Apparently, Lynn Conway has passed on. 85 is a good long life; I expect a NY Times obituary (which I will link here if it makes it to print) but for now an LA Times remembrance by Michael Hiltzik(which contains a lot of historic mis-gendering, problematic in these enlightened times) will have to do. Lynn was noteworthy enough to warrant a wikipedia page which is a pretty good overview of her professional and activist life.
Somewhere in the Jude bucket list is a memoir of sorts called "My Transwomen", remembering transgender women whose paths have intersected my own, and who touched my life in some way. Local folks, but also national figures like Kate Bornstein, Riki Wilchins, Ari Kane, Sandy Stone, Nancy Burkholder. Lynn would not have made that list. I just never had any direct contact or interaction.
Lynn came up in an earlier era, when transgender women were advised to go underground (what we once referred to as "deep stealth" as soon and as completely as possible, and she lived that from her transition in 1968 through her retirement in 1999-2000 or thereabouts. That's roughly 30 years of invisibility....
Once she did step out of the shadows, her attitudes and advice were at times challenging, especially to someone like me for whom the path to transition was gradual, incremental, and limited by resources. Lynn drew a solid line in bold black sharpie between the identities of crossdresser and transsexual (transgender did not exist back in the day, except as a place to dump a handful of gender outlaws who did not seem to fit into category C or category T), and as someone on a long (and admittedly doomed to failure) internal negotiation to find a place of comfort with this gender stuff short of physical and social transition, well, Lynn was, in many ways, problematic.
Her much vaunted "Transsexual Women's Success Page" was as challenging as it was inspirational - initially populated with largely caucasian faces, MTF lives, professionals who could afford a full medical transition and resume professional lives (what we pejoratively referred to as RWTs / Rich White Transwomen*), and an inordinate number of wedding gowns - as if heterosexual marriage was the cherry atop the ice-cream sundae of a successful transition. For a while, getting listed on Lynn's page was kind of a box you checked post-transition, and as I scan social media in the wake of her death, I find some grumbling from aspirants who never made the page (she thankfully stopped updating it somewhere along the way, but that did not stop people from wanting her post-transition stamp of approval to make their journey complete), as well as transgender women who did not have genital surgery (for any number of reasons) who were made to feel less than or incomplete by Lynn. In the rear-view mirror, the page almost reminds me of Pokemon or sports cards. And I've definitely had negative experiences with "collectors" who seemed intent on making contact with and befriending "successful transgender women" as a way to bolster their own self-worth.
Lynn also was an early (and vocal) advocate for FFS (Facial Feminization Surgery) and as someone who (a) could never afford that, (b) felt no need in order to move through the world without too much friction, and (c) has had more than my share of unfortunate encounters with both Dr. O (and his calipers to gauge the masculinity of one's forehead or jawline) and many of his true-believers that somehow always comes down to "you'd be really pretty (or really passable) if you had FFS...", well, that's one of the many reasons I stepped away from Identity Trans back in the day. I've never had a cisgender friend suggest I needed to have my skull shaved....
Ironically, my own post-transition life has, to whatever extent I was able to achieve it, mirrored Lynn's trajectory. I got in, I got done, I got gone. I've got another 10 years ahead of me of basking in deep stealth to match her stretch of invisibility.
Looking back on my transition era blog, I see a few "Conway" citations / links. Lynn posited some numbers for the prevalence of transgenderism that put some of the hate crimes / suicide statistics in context (i.e. - things not as bad than they seem). She was a fierce opponent to the Bailey-Blanchard-Lawrence theories of autogynephilia. She posted some "transition regrets" stories that I chewed on as I considered my own transition.
Like everything else in the world of "Identity Trans", it's complicated.
Back in November 2003, I wrote:
Lynn's site is a teeny bit shrill when she touches on FFS and autogynephilia (she is a true believer in the first case, pushing this as the answer to all TS-ills, and a warrior-general for the anti-BBL forces in the second). But all in all she is a pretty sharp person and I find I agree with her point of view more often than not. I hope to meet her someday.
I guess I missed my chance. Godspeed, Ms. Conway.
* And yeah, I fully realize that to many in the community, I am one of those RWTs...
