The history of transgender people in the United States is nearly invisible, buried in institutional archives. Smith leans heavily on medical histories to tell the intimate, sometimes hair-raising stories of transgender people and the small clinic in remote, rural southern Colorado that served them in the second half of the 20th century. The book both illuminates and obscures the complexity of transitioning. Trinidad dives into the life and practice of Dr. Stanley Biber, at one time the leading surgeon in the U.

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Starting in , Trinidad, Colorado, a small city near the New Mexico border, was one of the few places in the world with a clinic providing gender confirmation surgery. Historian Martin Smith, who resides in Granby, borrowed that euphemism for the title of his latest book that delves into that particular pocket of Colorado history. Since publishing the book, he has faced some criticism from the trans community over some of the stories he included. And a few weeks ago, Smith spoke on the phone with Soleil Hanberry-Lizzi, a burgeoning historian and intern with History Colorado. She confronted him with some of those concerns and the two had a constructive conversation. Interview Highlights: These interview highlights have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
In ‘Going to Trinidad,’ histories illuminate — and obscure — the outcomes of gender transition.
Jump to navigation. DVD contains a 1 hour lecture and 2 power point presentations by Dr. Marci Bowers, as well as Dr.
On December 12, , a law office secretary and part-time English graduate student in Rancho Cucamonga, California, sat down to write a letter that had been nearly four decades in the making. Her name was Claudine Toni Griggs. So complete had been her outward transformation from male to female that few of her friends and professional colleagues knew. Her transition had stalled short of the next logical step, though: surgery that would transform her male genitalia into that of a female. But by early December , Griggs had made peace with that decision. The endocrinologist shook his head, assuring Griggs that things had improved. The doctor referred her to a nun in nearby Orange County, who he said had experience in connecting transgender people with a doctor who could do the type of surgery she was seeking. Although they never met in person, Griggs today believes the nun was herself a transgender woman and was prepared to make a referral based on her own experience.