The CW confirmed to Access Hollywood.
“My cards were dealt differently,” contestant Isis told Us Weekly about herself. . . .Read More
'My body is wrong'
Should teenagers who believe they are transgender be helped to change sex? And if so, what about the four-year-olds who feel the same way? Viv Groskop meets the parents and doctors in favour of intervention.
Viv Groskop
August 14, 2008
Viv Groskop
August 14, 2008
'She was our first child," recalls Sarah (not her real name), a mother of two who lives in the south of England. "But from age three we knew something was wrong. She was very introverted, isolated. When she started school at four she came home and said she was a freak. It seemed a strange word for a four-year-old to use. She was always quite a sad little person."
Sarah's daughter was born and grew up as a boy. Now 19, she is far happier in a woman's body as a post-operative transsexual. It took two years for the family to get used to calling her "she". Her mother says her daughter experienced her childhood as mental torture, especially during puberty. "Looking back, we could never find any tape in the house. It was because she was taping her genitals up every day. She said to us later that she thought it would all go right for her at puberty, that her willy would drop off and she would grow breasts. She said she was going completely crazy because she knew in her head that she was a girl." . . .Read More
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