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So thank you so much for having me.

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The shock of the new, cultural amnesia, trans erasure, and

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what we can do about it.

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I think best to explain this term with an example.

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So if you have been following any kind of trans-related news,

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you've probably already seen this story break, it broke in January, 2017.

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Apparently, against the fact that many of us who are trans will already know,

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trans men and transmasculine people who have been pregnant, or

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have children in many varied ways.

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Apparently the first-ever trans man to ever be pregnant happened in January.

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And you can see, we're playing a little Daily Mail sort of tick-box exercise here.

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Former Asda worker, sperm donor on Facebook, it's all very exciting.

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[LAUGH] However, if you're a member of the trans community, or someone who

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is interested in ethical journalism, someone that maybe knows someone in

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the trans community, you might be a little surprised to see this same headline.

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So in case you can't see that, that's 2012, Britain's first male mum speaks.

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I promise you, they're not the same person.

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So we have here, 2017, five years ago,

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we have the first ever trans man to bear a child.

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The shock of the new, the first trans person to, is trans a new trend?

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Shocking, alarming rises and the number of trans children being referred.

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It's used as a marketing purpose, it's used to shock,

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it's used to titillate, to recycle a news story.

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And also, as a total lens with which to view collective trans stories and

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individual trans lives.

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So to give some more examples, here we have a 2015 book,

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marketing the story of Michael Dylan.

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In case you can't see, I'm afraid the quality is not so high.

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Apparently, the story is that of the world's first transsexual man.

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Again, if you don't know the story of Michael Dylan,

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he was quite an incredible person.

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But, living in the 1950s,

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he was not the first trans man by a very long stretch of the imagination.

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Moving on from marketing, we can see this idea of trans being new,

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the first trans person to, being a way to, for want of a better word,

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sex up a news story that might otherwise be quite dull.

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So India Willoughby becoming a presenter for Loose Women.

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I have no doubt that it's significant, and I am very pleased for

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her career advancement.

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But it seems very strange to me to say that this is making history,

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with the first trans host, when Jin Xing, in China, has a flagship program

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which attracts 100 million viewers per week, as an out trans woman.

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So, and then we have the idea of trans is new,

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creating drama and twisting the substance of a news story.

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So we have the story of Anohni refusing to perform at the Oscars.

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Variety is reporting it here, that Anohni was the first-ever trans person

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to be nominated for an Academy Award.

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We could perhaps split hairs over the fact that they call Anohni a performer,

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but she was nominated for Best Music.

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Angela Morley, again, trans composer and performer, was nominated twice for

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Best Music in the 1970s.

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So there's absolutely no fact-checking that goes on here.

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So this idea of trans as news twins with an understanding of trans being

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something new.

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A symptom of modernity, rather than something neutral, and

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understood through cultural context.

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Through constant usage, it shows not only a lack of awareness of trans realities,

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but it erases the knowledge of them altogether.

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This is not just not knowing, but turning ignorance and, too often,

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laziness into a tool with which to shape the present and the past.

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People who are not trans become so convinced of this narrative,

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in this play-through, in the absence of investigation,

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that a stereotype is made to stand in for fact.

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And frequently, the concept of trans being new is more important than

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the trans people whose lives this trope feeds off.

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Again, if you remember the furor over the 2012 incident of

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the first-ever pregnant man?

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You will also remember how The Sun urged their readers to track him down, hunt him

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down, and provide personal details, that they could out him and find his story.

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Unsurprisingly, this caused widespread panic for trans people across the country.

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And resulted in this man being outed, and

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being forced to tell his story, regardless of his consent or his wishes.

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Putting his family life at risk, his personal life at risk, and his career.

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Being the news story is not usually a safe place to be.

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And we often come across the fact that people who are not trans believe

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that all trans visibility in the media is a good thing.

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Without thinking of the fact that a story written about

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us very often doesn't have our best interests at heart.

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What I'd like to explore in more detail with you this evening,

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is how the shock of the new, this particular framing,

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intersects with our understanding of LGBT history,

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how it frames our current standing, and what impact it might have on our futures.

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The best example I could think to give is that of Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener,

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and how their stories were rewritten by the film, The Danish Girl.

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If I may read to you, this is a chapter from my new book.

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Visually, dramatically,

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even orchestrally similar to Tom Hooper's previous award-winning film,

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The King's Speech, The Danish Girl was a strange experience for me.

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Based on a true story biopic, drawn from the book of the same name,

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it purported to tell the story of Danish painter Einar Wegener, wife and

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fellow artist, Gerda Wagner, and the woman Einar reveals herself to be,

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the beautiful and ill-fated Lili Elbe.

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The film itself is gorgeous, with that lush-yet-muted aesthetic

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that screams classy period piece, like Downton Abbey on a bigger budget.

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Everything, from the restrained and unobtrusive directorial style,

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to the pre-credit reminder that the diary Lili is shown writing was

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turned into a memoir, points to the telling of an underlying truth.

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We see here, one of the main posters.

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I'm afraid the text is a little small, but it does say,

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inspired by the extraordinary true story.

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Posters, and puff pieces, and interviews with the actor made it explicit.

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Here is a true story of a transgender pioneer, and

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what you're about to see next will shock and amaze you.

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The idea was that failing to support this film was failing to support trans history,

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trans visibility, and trans acceptance.

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The problem for me is that what this film passed off as, quote-unquote,

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the truth, was not.

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But was instead a story based on a myth of trans victimhood and

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suffering, at odds with the real life of Lili Elbe and her peers.

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Is this image familiar to anyone, no, yeah, okay?

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So this is Gerda Wegener's 1922 work, On The Way To Anacapri,

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a depiction of one of the many trips that she and Lili took to Italy.

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They also traveled around the whole of Europe.

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The Denmark Museum of Modern Art has just had a major retrospective of

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Gerda Wegener's work.

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And they urged the viewer to observe the matching rings on both the couple's hands,

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the complementary dresses, the dreamlike quality.

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And the comfort of their bodies together that speaks very deeply of Gerda Wegener's

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understanding of her and Lili as a romantic, spiritual, and artistic couple.

