Dr. Richard Docter announced at dinner last night, here at the Liberty Conference, that Virginia Prince had died at the age of 96. She was in good health and mentally acute until about a month ago when her health began a steep decline. Docter was her biographer as a well as a friend.
I met the grand dame here, in this Philly Airport Hilton hotel, about five years ago, and I am a little surprised by how moved I have been to hear of her passing. She was an imperfect person, as we all are, but rocked where it counted: having the cojones to be an out-transvestite in the 1950s. Her bravery is something we'd be fools, as a community, not to acknowledge.
Imperfect, problematic, heroic. You often don't get one without the others. We have lost an important pioneer.
--Helen Boyd at en/gender, May 3, 2009
From a Amazon.com description of the biography of her life for the book From Man to Woman: The Transgender Journey of Virginia Prince:
Virginia Prince invented the term "transgender" and has lived full-time as a woman since the age of 55, without transsexual surgery which she strongly opposes.
From the article The "Transcendents" or "Trans" People we learn what she meant when she coined the term transgenderist (from which the term transgender was derived):
These are people who have adopted the exterior manifestations of the opposite sex on a full-time basis bu t without any surgical intervention. Thus they what may rightly be termed "male women."
Virginia Prince claimed to be a transgenderist her whole life, but even she ended up having surgical intervention: she had breast implants, and she did have her facial hair removed by electrolyis. The "transsexual surgery" that she never did have was genital reconstruction surgery.
The term transgender has evolved over time into a term that Virgina didn't envision. From the GLAAD Media Guide's Transgender Glossary (page 8):
An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. The term may include but is not limited to: transsexuals, cross-dressers, and other gender-variant people.
Transgender people may identify as female-to-male (FTM) or male-to-female (MTF). Use the descripscriptive term (transgender, transsexual, cross-dresser, FTM or MTF) preferred by the individual. Transgender people may or may not decide to alter their bodies hormonally and/or surgically.
To show how much times have changed since the term transgender was first coined in the late 1970's, one just needs to look at the transgender flag, and thought behind it.
The pastel pink and pastel blue stripes are baby colors for males and females, and the white stripe is for all those who don't fit within the binary of male and female. The stripes are positioned in a way that the 
transgender flag can't be flown upside down, and this is because the message of the flag is that just as there is no wrong way to fly the transgender flag, there is no wrong way to be gendered.
Monica Helms is the designer of the transgender flag, and she had this to say about Virginia Prince's passing:
No other person in our community has ever garnered so much praise and so much hate as did Virginia Prince. I met her for the first time in 1984 and even then, I didn't agree with some of what she said. However, she was a pioneer and someone who has helped our community in ways we are just beginning to understand. She will be missed.
As Monica stated, Virginia Prince is not well loved by all whose genitalia at birth and gender identity weren't a match. For a sample of one who didn't mind Virginia Prince's passing is from the woman who I believe coined the term women-born-transsexual -- here's a sample of what she said in her piece Virginia Prince is Finally Dead:
Good riddance...I thought that hateful old misogynistic man in a dress was going to live forever.
It will probably take 20 more years to undo the damage he did.
...I can already hear the transvestites lining up to sing hymns of praise and create a hagiography about the great debt we owe him for being out in the 1950 thereby giving the heterosexual transvestites credit for something both drag queens and transsexuals had been doing with far more honesty for at least a hundred years...
Yes, Virginia Prince was both loved and hated. Many will miss Virginia, and many will not.
However, the transgender community owes her for the term that defines the community, even if the word doesn't resemble in definition what Virginia meant by the term to mean when she coined it. Even she didn't get to control the ev olution of the term she created.
~~~~~
Further reading:
* Article: Pioneers of Transgendering: The Life and Work of Virginia Prince
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A friend of mine laments that there is no place for ignoramuses like Joe Waterbuffalo to homestead anymore. "Used to be that if you thought society didn't match your values, you could just up and move to the frontier! Nowadays, there's nowhere to go, so you've got ignoramuses who will never change their mind forced to live around the rest of us. There's got to be a place for conservative close-minded ignoramuses!"
It's an interesting notion. It's why I've always been a strong supporter of space exploration. Maybe we can trick Joe Wascallywabbit into thinking he's an astronaut.
Oh, regarding his comment? Eh. Getting my knickers in a twist over Joe Wollstonescraft saying something bigotedly stupid in public is like punishing a dog for licking his nuts in public - you know he's gonna do it, you know saying something won't make much of a difference, and you know most everybody observing it feels the same way about it as you do.
***
NOTE FROM PAM: Here's the wisdom of Joe the Horny Teabagging Plumber:
Christianity Today: In the last month, same-sex marriage has become legal in Iowa and Vermont. What do you think about same-sex marriage at a state level?Another set of imaginary self-loathing gay friends for a bigot. Do they have a rent-a-homo-doormat service for these people?Wurzelbacher: At a state level, it's up to them. I don't want it to be a federal thing. I personally still think it's wrong. People don't understand the dictionary--it's called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It's not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we're supposed to do--what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we're supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I've had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they're people, and they're going to do their thing.
...help Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders show America what equality looks like! More below the fold (hint: say cheese) Five years ago, a revolution started in Massachusetts. On May 17, 2004, the first same-sex couples ever to legally marry in the United States stood in churches, backyards, and town halls, and said "I do."Five years later, over 16,000 same-sex couples have marriearried in Massachusetts and 3 more states have adopted full marriage equality - Connecticut, Vermont, and Iowa. Marriage equality bills are moving forward in Maine and New Hampshire, and 18,000 couples married in California before Proposition 8 brought marriage equality to a halt there.
To celebrate five years of marriage equality, and to keep the momentum going across New England and the U.S., we invite you to participate in our online photo exhibit: What Marriage Equality Looks Like.
Join the Celebration!
We invite all couples, gay and straight, who have married in an equality state - Massachusetts (since May 17, 2004); Connecticut (since November 12, 2008), Iowa (since April 27, 2009), or California (June 16, 2008 - November 4, 2008)* to help us show America what marriage equality looks like. (*Same-sex couples in Vermont can begin marrying in September 2009).
Email your favorite wedding photo to photos@glad.org.
Please include your names (only first names will be published), the date and location of the wedding, and a photo credit if applicable.
Photos will be added throughout the month of May.
GLAD congratulates and celebrates all the loving, committed couples who have joined in marriage in the past five years.
The bill now goes to the House of Representatives, which has adjourned until Tuesday, and so will make no vote until at least next week. [Bangor Daily News]
If approved, the bill will move on to Governor John Baldacci. Governor Baldacci hasn’t publicly stated whether he intends to sign or veto the bill, but has hinted that he may support it.
Best of luck to Equality Maine as they work with the House and the Governor!
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