The TG Forum Interview
With James Green

By Angela Gardener


For More Information check: FTM Resources At TGForum

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?

James Green
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."
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.

For More Information check: FTM Resources At TGForum
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