We received the following press release from AEGIS, the American Educational Gender Information Service, Inc.

Press Release
3/10/98

AEGIS to Discontinue Chrysalis, AEGIS News, Mail Order Bookstore

After the distribution of two [more] issues of its newsletter, AEGIS News, and one [more] issue of its journal, Chrysalis: The Journal of Transgressive Gender Identities, AEGIS will suspend their publication.

"We should be mailing Chrysalis within the next two weeks," Executive Director Dallas Denny said. "Both issues of AEGIS News are at the printer, and should also go out shortly. Then that's it. No more Chrysalis, no more AEGIS News. We will also be closing down our mail order bookstore. We're selling out the remainder of the stock. We'll continue to sell back issues of Chrysalis and our Transition Series booklets, but that's it."

Denny said AEGIS will continue to publish the Transgender Treatment Bulletin, a newsletter for professionals.

AEGIS has been re-evaluating its services in light of Denny's impending resignation on 31 March. "The community has had a big freebie for nearly 10 years," Denny said, "and that's my time. I've been spending forty to sixty hours a week on AEGIS business, uncompensated, in addition to holding down a full-time job. It's proven impossible to find a replacement Executive Director under those terms. I suspect it's because no one else is so foolish. Until we find the funds to hire someone, or can find some other way to get the work done, we have no choice but to suspend services. We've also stopped doing referrals and distributing information, and we will be closing down other services, as well. We hate to do it. We have no choice."

AEGIS is currently negotiating with the national transgender rights organization It's Time, America! about a possible merger. "If the merger happens," Denny said, we will be evaluating the community's needs and setting up services accordingly. We may be able to once again do referrals. But I suspect we've seen the last issue of Chrysalis."

Denny, who was editor of Chrysalis since its inception in 1990, said she had enjoyed working on the magazine. "Chrysalis was very popular. Its glossy appearance set a new standard for transgender publications. We broke lots of new ground conceptually, as well. We were so far as I know the first to talk about transsexuals as consumers of services with the right to hire and fire service providers, rather than victims of some inner calamity who should be grateful for whatever services doctors choose to give us. We were also the first to document the problems with the restrictive gender programs of the 1970s, and were early proponents of the transgender model, while continuing to advocate for transsexuals. I'm proud of what we accomplished. But it was a lot of work. I can't say I won't be happy to have the time back."

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