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The basic facts, before Lili Elbe was known as Lili Elbe,

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she was known as Einar Wegener.

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Born in 1882, and trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts,

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she married Gerda Gottlieb in 1904, while both of them were still students.

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As painters, both Einar and Gerda enjoyed some initial success,

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with Gerda's career quickly outstripping her partner's.

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They moved to Paris, they moved back to Copenhagen.

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They loved and supported each other, and eventually parted ways to pursue

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other marriages, remaining close and loving friends.

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What makes the story of interest to outsiders, of course,

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is the fact that Lili became posthumously famous as one of the first people

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to pursue a surgical transition.

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She died in 1931, two months on from her fourth, or possibly fifth and

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final operation, a uterine transplant.

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Man into Woman, the book, appeared in 1933, and Lili's name was made.

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While touting itself as a memoir, Man into Woman was actually written

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by Danish journalist Lulu Lassen and German writer Ernst Jacobsen,

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who took the pseudonym Niels Hoyer, and title of editor.

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Jacobsen fleshed out his third-person narrative with extracts from

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Lili's letters and diary entries.

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Nerissa Gailey and AD Brown explain in their 2015 essay, Beyond Either/Or,

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the many ways in which Man into Woman is closer to pulp fiction than fact.

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Discrepancies between the book and the original documents it refers to, lack of

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verification of its contents, due to the firebombing of records kept in Dresden.

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And the number of alterations and exaggerations found throughout the text.

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I'm using here, Einar and Lili, because that appears to be the way that Lili

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referred to herself in her diaries, just as a side note.

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Information about Lili and Gerda can be found in a scattering of sources.

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Contemporary accounts written in transvestite magazines,

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academic papers that have collated and analysed medical accounts,

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wider media accounts and papers left by the pair.

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There are many aspects of their shared life that we cannot know and

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can't guess at.

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What we do know, though, is at odds with the world The Danish Girl presents.

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There are the general problems with the biopic format, and

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perhaps we could shrug them off as a necessary aspect of artistic license.

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The compression of years to create a tight narrative, for example,

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is standard Hollywood practice.

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But when the topic, transition, is relatively unknown,

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these standard practices introduce troubling inaccuracies and distortions.

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The shortening of timescale makes a gradual realization, and a multi-stage and

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a multi-faceted transition, look like some kind of overnight fancy.

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It may be easier on the audience's attention span, but

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it props up the popular myth that trans people transition on a whim.

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There are the usual insertions of fictional characters,

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some cliched writing, and some heavy-handed pathetic fallacy.

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Par for the course, but aggravatingly faithful to the usual trans tropes.

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But beyond these features, there are four specific changes made to Lillian good

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a story that I just couldn't get my head around changes that felt so regressive so

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oppositional to what actually happened, that it made me wonder what the filmmakers

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were trying to say about women in general and trans woman in particular.

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One of the most shocking moments of the film,

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one most likely to garner the sympathies of a general audience,

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is the point at which Lili first seeks help for her, quote-unquote, problem.

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And is forcibly strapped down, and

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subjected to a radiotherapy cure meant to restore her to a state of normal manhood.

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Gerda is present to encourage her, to enforce the idea that this painful,

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excessive response is necessary, and the only thing that can save their marriage.

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The cure fails, of course, but leaves Lili wary of seeking help.

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I'd like to show you a clip from this movie now, as I found it unsettling for

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many reasons.

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But I'll let you see for yourself, so

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let me just, >> Sir, how long have you been married?

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>> Six years.

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>> Children?

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>> No. >> Is there regular copulation?

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>> Yes.

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Perhaps less now than before- >> And

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before you started to dress as a woman.

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I'm a specialist, Mr Wegener, you may be embarrassed, I'm not.

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Tell me about Lili, where does she come from?

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>> Inside me.

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>> [LAUGH] The most likely explanation for all of this is a chemical imbalance.

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>> Really? >> Onto the bed,

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that would explain the pain, the confused state of masculinity, and the infertility.

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Let's hope it is that, because that, at least, we can cure.

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[MUSIC]

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>> I don't need to do this, there's nothing wrong with me.

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>> That's not true.

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>> Gerda, this can't be right.

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>> Radiation is a miracle, Mr. Wegener, it destroys the bad and saves the good.

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>> I'm sure it'll be over quickly.

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[MUSIC]

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>> Lie still, Mr. Wegener.

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[SOUND]

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[MUSIC]

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Mr. Wegener, how are you feeling this morning?

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>> You hurt Lili.

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>> I'm afraid your husband's aberrant thinking persists.

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>> And let's get away from the movie, and back to Gerda Wegener's art.

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It's a shocking scene, it's one sort of intended to grab the audience's attention,

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to grab our feelings, to put us through the wringer.

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And it is the exact opposite of what actually happened.

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In reality, the radiotherapy treatment Lili undertook,

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with the full support of Gerda, in fact, paid for by Gerda,

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was designed to stimulate the ovaries doctors suspected her of having.

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Radiotherapy, as a new and exciting development in the field of medicine,

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was often touted as a revitalizing cure-all.

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In this instance, it was thought that the beams would kick-start ovarian function,

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and that a natural bodily transition would follow.

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Allowing Lili to become, in her words, the woman she knew herself to be.

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Lili began to bleed on a monthly basis afterwards.

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And both she and Gerda felt this was akin to menstruation, and

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a sign that the treatment was working.

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Returning to the film, following the failure of radiation treatment,

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Lili shutters herself away.

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Unable to trust her doctors, unable to confide in Gerda, and

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unable to withstand public scrutiny as either Lili or Einar.

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There is no mention here of Lili's actual life.

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Her consultations and treatments with Magnus Hirschfeld's Institut,

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her supposed disdain for the other patients.

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Her first operation, her travels abroad with Gerda, her parties.

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Her general Bahamian lifestyle, and

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her love of walking through Paris while drinking life in.

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Lili does admittedly go for a Parisian stroll in The Danish Girl,

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only to be assaulted by two strangers, another invention.

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Where in reality we have a single trans person in one of many,

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a pioneer to be sure but a pioneer in community.

