The Transexual Menace, or The Menace, is a transgender rights activist organization founded in New York City in 1993. It was the first direct action group of its kind, and grew to be a national organisation with 24 chapters. After a period of dormancy, The Menace returned in 2025 as a response to transphobic policies made by President Donald Trump and other politicians.[1][2]
The group was founded in 1993 by transgender activists including Riki Wilchins and Denise Norris, in response to the exclusion of transgender people from lesbian, gay, and bisexual Pride marches.[3]
The Transexual Menace organized groups of demonstrators outside courthouses during trials involving anti-transgender crimes, for instance in the rape and murder of Brandon Teena. The movement became the subject of iconic gay liberation filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim's documentary "Transexual Menace".[4][5]
T-shirts
The trademark image for the Transexual Menace was a Goth-styled black T-shirt with the group's name in blood-dripping red letters.[4] The Menace T-shirts were designed by Norris, with a design emulating the Rocky Horror Picture Show logo. The T-shirts were significant in that they allowed transgender visibility at a time when passing as cis was highly encouraged and desired. As described by Wilchins in the book TRANS/gressive, "If you passed [as cis], you were safe. But pulling on the T-shirt screwed all of that forever".[6]
Pictures are available of the Pittsburgh chapter's T-shirts [7] and the Texas chapter's T-shirts.[8]
Esquire interview and response
Esquire approached the group to do a piece about transgender activism. It was published under the title "The Third Sex - Now the men who have decided they are actually women are on the march. Welcome to the transgender revolution" on April 1, 1995.[9]
The Menace members were angry and the group immediately picketed Esquire's offices; eventually the writer of the story came down to apologise. In her book TRANS/gressive, Riki Wilchins describes the incident as reflective of the climate at the time, with "friendly fire" coming from people or institutions that were not even actively hostile.[6]
The Menace protested trans women's exclusion from the Gay Games. Wilchins describes how trans women, unlike the other participants, had to "jump through a series of demeaning hoops" including providing medical records, a hormone test and a full gender verification regime. Six members of the NYC chapter crashed the board meeting of the Gay Games and instantiated a change of these regulations. The transgender-exclusionary regulations were re-instated four years later.[6]
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