In my earliest days of transition, the local support groups hosted at the Q-Center played a critical role. Sitting in those awkward circles and listening to trans women discuss their accomplishments, failures, fears, and desires was my first step towards realizing oh -- we're not so different, you and I. I want what you want.
The infrastructure for these sorts of groups didn't exist when I was twenty, or even thirty. Transitioning women kept to themselves, or were parts of communities not visible or approachable to me. When I was a trans child things were even worse, and the harshest criticism of transition often came from the lips of trans women themselves.
In 1979, when I was four, Playboy magazine published an interview with Wendy Carlos. In it, she came out as trans and discussed the four-year process (starting in 1968) of being diagnosed and receiving treatment that culminated in her bottom surgery. It's a cringy read in 2025. The interviewer inserts himself in a lightly gonzo style and praises himself for pushing Carlos for details she'd rather not share. In her interview Hall of Shame, Carlos gives the interviewer a rating of three black leaves -- arrogant selfish prig, with a genuine sadistic streak.
The interview ends with the following from Carlos.
CARLOS: I don't want to become a proselytizer. I don't want this interview to champion the cause. I think it's very important that my condition be acknowledged as very rare, so that it's seen as a highly unlikely solution for other people with an unhappy life, or suicidal impulses, as I had. The fact that there were some "successful" transformations doesn't erase the many tragic cases in which an operation was not the full solution for particular individuals. No one should follow this hellish path if an alternative exists. Try other options first.
It's difficult to see a trans woman warning off other trans women from her own path. This was the culture of transition at the time and would echo out from the 70s into the 80s and 90s. It's rare. It's hard. You shouldn't do it.
Similarly difficult was what Carlos had to say about trans community.
PLAYBOY: Did you also begin to meet people who were transsexuals or who were knowledgeable on the subject?
CARLOS: Yes. There's a kind of transsexual underground, people who know about other people who've undergone the operation, or who want to do so. Also, who the doctors are, how good they are, that sort of thing ... I discovered that there were transsexuals who were almost like members of a club, a fraternity or a sorority.
PLAYBOY: Are there such clubs?
CARLOS: There was one in New York that's ceased to exist; I don't know. ... I'm a little bored by that aspect. Once I'd begun consulting my own doctors, I was never really part of the pipeline; I wanted to protect my career.
PLAYBOY: Are there transexual bars?
CARLOS: Not in New York, though I've heard there's one on the West Coast. I can't remember the name. I don't wish to remember the name. Part of me wants to block the fact that I ever went through the procedure; I'd prefer to assume I'm just a normal woman.
I (perhaps obviously) didn't read this when I was four, and I can't remember if I ever read this specific interview when I began to do my inevitable research into gender shit in my late teens and twenties, but the sentiment on display resonates with what I did find at the time.
Having those words come from the mouth of another trans woman leaves a bitter taste in mine, but part of this would just be Carlos echoing the conventional wisdom of the era. An informed modern reader might even wonder how much of this was her, and how much of this was her repeating what the doctors had told her. This eschewing of trans community just an early case of the "rule of two" -- where women were advised, and sometimes ordered, not to associate with other trans women.
Reasonable, but even the rule of two has its roots in the words of other trans women. One from the previous generation, twenty-two years older, and possibly the center of the social club mentioned by Carlos -- Susanna Valenti.
If you're passingly familiar with the history of Virginia Prince, Transvestia Magazine, and Susanna Valenti's cross-dressing resorts, you may pause at including her under the label trans woman. Hers was a sub-culture that's typically remembered as comprising of heterosexual cross-dressing men.
However, by the end of the 60s Susanna had undergone plastic surgery to make her face more feminine, undergone electrolysis to deal with her unwanted facial hair, had taken vocal coaching lessons, was using hormones, had come out to her extended family (25 - 30 people), and most importantly had stated her intent to live full-time as a woman -- just without seeking bottom surgery. Bottom surgery being the thing she believed separated her, a Transvestite (a TV) from others in her circle who were Transsexuals (TSes).
In other words -- while the meaning of the labels have warped over time the material conditions of her body, desires, and intent were in line with that of many trans women of today.
