Jennifer Diane Reitz | |
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Born | Baker City, Oregon [1] | December 30, 1959
Nationality | American |
Notable work | Unicorn Jelly |
Partners | |
Parents | |
Website | jenniverse.com |
Jennifer Diane Reitz (born December 30, 1959) is an American writer, webcomic author, and game designer. [4] She is known for the website Happy Puppy, which she opened with her partners, Stephen P. Lepisto and Sandra Woodruff, [5] and with whom she created the video game Boppin' . [6] Reitz has also done game work for Interplay. [7]
On February 14, 1995, Reitz and her partners launched the game website Happy Puppy where they posted game demos. [8] For a period of time, the website was the most visited game website on the Internet and had about 2.5 million downloads per month during 1996, [9] the same year Happy Puppy was acquired by Attitude Network. [5] The website later went offline in 2006. Reitz writes game reviews and co-founded a family company, Accursed Toys. [10] [11]
Reitz is a trans woman [12] and the founder of the site Transsexuality (transsexual.org), a site with general information on transsexualism that hosts the COGIATI (COmbined Gender Identity And Transsexuality Inventory) test. [13] The test has been criticized for relying on stereotypical views of gender; it assumes, for example, that a lack of interest in mathematics is a feminine trait. [14]
Jennifer Diane Reitz was born on December 30, 1959, in Baker City, Oregon. [3] Her father, Leonard Reitz, was a cartographer for the USGS, with much of his work being surrounded in secrecy. Her mother, Margaret, was about 15 years older than Leonard. Due to Leonard's job, Jennifer's family moved often, recounting that they did not stay anywhere longer than six months. Although at first they stayed in different apartments, they ended up living in trailer parks. The relationship with her parents was on the whole cold, though her mother used to be warmer until Jennifer turned 10. This emotional distance turned into hostility after Jennifer began to realize her gender dysphoria at an early age, as she had been born male but felt female. She felt alienated from boys, as they were more interested in violence and athletic pursuits.
Jennifer excelled through her school years, especially at science, which along with science fiction served as escapism. In addition, she developed a passion for dancing, singing, and playing with stuffed animals. Those traditionally feminine interests soon created conflict with her peers and family. Although Margaret was usually tolerant, Leonard showed extreme hostility and constantly threw away Jennifer's toys, so she resorted to playing in secret. This, coupled with years of verbal and physical harassment in school, caused Jennifer to interiorize the heteronormativity around her. This however changed at age 15, when Jennifer watched Bambi and quickly developed an obsession with it, watching it multiple times. She identified with the young Bambi, as in her view the film showed a character that, despite being male, looked and acted female in every way. This compelled her to take her gender identity more seriously, until, at age 17, she confessed her feelings to her art teacher, who violently rejected her. She returned to hiding her identity. [3]
Jennifer later enrolled in college to study biochemistry. Although she was about to settle down with a woman (while still under a male identity), Jennifer was becoming increasingly depressed. This culminated in a suicide attempt in May 30, 1981, using a combination of sleeping pills and a carbon dioxide mask. After praying to different gods, she underwent a mystical experience that resulted in an epiphany about her identity. Her relationship with the woman ended soon after. [3]
Jennifer later sought hormonal treatment, but it became increasingly difficult to maintain her job as she went further into the transition. This led to her becoming homeless, but she was eventually able to secure employment and settle through the help of her friends and family, though the latter did so begrudgingly, resulting in her father attempting to murder her. One year later, after a course of hormones, Jennifer underwent gender transition surgery in 1982, and legally adopted the name and identity that she has used since then. [3]
She then cohabited with Sandra, her girlfriend at the time. As years passed on, Eldenath and Stephen (a friend from high school) joined in, forming a polyamorous marriage that has lasted to the present day. [3]
The legal status of transgender people varies greatly around the world. Some countries have enacted laws protecting the rights of transgender individuals, but others have criminalized their gender identity or expression. In many cases, transgender individuals face discrimination in employment, housing, healthcare, and other areas of life.
Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth. The term replaced the previous diagnostic label of gender identity disorder (GID) in 2013 with the release of the diagnostic manual DSM-5. The condition was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder.
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the individual's gender identity. Gender expression typically reflects a person's gender identity, but this is not always the case. While a person may express behaviors, attitudes, and appearances consistent with a particular gender role, such expression may not necessarily reflect their gender identity. The term gender identity was coined by psychiatry professor Robert J. Stoller in 1964 and popularized by psychologist John Money.
