JAMISON
"James" Green was born in Oakland, California,
in 1948. He was adopted at the age of 1 month by
a couple who desired a baby girl, and he was
given a female first and middle name. Female
bodied and male gendered, James was incapable of
conforming to prevailing standards for female
behavior. He started refusing to wear dresses
before he was two years old, and by the time he
entered public school he was aware that he was
different from other boys and girls.
People often had difficulty determining the
sex of the masculine child wearing a dress, and
would treat him as an object of ridicule. James
credits the unconditional love of his adoptive
family for much of the inner strength that has
enabled him to survive and be successful. He was
also fortunate that his family was very
stable.
James prefers that name in personal
situations, and he uses the name Jamison
professionally to distinguish himself from all
the other James Greens in the world, especially
those other James Greens who write books and
publish articles in other disciplines or subject
areas. His full legal name is Charles Stuart
Jamison Green. He has been legally male since
April 1991, and his birth certificate was
corrected and reissued at that time.
He took the name Jamison when he was 15 years
old (1964) and started going by the androgynous
name "Jamie." He achieved a number of
accomplishments as the "first female-bodied
person" to perform various feats, such as: first
girl to climb the ropes in the boys' gym, first
girl to take woodshop in his junior high school
(1960 - 1963), first girl on his high school ski
team, only female in his graduate program (he
holds an MFA in English/Creative Writing, June
1972), and the first woman employed as a
construction cable splicer with a division of
Bell Telephone (February 1973 to August
1976).
By the time he was in his early 20's, James
knew he was probably transsexual, but he was
afraid to obtain treatment because he believed
the social mythology that one must be seriously
psychologically imbalanced to perform such a
radical act as changing sex, and he did not want
to risk losing all his social support. By the
time he was in his mid-30's he knew he was "not
going to grow up to be a woman," and he realized
that he was going to have to choose between
seeking treatment for transsexualism or become
debilitated by his incapacity to perform "adult
woman."
At that point, "Jamie" had developed a career
in technical writing and had been promoted to
publications manager and manager of publications
and engineering services at two high technology
manufacturing companies, and to the level of
Vice President of Operations at a publicly-held
software publishing firm. James spent many years
researching transsexual treatment and weighing
the risks before he decided to follow through
and make the transition. He was inspired,
advised, and assisted by several transsexual men
who had gone before, most notably and directly
Jason W., John G., Steve Dain, and Lou Sullivan.
James has also worked as a medical writer and an
instructor of legal writing, and both
disciplines have contributed to his unique
capacity to articulate and address the issues
that face transgendered and transsexual
people.
James began his transition in October 1988,
one month before his fortieth birthday. His
partner of nearly 14 years decided to end their
relationship (the reader is asked not to make
assumptions about James's partner's reasons for
this, as there were many factors in her
decision, some of which even James probably
doesn't know about!). James suffered from
serious depression over this loss, and worked
very hard to overcome this setback. He has been
able to maintain a very close and positive
relationship with his daughter, who turns 16 in
2001. James has had several relationships since
that time. He is currently enjoying "dating,"
though he desires a long-term monogamous
relationship with a compatible partner.
Meanwhile, back in the late 1980s, Lou
Sullivan, who had started a support group in San
Francisco for female-to-male crossdressers and
transsexuals in 1986, and a newsletter in 1987,
was starting to draw on James's leadership and
communication abilities. Sullivan's FTM group
met quarterly and usually drew from 4 to 20
people; his newsletter, also quarterly, was
distributed to over 200 FTM-identified
people.
Sullivan contracted HIV, and as the effects
of the disease took their toll he devoted the
bulk of his time to developing the worldwide
network of FTMs that he had been helping to
build. In February of 1991, he asked James to
take over the newsletter for him, and James
agreed, thinking of the project as a small one
that would not adversely impact his life.
Sullivan died of complications of HIV just one
week later.