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We are shown in stood alone martyr should become someone who cannot be understood,

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who cannot even seek understanding or compassion or companionship, but

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cannot find release even in the solitary pleasure of anonymity.

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In The Danish Girl, Lily's final operation and

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death scene are inevitably played for maximum effect.

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All trace of Heshfield erased, Lily and

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Gerda try a last ditch consultation with Maverick's surgeon Curt Vonacross.

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He warns them how dangerous his proposed treatment would be.

246
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He tells them that Lily would be the first to try.

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He doesn't care.

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She needs surgery, modern security of a long life.

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The surgery undertaken is reduced to two procedures from the likely four or

250
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five the real life living on the wind.

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First, removal of original tissue and second the creation of a vagina.

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In the film, Lily is meant to rest properly but routine procedures and

253
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get her strength back up, she doesn't,

254
00:16:03,191 --> 00:16:08,429
asking her surgeon if she'll be able to have children after her second operation.

255
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She gets the patronizing reply one thing at a time, you can guess the rest.

256
00:16:12,973 --> 00:16:16,516
Go to conveniently arrives at just the right moment for

257
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the big death scene caused by loss of blood and post surgical fever.

258
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And Lily get in a final saccharine line before the delicate closing of her eyes.

259
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Gerda cries, the audience, presumably cries.

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Lily pays the ultimate price for trying to go against nature.

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But wasn't she brave to do so?

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The reality is far less operatic.

263
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The details are somewhat murky after the destruction of medical records by

264
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both the Nazis and by ally are.

265
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What we know is that Lily wanted children and

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that Vonacross was less ethical than the more cautious and qualified Heshfield.

267
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Successful organ transplants would not become a reality until development

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of powerful immunosuppressive drugs in the 1970s.

269
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The insurmountable problem of rejection was well known in medicine by this point,

270
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but Vonacross told her he could do it.

271
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Her immune system rejected the transplant.

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She died on September 13th, 1931.

273
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It surprised me then that the cinematic change that made me even angrier than this

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melodramatic surgery and death sequence was the overall treatment of Goda Wagner.

275
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Gerda Wagner,

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whose income from her art outstripped her partner's by a considerable amount.

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Who won two gold medals for her work at the 1925 World's Fair in Paris.

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Who had lived in Paris since 1912 with Lily as two women together, who funded

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the majority of Lilly surgery, whose best works depict some of the most romantic and

280
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erotic depictions of lesbian attraction, lesbian love, and lesbian lovemaking.

281
00:17:51,044 --> 00:17:52,969
I've ever seen, is reduced and

282
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changed to become a character straight out of Central Casting.

283
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Gerda's career in the film only lifts off with Lily's transition.

284
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And she becomes by turns frustrated, angry and

285
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shrewish about the loss of her husband.

286
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Gone is only attempt to accurately portray the Bahamian World of independent women,

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artistic freedom, and gendered authenticity replaced instead by

288
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a portrait of the marriage ruined by transition.

289
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Identical to every other telling from the story from HBO's normal

290
00:18:23,709 --> 00:18:25,942
to the join the dots tabloid staple.

291
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Some, but by no means all, marriages do falter in the face of transition.

292
00:18:30,333 --> 00:18:35,108
But attempting to impose that story onto the real lives of Gerda Wagner and

293
00:18:35,108 --> 00:18:39,651
Lily Elba is an insult to how they lived, how they loved their courage and

294
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their artistry.

295
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Alecia Vicar brought home the Oscar for best supporting actress,

296
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another remarkable chapter of women's history publicly erased.

297
00:18:49,050 --> 00:18:53,208
I was ranting about all of this online, because I do try, but I do fail.

298
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And I had an interesting response from an ex pupil of mine.

299
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She commented that it wasn't the film's fault that it was so tragic,

300
00:19:01,219 --> 00:19:06,071
because that's simply what life was like for trans people in the 1920s.

301
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I don't blame her for thinking so, as it's certainly what I thought before I

302
00:19:10,924 --> 00:19:14,083
fell down the rabbit hole of historical research.

303
00:19:14,083 --> 00:19:18,167
[LAUGH] We're still struggling with LGBT acceptance now, so

304
00:19:18,167 --> 00:19:23,020
it makes sense that the situation would've been so much worse a century ago,

305
00:19:23,020 --> 00:19:25,253
and without doubt, tragedy existed.

306
00:19:25,253 --> 00:19:26,948
Many, many people suffered.

307
00:19:26,948 --> 00:19:31,722
But the story is not quite so bleak as the Danish girl would have you believe,

308
00:19:31,722 --> 00:19:35,576
and sometimes it is even quite wonderful.

309
00:19:35,576 --> 00:19:39,736
These are patrons of the Eldorado Club in Berlin in the 1920s.

310
00:19:39,736 --> 00:19:42,354
They are all of them trans in modern usage.

311
00:19:42,354 --> 00:19:46,745
Transvestite was the term used at the time, but it was a broad category.

312
00:19:46,745 --> 00:19:51,521
It's difficult to pinpoint where to begin with the birth of the science of

313
00:19:51,521 --> 00:19:56,450
sexology in the 19th century, or with a ball bar and party scenes in Paris and

314
00:19:56,450 --> 00:19:57,682
Holland and Berlin.

315
00:19:57,682 --> 00:20:02,072
Where dancers could present themselves as any agenda they liked and

316
00:20:02,072 --> 00:20:04,075
flirt with whomever they chose.

317
00:20:04,075 --> 00:20:07,002
Twice a week in Berlin with police permission.

318
00:20:07,002 --> 00:20:11,238
Maybe with the 1882 case of Herman Connell, who after chest and

319
00:20:11,238 --> 00:20:16,552
genital surgery was granted a legal change of name and gender by the crushing state.

320
00:20:16,552 --> 00:20:19,863
If you want to talk about first as the first I can find.

321
00:20:19,863 --> 00:20:24,253
Well, maybe with the fact that people who found to Agenda conventions,

322
00:20:24,253 --> 00:20:29,184
who insisted on determining the agenda itself in opposition to how the world

323
00:20:29,184 --> 00:20:33,422
characterize them was so well documented that contemporary news

324
00:20:33,422 --> 00:20:37,814
researchers could argue over whose definition best described them.

