Christine Beatty is an American writer, senior software engineer, musician, and transgender activist. Born in San Mateo, California, she has made significant contributions to transgender visibility and advocacy. In 2000, she was honored as Transwoman of the Year by the Los Angeles Transgender Task Force, recognizing her impact on the community. Christine played a crucial role in organizing the 2003 Transgender Day of Remembrance in Los Angeles, an event dedicated to honoring the lives lost to anti-trans violence. The following year, she participated in an all-transgender production of The Vagina Monologues, directed by Calpernia Addams and Andrea James.
An accomplished writer, Christine has contributed articles to Spectator Magazine, Transgender Tapestry, TransSisters, and other LGBTQ publications. She is also the founder of Glamazon Press, a publishing company focused on the TS/TG community. Her literary works include Misery Loves Company (1993), a semi-autobiographical collection of short stories and poetry, and Not Your Average American Girl (2011), a memoir detailing her life and transition. In addition to her literary achievements, Christine is the founder and lead singer of the rock band Glamazon, an all-transsexual hard rock group that emerged in the 1990s. Despite facing challenges in the music industry, her work as a musician has been pioneering for transgender representation in rock music.
Christine transitioned at the age of 27, a journey that was met with significant personal and professional challenges. She lost friends, became estranged from her family, and faced employment discrimination, which led her to sex work to support herself and her transition. Over time, she was able to secure a stable career and undergo cosmetic surgeries that helped her feel more comfortable in her identity. A strong feminist, Christine has been vocal about transgender rights and the importance of early transition for those who experience gender dysphoria. She emphasizes the value of self-acceptance and community support, advocating for increased social and political gains for transgender individuals. Christine’s resilience, creativity, and advocacy have made her a prominent figure in the transgender movement, inspiring countless others to embrace their true selves.
Monika: Hello Christine! Welcome to my blog.
Christine: Hi Monika, thanks for asking.
Monika: Would you say writing defines you the most, or do you see yourself equally as a musician, activist, or something else?
Christine: First and foremost, I’m a writer. So far, it’s not paying the bills — yet — but it’s the one creative thing I do consistently. I do plan to get back into performing and recording rock music again. Also, I started taking film school classes last autumn. Exploring filmmaking has been an exciting new challenge for me, blending my love for storytelling with visual art.
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| Christine Beatty's memoir. |
Monika: Have you always considered yourself a feminist, or did your perspective evolve over time?
Christine: Most definitely, long before I knew I was a girl trapped in a boy’s body. Feminism has always resonated with me, as I believe in equality and breaking down societal barriers for all genders.
Monika: Can you tell us about your upbringing and how it shaped your perspective on life?
Christine: In my memoir, I describe my terribly ordinary upbringing in a suburb twenty miles south of San Francisco. It was terribly middle-class and ordinary; I hated it. I instinctively knew I wasn’t destined for ordinary or “normal.” That longing for something more pushed me to explore creative paths and embrace my true self.
Monika: Could you share some insights into your childhood? At what point did you begin to question your gender identity, if at all?
Christine: Quite honestly, I cannot remember feeling like I was in the wrong body until I was well into adulthood. What I felt like, ever since I was four, was that I’d been born on the wrong planet. I’d always been ill at ease, uncertain of myself, terribly shy, and I had no idea how to be in the world. My parents really weren’t right for each other and divorced when I was nine. However, only a year and a half later, my mom became involved with a terrific man who made a great stepfather, so I can say for certain that I had no lack of a positive male role model. Despite this, I often felt like an outsider, struggling to find where I truly belonged.
Monika: For many transgender women, school, college, or university can be a deeply challenging time due to discrimination and social pressure. Did you face similar struggles during your education?
Christine: Middle and high school were traumatic because I was so shy and lonely and a huge sissyboy who always ran from fights and was a disaster at sports except for running. The real problem started in 1985, halfway through my second year of college, when I was 27 and I transitioned. When I showed up at college as a woman, I was not well received, so after a few times, I gave up and only attended in boy mode until I completed my two-year degree in Computer Science. Then I dropped out instead of transferring to a university. I refused to live a double life any longer. Looking back, I wish I had more support or role models to guide me through that period..
Monika: You served in the U.S. military for many years. Did you always want to enlist, or was it a decision driven by circumstance?
Christine: Actually, I was in the U.S. Air Force. It was kind of like running away and joining the circus, leaving the middle-class life I despised and hoping it might make me more sure of myself as a man. Ironically, instead of finding certainty, I only felt more out of place.
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| Christine as a sex worker, 1986. |
Monika: You transitioned at the age of 27. What were the biggest challenges you faced during the process?
Christine: I was 27, and I had almost no money, so I was coached by my peers who were also living on the underside of society. I lost all of my old friends, and I became estranged from my family. Also, I got fired from my housekeeping job when I said I wanted to work as a woman. That was when I became a prostitute so I could afford to support myself and fund my transition. It was a desperate choice, but at the time, it felt like the only path forward.
