Full Personality Expression

Last updated
Full Personality Expression
Formation1962
FounderVirginia Prince
HeadquartersCalifornia
Formerly called
The Hose & Heels Club

Full Personality Expression (FPE), also Phi Pi Epsilon, was formed in 1962 by Virginia Prince as an organization for heterosexual male crossdressers, based on her earlier Hose & Heels Club. The Alpha chapter was located in California, but new chapters appeared across the United States and Europe. Prince received some criticism for restricting the group's membership to heterosexual (and mostly married) crossdressers and policing of sexual content.

Contents

Background

Formed in 1962 by Virginia Prince as an organization for heterosexual male crossdressers, it was based on her earlier Hose & Heels Club which had been located in Los Angeles. [1] [2] [3] [4] It was renamed in 1976, alongside merging with Carol Beecroft's Mademoiselle Sorority (aka. Mamselle), to Tri-Ess (Society for the Second Self). [2]

According to Prince, it was the oldest known transvestite organisation [2] and was formed from the subscribers to her magazine Transvestia . [5] The initials FP were taken from Prince's blend word femmepersonator for the target audience of the magazine (since she believed that the word transvestite had been given negative connotations by drag queens and fetishists). [3] [6]

Chapters

The Alpha chapter was located in California. Another chapter was located in Boston, [2] and there were likely many more across the United States. [7] In 1964 members financially supported the legal fees for John Miller (also known as Joan Miller), who was on FPE's council, with a $300 donation. [8]

The British wing of FPE, The Beaumont Society, was co-founded in 1966 by Alga Campbell, Alice Purnell and others. [9] [10] [11]

Full Personality Expression – Northern Europe (FPE-NE) was founded on 17 November 1966 by Anette Hall, a previous member of FPE. Its activities covered Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland, with regional boards that became independent in 1982. [12] [13] From the late 1980s, there were disagreements among the members about the association's direction, which led to the formation of TiD (Transvestite Association in Denmark) in 1994 (which changed its name to Transpersoners i Denmark in 2017 and is still active), [14] and FPE-N (Full Personality Expression – Norway (no), since renamed to FTP-N) in 2000. [15] FPE-NE is thought to have ceased activities by the end of 2002, although it never formally dissolved. [12]

Criticism

Prince received some criticism for restricting the group's membership to heterosexual (and mostly married) crossdressers and policing of sexual content. [16] Letters in The Transvestite note the competition between FPE and the Empathy club, whose magazines "each cut the other down". [17] Empathy Magazine wrote: "If a pair of panties is the only article of apparel you happen to enjoy wearing I am not going to tell you that you cannot be a part of my club because you are a deviate or just a plain fetishist, not a true transvestite as my Competitor, Charles Prince might say." [18]

Legacy

Historian Emily Cousens has discussed the impact that the concept of Full Personality Expression had on trans communities in the 1970s, citing the view that in FPE "androgyny [w]as a combination of gendered traits". This was expressed through graphic design with logos featuring both feminine and masculine motifs combined. [19] Cousens has also argued that FPE was "ideological justification for the vicious distinguishment between politically correct forms of gender variance (transvestism) and more deviant transfeminine embodiments (transsexualism)". [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cross-dressing</span> Practice of dressing like a different gender

Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes traditionally or stereotypically associated with a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and express oneself.

Transvestism is the practice of dressing in a manner traditionally or stereotypically associated with a different gender.

Gender expression, or gender presentation, is a person's behavior, mannerisms, and appearance that are socially associated with gender, namely femininity or masculinity. Gender expression can also be defined as the external manifestation of one's gender identity through behavior, clothing, hairstyles, voice, or body characteristics. Typically, a person's gender expression is thought of in terms of masculinity and femininity, but an individual's gender expression may incorporate both feminine and masculine traits, or neither. A person's gender expression may or may not match their assigned sex at birth. This includes gender roles, and accordingly relies on cultural stereotypes about gender. It is distinct from gender identity.

Tri-Ess is an international educational, social, and support group for heterosexual cross-dressers, their partners, and their families.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender sexuality</span> Sexuality of transgender people

Sexuality in transgender individuals encompasses all the issues of sexuality of other groups, including establishing a sexual identity, learning to deal with one's sexual needs, and finding a partner, but may be complicated by issues of gender dysphoria, side effects of surgery, physiological and emotional effects of hormone replacement therapy, psychological aspects of expressing sexuality after medical transition, or social aspects of expressing their gender.