325
00:20:37,814 --> 00:20:41,820
In addition to the words transvestite, again, much broader term,

326
00:20:41,820 --> 00:20:46,983
much more analogous to transgender now and the word transsexual, which appeared

327
00:20:46,983 --> 00:20:52,300
in the 1920s, we had aberration and defemination from Richard Funkroft Ebbing.

328
00:20:52,300 --> 00:20:56,844
A very, very long German word that I will attempt to pronounce for you now.

329
00:20:56,844 --> 00:20:58,925
Massive apologies.

330
00:20:58,925 --> 00:21:01,082
Drive for sexual transformation.

331
00:21:01,082 --> 00:21:05,395
I'm sure someone can help me that later, that was from Max Mackey's.

332
00:21:05,395 --> 00:21:10,634
And suck so aesthetic conversion from a block Alice in addition to the complex and

333
00:21:10,634 --> 00:21:14,795
conflicting meanings of invert earning uranium and homosexual.

334
00:21:14,795 --> 00:21:19,495
It was Magnus Hirschfeld words transvestite and transsexual that stuck

335
00:21:19,495 --> 00:21:24,348
and Hirschfeld work that is behind so many of the extraordinary medical and

336
00:21:24,348 --> 00:21:28,971
societal advances that pave the way for the modern trans movement today.

337
00:21:28,971 --> 00:21:31,900
There's Hirschfeld in front of his research.

338
00:21:31,900 --> 00:21:36,753
So a doctor, researcher, an all around campaigner for the rights of sexual and

339
00:21:36,753 --> 00:21:37,986
gender minorities.

340
00:21:37,986 --> 00:21:41,299
Magnus Hirschfeld was described by Adolf Hitler as

341
00:21:41,299 --> 00:21:43,456
the most dangerous Geo in Germany.

342
00:21:43,456 --> 00:21:47,541
In 1897, he founded the scientific humanitarian committee,

343
00:21:47,541 --> 00:21:50,853
which is most likely the first campaign in group for

344
00:21:50,853 --> 00:21:53,548
what we would call LGBT causes in the world.

345
00:21:53,548 --> 00:21:58,018
He published a journal yearbook of sexual intermediaries featuring

346
00:21:58,018 --> 00:22:01,562
scientific studies, news reviews, letters, and pictures.

347
00:22:01,562 --> 00:22:05,799
In 1919, he founded the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin.

348
00:22:05,799 --> 00:22:09,727
And in 1928, he founded the World League for Sexual Reform.

349
00:22:09,727 --> 00:22:13,425
In between treating patients, acting as an expert witness,

350
00:22:13,425 --> 00:22:18,278
petitioning the police and the courts for fairer treatment, and writing and

351
00:22:18,278 --> 00:22:21,824
distributing political and informational pamphlets.

352
00:22:21,824 --> 00:22:26,446
Hirschfeld found the time to write and publish his groundbreaking book,

353
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Transvestites, in 1910.

354
00:22:28,219 --> 00:22:32,610
Hirschfeld use the word to describe those who in his words felt peace,

355
00:22:32,610 --> 00:22:34,229
security and exaltation.

356
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Happiness and well being,

357
00:22:35,847 --> 00:22:40,700
when presenting is the sex other than that which they were assigned at birth.

358
00:22:40,700 --> 00:22:45,397
He made it clear that such people could come from all walks of life, could be

359
00:22:45,397 --> 00:22:50,405
assigned female or male, could be of any and all sexual orientations including

360
00:22:50,405 --> 00:22:55,333
none, and that they will not mad nor as people still think pushing a kink too far.

361
00:22:55,333 --> 00:23:00,339
Lilly Elba was neither the first trans woman to undergo medical treatment nor

362
00:23:00,339 --> 00:23:02,649
was her memoir the first in the field.

363
00:23:02,649 --> 00:23:07,423
Called bears story Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years which has to be the best

364
00:23:07,423 --> 00:23:13,279
title, [LAUGH] was published in 1907 and served as the basis for 1919 silent film.

365
00:23:13,279 --> 00:23:18,983
Orland self described androgen published Autobiography of an androgen in 1918 and

366
00:23:18,983 --> 00:23:21,295
a female impersonators in 1922.

367
00:23:21,295 --> 00:23:26,148
There are several reports and rumors of surgical treatment of what we might

368
00:23:26,148 --> 00:23:29,461
now call trans men from the 1900s and 1910s.

369
00:23:29,461 --> 00:23:31,773
Alan Hart, an American scientist and

370
00:23:31,773 --> 00:23:37,169
novelist underwent his surgical transition in 1917, sorry, forgive me, 1907.

371
00:23:37,169 --> 00:23:41,791
The first formal Western medical attempts at so-called male to female

372
00:23:41,791 --> 00:23:43,718
surgery followed in 1920.

373
00:23:43,718 --> 00:23:49,267
Historian Katie writes, these early surgical techniques for developing

374
00:23:49,267 --> 00:23:54,429
hand in hand with reconstructive and cosmetic surgery methods for war veterans,

375
00:23:54,429 --> 00:23:59,051
and in some cases were accompanied by early attempts of hormone therapy.

376
00:23:59,051 --> 00:24:03,983
Although there are a few detailed accounts within the contemporary medical

377
00:24:03,983 --> 00:24:07,914
literature, possibly due to the laws prohibiting castration,

378
00:24:07,914 --> 00:24:12,615
there is evidence that multiple surgeries of this nature were performed.

379
00:24:12,615 --> 00:24:17,008
There's community evidence that before this treatment by doctors,

380
00:24:17,008 --> 00:24:20,473
trans women were helping each other with home surgery,

381
00:24:20,473 --> 00:24:25,325
as a forms of genital surgery a pair of injections which can be done from home.

382
00:24:25,325 --> 00:24:28,560
These surgical efforts were well known enough and

383
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:32,643
considered safe enough that following Lilly Elba's death and

384
00:24:32,643 --> 00:24:37,422
editorial appeared in the community magazine the world of a transvestite.