Monika: Did you experience difficulties with passing as a woman, especially in a city like San Francisco?
Christine: It was near-impossible for me to pass as a genetic woman. There are many trans women in San Francisco, and the locals know how to spot us, so an obvious one like me faced a lot of ridicule and hatred. In the mid-80s, I could barely afford hormones, much less surgery, but when I finally got a decent job in 1989, I saved up for silicone breast implants to help me pass a little better. It took a long time before I was able to blend in. Even then, I constantly struggled with the fear of being outed.
Monika: We are living in times of modern cosmetic surgery that might allow transitioning even in the late 50s or 60s. Do you think it is truly possible to transition at that age? What kind of advice would you offer to transgender women considering transition later in life?
Christine: Two decades ago, I heard of a transsexual woman in her 70s obtaining SRS (sex reassignment surgery). My suggestion is more of a general nature — don’t wait that long! If you have a genuine gender identity issue, putting it off or sublimating it with work, sex, family, drugs, or whatever is not going to make it go away, just cover it up. Maybe you’ll be miserable deep down and maybe not. Maybe you’ll find some way to be happy without it.
However, over and over I’ve heard from later transitioners how they wished they’d done it a long time before because they’d missed out on being a young girl. And trying to act like a young girl when you’re over forty will get you ridiculed, even if you’re a genetic (born) female, and it will be much worse if you’re a trans woman. Also, if you’re that old, the chances are good you’ll have a family, and if you transition, that may well likely leave you and hate you, quite possibly forever, for depriving them of a husband and a father.
The bottom line is, if you notice gender identity issues at a young age, sort them out at a young age. Don’t be a later transitioner if you can avoid it. I have known some older transitioners who’ve done quite well, whose families embraced the new them, and who don’t regret waiting. But I know far more who wished they’d done it decades before. My advice is to start your journey as soon as you feel ready, because time lost is something you can never get back.
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| Christine with her band Glamazon. |
Monika: At the time of your transition, did you have any transgender role models you could look up to?
Christine: Back when I transitioned, the usual advice to post-operative trans women was to blend into society, go “deep stealth,” and never admit your transsexual status. Until I was forty years old, I never knew one of the greatest computer engineers who’d ever lived, Dr. Lynn Conway, was a trans woman. So my role models were the transsexual prostitutes who made $100 an hour because they were in charge of their lives and nobody got to tell them they couldn’t be women. The transgender rights movement that gained speed in the mid-1990s, combined with the Internet, changed all of that. It wasn’t until later that I discovered how much impact the community had on the world, and it became a driving force for me to advocate for trans rights.
Monika: You’re a musician. Could you tell us more about your music career and how your transition into a woman might have influenced your artistic performance and creativity?
Christine: It wasn’t much of a career to speak of, yet what I did do was pioneering in a way. I’ve loved music most of my life, and in the Air Force, a buddy gave me a cheap electric guitar he’d given up on. Because of how much I was partying and the limited attention span, I progressed very slowly. In the mid-1980s, I formed an all-transsexual hard rock band with some friends, but there were too many addicts in the band, including me, so we never amounted to anything.
In 1994, I formed Glamazon with a brilliant female guitarist, but by then, the heavy metal scene was dying out, and even though we had the novelty of being the only working metal band with a transsexual lead singer, we never got signed. I do believe my transition gave me a unique perspective in music, but the industry wasn’t ready to embrace that difference at the time.
Monika: You were married once. How did your wife react when you came out as a transgender woman?
Christine: Let’s just say we got divorced. All of the twisted details are in my book; there are too many to recount here. It was a painful and complicated process, but it ultimately led to me living more authentically.
Monika: What do you enjoy most about being a woman?
Christine: Not having to pretend to be a man. It’s a relief to finally embrace who I truly am without the weight of that constant facade.
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| Christine at Play, 1993. |
Monika: How would you assess the current situation of transgender women in American society compared to when you transitioned?
Christine: It’s a hell of a lot better than it was when I was coming up 25 years ago. We have an organizing community connected by the Internet and starting to make social and political gains. The transgender kids of today have a much better chance of succeeding in society without settling for underworld jobs. However, there is still a long way to go, especially in terms of full societal acceptance and legal protections.
Monika: With the increasing visibility of transgender women in various fields, from Lana Wachowski in film direction to Jenna Talackova in modeling, do you think this trend will continue, and we’ll see even more transgender women rise to prominence?
Christine: Definitely. It’s always the leaders who show others it can be done and encourage others to take a shot. The more of us who try, the more who will succeed. As more transgender women gain visibility, they inspire others to embrace their true selves and pursue their dreams.
END OF PART 1
All the photos: courtesy of Christine Beatty.
© 2013 - Monika Kowalska
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