Rosalyne Blumenstein emerged from a New York life that was anything but conventional, becoming one of the most distinctive and outspoken figures in the early transgender rights movement. Born and raised in Brooklyn, she began her transition as a teenager in the 1970s, at a time when there were few visible paths for someone seeking to live openly as a trans woman. Her early years took her through New York's gay nightlife and sex industry, experiences she would later confront with remarkable candor in her 2003 autobiography, Branded T. The book traced a difficult but transformative journey through gender identity, addiction, survival, recovery, and eventually education and professional life. By the 1990s, Blumenstein had found a new calling in activism and social work. After meeting her mentor Barbara Warren, she became involved with the Gender Identity Project at New York's Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, initially as a volunteer before rising to become its director. There, she worked at the intersection of transgender advocacy, public health, HIV prevention, and social services, while becoming an important public voice for a community that was still frequently overlooked even within the broader LGBT movement. Her influence extended beyond the walls of the Center.
By the late 1990s, Blumenstein was described as one of New York's most prominent transgender activists and a go-to commentator on transgender policy and social services. Rosalyne helped organize conferences and community programs, advocated for transgender inclusion, and pushed back against institutions that she felt continued to marginalize trans people, particularly trans people of color. Archival records from the period preserve her presence at transgender conferences, HIV/AIDS activism, and Gender Identity Project initiatives. But activism came with a price. Blumenstein has spoken candidly about the exhaustion of becoming a public figure within a movement while simultaneously feeling that she was losing the freedom simply to be Rosalyne. She eventually left New York for Los Angeles in 2002, seeking distance from the political battles that had consumed so much of her life. Yet she did not leave her convictions behind. Her work as a social worker and counselor continued to center LGBT communities, people dealing with addiction and recovery, trauma, and those living on the margins. What makes her story particularly compelling is the tension running through it, between rebellion and responsibility, glamour and vulnerability, anger and compassion, the desire to disappear from the spotlight and the equally powerful conviction that her voice still mattered. Her autobiography, her years at the Gender Identity Project, and her uncompromising approach to transgender visibility all belong to a period when many of the conversations now considered mainstream were still being fought out in bars, community centers, clinics, streets, and activist meetings.
Monika: Hello Rosalyne, and welcome!
Rosalyne: Hello Monika! First I want to thank you for having this website and bringing a variety of voices together to share with others. And second, thank you for asking me to participate. Hopefully, even after my responses to your questions, you will feel the same way.
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| 16 already sitting on a barstool. |
Monika: You've worn so many professional hats over the years. Which one did you enjoy the most?
Rosalyne: The one that pays the rent of course!☺ There have been many phases in my life and within those stages of life and my varied professions. There was enjoyment and struggle within each and every phase. What I can say is that I have learned so much about myself and the world around me within each phase and each profession. I've been involved in professions that had a tremendous stigma attached to them at the time I was involved.
There were many gifts within those times as well as costs. The "cost and benefit" analysis has not been a tool I've utilized in my life as much as I should. I may have reaped more benefits if I was less impulsive. As one gets older we do slow down, and I am less impulsive, but not to the extent of really thinking things through at all times! Within those professions one would consider suitable there were exactly the same experiences as the more stigmatized professions. Again, there were costs and benefits.
Monika: Your movie debut came in 1996, in Rosa von Praunheim's German documentary "Vor Transsexuellen wird gewarnt," filmed the previous autumn and capturing the very first wave of transgender people publicly demanding their rights…
Rosalyne: That was a magical time in my life. I was involved with one of the few men I have met in my life that knew all about where I came from and supported me unconditionally. Those kinds of men are few and far between, and unfortunately even more so now because of the current socio-political agendas.
Monika: What was it like stepping into the movement as one of its early trailblazers?
Rosalyne: I think it is now even worse. In 1996 I was moving, stepping out of a profession I thought I could never get out of, and moving into an exciting new arena. Back then we were trailblazers, those that came before me within this socio-political movement, the trans movement. I was afforded the opportunity to be a voice, hold a position, and have access. But I was also learning and evolving, and my ego was also consistently getting in the way.
You see, I came from an informally educated background, the streets of NYC. And I was just beginning my formal education in 1993. I was green in regards to "the king's English." I knew how to play the game of life my way, and this neo movement that I became engaged with was full of many formally educated, wise, and privileged beings. It was a challenge, it was scary, it was invigorating, thought-provoking, and I was trying to establish myself within this new arena, utilizing my informal education, my life, my being, my abilities to be who I was and am since 16, and connect it with what I was currently learning and becoming within this neo-movement.
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| Appearing on Gay and Loving It (2012). |
Monika: Was there also a personal side pulling you toward being in front of the camera?