385
00:24:37,422 --> 00:24:42,123
This editorial reaffirm to its readership the potential of such surgery

386
00:24:42,123 --> 00:24:46,053
noting promising science coming from Hirschfeld Institute.

387
00:24:46,053 --> 00:24:50,985
And including an update from an unnamed transvestite to currently enjoying

388
00:24:50,985 --> 00:24:54,760
a post operative holiday in their words as a complete woman.

389
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:59,150
What would it mean to people now if our history become a knowledge, but

390
00:24:59,150 --> 00:25:03,155
that doesn't mean a history of people who are exactly as we are,

391
00:25:03,155 --> 00:25:07,085
regardless of the dictates of historical and social context.

392
00:25:07,085 --> 00:25:11,629
But of the people whose lives and efforts help to create the categories,

393
00:25:11,629 --> 00:25:15,096
the structures and cultures through which we now move.

394
00:25:15,096 --> 00:25:17,021
What if we knew of these people,

395
00:25:17,021 --> 00:25:20,872
these communities in the same way that we know of Oscar Wilde?

396
00:25:20,872 --> 00:25:23,030
It's a terrible, terrible cliche.

397
00:25:23,030 --> 00:25:26,266
But as a young adolescent, I was obsessed with Wilde.

398
00:25:26,266 --> 00:25:29,271
I didn't know how to describe my sexuality, and

399
00:25:29,271 --> 00:25:31,813
I didn't know how to describe my gender.

400
00:25:31,813 --> 00:25:33,815
But I knew I wanted to be like him.

401
00:25:33,815 --> 00:25:38,206
I wanted to be that witty and unapologetic and to win the britches and

402
00:25:38,206 --> 00:25:42,904
when the film Wild came out, and I saw that first case between two beautiful,

403
00:25:42,904 --> 00:25:46,833
passionate individual man, I knew what I needed for my own body.

404
00:25:46,833 --> 00:25:52,069
Just that little slice of history gave me an insight into myself and the role model,

405
00:25:52,069 --> 00:25:56,152
and the comfort of companionship when I was invisible and alone.

406
00:25:56,152 --> 00:26:01,081
What a tremendous gift it would have been to have known that there were people

407
00:26:01,081 --> 00:26:05,624
in history who might now be called trans, people who lived as the genders

408
00:26:05,624 --> 00:26:09,783
they knew that they were, regardless of what society had told them.

409
00:26:09,783 --> 00:26:14,480
To know that they had claimed their own lives with honesty and courage, and

410
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,714
that maybe I could follow their lead and do the same.

411
00:26:17,714 --> 00:26:22,720
The shock of the new has shaped the Danish girls presentation of trans history,

412
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:26,032
but it's also shaped the media response to the film.

413
00:26:26,032 --> 00:26:30,114
So much has been made of as opposed to groundbreaking nature and

414
00:26:30,114 --> 00:26:35,275
the representation of a trans woman biases man has been excused by the reasoning.

415
00:26:35,275 --> 00:26:40,204
The film success will ultimately pave the way for the casting of trans actors.

416
00:26:40,204 --> 00:26:45,135
It is apparently astonishing to have a mainstream movie with a trans subject

417
00:26:45,135 --> 00:26:49,757
matter at all, and the trans community should shove their objections and

418
00:26:49,757 --> 00:26:52,378
be grateful for the increased publicity.

419
00:26:52,378 --> 00:26:57,384
As a movie fan, this explanation didn't sit right with me and it made me curious.

420
00:26:57,384 --> 00:27:02,389
Is it really so rare for a film to feature the role of a trans woman played by a man,

421
00:27:02,389 --> 00:27:05,856
the receiving his Oscar is a step forward.

422
00:27:05,856 --> 00:27:09,785
So I decided to watch the World According to Gap by comparison.

423
00:27:09,785 --> 00:27:14,791
I love that book when I was younger, it's a [INAUDIBLE] the John Irving novel.

424
00:27:14,791 --> 00:27:17,486
Yeah, I never got around to seeing the movie.

425
00:27:17,486 --> 00:27:22,106
So like The Danish Girl, it's a film that it's a man playing a trans woman.

426
00:27:22,106 --> 00:27:25,881
And like The Danish Girl, that man received a nomination for

427
00:27:25,881 --> 00:27:27,807
an Oscar for that performance.

428
00:27:27,807 --> 00:27:29,501
And that was 35 years ago.

429
00:27:29,501 --> 00:27:34,201
John Lithgow plays Roberta, an ex-professional football player who now

430
00:27:34,201 --> 00:27:39,440
works in the feminist movement and becomes the main character's best friend and

431
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:42,599
anchor of sanity in a frequently grotesque world.

432
00:27:42,599 --> 00:27:45,602
It's not a perfect film, much of it is of its time.

433
00:27:45,602 --> 00:27:50,300
So the language used about Roberta, by herself and by other people closely

434
00:27:50,300 --> 00:27:55,000
reflects back the sort of trans literature that was available at the time.

435
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:57,850
So not something that a lot of us would use now.

436
00:27:57,850 --> 00:28:00,546
And yet it has a naturalness and an ease, and

437
00:28:00,546 --> 00:28:04,090
an acceptance which I couldn't find in the Danish Girl.

438
00:28:04,090 --> 00:28:08,710
I was struck by how natural John Lithgow feels in this role and how firmly

439
00:28:08,710 --> 00:28:13,179
Roberta is accepted and celebrated as a woman by the other characters.

440
00:28:13,179 --> 00:28:16,644
Not as a man trying to be a woman, and not as, quote unquote,

441
00:28:16,644 --> 00:28:21,112
a man on a journey to womanhood or even a particular subset of woman but

442
00:28:21,112 --> 00:28:24,655
simply as she is, as she is herself and all her complexity.

443
00:28:24,655 --> 00:28:27,658
And so I wanted to show you a section of this film.

444
00:28:27,658 --> 00:28:32,202
We have got played by Robin Williams playing with his kids with Roberta,

445
00:28:32,202 --> 00:28:37,133
she acts as an art figure to the children, a substitute daughter for his mother,

446
00:28:37,133 --> 00:28:39,751
as all around moral center for the film so

447
00:28:39,751 --> 00:28:44,143
it's quite simple, but I think it's interesting.

