Cross-Country Connections

Here is a curious document that caught my attention in the Sexual Minorities Archive.

A 1994 letter from the advertising manager of a group called Connect Communications, based in Beverly Hills California, to the East Coast Female to Male Group (ECFTMG), which was a support group that ran in the ‘90s in western mass.

This letter documents another tactic some gender nonconforming people used to support each other across place and space—from California to Western Massachusetts.

People were passing along information to help each other navigate spaces with the goal of safety.

That said, the motivations of this for-profit Beverly Hills-based organization are unclear.  Offering ads for beauty treatments and shopping, Connect Communications Inc. was likely getting their services to a very different clientele than an organization like the TGI Justice Project  was.  Most likely white folks with some degree of class privilege would have been the ones accessing this resource.

More Connections via Periodicals

Networking section from the XX Club’s “Twenty Minutes” newsletter, page 10, 1990.
A cartoon from the newsletter “Gender Euphoria: A peer support/social group for TV/TS, their family & friends,” Aug.-Sept. 1990.

“Twenty Minutes”, a trans-centered newsletter that ran from 1988-1997, was another way trans people got information and support to one another across place.  The content varied from essays, personal entries, networking information–such as that pictured above– , and ads–such as that pictured left–related to being trans.

 

Similarly, Gender Euphoria, which ran in the late 80s through 2000, was a trans-centric newsletter.  It was made by the Boulton and Park Society., which formed in 1986 in San Antonio, Texas.  Their newsletters cover many different aspects of the trans community.  Pictured left is an advertisement for a weekend event which ran in a 1990 edition.