We made it, it’s March 31st and we’ve finally reached a holiday that, although only born a few years ago, represents a reality that needs to be celebrated and remembered.
Created in 2009 by activist Rachel Crandall, International Transgender Day of Visibility deliberately fills a void that, since the birth of the first LGBT movements, started to become louder and louder every year.
The birth of International Transgender Day of Visibility is in fact a specific reaction to the lack of holidays and celebrations dedicated to the ‘T’ of the LGBT community, which saw, until 2009, only the Transgender Day of Remembrance as a day dedicated to the memory of all those who saw their lives fade away in the name of hatred (that anniversary falls every November 20th).
Rachel’s aim was in fact to also give transgender people and transsexuals a day entirely dedicated to the celebration of life, through which one can enjoy being transgender rather than being in mourning.
Both festivities are important because they remind us, albeit in different ways, of the need that every human being has and deserves to be able to live peacefully without fear of seeing one’s rights brutally denied overnight. It is indeed for this reason that Transgender Day of Visibility is particularly important, because in addition to celebrating (and especially thanking) all the people who have improved the living conditions for trans people, it allows anyone, including cisgenders, to see their right (often taken for granted) to be able to be themselves without any fear or shame reaffirmed.
We too here at Bossy would therefore like to celebrate and thank everyone who has been and is a part of the ‘T’ in LGBT+, and we decided to do it by remembering 9 characters who were pioneers in the fight against discrimination and for the rights of the trans community, with the hope that this holiday will succeed in gaining more support and be celebrated in the best way possible not only in Italy but also throughout the entire world.
Lucy Hicks Anderson
The first transsexual who would mention is Lucy Hicks Anderson, a black woman born in 1886 and grew up in the confines of the very religious in Kentucky. Apart from the inevitable difficulties dates from not being white in an America where racial hatred was still deeply rooted, Lucy is from a young age due to come to terms with his not being biologically born woman, provided that placed even more at risk to suffer abuse and violence of any kind.
Courageous and in some ways a pioneer of equality struggle, be considered as the last step of the company by many of his contemporaries did not prevent Lucy to live life as he saw fit, including love stories. After marrying and divorcing from Clarence Hicks, known in New Mexico, Lucy was madly in love with the soldier Reuben Anderson, with which you then tie the knot. But here I came the problems, because local authorities, not recognizing Lucy as a woman (and I imagine putting in motion a little ‘later), condemned the fraud woman. After living for more than sixty years indiscriminately Women, Lucy then saw projected under the light of the curious reporter spotlight and looking for scandal, to which replied, without much ado, she was a woman with no ifs and buts.
“I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman. I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.”
Lili Ilse Elvenes
Born in Denmark in 1882, Lili is certainly today the most well-known Lucy thanks to a recent film that, through the English interpretation of the actor Eddie Redmayne, saw her protagonist: The Danish Girl.
Born biologically man who married in 1904 with the painter Gerda, Lili often will travel in the course of his life, then he settled with his wife in Paris in 1912. Here Lili intersect the true nature of woman with painting, bringing not only on the roads and for Parisian parties but also in the paintings of Gerda.
The legacy that Lili and Gerda have left us is both material, given the many portraits that Gerda will Lili, spiritual and medical, since on the one hand we have a woman, wife and friend who threw behind the stereotypes and the ‘ignorance and helped Lili to make the most of their lives, on the other we have a person that although the operations were still under development, however, underwent a sex-change surgery in faraway Germany in 1930.
Michael Dillon
Born in Britain in 1914, Michael Dillon is also famous for being the first transgender ftm to undergo a surgical phalloplasty (it was 1946). In his life, in total, Michael will undergo more than thirteen operations, also became one of the first men to take hormone therapy.
devoted and loving medical student (who will graduate in the discipline), Michael also devote part of his time to deal with issues related to transsexuality, arriving to write a book, published in 1946, entitled “Self: A Study in Endocrinology and Ethics “. Through the pages of this book, Michael will focus much on the concept of transsexuality as a condition to be treated medically, so with surgery and hormonal therapies operations, rather than as mere psychological condition, to cure through psychoanalysis (because ‘the cure’ of ‘ era was to be regarded as a disastrous off again treatment, time to lull the true nature of the person who underwent vi). Although the language was rudimentary and the study was focusing on ftm, called by Michael ‘Masculine Inverts’, this study will put some very important foundations in the history of both the operation of the transgender movement.
“Where the mind cannot be made to fit the body, the body should be made to fit, approximately at any rate, to the mind.”
Roberta Cowell
The name of Dillon is inevitably tied to Roberta Cowell, famous not only for being British un’aviatrice but also for being the first female transsexual known in the world to undergo a vaginoplasty. Born in 1918 and died only a few years ago, in 2011, will remain Roberta struck precisely by the study published by Dillon, from which derive the notion and belief necessary to firmly believe that a human being, whatever his biological sex of birth, had every right to be recognized with the true gender identity with which he identified. The two soon became friends, and this friendship will also lead to one of the most important moments in the history of the twentieth century.