448
00:28:44,143 --> 00:28:45,067
>> Help, help, help.

449
00:28:45,067 --> 00:28:47,378
[SOUND] Kill him, kill him, kill him.

450
00:28:47,378 --> 00:28:48,302
Help, help, help.

451
00:28:48,302 --> 00:28:49,690
>> [SOUND] >> [LAUGH]

452
00:28:49,690 --> 00:28:50,768
>> You're wounded,

453
00:28:50,768 --> 00:28:53,694
as soon as you're wounded you become a villan.

454
00:28:53,694 --> 00:28:55,927
>> That's the rules, you're a villan.

455
00:28:55,927 --> 00:28:57,467
>> I'll become the villan.

456
00:28:57,467 --> 00:28:59,547
>> You're a disgrace to your tribe.

457
00:28:59,547 --> 00:29:01,087
>> And the scum of the Earth.

458
00:29:01,087 --> 00:29:02,704
>> It's time to die, Sir Scum.

459
00:29:02,704 --> 00:29:05,246
I'm going to revenge my uncle's death.

460
00:29:05,246 --> 00:29:06,247
>> You and who else?

461
00:29:06,247 --> 00:29:08,095
>> Me and him, you ready Sir Waltz?

462
00:29:08,095 --> 00:29:10,406
>> Ready and [INAUDIBLE] Sir Duncan.

463
00:29:10,406 --> 00:29:12,332
>> Serve the church.

464
00:29:12,332 --> 00:29:14,567
>> [INAUDIBLE] [SOUND] >> Get here.

465
00:29:14,567 --> 00:29:17,881
>> [SOUND] >> What's a matter, Walt?

466
00:29:17,881 --> 00:29:18,805
>> What's wrong?

467
00:29:18,805 --> 00:29:21,269
You guys always get to die, I never get to.

468
00:29:21,269 --> 00:29:22,656
>> [LAUGH] >> You can't,

469
00:29:22,656 --> 00:29:25,274
someone had to rescue you the fair maiden.

470
00:29:25,274 --> 00:29:26,198
>> I wanna die too.

471
00:29:26,198 --> 00:29:26,814
>> All right.

472
00:29:26,814 --> 00:29:32,205
In his last dying breath, [INAUDIBLE] has to crawl forward and swing his vile blade.

473
00:29:32,205 --> 00:29:33,593
[SOUND] >> [SOUND]

474
00:29:33,593 --> 00:29:35,366
>> [LAUGH] [APPLAUSE]

475
00:29:35,366 --> 00:29:36,444
>> Sorry about that.

476
00:29:36,444 --> 00:29:40,448
Now we have to end the war because of pot roast, ain't that a pity.

477
00:29:40,448 --> 00:29:41,064
>> No. >> Come on,

478
00:29:41,064 --> 00:29:43,297
don't moan if you wanna eat dinner.

479
00:29:43,297 --> 00:29:44,529
>> Dead men don't eat.

480
00:29:44,529 --> 00:29:46,916
>> Yeah, and dead men don't bitch either.

481
00:29:46,916 --> 00:29:48,533
>> I've got to go, it's late.

482
00:29:48,533 --> 00:29:50,923
Goodbye, Donnovan.

483
00:29:50,923 --> 00:29:52,232
>> Sure you can't stay?

484
00:29:52,232 --> 00:29:55,083
>> No, I have to go have a heartbreak in Manhattan.

485
00:29:55,083 --> 00:29:57,940
He's young, he's handsome.

486
00:29:57,940 --> 00:29:59,013
Well, what can I do?

487
00:29:59,013 --> 00:30:01,007
>> Maybe this time it will work out.

488
00:30:01,007 --> 00:30:01,543
>> Maybe so.

489
00:30:01,543 --> 00:30:04,840
I'm a hopeless romantic in a male chauvinist world.

490
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:05,684
>> Bye, darlings.

491
00:30:05,684 --> 00:30:08,674
[SOUND] >> It should be noted Roberto never has

492
00:30:08,674 --> 00:30:13,045
any trouble getting a date, the problem is the man just not good enough.

493
00:30:13,045 --> 00:30:15,039
>> [LAUGH] >> Which is rather nice.

494
00:30:15,039 --> 00:30:17,110
So let's see.

495
00:30:17,110 --> 00:30:21,943
Also important in both the book, the film doesn't follow it that much is that

496
00:30:21,943 --> 00:30:26,619
one of Gabb's children ends up dating a trans woman because he has learnt

497
00:30:26,619 --> 00:30:30,761
through having an outright reburser, that transphobia is stupid.

498
00:30:30,761 --> 00:30:32,600
Which is really quite lovely.

499
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:37,199
Beyond the excuse to watch Robin Williams in anything, I think what's so

500
00:30:37,199 --> 00:30:41,416
interesting here is to really see that difference in acting style.

501
00:30:41,416 --> 00:30:45,404
And I don't know how many people here have seen the Danish Girl?

502
00:30:45,404 --> 00:30:48,316
A few? If I talk about Eddie Redmayne's wrists,

503
00:30:48,316 --> 00:30:50,463
do you understand what I mean, yeah.

504
00:30:50,463 --> 00:30:53,609
[LAUGH] It felt that Redmayne's performance,

505
00:30:53,609 --> 00:30:56,830
hinges on an open acknowledgement of performance.

506
00:30:56,830 --> 00:30:58,900
The whole thing is performative,

507
00:30:58,900 --> 00:31:02,655
it is this question of gesture of a sense of being on display.

508
00:31:02,655 --> 00:31:07,563
Constantly quivering, seemingly either on the edge of tears or orgasm, wrists

509
00:31:07,563 --> 00:31:12,625
held at uncomfortable angles, Redmayne's approximation of what a trans woman

510
00:31:12,625 --> 00:31:17,763
is is one of the most uncomfortable things I've been witnessed to in this cinema.