The Sex Orientation Scale (SOS) was Harry Benjamin's attempt to classify and understand various forms and subtypes of transvestism and transsexualism in biological males, published in 1966. It was a seven-point scale ; it was analogous to the Kinsey Scale as it relates to sexual orientation, which also had seven categories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT rights in Norway</span>

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people in Norway have the same legal rights as non-LGBT people. In 1981, Norway became one of the first countries in the world to enact an anti-discrimination law explicitly including sexual orientation. Same-sex marriage, adoption, and assisted insemination treatments for lesbian couples have been legal since 2009. In 2016, Norway became the fourth country in Europe to pass a law allowing the change of legal sex for transgender people based on self-determination. On 1 January 2024, conversion therapy became legally banned within Norway.

Fantasia Fair is a week-long conference for cross-dressers, transgender and gender questioning people held every October in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a small Portuguese fishing village and largely gay and lesbian tourist village on the very tip of Cape Cod. This annual event is the longest-running transgender conference in the United States and it provides a week for attendees to experiment with gender-role identities and presentations in a safe and affirming community. The goal of the conference is to create a safe space in which crossdressers, transgender and transsexual people, and nonbinary-gendered people are accepted without judgement, can interact with their peers, and can advocate for their rights. In November, 1980 the event was featured in an article by D. Keith Mano in Playboy magazine and has in ensuing years has continued to generate publicity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender</span> Gender identity other than sex assigned at birth

A transgender person is someone whose gender identity differs from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. Some transgender people who desire medical assistance to transition from one sex to another identify as transsexual. Transgender is also an umbrella term; in addition to including people whose gender identity differs from the gender typically associated with their assigned sex at birth, it may also include people who are non-binary or genderqueer. Other definitions of transgender also include people who belong to a third gender, or else conceptualize transgender people as a third gender. The term may also include cross-dressers or drag kings and drag queens in some contexts. The term transgender does not have a universally accepted definition, including among researchers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lou Sullivan</span> American author and transgender activist

Louis Graydon Sullivan was an American author and activist known for his work on behalf of trans men. He was perhaps the first transgender man to publicly identify as gay, and is largely responsible for the modern understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity as distinct, unrelated concepts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Prince</span> American transgender activist (1912–2009)

Virginia Charles Prince, born Arnold Lowman, was an American transgender woman and transgender activist. She published Transvestia magazine, and started Full Personality Expression, which later became Tri-Ess, for male heterosexual cross-dressers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of LGBTQ topics</span>

The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBTQ topics:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queens Liberation Front</span> Transvestite rights advocacy group

Queens Liberation Front (QLF) was a homophile group primarily focused on transvestite rights advocacy organization in New York City. QLF was formed in 1969 and active in the 1970s. They published Drag Queens: A Magazine About the Transvestite beginning in 1971. The Queens Liberation Front collaborated with a number of other LGBTQ+ activist groups, including the Gay Activists Alliance and the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.

Ariadne "Ari" Kane is a crossdresser, activist, educator, and one of the founders of the Fantasia Fair. She runs Theseus Counseling Services which specializes in gender issues and remains open currently in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casa Susanna</span> 1960s destination for cross-dressing

Casa Susanna was a popular weekend destination in Jewett, New York in the United States, for cross-dressing men and transgender women in the early 1960s. The bungalow camp was run by Susanna Valenti and her wife Maria, who also ran a wig store in town.

Charlotte Frances McLeod, was the second American woman to travel to Denmark and undergo gender-affirming surgery. Before her transition, McLeod served in the army from 1948 to 1949. She was discharged from the Army for minor medical reasons.

Louise Lawrence (1912–1976) was an American transgender activist, artist, writer and lecturer. During the mid-20th century, she organized a network of gender non-conforming people across the US and abroad, and advocated for transgender issues. She was an early founder of the magazine, Transvestia. Academic and historian Susan Stryker wrote, "If there is an unheralded founder of the transgender community in the United States, it’s Louise Lawrence.".

