International Foundation for Gender Education

Last updated

International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE) is an American non-profit transgender advocacy organization. The foundation is devoted to "overcoming the intolerance of transvestitism and transsexualism brought about by widespread ignorance." [1]

Contents

Founder Merissa Sherrill Lynn states, "The crossdressing and transsexual phenomena have been an integral part of human experience as long as there has been a human experience. These phenomena have manifested themselves in every society and in every walk of life throughout history, and continue to affect the lives of vast numbers of people. Yet, as common as they are, ignorance of them, and the resulting intolerance and fear, continues to cost good people their happiness, their jobs, their families, and their lives. It costs society its neighbors, its friends, and its productive citizens." [2]

History

The International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE) was first known as the Tiffany Club in 1978. It eventually became the IFGE when founded by Merissa Sherrill Lynn in 1986. Lynn held the organization’s first convention in 1977. [3] As of 1996, IFGE was one of three national transgender organizations in the United States to have an actual office, and the only transgender organization in the country to have paid staff. [4]

In 1998, the organization almost closed its doors due to financial difficulties. [4] Eventually, the organization would experience major difficulties in the late 2000s which have resulted in the presumed closure of the organization. Disagreement within management and improper restructuring appear to be the causes of said issues. This information comes from the blog of the former editor Dallas Denny. [5]

Functions

According to former editor Dallas Denny, IFGE provided the following services:

  1. Annual conferences which allowed transgender individuals to commune and network to build community in-person.
  2. Transgender Tapestry
  3. A phone line and physical center were located in Massachusetts.
  4. A bookstore which provided materials for the community.
  5. The Winslow Street Fund created by Joni Chrissman [5]

Notable Persons

Dallas Denny

Denny was editor for Transgender Tapestry, later leaving the organization to write for Chrysalis Quarterly. [5]

Merissa Sherrill Lynn

Merissa Sherrill Lynn is the founder of IFGE. She was born in 1942 in New Hampshire and grew up there, later receiving her BA in Philosophy from her state's university in 1971 after military service in the early 1960s. IFGE was conceived when she opened her home to the transgender and cross dressing community. She also originated the organization's major publication. Her networking allowed for global education on gender variance. Lynn stepped down from director of the organization after a stroke in 1998. She died in 2017. [6]

Major Publications

Transgender Tapestry

Transgender Tapestry "is a magazine by, for, and about all things trans, including crossdressing, transsexualism, intersexuality, FTM, MTF, butch, femme, drag kings and drag queens, androgyny, female and male impersonation, and more." [7] It ran from 1979-2008, and offered up-to-date media on LGBTQ+ pop culture, specializing in transgender media. Transgender tapestry began as a newsletter called The TV-TS Tapestry by the Tiffany Club. After multiple name and publisher changes was finally called Transgender Tapestry. [7]

Web site

IFGE has offered a Web site containing information for transgender people since 1998. The site was very heavily used by transgender people seeking information on the Internet in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with respondents to a 2002 survey identifying the site as the "best source on the internet," preferring the site to Google and Yahoo [8] for trans-related information seeking. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transphobia</span> Anti-transgender prejudice

Transphobia consists of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger towards people who do not conform to social gender roles. Transphobia is a type of prejudice and discrimination, similar to racism, sexism, or ableism, and it is closely associated with homophobia. Transgender people of color can experience many different forms of discrimination simultaneously.

Riki Anne Wilchins is an American activist whose work has focused on the impact of gender norms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT culture</span> Common culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people

LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically.

Sister Mary Elizabeth Clark is the main mover of the AIDS Education and Global Information System database, previously a pre-World Wide Web bulletin board system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender rights in Iran</span>

Transgender rights in Iran are limited, with a narrow degree of official recognition of transgender identities by the government, but with trans individuals facing very high levels of discrimination, from the law, the state, and from the wider society.

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

<i>The Man Who Would Be Queen</i> 2003 book by J. Michael Bailey

The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism is a 2003 book by the American psychologist J. Michael Bailey, published by Joseph Henry Press.

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.