511
00:31:17,763 --> 00:31:22,362
I've always been ambivalent about the casting of these actors as trans

512
00:31:22,362 --> 00:31:25,968
characters, feeling that the more pressing question was

513
00:31:25,968 --> 00:31:30,721
the casting of trans actors in all roles and making sure they get paid for it.

514
00:31:30,721 --> 00:31:32,332
Redmayne changed my mind.

515
00:31:32,332 --> 00:31:35,554
The entire edifice felt precisely that, an edifice.

516
00:31:35,554 --> 00:31:40,309
He was trans most depicted from the outside, Amanda's guise through outer

517
00:31:40,309 --> 00:31:43,990
trappings rather than a woman revealed by her own honesty.

518
00:31:43,990 --> 00:31:47,747
Short of, the short of stockings, she use make up, dresses, wigs,

519
00:31:47,747 --> 00:31:50,505
nothing of the heart of what it is to be trans.

520
00:31:50,505 --> 00:31:55,489
It felt almost parodic in its display and it hurts to know that that parody will

521
00:31:55,489 --> 00:31:58,554
be taken as truth by people who do not know better.

522
00:31:58,554 --> 00:32:00,240
Every project needs a hook.

523
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:05,148
Every artist wants to feel that they have added something new to the cultural

524
00:32:05,148 --> 00:32:05,839
landscape.

525
00:32:05,839 --> 00:32:09,212
But in the case of the Danish Girl, there is nothing new.

526
00:32:09,212 --> 00:32:14,042
Simply the recreation and the re-staging of the new by those ignorant of or

527
00:32:14,042 --> 00:32:18,413
unfeeling towards the history of the people they claim to be serving.

528
00:32:18,413 --> 00:32:22,401
So, Hirschfeld Institute was pillaged by the Nazis in 1933.

529
00:32:22,401 --> 00:32:26,235
One of the most famous images of Nazi book burning shown here,

530
00:32:26,235 --> 00:32:30,760
is the destruction of the documentation of his research, his case files,

531
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:35,286
his painstakingly gathered evidence in support of sexual minorities.

532
00:32:35,286 --> 00:32:38,276
Hirschfeld died in exile in France in 1935.

533
00:32:38,276 --> 00:32:42,648
We do not know exactly how many other homosexuals, transvestites, and

534
00:32:42,648 --> 00:32:46,405
other antisocials were rounded up and sent to the camps, but

535
00:32:46,405 --> 00:32:49,167
we know that the numbers were considerable.

536
00:32:49,167 --> 00:32:52,847
Many of those few who did survive the war were not freed but

537
00:32:52,847 --> 00:32:56,682
sentenced to further punishment for their supposed crimes,

538
00:32:56,682 --> 00:32:59,902
often in the same death camps they've been held in.

539
00:32:59,902 --> 00:33:01,360
The magazines, bars, and

540
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:06,730
organizations that supported the lives of sexual engendered minorities were gone.

541
00:33:06,730 --> 00:33:09,799
The destruction of both Hirschfeld's work and

542
00:33:09,799 --> 00:33:13,406
the thriving subcultures that supported and benefited

543
00:33:13,406 --> 00:33:18,161
from it set the emerging LGBT rights movement back by decades, if not more so.

544
00:33:18,161 --> 00:33:22,917
The drives, legal, social, scientific towards investigation, knowledge, and

545
00:33:22,917 --> 00:33:25,372
compassionate acceptance were razed.

546
00:33:25,372 --> 00:33:29,359
We have a chance to relearn that history and to benefit from and

547
00:33:29,359 --> 00:33:32,118
honor that legacy, if we have the will to do so.

548
00:33:32,118 --> 00:33:35,875
If we can stand to look at our own past without prejudice, and

549
00:33:35,875 --> 00:33:37,945
see what it is that we are missing.

550
00:33:37,945 --> 00:33:40,169
I hope that we do.

551
00:33:40,169 --> 00:33:45,151
If I was speaking to you even a year ago, it's at this point that I would conclude,

552
00:33:45,151 --> 00:33:50,057
maybe do a recommended reading list, put you on to some other essays and papers.

553
00:33:50,057 --> 00:33:54,428
I can see that this idea of the new of cultural amnesia is annoying for

554
00:33:54,428 --> 00:33:56,498
anyone who cares about accuracy.

555
00:33:56,498 --> 00:33:59,336
But we have the question why is this relevant?

556
00:33:59,336 --> 00:34:03,476
The chasing of a news story going back to our pregnant man example,

557
00:34:03,476 --> 00:34:06,621
is damaging because of unethical press behavior.

558
00:34:06,621 --> 00:34:11,144
But what would it matter if Eddie Redmayne gets an Oscar nomination for

559
00:34:11,144 --> 00:34:12,985
less than ideal performance?

560
00:34:12,985 --> 00:34:15,055
It matters very personally to me,

561
00:34:15,055 --> 00:34:18,430
because of the political moment we find ourselves in.

562
00:34:18,430 --> 00:34:23,263
This Pan European North American resurgence of nationalism, isolationism,

563
00:34:23,263 --> 00:34:24,721
authoritarianism and

564
00:34:24,721 --> 00:34:28,402
fascism that is reliant on a falsified version of the past.

565
00:34:28,402 --> 00:34:32,161
And that falsified version does not include people like me.

566
00:34:32,161 --> 00:34:36,302
Fake nostalgia, walking back to a point whether either it was okay

567
00:34:36,302 --> 00:34:40,902
to discriminate openly against us or people like us didn't exist at all.

568
00:34:40,902 --> 00:34:45,197
Here we have take back control that we have make America great again.

569
00:34:45,197 --> 00:34:49,800
We have Vladimir Putin's criticism of modern tolerance of genderless.

570
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:52,637
If we can only cut out this part, or this part, or

571
00:34:52,637 --> 00:34:58,543
this part, then apparently our safety and our prosperity would be assured.

572
00:34:58,543 --> 00:35:03,294
We are easier to uproot as trans people to be stamped out if we are seen as new,

573
00:35:03,294 --> 00:35:08,204
unestablished, and unintegrated outsiders with no history and with no value.

574
00:35:08,204 --> 00:35:12,957
It is easier to lie about us when the facts of our existence are distorted or

575
00:35:12,957 --> 00:35:14,031
outright denied.

