Trans people have always been here

Anyone who watched a controversial episode of Channel 7’s Spotlight a few weeks ago could be fooled into thinking that being trans is some sort of recent fad. This could not be further from the truth. There is a long history of gender diversity on this continent and around the world that extends back to time immemorial.

For instance, several Aboriginal languages have words for third or non-binary genders. When Brotherboy Uncle Dean Gilbert spoke to Wiradjuri Elders about his transition, they responded that this has been happening for hundreds of years. There are examples from 19th century colonial Australia of people living in genders other than their sex presumed at birth. As my new book Transgender Australia: A History since 1910 explores, trans people have long been forging lives and communities in Australia.

One question I have been asked several times is “why 1910?” This is not some arbitrary marker nor is it meant to suggest that there were no gender diverse people before then. The year 1910 is significant because that is when the German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld published the book Transvestites: The Erotic Desire to Cross-Dress. By today’s standards, the word “transvestite” is considered offensive and outdated, but in 1910 it was revolutionary because it began the language of “trans” to describe people with a different gender identity than their sex presumed at birth. The term did not take off right away; while there was a brief mention of a German “transvestite” in Australian newspapers in 1912, only in the 1930s did some Australian psychiatrists and sexologists begin to use the term.

After the Second World War, new medical technologies and international events rapidly enhanced the visibility of trans people. American GI Christine Jorgensen’s transition made global headlines in December 1952, even inspiring Australians to write letters to her doctor to inquire about gender affirmation surgery. New medical terms like “transsexual” entered popular discourse, and by the late 1960s gender affirmation surgery was available in Sydney and Melbourne (albeit under the strict control of doctors, who defined who was “transsexual” and eligible).

The emerging language and visibility around trans had downsides and upsides. First, it very much reflected white/European understandings of gender, which did not necessarily reflect Blak, Indigenous and people of colour’s experiences. The media tended to sensationalise and sometimes sexualise stories about trans people. News headlines were designed to shock and mock, and salacious stories were more likely to attract attention. Yet, in the 1970s, beneath the headlines were often sensitive stories about people who had been struggling with gender and now were living their authentic selves. Trans people who were children or adolescents in the 1970s-80s remember these stories and felt a sense of connection. As one oral history interview participant explained to me, when she heard a radio story about a “transsexual”, “I thought wow, this person’s life is like my life. And I thought there is a name for this”.

One common adage, which Yves Rees uses in their transition memoir All About Yves, is “You can’t be what you can’t see”. To put it another way, trans people have always been here, but did not necessarily have the language to articulate their internal struggles with gender. Moreover, to express their gender openly could have devastating effects. There were no anti-discrimination protections for any trans people anywhere in Australia before 1984, with states and territories gradually amending their anti-discrimination laws by 2002. This meant trans people could lose their jobs, housing and be denied services, and it was perfectly legal. It was also dangerous for trans people to be in public, as they could be subjected to hate crimes. Trans sex workers were especially vulnerable to being attacked by clients, passersby and police.

Trans communities began to emerge in the post-Second World War era in urban areas, and from the 1970s organised trans groups began to form – starting with Seahorse in 1971. Trans activists began to organise in the 1980s such as the Victorian Transsexual Coalition and, under the leadership of Noelena Tame then Roberta Perkins, the Australian Transsexual Association. Roberta was prominent in her advocacy for both trans and sex worker rights, and in 1983 she secured funding to open Tiresias House — the present-day Gender Centre — as a refuge for homeless trans people.

In the 1990s, new activist, social and support groups emerged across the country. This new wave of activists was also taking on new language: transgender. They used the word as an umbrella to describe anyone whose gender identity was different from their sex presumed at birth, regardless of whether they had medical or surgical interventions. Activists from the Transgender Liberation Coalition in Sydney, such as Jesse Hooley, Aidy Griffin, Nadine Stransen and Norrie, pushed both cis and trans communities to see gender as neither fixed nor binary, but socially constructed.

In the 2000s, the advent of the internet made it easier for trans people to find others “like them” and to “see” themselves. Children, too, began to come out as trans and to seek transition options. Trans children are not new now, nor were they new then. Trans adults used to be trans children, with most of my interview participants knowing from a very young age that their gender was different from what society was telling them. Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital saw its first trans client in 2003. Doctors there studied practices overseas and adopted an affirming care model. This model has proven effective for decades and — contrary to what alarmists pushing an anti-trans agenda say — is not experimental.

In 2014, Time Magazine declared that Western societies had reached a trans tipping point. It argued that societal attitudes and laws had changed to a point that there were more people supportive of trans rights than opposed. The history of the past century demonstrates much truth in this, but the anti-trans backlash that followed the success of marriage equality in Australia in 2017 also shows how tenuous any progress truly is. But history also teaches us that trans people in Australia are not going anywhere and will continue to be visible.