In the Archives of Resistance series, we dive into the often invisible but important domain of everyday health activism. In this article, research intern Dominique van Dongen takes you through the development of everyday transgender activism* from 1960 to 2010 using archival research at Atria and IHLIA.
In the Archives of Resistance series, we dive into the often invisible but important domain of everyday health activism. In this article, research intern Dominique van Dongen takes you through the development of everyday transgender activism* from 1960 to 2010 using archival research at Atria and IHLIA.
Transgender activism has an underexposed position in the historiography of activism. Much attention is paid to women's movements, the sexual revolution and self-determination. The struggle for acceptance and equal rights of transgender people often remains invisible. In the current political climate, it is vital to relay these stories and illustrate the lived experiences of trans people and their loved ones.
The early years
Since the early years of transgender care, there have been debates by medics, bystanders and media about what makes a transgender person healthy or unhealthy. Views range from an aversion to 'cutting into a healthy body' to seeing transgenderness as a serious psychiatric condition for which medical intervention is an emergency solution.
In the 1960s, some medics advocated medical care for trans people in a pathologising manner (seen as a disease state) and from a perspective of urgent psychological suffering. This happened thanks to activism from a small group of flamboyant trans women, who lived loudly and authentically on the margins of society.
The sexual revolution
The sexual revolution of the 1970s caused some change in the view of transgender people. Transgender medical care made an attempt at organisation: attention came to aftercare and the socio-emotional aspects of transition (detransexualisation, as doctors called it at the time). Some social workers set about breaking taboos and informing loved ones, neighbours and workers, in order to increase social support.
Transgender persons mostly lived an isolated existence. This stemmed from a vicious cycle created by both the societal heterosexual and cisgender norm, and from medical transgender care. Transgender people encountered a lot of misunderstanding and stigma from those around them. These stigmas were confirmed by medical care. To start a medical transition, a transgender person had to meet a so-called 'real life test' for at least three to six months. This involved living fully in the role of 'the opposite sex' and leaving behind the old life, including the old environment. This often led to extreme loneliness among transgender people.
In the late 1980s, this changed. Self-help groups for trans people emerged. These provided a safe place where fellow sufferers could come together, gain knowledge and share experiences.
The self-help group: taking matters into your own hands
Self-help groups initially focused on adult trans people who transitioned later in life and fit within the binary thinking of male or female. This changed during the late 1990s. Then attention came to gender dysphoria , non-binarity and informing and assisting relatives of trans people.
Self-help groups allowed transgender people to put words to their lived experience and organise themselves into a community of like-minded people. Several groups provided a place for people who, until then, were not given room to move in transgender care and transgender activism. These included Berdache: a group with (parents of) gender dysphoric children. Among other things, they organised playground days for these children. It also created Boys' Hour, a discussion group for "women who felt male but are not men". And the group Noodles laid the foundation for much contemporary non-binary activism.
Everyday activism as a necessary way out
Berdache, Noodles and the Boys' Hour had one thing in common. All these groups fell outside the then prevailing consensus on what it meant to be transgender. This consensus dominated not only medical care and social debate, but also the attitudes of the transgender community itself. In a world so hostile to itself, mainstream transgender activism believed it was important to conform to the norm as much as possible. People who fell outside this norm, for instance because they did not fit into the 'male' or 'female' pigeonhole, were forced to move outside the mainstream.
By simply striving for an authentic and free lifestyle and identity, people formed subgroups within activism. These groups thus faced marginalisation not only from society, but also from activism itself. Everyday activism was a necessary way out in this regard. Small-scale activism offered groups like the Boys' Hour and Berdache the space to bring about social change in their immediate surroundings. Much of this everyday activism remained small-scale due to limited resources and attendance. But some of these everyday activist organisations grew into veritable pioneers in the fight for transgender rights.
Everyday transgender activism thus formed both a place where transgender activists outside the norm could come together and mobilise, and a basis for larger-scale and sometimes even iconic activism. To arrive at a more complete and inclusive vision of activism, it is important to increase our collective knowledge of everyday activism. More research on everyday activism is needed, both in the Atria archive and in other archives.
Notes on terminology
* This article deliberately chose the umbrella term transgender activism, as opposed to transgender health activism. This is because it is about the life and existence of transgender people, to which health is inextricably linked.
The archive contains a multitude of euphemisms for transgender people (transsexuality, transgenderists, MVs/VMs, and so on). These are linked to context and time. For this article, we chose to stick to a universal contemporary terminology, to write about this sensitive history in a humane and respectful way.
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