576
00:35:14,031 --> 00:35:15,334
You may have heard or

577
00:35:15,334 --> 00:35:20,088
seen the recent BBC documentary about gender non conforming young people.

578
00:35:20,088 --> 00:35:24,691
And the argument of affirmative versus conversion aversion therapies.

579
00:35:24,691 --> 00:35:28,372
You may have seen the news night argument the night before,

580
00:35:28,372 --> 00:35:30,366
and the fact that Emily Maitlis,

581
00:35:30,366 --> 00:35:35,812
the presenter tweeted that trans activists would offer genital surgery to children.

582
00:35:35,812 --> 00:35:38,420
How different would that documentary be?

583
00:35:38,420 --> 00:35:43,173
The general media treatment, in a world that was widely aware of the few tile

584
00:35:43,173 --> 00:35:48,311
decades spent trying to change trans people with forced institutionalization,

585
00:35:48,311 --> 00:35:51,610
forced hormonal injections, forced drug therapies,

586
00:35:51,610 --> 00:35:55,291
electroshock therapies, and other forms of medical abuse.

587
00:35:55,291 --> 00:36:00,505
How would the panic and sneering over the words people use to describe themselves,

588
00:36:00,505 --> 00:36:03,188
gender queer, gender neutral, gender fluid,

589
00:36:03,188 --> 00:36:07,482
change if we were fully aware of just how hackneyed that sneering is?

590
00:36:07,482 --> 00:36:12,234
Jokes being made now about made up trans words were also made in the pages of

591
00:36:12,234 --> 00:36:15,456
German newspapers in the 1900s and 1910s.

592
00:36:15,456 --> 00:36:20,903
Will trans-feminists still be pitted against trans-exclusionary feminists for

593
00:36:20,903 --> 00:36:22,361
public entertainment?

594
00:36:22,361 --> 00:36:26,886
If we had fully integrated the knowledge of the extensive documentary

595
00:36:26,886 --> 00:36:31,642
evidence of trans people's valuable work in the feminist movement since

596
00:36:31,642 --> 00:36:33,943
the beginning of the 20th century.

597
00:36:33,943 --> 00:36:38,465
Would we still be seen as a threat if the knowledge of historical gender

598
00:36:38,465 --> 00:36:41,303
variance was widely known and unremarkable?

599
00:36:41,303 --> 00:36:44,754
We end up fighting the same battles over and over again.

600
00:36:44,754 --> 00:36:48,511
We are subject to the same insults and the ways in which they

601
00:36:48,511 --> 00:36:52,960
have been proven wrong or forgotten when knowledge is not widespread,

602
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:57,101
when the version of history that most people know is mostly white,

603
00:36:57,101 --> 00:37:00,706
mostly male, straight, and says, it's considered neutral.

604
00:37:00,706 --> 00:37:04,617
When that history is considered neutral, it is much easier for

605
00:37:04,617 --> 00:37:09,832
those who pedal hate in exchange for power to weaponize that ignorance against us.

606
00:37:09,832 --> 00:37:13,591
This cultural amnesia is far more than an academic concern.

607
00:37:13,591 --> 00:37:18,345
And I have never been convinced of the ideal of academia as somehow neutral.

608
00:37:18,345 --> 00:37:21,564
This is about our daily lives and our shared future.

609
00:37:21,564 --> 00:37:25,242
LGBT history is not nor should it be an add on, an extra month,

610
00:37:25,242 --> 00:37:28,079
an optional course or a special reading list.

611
00:37:28,079 --> 00:37:32,451
Rather, any history that does not acknowledge the diversity of human

612
00:37:32,451 --> 00:37:36,744
genders, desires and lives is at best incomplete and a worst lies and

613
00:37:36,744 --> 00:37:37,511
propaganda.

614
00:37:37,511 --> 00:37:41,575
I believe that we are living in a dangerous time for accuracy and

615
00:37:41,575 --> 00:37:42,419
inclusivity.

616
00:37:42,419 --> 00:37:45,795
Fake news, outrageous and obvious political lies and

617
00:37:45,795 --> 00:37:49,936
despicable subterfuge and sleight of hand are our daily reality.

618
00:37:49,936 --> 00:37:54,229
So it is that I believe that making a stand for integrated knowledge,

619
00:37:54,229 --> 00:37:57,680
daily sharing of wisdom, the elevation of learning and

620
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:02,204
the continual reappraisal of what it is that we know is a vital part both

621
00:38:02,204 --> 00:38:05,962
of fighting back against hate and building a better future.

622
00:38:05,962 --> 00:38:08,416
I'm speaking here in a university, but

623
00:38:08,416 --> 00:38:11,405
I do not mean this in a university context alone.

624
00:38:11,405 --> 00:38:15,087
Transpeople would be nothing without our oral histories,

625
00:38:15,087 --> 00:38:18,461
our community learning and the ways in which we learn

626
00:38:18,461 --> 00:38:21,758
to claim authority of the knowledge of our own lives.

627
00:38:21,758 --> 00:38:24,749
This is something broader to take a passion for

628
00:38:24,749 --> 00:38:27,970
truth into the ways we communicate with each other.

629
00:38:27,970 --> 00:38:32,571
If we have specific skills and all of us in this room have specific skills,

630
00:38:32,571 --> 00:38:35,101
we should be sharing them and using them.

631
00:38:35,101 --> 00:38:39,778
And sharing them in such a way that those skills can be further replicated,

632
00:38:39,778 --> 00:38:40,775
shared and used.

633
00:38:40,775 --> 00:38:45,378
Post-truth was the Oxford dictionary's word of the year for 2016.

634
00:38:45,378 --> 00:38:48,827
I have fought too hard and for too long to honor my truth,

635
00:38:48,827 --> 00:38:52,277
to see it stripped away from me by people ignorant of or

636
00:38:52,277 --> 00:38:55,652
hostile to the realities and histories of LGBT lives.

637
00:38:55,652 --> 00:38:58,182
I hope you feel the same way, and thank you.

638
00:38:58,182 --> 00:38:59,840
>> [APPLAUSE]