James did not expect to do anything more than
publish a quarterly newsletter, but he found
himself suddenly (and reluctantly) thrust into a
position of active leadership as the number of
meeting attendees surpassed 50, and the demand
for meetings increased. The group decided to
meet monthly in mid-1991. Scores of inquiries,
many requiring detailed personal responses,
flooded the FTM mailbox (and James's telephone
line), and James became acquainted with hundreds
of men like himself, many struggling with
serious medical problems, legal problems, and
cases of discrimination that lawyers would not
touch. Expanding on Sullivan's wishes, James has
used his skills to try to improve the situation
of FTMs all over the world.
His passion for independence and integrity,
his disdain for injustice, and his desire to
empower others have made him a compassionate and
effective leader. In time he found himself
elected as President of
FTM
International, Inc. the world's largest
information and networking group for
female-to-male transgendered people and
transsexual men. The successor group to
Sullivan's FTM, and the FTM Newsletter now serve
a constituency of nearly 1000 subscribers in 15
countries. James served as Director of
FTM International from 1991 to 1999. He has
always been a strong advocate for FTM concerns
throughout the "gender community," discussing
the differences between female-to-male and
male-to-female transitions, the issues of the
inadequacy of surgery for FTMs, and the issues
of gender oppression as it affects both men and
women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, trans
or non-trans. James left the organization
administration on August 1, 1999 to make room
for other leadership and have more time for his
creative work.
James is a frequent guest lecturer at San
Francisco State University, the University of
California at Berkeley, Stanford University, De
Anza College, and other Northern California
institutions. He developed the curriculum on
transgender sensitivity training that is used at
the San Francisco Police Academy and has been
adapted for use with other law enforcement
agencies. He authored the landmark San Francisco
document Report
on Discrimination Against Transgendered People
(1994) for the San Francisco Human Rights
Commission, which served as the foundation for
the establishment of protective legislation in
the City and County of San Francisco, and has
also served as a model for countless other
cities, states, and countries. He has appeared
in several educational films and on television
in the USA, Japan, Germany, France, Sweden,
Norway, Columbia, and Canada.
James has been honored with numerous awards
for his activism including five of the gender
community's highest awards: FTM International's
Pride (1999); IFGE's Trinity (1995) and Virginia
Prince (1998); the International Conference on
Transgender Law and Employment Policy (ICTLEP)'s
Transgender Pioneer (1995); and the Transgender
San Francisco (TGSF, formerly known as ETVC)
Community Leader (1996) awards. and his writing
appears in a variety of venues. In August of
1995, he gave the inspirational keynote address
at the first FTM Conference of the Americas,
hosted in San Francisco by FTM International,
and attended by 372 registrants plus volunteers
and others.
James was the first girl to climb the ropes
in the boys' gym at his junior high school
(1961), the first girl to take wood shop in the
Oakland Public Schools (1962-63), the only
female-bodied person in his graduate program
(1970-72), and the first female-bodied
construction cable splicer for Pacific Northwest
Bell (1973-76). He holds a Master of Fine Arts
degree in English/Creative Writing, has
published several short stories, one of which
was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
James's special interests are spending time
with his family, international travel, hiking
and high Sierra backpacking, performing
Afro-Brazillian persussion, landscape and
micro-photography, model railroading, and
reading fiction. He works as a technical writing
specialist (with ten years of engineering and
publications management experience) for a
financial processing organization, and augments
his income with work as a public speaker,
columnist, gender diversity consultant, and
occasional voice actor. Much of his work on
behalf of the transgender community is
uncompensated, and most of his travel and
conference attendance has been done at his own
expense. He is committed to bringing honor to
the historic struggle of all people who are
labeled "different."
Mr. Green serves on the board of directors of
the International
Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE),
based in Massachusetts, and is board chair of
Gender
Education and Advocacy (GEA). He is working
on three books (including a memoir entitled
Visible Man), numerous articles, and a Ph.D.
dissertation proposal in the field of medical
anthropology. He turned 51 years old in November
1999.
James's willingness to speak out about being
"different" when he now looks--and is--so much
"the same as" other men is a key factor in his
ability to make transsexualism understandable to
non-transsexual people.
