We're talking with the man who has been in charge of FtM
International, the San Francisco based organization for female to
male individuals, since its founder, Lou Sullivan, passed away in
1991. James Green took the reins and has guided FtM International
into a new era.
James, when did you first recognize your TG nature?

J.G.: I always had a sense of being different--not like other
girls, but not quite like the boys, either. But I seemed to fit in
with boys and feel more comfortable with them from the time I started
kindergarten at age 4 years, 10 months. School was very gender rigid
then (in the early '50s), and I was forced to wear girl's clothing
every day and to engage in sex segregated activities.
This was very uncomfortable for me, but I did not know how to express
my resistance other than to disobey, which often resulted in ridicule
or other punishment. By age seven, I was begging my parents for
typical boy's clothing like black hi-top tennis shoes, blue jeans and
white oxford shirts.
When I would wear these articles, people would perceive me as male.
By the time I was in Jr. High school I was attracted to girls, and I
always thought of myself as a boy in relation to any girl I was
interested in. I had my first sexual relationship when I was a
freshman in college, with a heterosexual woman. After we had been
together a year she suggested to me that I might enjoy a sex change.
My reaction to this was complete panic! I felt that only crazy people
had sex change operations, and I had enough trouble in my life. I
told her never to talk about that again, but I realized that I had to
face the fact that I was not making it as a woman socially.
TGF: When did you transition to your present manliness?
J.G.: People continued to perceive me as male all through my
teenage years and my young adulthood. After getting my Master of Fine
Arts degree in creative writing, the only employment I could find was
in construction. I became the first "woman" construction cable
splicer for a regional Bell Telephone company. I had also been the
first girl to climb the ropes in the boy's gym in Jr. High, the first
girl to take wood shop in my Jr. High, the first girl in my high
school to take mechanical drawing, the first girl on my high school
ski team, the only "woman in my graduate program. I was used to
"firsts" and "onlys." I always had an unusually high degree of upper
body strength, a low voice (not as low as now!), and lots of hair on
my arms, so I actually think my transition began many years before I
started to take testosterone and take on the medically approved
transition that I began two months before my 40th birthday. (I'm now
48.5 years old.)
TGF: Did any part of the female role satisfy you?
J.G.: To be perfectly honest, I have always been naturally
reserved to the point of being shy under many circumstances. The only
part of the female role that ever satisfied me was the acceptability
of shyness, allowing me to get away with a certain social reticence
well into my adulthood, when it really did not serve me, but being
lazy, I appreciated getting away with it. While I am also extroverted
to some extent, it has been a challenge for me to overcome my natural
shyness, which I believe was encouraged by the female role. Had I
been born male, I believe that shyness would have been socialized out
of me in my adolescence. And once when I was a cable splicer and we
had been working 12 hours on and 12 hours off for several weeks and I
was exhausted, it actually crossed my mind that I should marry a man
to get out of this demanding level of work. (I'm glad I didn't! Not
that I knew any candidates...)
TGF: How did you get involved with FtM International?
J.G.: I went to my first FTM meeting (a meeting in San
Francisco of the group that was to evolve into FTM International)
coordinated by Lou Sullivan in March of 1988. It was Lou's group's
fifth meeting. The meetings were quarterly then, and Lou had just put
out the third edition of the FTM Newsletter at that time, too. His
second edition, December 1987, was the first one I received. I was
just a meeting-goer, nobody special. I had my own life: a management
job supervising writers and artists in a computer software publishing
company, a female partner of 12 years, a house in the suburbs, two
cars, one cat, one daughter and another child on the way (in my
partner's womb, thanks to the Sperm Bank of Northern California). I
planned to go through my transition and continue on my career path
and take care of my growing family and have a wonderful life. But my
partner left me in 1989 shortly after the birth of our second child
and three weeks after my chest reconstruction, and I was very
depressed. Lou Sullivan had HIV and was growing weaker all the
time.
"I always had a sense of being different--not like other girls, but not quite like
the boys, either."
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In March of 1991 he asked me (because I was a writer and a
publications professional, and someone who he knew would keep his
word) if I would be sure that the FTM Newsletter kept going after his
death. I said sure, not even really thinking about what it would
mean. After all, a tiny quarterly newsletter isn't much when you
manage 18 writers and put out thousands of pages every year on
numerous technical topics. I figured "What the hell?"
Then Lou died just one week later. I realized I had to run the
meetings and answer letters and phone calls. The meeting attendance
grew phenomenally--we soon adopted monthly meetings. And the
newsletter subscription base has now quadrupled. We send the
newsletter to 14 countries, and we adopted the name FTM International
back in 1993, more for a design consideration than anything else at
the time. I realized how important the group and newsletter were to
hundreds of people who have no other source of peer support, and I
realized, too, that something that drove a lot of FTMs was shame.
Eventually--in early 1992--I resolved to dedicate myself to the
eradication of shame for FTMs.
That means educating people--trans and non-trans people--about our
right to dignity, our right to live our lives the way we choose--the
way we need to live--and that we should not be forced to be ashamed
of our female origins, that that shame limits us unnecessarily,
socially, emotionally, and physically. The fact that we started with
female bodies does not mean that we don't function socially as
men.
TGF: Numbers on the transgender percentage of the populace are
not at all accurate. Do you have any indication of the number of FtM
people there may be?
J.G.: The short answer: No. The long answer: Well, actually,
no.
TGF: Why did FtM International. decide to go to a membership
format and apply for 501[c][3]?
J.G.: We did this because I have never wanted to be a
dictator, I have always tried to involve and empower others. I've
wanted others to realize that if this group and its publications were
important to them then they would have to do something to keep it
going. I cannot do it all alone, and I don't want to.
In 1995, when we held the first All-FTM Conference of the Americas,
FTM International made several thousand dollars profit from the
conference, and I wanted all that money to benefit the group--I
didn't want to pay taxes on it. I realized that the best way to
protect the group's assets was to become a nonprofit educational
organization. This allows us to apply for grants, and also encourages
certain donors who are looking for tax breaks. It seemed like the
right thing to do to force ourselves to up the ante, to step up to
the next level of service provision to and for our constituency. Now
we are opening an office in San Francisco. We hope to obtain a grant
to allow us to pay someone a salary to "person" the office during
regular hours, and we hope to be able to develop our publications and
support group offerings to better serve our community. We have
already developed liaisons with numerous other nonprofit groups in
San Francisco, including the All Our Families Coalition, the
International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, GLAAD (Gay
& Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), and BiNet USA--not to
mention the numerous trans groups across the country and
internationally--to raise the visibility of FTMs and FTM issues, as
well as provide networking opportunities and resource referrals for
FTMs all over the world. The demand for information for and about
FTMS has grown far beyond the capacity of one man--or even a few
men--in his (our) spare time.
FTM International is a full time job
for 4 people right now, and none of us is able to devote the time it
takes to manage it because we all have to earn our livings and manage
the demands of our relationships and families. The core group of four
officers, aided by about a half dozen other regular volunteers and a
board of 10 directors (as of today) is struggling to stay on top of
the demand and build an organization that will be a strong advocate
and a source of pride for our community. The vision that I have is
that FTM International, Inc. will be able to do this without me.
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