Category: Our Stories

Mariette Pathy Allen is exhibiting her groundbreaking photography at the Brooklyn Museum for the show "Burning Down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection" October 31 2008 - April 15, 2009
Watch her on YouTube remembering Felicity.

I transitioned last century. Okay, it was in the mid-1990s but sometimes it feels like a century ago. The days of worrying about electrolysis, saving for surgery, battling employers and walking terrified in public places are long gone.

For a long time before I was officially "reassigned" (isn't that the most ridiculous term for changing gender?), I believed that once I had my surgery, all my trials would be over. Life would be a breeze. I would meet the man of my dreams, adopt a few little kinderlings and drink margaritas as we all watched the sunsets together. Suburban bliss. What was smoking?

A Mother?s Journey
by Tina M.
This Story Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #112, Summer 2007.
In 1997 at the age of 47, when my arms were no longer long enough to assist me in being able to see up close anymore, I broke down and bought my first set of ?cheaters.? Since that time, I, like many others my age, depend on these assistive devices to be able to see up close. I hate this fact, and often wish that there would be a way, short of surgery,to be able to see clearly again without these annoying glasses perched on my nose.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.

by Shirley Boughton

My efforts to control and suppress my transgender urges failed in a spectacular way. In 1983, in a moment of weakness, I lost control and acted out on my transgender urges by dressing as a woman and engaging in sex with a man. This was the only way, I thought, that I could be affirmed as a woman.

Following this incident, I knew my efforts at control and suppression would not work. I finally got up the nerve to bring my wife in on my deep secret, and together we sought professional help. I still kept the fact of the sexual encounter from her, hoping I had avoided being infected by a sexually transmitted disease. The AIDS virus had not yet been identified; AIDS was called Gay Related Immune Deficiency, or GRID. I wasn?t gay, so I didn?t think I was at risk.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #105, Spring 2004.

by Allana Allen


I arrived in Provincetown on Sunday, the first day of Fantasia Fair, and couldn?t even bring myself to walk into the inn where I had reserved my room, even though I was in boy clothes. I was so scared I drove past the inn twice and eventually parked in a public lot so I could walk around the town to go CD spotting before I could decide whether I had the nerve to try it myself. Either there were no other crossdressers in Provincetown that day, or they were so passable I certainly wouldn?t fit in.

Disheartened, with tears welling in my eyes, I walked back to the car, where I sat for a very long time, trying to decide what to do. I had all but decided to forget this silly fantasy and make the three-hour drive back home when it came to me that the worst-case scenario was that I could simply check into my room and spend a pleasant week in this lovely little tourist town on Cape Cod?as a man. It took me more than two hours before I had enough nerve just to check in.