Gwen

Dumbass in a dumb land

  • She/Her

I was born in the late Holocene and I've seen some shit



samanthaistyping
@samanthaistyping

thanks to archivists at the GLBT Historical Archives in California, we now have open access to the first four years of TGForum.com, as compiled on an official CD-ROM back in 1999. it is an absolutely bonkers treasure trove of early-internet trans culture and politics, warts and all, and I wrote about it for Them!

this was a really fun piece to research but took a LONG time, so I hope you enjoy reading it! I have a few stories that I had to cut for room (I already doubled my planned word count as it is) so I will thread them here soon. If you find something cool in this archive I didn't mention, let me know in the comments!!

EDIT: I totally forgot that the archivist is on cohost! Give @caraesten some appreciation (and thanks @atomicthumbs for the reminder)


samanthaistyping
@samanthaistyping

On December 14 at 1pm Eastern I'll be on KERA's live talk show/podcast Think talking about the history of TGForum and why queer archival work is so important! it would be very cool if you joined me.

you can listen live at https://www.kera.org/radio/listen/ or catch the recorded version when it goes up on think.kera.org! I was basically raised on NPR programming so this is very exciting and definitely not anxiety-inducing for me at all!!!!!


shel
@shel

This was so good I especially loved the part about early trans online humor. "Men who want to be girls but must accept they are now women" made me laugh so hard


samanthaistyping
@samanthaistyping

this is why I believe Leigh de Santa Fe may have helped originate the "trans meme" as we think of it. was TGForum mostly white boomer trans women? yes. did they have a sense of humor about that fact? you have no idea


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in reply to @samanthaistyping's post:

this reminded me of one of the tidbits that didn't fit in the piece: in the pictorial section you'll find several founders of what is only referred to as "ETVC." A little digging and I found out it was a community group in California. The acronym stood for "Educational TV Channel."

(they lost the pun in '98 and became just TransGender San Francisco)