awareness of genderqueerness and top surgery requirements in the 1990s

[kazaera]

So, I have a FAAB genderqueer character at college in Massachusetts sometime in the 90s (most like early-to-mid, but my timeline is a little flexible and some of this takes place over years so answers for any part of the decade are appreciated.) My questions

Comments

[belleweather]

'Genderqueer' was not a thing in the 1990s. I was at one of the most queer-forward University in the late 1990s and it was not on the radar AT ALL for us. (I think it's really hard for folks who were not young in the 1990s to really realize how far and how fast queer rights has come. Marriage equality was also totally not a thing at all in the mid to late 1990's. We hope that maybe, maybe our kids would live in a world where that was possible and more likely our grandkids. Also, get off my lawn!) There was certainly some discussion about gender fluid identities, but I remember a lot of that relating back to the whole butch/femme dynamic and politics. People were very rigid in how they thought about themselves and how gender roles fit into sexualities... people were breaking out and questioning that, but it really was more of a fringe thing than a movement

[kazaera]

Thanks! All of that is very, very useful information - I hadn't thought about considering the whole thing in light of the butch/femme dynamic (or in fact about the butch/femme dynamic at all, which is probably something to poke at considering that the genderqueer character spends a while IDing as lesbian, then as bisexual).

And it's actually kind of handy for me to have a reason for my character not to go through with top surgery - I hadn't been planning on them doing so but when writing the fic they turned out to have much stronger dysphoria than I'd been expecting, and I realised it would be a pretty good option for them and one they'd consider. It sounds as though even though it might be possible they might not be able to access top quality care, and I think that'd put them off it.

(I don't remember if going to Thailand for that was a thing in the 1990s or not... I don't know if they had advanced medical technology in SE Asia yet)I was hoping someone would know about that! Also, is going to Thailand a thing for FTM surgeries?

[nolovelost]

Well in the 90s you would have just had the term androgynous. I was one of those people who wanted to be as androgynous as possible. And top surgery wasn't even on my radar but I wanted a breast reduction to as small as possible and that could have been a route others would have taken too.

[belleweather]

Yeah, totally. Androgynous was a thing, but I always felt like it sucked as a definition because as a person whose female body is very, very female-looking it felt like I had to be able to be skinny and flat chested/hipped to be able to have issues and questions about gender. The evolution into Genderqueer being a thing is so much more positive and inclusive than androgyny, IMHO.

[oudeteron]

This is more of an adaptation idea, but it is possible to put up a gender-normative front for a short time; that is, specifically while dealing with the authority figures who "approve" transition-related stuff that involves medical assistance. That wouldn't mean your character was pretending to be binary anywhere else, just making a pragmatic adjustment with the aim to get through one kind of situation. (This option might go out the window if the gatekeeper wants more info or "proof" of transitioning to a male social role, but if they don't stalk that thoroughly, it's doable

[lilacsigil]

I don't think I knew anyone genderqueer around that time, though i knew a few people who identified as "androgynous" and one who had no gender.

[kazaera]

That's very helpful! And yeah, I was using "genderqueer" as an umbrella term for people who don't ID as 100% one of male or female 100% of the time, but it looks as if that word was only coined later. I am definitely interested in people identifying as a specific third-gender identity or considering themselves genderless - do you have any idea how much information there would have been around about that during that period, and whether it'd have been seen as a trans* issue?

[lilacsigil]

The information I knew about was in queer theory rather than anything practical. Judith Butler and performativity of gender were particularly discussed. From my experience, the people I knew tended to hang out with lesbians (if FAAB) or gay guys (if MAAB) or both, rather than particularly with trans people, but also there weren't a lot of trans people in these groups, so that may have just been coincidence.

[teaoli]

I can't help much with your questions, but I did find links to the fourth and fifth versions of WPATH's SOC:

Fourth Version, released in 1990.
Fifth Version, released in 1998.

Edit: This is from the time when the association was still called "Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association", and that is the name I used in my searches.

[kazaera]

Thanks! That's really, really helpful, the WPATH website wanted me to pay.

[victoryatnight]

D