Nancy Nangeroni is an American diversity educator and transgender community activist. She is a founder of GenderTalk Radio, the award-winning talk show about gender and transgender issues that was broadcast from 1995 to 2006 on WMBR in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nangeroni served as an executive director of the International Foundation for Gender Education and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender people in Nazi Germany</span> Persecution and treatment of transgender people in Nazi Germany

In Nazi Germany, transgender people were prosecuted, barred from public life, forcibly detransitioned, and imprisoned and killed in concentration camps. Though some factors, such as whether they were considered "Aryan", heterosexual with regard to their birth sex, or capable of useful work had the potential to mitigate their circumstances, transgender people were largely stripped of legal status by the Nazi state.

The Beaumont Society is a human rights organisation based in the United Kingdom, which is run by transgender people to support their community. Founded in 1966, and named after Chevalier d'Eon, it provides social support for transgender people, and legal and medical information for practitioners in those fields. It also published periodicals, including the Beaumont Bulletin.

References

  1. ↑ "Virginia Prince & Transvestia – University of Victoria". UVic.ca. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "TV GUISE Vol. I, Issue 8 (November, 1991) – Digital Transgender Archive". www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  3. 1 2 "Transvestia vol. 3 no. 13 – Digital Transgender Archive". www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  4. ↑ Equality, Roots of; Simone, Tom De; Wang, Teresa; Lopez, Melissa; Tran, Diem; Sacher, Andy (2011). Lavender Los Angeles. Arcadia Publishing. p. 65. ISBN   978-0-7385-7490-5.
  5. ↑ "Femme Mirror, Vol. 22 Iss. 1 (Winter, 1997) – Digital Transgender Archive". www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  6. ↑ "Transvestia vol. 15 no. 88 – Digital Transgender Archive". www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  7. ↑ Jeffreys, Sheila (2014). Gender hurts: a feminist analysis of the politics of transgenderism. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. p. 26. ISBN   978-0-415-53939-5.
  8. ↑ Redburn, Kate (2022). "Before Equal Protection: The Fall of Cross-Dressing Bans and the Transgender Legal Movement, 1963–86". Law and History Review. 40 (4): 679–723. doi:10.1017/S0738248022000384. ISSN   0738-2480.
  9. ↑ "Beaumont Society Press Cuttings Collection". Bishopsgate Institute. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
  10. ↑ Playdon, Zoë (2021-11-02). The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience. Simon and Schuster. p. 225. ISBN   978-1-9821-3946-9.
  11. ↑ Trotsenburg, Mick van; Luikenaar, Rixt A. C.; Meriggiola, Maria Cristina (2022-12-08). Context, Principles and Practice of TransGynecology. Cambridge University Press. p. 27. ISBN   978-1-108-84231-0.
  12. 1 2 "FPE-NE. Full Personality Expression – Northern Europe. Skandinaviens første transforening stiftet den 17. november 1966. – Vidensbanken om kønsidentitet" (in Danish). Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  13. ↑ Westerbotn, Margareta; Blomberg, Tobias; Renström, Evelina; Saffo, Nina; Schmidt, Lina; Jansson, Britten; Aanesen, Arthur (December 2017). "Transgender people in Swedish healthcare: The experience of being met with ignorance". Nordic Journal of Nursing Research. 37 (4): 194–200. doi:10.1177/2057158517695712. ISSN   2057-1585.
  14. ↑ "transpersoner.dk". www.transpersoner.dk. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  15. ↑ "Short Note on Norwegian Trans Organization FTPN – Digital Transgender Archive". www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  16. ↑ "GENDYS Conference 2000 – The Life and Work of Virginia Prince". www.gender.org.uk. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  17. ↑ "The Transvestite Magazine: Vol. 3 No. 34 – Digital Transgender Archive". www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  18. ↑ "Empathy Magazine (Volume 3 Issue 28) – Digital Transgender Archive". www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  19. 1 2 Cousens, Emily (2023-10-19). "Androgyny in the Archives: 1970s Trans and Feminist Encounters with the Promise and Politics of Non-Binary". The Graduate History Review. 12: 164–187. doi: 10.18357/ghr12202321343 . ISSN   1925-2455.
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