Moving trans history forward

Aaron H. Devor is the founder and academic director of UVic’s Transgender Archives—the largest in the world. He is an elected member of the elite International Academy of Sex Research, an elected Fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and a national award-winning teacher. Dr. Devor is also a professor in UVic’s Department of Sociology, former dean of UVic’s Faculty of Graduate Studies (2002-2012), and a trans man. The Transgender Archives represents 17 countries and a century of activism and research; if the materials were all lined up along one long shelf, the collection would stretch the length of a football field.

What follows is an opinion-editorial by Dr. Devor, published by The Ring after UVic hosted the Trans* Symposium in March 2014 on campus. Visit Twitter (#MTHF14) for a stream of tweets associated with this international gathering.

UVic News on archives  UVic News on symposium

In a matter of decades, transgender people have gone from near-invisibility to the covers of glossy magazines and into leading roles in popular TV shows and movies.

One of the biggest hits on Netflix, Orange is the New Black, features actress Laverne Cox as a trans woman jailed for credit card fraud. Luxury department store Barneys New York is featuring transgender models in their ad campaigns. Retired lieutenant colonel, businesswoman and philanthropist Jennifer Pritzker is the world’s first transgender billionaire and one of the heirs to the Hyatt hotel chain. Janet Mock is a former People magazine editor. And writer, director and movie producer Lana Wachowski and her brother gave the world Matrix and Cloud Atlas.

The media has spotlighted trans people who seem to be living lives of the rich and famous but, for the vast majority of transgender people, the reality is radically different. As a group, they are arguably among the most maligned people anywhere. While in the US, 34 states have made it illegal to discriminate against trans people and in Canada, all but one province have put protective laws in place, laws are only a first step. Recent legal advances have been significant but social attitudes and behaviour lag far behind.

Most transgender people find life so dangerous that they are very cautious about who knows. Living in the closet, even partially, is a horrible existence. Daily discrimination and abuse is soul destroying. When trans people are unable, or unwilling, to hide their differences, the consequences can be dire: rejection by family and friends, religious communities, social services, and medical providers; loss of employment or housing; incarceration in jails and mental hospitals; forced medication, or denial of transition-related treatments; rapes; beatings; murder.

A national survey in the US found that the consequences of living in a world that is ignorant at best, and murderous at worst, are harsh—and even worse if you are a trans person of colour. Trans people are four times more likely to live in poverty, and twice as likely to be homeless. Sixty-one percent have been victims of physical assault, and 64% have been sexually assaulted. It grinds you down. More than 40 per cent of trans people (compared to 1.6 per cent for everyone else) have attempted suicide because they just can’t take it anymore.

Despite all of this, there have always been people who have fought back; people who have told the truth—both about how hard it is to be trans in this world, and about the fantastic gifts and strengths that being trans can bring with it. Trans activists and researchers have worked to educate and agitate so that transgender people can be fully engaged and productive members of society who enrich the lives of all of us. Transgender people deserve lives of dignity with the same rights and freedoms as everyone else.

In order to claim that dignity, we need to know our history, to know about the bravery of people like Virginia Prince and Reed Erickson who started agitating for transgender acceptance in the 1960s; about the pioneers of FTM International who, since 1986, have provided support and advocacy for trans men; and about Fantasia Fair, an annual celebratory gathering of trans people which has been ongoing since 1975.

The Transgender Archives at UVic is the world’s largest repository of the stories of transgender activists and researchers—a collection gathered from 17 countries and comprised of scholarly and historical records, pop culture objects, and ephemera representing a century of research and a half-century of activism. From March 21 to 23, UVic hosted the first-ever symposium on trans history, Moving Trans* History Forward.

We’re off to a good start in 2014. The world is safer now for trans people than it once was, but there is so much more that needs doing to make the world truly just for gender variant people.  Please think about what you can do to help—and then start doing it!