Max Wolf Valerio (born February 16, 1957, in Heidelberg, West Germany) is an American poet, memoir writer, essayist and actor. He has lived for many years[ specify ] in San Francisco, California.
Valerio described his transition and experiences as a trans man in the 2006 memoir The Testosterone Files. He also writes and performs poetry, and has acted in films and appeared in many documentaries.
Valerio identifies his mother as being of Blackfoot descent, specifically from the Kainai in Alberta, Canada. [1]
Valerio's father is Hispano from Taos, New Mexico. [2]
Valerio has researched his heritage and inferred that a significant number of his paternal ancestors were crypto-Jews who had become conversos but secretly handed on Sephardic Jewish traditions. [3]
Valerio is a Treaty Indian and also enrolled in the Kainai Band (Blood Band), Treaty 7, in Alberta Canada. His mother (nee Shade) is from the Kainai Reserve, AKA the Blood Reserve. The Kainai are members of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
Valerio's father was in the United States Army for 20 years, which caused them to move frequently in the United States and Europe. Max was born in a US Army hospital in Heidelberg, Germany. Valerio lived in many US states including Maryland, Washington, California, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado, as well as in Canada, and again in Germany as a child and teenager. [2]
Growing up Valerio had a hard time relating to girls. He felt that he did not fit in because of his masculine nature and at times would offer to play male roles, which went unapproved by the girls that he was attempting to play with. Valerio imagined himself as a boy when growing up and could not imagine himself growing into a woman. He felt he was always male and identified with male children/adults. Valerio would cry himself to sleep as a child wishing to be a boy. He decided to identify himself as a lesbian as a teen because it made the most sense to him at the time. He came out as a lesbian feminist in college in 1975. Valerio could not relate to lesbian sex. Valerio started to feel more male and a male gender identity started to come back from childhood. [4]
In 1988, after discussions with a friend and roommate who was formally transitioning from male to female, Valerio realized that he was transsexual and began considering a sex change. [4] Max found the FTM Organization in San Francisco run by Lou Sullivan and started attending meetings. Valerio was amazed by the other female to male trans people and shifted his identity from that of a lesbian to a trans man. [4]
Valerio transitioned in 1989 from female to male. Valerio's initial exposure to transsexual information were two pieces that have been considered by LGBTQ groups as being exceptionally transphobic. The first book Valerio picked up was Female-to-Male Transsexualism by Leslie Lothstein. Valerio says in The Testosterone Files that "Lothstein's book is damning" and that he "paints the transsexual men he is working with as psychopathic, borderline, fractured, pathetic". [5] Valerio also says that Lothstein's book says that Lothstein "feels that most of the men are mistaken in asking for sex reassignment". [5] The second resource Valerio picked up was Janice Raymond's book The Transsexual Empire . Valerio states that "Raymond postulated that all transsexuals were dupes of the patriarchy, 'mutilating' their bodies in order to live out stereotyped sex roles instead of changing those roles through rigorously applied program of radical feminism". [5]
Valerio talks about his first steps of transitioning in the movie "MAX with Max W. Valerio", [4] a short documentary-style film by Monika Treut. Max goes into deeper depth about the testosterone side of transitioning and early steps in his book The Testosterone Files. He also appears in Gendernauts, another film by Monika Treut.
In his writing, Valerio describes the counselling he received, his experiences with hormone therapy, and the physical changes he observed. [4] [5]
Valerio's memoir The Testosterone Files describes the psychological, physiological, and social transformation that occurred in the first five years of his transition from female to male. [2] One of the main themes of the book is the role of testosterone in his transition. [2] The book is organized into three parts: "Beginning," "Before Testosterone," and "After Testosterone."
In the prologue, Valerio uses an in-depth narration of what it is like to be a transsexual to allow his readers to understand the trials and tribulations that one experiences when going through a sex change. Valerio says that transsexuals are not simply just a branch of lesbian or gay. He asserts that "transsexual identities must be defined and expressed on our own terms". [2] In Valerio's opinion, transsexuals voices and experiences, until more recently, are "unheard and incompletely imagined". [2]
The first section, "Beginning", describes Valerio as he begins his transition from female to male. Valerio discusses the physical changes occurring that have allowed him to understand what it feels like to experience biological masculinity. These include physical changes such as his voice becoming deeper and his hair becoming darker and coarser.