Elliott R. Blackstone was a sergeant in the San Francisco Police Department, known as a longtime advocate for the lesbian, gay and transgender community in that city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reed Erickson</span> Transgender activist and philanthropist

Reed Erickson was an American trans man best known for his philanthropy that, according to sociology specialist Aaron H. Devor, largely informed "almost every aspect of work being done in the 1960s and 1970s in the field of transsexualism in the US and, to a lesser degree, in other countries."

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

Virginia Charles Prince, born Arnold Lowman, was an American transgender activist. She published Transvestia magazine, and started the Foundation for Personality Expression (FPE) and later the Society for the Second Self for male heterosexual cross-dressers.

Christine Beatty is an American writer, musician and transgender activist. She is one of the first trans women to perform and record as a heavy metal musician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dallas Denny</span> American writer and transgender rights activist

Dallas Denny is a writer, editor, behavior analyst, and transgender rights activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender history in the United States</span>

This article addresses the history of transgender people in the United States from prior to Western contact until the present. There are a few historical accounts of transgender people that have been present in the land now known as the United States at least since the early 1600s. Before Western contact, some Native American tribes had third gender people whose social roles varied from tribe to tribe. People dressing and living differently from the gender roles typical of their sex assigned at birth and contributing to various aspects of American history and culture have been documented from the 17th century to the present day. In the 20th and 21st centuries, advances in gender-affirming surgery as well as transgender activism have influenced transgender life and the popular perception of transgender people in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miss International Queen</span> Beauty pageant for transgender women

Miss International Queen is the world's biggest beauty pageant for transgender women. The pageant was conceived in 2004 and named the largest and most prestigious by CNN original American documentary television series This Is Life with Lisa Ling aired on 26 November 2017.

Transgender studies, also called trans studies or trans* studies, is an interdisciplinary field of academic research dedicated to the study of gender identity, gender expression, and gender embodiment, as well as to the study of various issues of relevance to transgender and gender variant populations. Interdisciplinary subfields of transgender studies include applied transgender studies, transgender history, transgender literature, transgender media studies, transgender anthropology and archaeology, transgender psychology, and transgender health. The research theories within transgender studies focus on cultural presentations, political movements, social organizations and the lived experience of various forms of gender nonconformity. The discipline emerged in the early 1990s in close connection to queer theory. Non-transgender-identified peoples are often also included under the "trans" umbrella for transgender studies, such as intersex people, crossdressers, drag artists, third gender individuals, and genderqueer people.

Rupert Raj is a Canadian trans activist and a transgender man. His work since his own gender transition in 1971 has been recognized by several awards, as well as his inclusion in the National Portrait Collection of The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria</span>

The Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria is the "largest transgender archive in the world".

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">Nancy Nangeroni</span> Transgender activist

Nancy Nangeroni is a 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.

References

  1. ↑ Allen, Mariette Pathy (2007-12-01). "Momentum: A photo essay of the transgender community in the United States over 30 years, 1978–2007". Sexuality Research & Social Policy. 4 (4): 92–105. doi:10.1525/srsp.2007.4.4.92. ISSN   1553-6610. S2CID   189931365.
  2. ↑ "Site of the month for September" (PDF). Gifts of Speech News. September 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 February 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  3. ↑ "International Foundation for Gender Education - University of Victoria". www.uvic.ca. Retrieved 2020-05-05.
  4. 1 2 Denny, Dallas (1996). "Vision 2001: Part 1". AEGIS News. 1 (6): 1–11.
  5. 1 2 3 Denny, Dallas (2011). "Dallas Denny's Front Page" . Retrieved 2020-05-05.
  6. ↑ "Obituary: Merissa Sherrill Lynn, 1942-2017". Transgender Forum. 2017-12-04. Retrieved 2020-05-05.
  7. 1 2 3 "LGBTQ Publications". oac.cdlib.org. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  8. ↑ Taylor, Jami (2002). "Targeting the information needs of transgender individuals". Current Studies in Librarianship. 26 (1/2): 85–109 [102].


Regional Organizations Map.png

This article about an international organization is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Gay flag.svg

This article about a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender-related organization is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.