After he underwent an operation Roberta d ‘inguinal orchiectomy, Dillon will leave the young woman in the hands of colleague Sir Harold Gillies, who is credited with being the first doctor in the world to have made a modern vaginoplastic on a body woman mtf.
The operation will take place May 15, 1951 and, two days later, the registry office will replace the sex as ‘masculine’ to ‘female’ on the birth certificate of Roberta.
Lou Sullivan
Born just when Roberta saw recognized the right to be officially regarded as a woman by the State, Lou Sullivan is considered one of the pioneers of the movement transsexual activist. One of the great merits of Lou, though, is above all that it has enabled many people to better understand the difference between the concept of gender identity and sexual orientation.
In the popular imagination, in fact, as every man biologically born woman was necessarily attracted to women, every woman born biologically man wanted to live, love and share their lives with only one man. Lou, despite continued to meet on its path people who did not understand how he could feel man and at the same time loving men, in 1979 he finally managed to fit all the pieces of the puzzle of his life, officially becoming one of the first transgender ftm to dichiarasi publicly gay . His life, which will move from Wisconsin to California, will dedicate the activism and the struggle for the rights of the LGBT community +.
Laura Jane Grace
Punk rocker indomitable and eager to fight gender stereotypes one song at a time, Laura Jane Grace is known to most as the frontwoman of Against Me! Perhaps few people also know that, in 2014, Laura lent their lives on camera AOL, issuer that produced and aired the documentary ‘True Trans with Laura Jane Grace‘ in the same year.
Nominated for an Emmy Award, the documentary addresses many of the issues that Laura wisely, as a woman mtf, has faced during his life (from gender dysphoria to those then most of the everyday practices), placing them under a light comprehensive and time acceptance of transsexuality as a natural human condition and not diverted. The same year also Transgender Dysphoria Blues, the sixth record album of Against Me!.
Laverne Cox
From music we move immediately to the movies: Laverne Cox entered the history not only as the first transgender actress declared to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award, but also as a tireless activist for the rights of the LGBT community.
First woman mtf to be carved in wax at Madame Tussauds and be able to admire on a cover of Time magazine, Laverne is definitely a figure of important reference in the LGBT community + (and not), because it gives voice to a minority, albeit slowly, in recent years It is starting to come more and more represented (positively) also in the media.
Kye Allums
Young and determined, Kye Allums is considered a pioneer with regard to the union ‘transsexuality and sport’. In 2010 Kye has become in fact the first guy ftm publicly stated to play in the NCAA Division I, the university sports league in the United States of America.
In a world in which not only the sport is still too often considered as a ‘male thing’, as well as biological sex continues to be seen as the true and unique identifier of the genre, the coming out of Kye has literally destroyed a basketball an old stereotypes wall of many centuries, sweeping consequently aura of machismo and sexism that still plagues many sectors of society.
The world may in fact still too often seem like a place ominous and oppressive, but it is thanks to people like Laura Jane, Kye and Laverne, as well as a courageous pioneer like Lucy who, year after year, the air is less polluted by hatred and definitely easier to breathe.
Just by virtue of the fact that this is the day of visibility, we leave you here a bit ‘of links to articles, books, movies and everything that has made visible transgender people over the years, asking anyone who wants to feel free to complete this list honouring anyone in the transgender community who has been a source of inspiration and courage.
HASHTAG TO FOLLOW
#TDOV
#MoreThanVisibility
WHAT TO WATCH
– Our Interview with Laura Jane Grace
– Laura Jane Grace’s Documentary
– About Ray, directed by Gaby Dellal
– Boys Don’t Cry, directed by Kimberly Peirce
– Paris is Burning, directed by Jennie Livingston
– The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, directed by Stephan Elliot
– Romeos, diretto da Sabine Bernardi
– The Danish Girl, directed by Tom Hooper
– Tomboy, directed by Céline Sciamma
– Transamerica, directed by Duncan Tucker.
– Todo sobre mi madre, directed by Pedro Almodòvar
WHAT TO READ
– Chaz Bono, Transition: Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man, Dutton.
– Delia Vaccarello, Evviva la neve, Mondadori.
– Ebershoff David, The Danish Girl, Giunti Editore.
– Eugenides Jeffrey, Middlesex, Mondadori.
– Gabriella Romano, Il mio nome è Lucy.L’Italia del XX secolo nei ricordi di una transessuale, Donzelli Editore.
– Herculine Barbin, Una strana confessione, Enaudi.
– Holly Devor, FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society, Indiana University Press.
– Julie Anne Peters, Luna, Giunti Editore.
Monica Romano, Trans. Storie di ragazze XY, Mursia Editore.
– Nicholas M Teich, Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue,Columbia University Press.
– Sullivan, Louis. Information for the female to male cross dresser and transsexual. Janus Information Society, 1980