Aya Kamikawa is a Tokyo municipal official. With her election in April 2003, she became the first openly transgender person to seek or win elected office in Japan.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), is a professional organization devoted to the understanding and treatment of gender identity and gender dysphoria, and creating standardized treatment for transgender and gender variant people. WPATH was founded in September 1979 by endocrinologist and sexologist Harry Benjamin, with the goal of creating an international community of professionals specializing in treating gender variance.
The Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People (SOC) is an international clinical protocol by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) outlining the recommended assessment and treatment for transgender and gender-diverse individuals across the lifespan including social, hormonal, or surgical transition. It often influences clinicians' decisions regarding patients' treatment. While other standards, protocols, and guidelines exist – especially outside the United States – the WPATH SOC is the most widespread protocol used by professionals working with transgender or gender-variant people.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to transgender topics.
A trans man is a man who was assigned female at birth. Trans men have a male gender identity, and many trans men undergo medical and social transition to alter their appearance in a way that aligns with their gender identity or alleviates gender dysphoria.
The American-Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard proposed a psychological typology of gender dysphoria, transsexualism, and fetishistic transvestism in a series of academic papers through the 1980s and 1990s. Building on the work of earlier researchers, including his colleague Kurt Freund, Blanchard categorized trans women into two groups: homosexual transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to men and are feminine in both behavior and appearance; and autogynephilic transsexuals who experience sexual arousal at the idea of having a female body. Blanchard and his supporters argue that the typology explains differences between the two groups in childhood gender nonconformity, sexual orientation, history of sexual fetishism, and age of transition.
Gender incongruence is the state of having a gender identity that does not correspond to one's sex assigned at birth. This is experienced by people who identify as transgender or transsexual, and often results in gender dysphoria. The causes of gender incongruence have been studied for decades.
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.
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 is the opposite of their assigned sex, 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.
A transsexual person is someone who experiences a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desires to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender.
Louis J. G. Gooren was a Dutch endocrinologist known for his work with transsexual and transgender people. He treated over 2,200 transsexual people and was one of the first physicians to treat transgender youth.
Transgender hormone therapy, also called hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT), is a form of hormone therapy in which sex hormones and other hormonal medications are administered to transgender or gender nonconforming individuals for the purpose of more closely aligning their secondary sexual characteristics with their gender identity. This form of hormone therapy is given as one of two types, based on whether the goal of treatment is masculinization or feminization:
Anne Alexandra Lawrence is an American psychologist, sexologist, and physician who has published extensively on gender dysphoria, transgender people, and paraphilias. Lawrence is a transgender woman and self-identifies as autogynephilic. She is best known for her 2013 book on autogynephilia, Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism, which has been regarded by Ray Blanchard as the definitive text on the subject. Lawrence is one of the major researchers in the area of Blanchard's etiological typology of transgender women and has been one of the most major proponents of the theory. While Blanchard's typology and autogynephilia are highly controversial subjects and are not accepted by many transgender women and academics, some, such as Lawrence, identify with autogynephilia. Lawrence's work also extends beyond Blanchard's typology, to transgender women and to transition more generally.
Synthia Kavanagh is a transgender inmate serving time for second degree murder in Canada, who filed a human rights complaint on the basis of three claimed discriminatory actions. It was argued that Kavanagh's incarceration in a male prison, her deprival of the hormone therapies that she had previously been taking, and the lack of surgical sex-reassignment options that were available to her all constituted violations of section 5 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Ultimately the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that incarcerating Kavanagh in a male prison and barring her from seeking sex reassignment surgery violated her fundamental rights and freedoms.
Transgender people and other gender minorities currently face membership restrictions in access to priesthood and temple rites in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints —Mormonism's largest denomination. Church leaders have taught gender roles as an important part of their doctrine since its founding. Only recently have they begun directly addressing gender diversity and the experiences of transgender, non-binary, intersex, and other gender minorities whose gender identity and expression differ from the cisgender majority.
Mario Martino is a former nun and transsexual male author. He is known for writing one of the first autobiographies on the trans male experience. He also worked with the Labyrinth Foundation in Yonkers, New York.
Then there's Jennifer Reitz, who's done game work for a number of companies, including Interplay. Yup, you guessed it, she didn't start life with a name quite so feminine as Jennifer. She now runs a site about transgender issues.
Jennifer Diane Reitz.