Transgenderism Series
The Salmacis Society is sponsoring a series of eight meetings on transgenderism beginning on May 15 and continuing every other Thursday t through August 21. They will be held in conjunction with the Transexual Counselling Clinic and the Northeast Clinic of San Francisco. Admission is $1 for each session (They will be held at Northeast Outpatient Clinic, 200 Golden Gate Ave., San Fran..)
The meetings will cover such topics as “Accepting yourself as a TV, Legal aspects of male femininity, cosmetics and shape makers, fashion, grooming, deportment, and voice, and living your TVism.” Each session will feature speakers and demonstrations.
The purpose of the series is to communicate to the general public what TVism is all about, to encourage those with suppressed TV or TS feelings to air out their feelings in the open, and to help TVs share their experiences and gain in self-knowledge.
According to Salmacis, there are approximately 2.5 million males who believe their destiny to be female. Many desire to lead a normal life as a female, with a female mate. The purpose of Salmacis is to bring these males together with compatible females. For more information, write Salmacis Society, PO Box 2441, Menio Park, Ca. 94025.
NOTES:
While transvestism is represented throughout the article, the transgenderism usage context seems to be in line with the 1965 usage in which Primary Transvestites included transsexuals and Secondary Transvestites included those who crossdress for sexual reasons. It also seems to assert that both TVs and TSs are men – an idea that Harry Benjamin himself asserted. This article explicitly states that the purpose of the “transgenderism” meeting is to “… encourage those with suppressed TV or TS feelings…” to talk about their feelings and that this meeting would take place at the “Transexual Counselling Clinic.”
Contemporary usages of “transgenderism” was linked to the transgenderist and not to transsexuals:
The transgenderist makes every effort to be passable in public and, because of the many laborious hours spent on achieving this goal, many do pass quite successfully. Some may go so far as to live as women completely, almost like a pre-operative transexual.
However, in most cases, the TG maintains two separate identities and personalities and, as the saying goes, “never the twain shall meet.” Many such people maintain, however, that their happiest moments are spent when they are playing the female role, much as the transvestite will admit that he is most happy when crossdressed.
Harry Benjamin, in his pioneer book, THE TRANSEXUAL PHENOMENON, touched on the subject of transgenderism without giving it a name. He referred to it as a non operative transexual condition, and went on to describe such a person. He concluded that such people strongly identified as females, had strong feminine components in their personalities, but did not particularly want the surgical procedure that would make the physical transformation to female.
The above is from a 1975 East Coast usage while the usage from this post represents a West Coast usage.
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