"The purpose of this collection is to educate the broader community about the experiences, needs and situations of trans people. It features a brief biography of each person, using their words as much as possible to tell their stories, share their experiences, and articulate the issues that are relevant to them as a trans, transgendered or transsexual person (a note about language usage is below). These stories are an attempt to put a “human face” on the issues of trans people and to break down stereotypes. It is our hope that this collection may, in some small way, assist in making the voices of trans people better heard and, perhaps, more understood."
"Throughout this booklet different participants have used a number of terms to describe themselves and others. Some of these terms are: transsexual, transgendered, trans, tranny, trans-woman, trans-man, FtM (female-to-male), MtF (male-to-female), transformed, and gender-variant. We recognize that the language associated with these issues is fluid and the choices of descriptive terms have certain meanings to various participants. As much as possible we have tried to ensure that participants defined what they meant by the terms they were using, and in each case asked participants to describe how they would like to be identified. While we recognize that the language is constantly evolving, for the purposes of this project we have used the term “trans” as a broad category meaning anyone who defines themselves as gender fluid, whether they be pre-operative, post-operative or non-operative.
The one-on-one interviews used to write these biographies were conducted in May, June and July of 2001. All but one of the people featured in this booklet were living in the Lower Mainland during this period. Four participants have chosen to remain anonymous and are indicated by a chosen first name only, while the others felt comfortable with their names and photos being represented here. The biographies are either written in the first voice, using exclusive quotes from the interviews, or using a combination of quotes and narrative. In all cases the participants had final say over the content of their biography."
Available via opseu.org
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