The second section, "Before Testosterone", shows what led Valerio to decide that changing sex was the right path for him. Valerio describes the cultural and ethnic backgrounds of his mother and father. He says that one of his relationships led him to discover that being a lesbian and sex between two women did not arouse him. [2] He discovered that his attraction towards women wasn't a lesbian attraction, but rather a heterosexual attraction, one from a man to a woman.
The third section, "After Testosterone", is one written so that the readers can feel Valerio's emotional, social, and perceptual transformation from female to male. The beginning chapters of this section narrates Valerio's acceptance of becoming a male. His body is physically transitioning and he is adapting to doing and experiencing ‘male’ things such as shaving, adapting to a deeper voice, and having straight women make advances toward him [2] He also discusses the emotional experiences of telling everyone who didn't yet already know that he was becoming a male. He describes an in detail encounter of coming out as transsexual to one of his female co-workers as a way to narrate the difficulty of identity politics when transitioning [2] With this woman, Valerio experienced his first intimate encounter with a female since transitioning to becoming a man. Valerio narrates his perceptual experiences of not yet having bottom surgery, but being physically male otherwise [2] The book ends off with his discovery of his Adam's apple that has grown from the testosterone which signifies his excitement and recognition that this transition was exactly what Max needed to be happy with himself.
Max Valerio had an increase in energy almost immediately, and increase in sex drive as well an inability to cry as he once had as a female. [5]
In the film MAX, Valerio talks about his experience of perceptual, emotional and physical change with testosterone. Filmed in New York City in the early 1990s, the film is a groundbreaking exploration of trans male experience. [6]
When Valerio identified himself as a lesbian, he was able to learn about the idea of feminism, became involved with left-wing radical politics and was able to have a deeper understanding of the female identity. [7] [ clarification needed ] Valerio was a part of the American Indian Movement and participated in marches and visited the Pine Ridge Reservation when it was under siege by the F.B.I after the Wounded Knee Occupation. Valerio's political transformation was from left-wing radical and then to the Democratic Party, and eventually to more libertarian/classic liberal. [8] He identifies as a classic liberal.
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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 choose to undergo surgical or hormonal transition, or both, to alter their appearance in a way that aligns with their gender identity or alleviates gender dysphoria.
Transfeminism, or trans feminism, is a branch of feminism focused on transgender women and informed by transgender studies. Transfeminism focuses on the effects of transmisogyny and patriarchy on trans women. It is related to the broader field of queer theory. The term was popularized by Emi Koyama in The Transfeminist Manifesto.
Monika Treut is a German filmmaker. She made her feature film debut with Seduction: The Cruel Woman, a film that explores sadomasochistic sex practices. She has made over 20 films, including the short documentaries Annie and My Father is Coming. Treut’s involvement extends across writing, directing, editing and acting.
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 (autogynephilia). 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, often shortened as trans, 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.
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.
Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire 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.
Andrea Jean James is an American transgender rights activist, film producer, and blogger.
A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity and may experience gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria may be treated with gender-affirming care.
Buck Angel is an American sex educator and a former pornographic film actor and producer. He is the founder of the media production company Buck Angel Entertainment. A transsexual man, he now works as an advocate and educator. Angel served on the board of directors of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation from 2010 to 2016; the foundation works to affirm sexual freedom as a fundamental human right through advocacy and education.
Gendernauts: A Journey Through Shifting Identities is a 1999 film by Monika Treut featuring Sandy Stone, Texas Tomboy, Susan Stryker, and Hida Viloria. It shows us a group of artists in San Francisco who live between the poles of conventional gender identities.
Susan O'Neal Stryker is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona, and is currently on leave while holding an appointment as Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership at Mills College. Stryker serves on the Advisory Council of METI and the Advisory Board of the Digital Transgender Archive. Stryker, who is a transgender woman, is the author of several books about LGBT history and culture. She is a leading scholar of transgender history.
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.
Mirha-Soleil Ross is a transgender videographer, performance artist, sex worker and activist. Her work since the early 1990s in Montreal and Toronto has focused on transsexual rights, access to resources, advocacy for sex workers and animal rights.
"The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto" is a 1987 essay written by Sandy Stone. Stone's essay is considered to be the founding text of transgender studies in academia, with other critical transgender works emerging after it. The essay examines how transgender women have historically been viewed, studied, and treated by the western medical establishment.
Johnny Science was an American activist, make-up artist, musician, and drag king known for his work on behalf of drag kings, kink, trans men, and gay men. Through the 1980s and 90s, Science hosted drag king workshops and formed what is believed to be the first FTM meetup group in New York City, F2M Fraternity. He has been called "the unsung hero of female-to-male consciousness raising" in New York City.