She is, however, like other trans women of her generation and social class, a frustrating ancestor. While Valenti offered a softer hand than Virginia Prince and started off trying to foster supportive environments --
You can even be the quiet type but still be friendly, show interest in others, forget a bit about yourself. ... Be helpful without being condescending. Don't set yourself up as a perfect example that should be imitated by everybody else. This is especially important when you are talking to a girl who has just come out of her locked room. She's naturally timid, even the thought of being seen by others is still rather horrifying -- it is your duty to go easy, respect whatever physical or social or family limitations she must endure and don't try to force your pattern onto others.
From Transvestia #16, August 1962
-- as time went on frustrations about TVs who weren't trying to pass, or who weren't ready to do the work settled into her column.
And then there are those who want to visit so that I can give them “make-up tips”. And what happens? When I see a pair of eyebrows as aggressively bushy as those of Richard Nixon, I say: “those eyebrows gotta go!” Reaction? An indignant negative answer. “I surely would look funny with plucked eyebrows at my job!” The eyebrows are “the untouchables” and no matter what a job of make-up you do on that face it ends up by looking like Dick Nixon with lipstick.
From Transvestia #53, October 1968
She also discussed the phenomenon that would later be known as the rule of two, around the same time that Carlos would have started on hormones.
Following my own recipe for security I make a point of never going into this particular village accompanied by other TV’s. One TV has better than a fifty-fifty chance of passing. Two TV’S cut down each other’s chances in half. It may seem a selfish attitude on Susanna’s part — but I simply will not risk ruining a perfectly nice set-up I’ve built for myself in that area.
From Transvestia #53, October 1968
She would return to the idea of other TVs "blowing her cover" in her penultimate regular column for the magazine.
One of my teenage relatives, during the first week of our vacation, brought one of his teenage pals for a short visit to Casa Susanna. I was introduced as “aunt” Susanna, and that was that. Unfortunately, that afternoon a TV friend showed up. He arrived fully dressed and proceeded to greet me in front of both teenagers. His cave-man voice shattered the scene, and that night I got the bad news: “Susanna, I’m afraid your friend blew your cover.” The boy had put two and two together and openly asked if Susanna was for real. All my patient effort to achieve a passable image had gone down the drain in one miserable instant. Susanna’s imperfections had barely been noticed by the sharp eyes of the teenager, but it took the presence of another TV to bring those imperfections into focus. Needless to say I was mad, terribly annoyed, with friends who’d “blow my cover”.
From Transvestia #59, October 1969
As Valenti began to long for a life where she didn't need to live as a man, she began to see passing in public as a hard requirement. Her former sisters, particularly folks just starting out, suddenly became a liability.
It would be overstating things to say Valenti, or any single person, invented the rule of two. However, the doctors and sexologists who were developing the concept of gender care were in contact with Prince and read Transvestia. It's hard to imagine a situation where these ideas and advice for passing wouldn't help shape their own ideas around how a woman like Carlos should carry herself.
The ideas that Valenti's generation of trans women had about themselves echoing onto Carlos's generation, the same way the ideas Carlos's generation had about themselves would echo onto mine. The same way the ideas my generation had would echo onto the millennials of the so-called "tipping point" generation and, against the pattern, their ideas finally reflecting back onto me.
It's been over two years since I first stepped foot in the support groups, and I haven't been back in a while. The groups themselves become a bit repetitive: the same HRT advice, the same should I or shouldn't I, the same autistic spiraling. Sitting there knowing the answer but also knowing you can't actually force femme someone into self-esteem becomes an unfulfilling chore. Critical as a landing pad, but not somewhere most of us want to stay.
Pretty soon the bar hangouts afterwards becomes the support group, and then you make friends and then you join discords, and go to parties, and find lovers, and lose lovers, and if you're lucky -- you pick up a few friends you'll keep for the rest of your life. Eventually, it becomes just that. Your life.
I've recently started hanging out with women who have had scripts a few years longer than me and many of them seem to have forgotten the details of transition. Not meanly or cruelly, just literally like "oh yeah, that was a thing that happened to me. Pass the salt please". As much as I'm out of those years, not remembering them seems impossible. The past two years have been singular.
My cohort used to sit under the heat lamps of a bar patio near the Q-Center and wonder where the older, experienced, trans women were. Now, I think I understand and I find myself wanting to join them, but also to not leave behind this next cohort as they enter a world where the hostility towards their embodiment has shifted from passive to active, and all our futures have become even more unfair and uncertain. I hope, against the tide of history, that both my desires are possible.