Rosalyne: Again, I was also loved very much by my ex-fiancée, I was in great shape, I looked fabulous, and there was a big part of me that wanted to be famous, seen, and in a movie. So to do a documentary just fed my ego. That could be both positive and negative.
Monika: You went on to direct your own documentaries, "Safe-T-Lessons" in 1996, "Gender Variance Perception... YOURS/MINE/OURS" in 1998, and "Gender Identity Mergers and the Power of Language" in 2000. What can you tell me about them?
Rosalyne: Well, Safe T Lessons was the infamous Dr. Barbara Warren's (current LGBT Director of a major hospital in NYC) idea. I was the coordinator of the Gender Identity Project at that time. We were being funded by the AIDS Institute, a statewide NY agency overseeing money for HIV/AIDS prevention. It was under the heading of the gay/lesbian/bisexual initiative, one of the biggest gifts and biggest problems I believe that has affected the whole trans movement. There was never before a video made where people of trans experience could talk about themselves, community, empowerment, health, and self-protection. People like Riki Wilchins (before she was an entity) agreed to participate. Our collaborative goal was to bring together different kinds of folks, from various backgrounds and trans experiences, to discuss HIV.
Monika: Did you always plan on being in front of the camera yourself?
Rosalyne: I had no desire to be in the video. I was uncomfortable with exposing my history and I just wanted to be the gofer for this educational video. In fact, to this day, although I love Barbara Warren with all my heart, there is a part where she and I are sitting talking about peer counseling and she sort of outed me as if I was one of the clients of our project, and all I wanted to do was smack her☺.
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| Appearing on Gay and Loving It (2012). |
Or that might be a scene from Rosa's film, I'm so confused. I directed and edited, with assistance, Gender Variance Perception. I loved that. I have a great personality and can sway people to do things, like getting naked even if you are a doctoral student or really uncomfortable with your nakedness. I got all kinds of people to get naked and talk about their comfort or discomfort with their nakedness, the genitalia, to make gender and sex identity not just a trans issue.
But again there was ego, because I looked fabulous naked and was comfortable with my own nakedness. I came from a profession where I spent a lot of time being naked. And there was this deep urge to show the world, see, this all makes sense. So even though it was a brilliant idea, my ego was also invested in it. Gender Identity Mergers and the Power of Language was about showing diversity to combat the stereotypes. You see, although I had and have this fucken ego that on a daily basis I need to work on and look at, I really wanted to bring as many voices to the table. Especially the silenced voices! That was so important to me and still is.
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| "Branded T" (2003). |
Monika: 2003 brought your memoir, "Branded T." What inspired you to put your story into a book?
Rosalyne: Ego, fucking ego! There is a song that I want to be played at my memorial when I'm gone, "No Regrets," by Édith Piaf, but in French of course. So you think I have culture☺.
Monika: Do you have any regrets about how the book turned out?
Rosalyne: However, I have some regrets about writing this book. I was in my angry black woman phase. (In my role as a clinical educator I use the term "angry black woman," but also state why it is perfectly normal for a black woman to be angry because of our societal systematic behaviors. I use the term not as a pathology but as an experience one has when the ecosystem surrounding you is just coming at you from too many directions.)
First of all, Branded T needs a good editor. Do you know anyone, so I can do a more proficient second edition? Most dissertations take years, and you go over and over and over. I wrote this book and published it in less than a year, with an asshole of an editor.
Monika: What was pulling you away from New York around that time?
Rosalyne: I left NYC in 2002, annoyed and confused. I left the trans socio-political work within an LGBT movement angry and disdained. Within my years at the L&G, later LGBT, Center, I became a public figure within a movement, and with that lost my ability to just be Rosalyne. Every which way I turned I was fighting: fighting for public access for clients, fighting the police over violence, fighting the gay and lesbian community to be inclusive and educated, fighting amongst the people of trans experience who were the haves and have-nots, fighting social workers to be more progressive, fighting the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA, now called WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health) to stop pathologizing the trans identity, fighting those with access to money and literary power to share with those of us who come from a varied, unconventional education.
Monika: That sounds like an incredibly difficult chapter.
Rosalyne: And I really just wanted to be Rosalyne again, get laid when I wanted, and not have this "transgender label." But I also felt I needed to keep my voice alive in a movement in the world, since I really believed, and still believe, I had something to say. But I didn't want to be on the front line anymore. I also had a girlfriend at the time who was writing a book about her life, and since I am so competitive, I said, damn, if she can do it, I'm going to do it too. But I'm going to do it from an autobiographical perspective, utilizing my progressive clinical social justice therapeutic background to interweave and educate as I go from one era of life to another.
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| "Branded T" (2003). |
I have received nothing but grace and love from folks saying how much Branded T had helped them personally or professionally, and for that, it is all worth it. However, it has affected many of my relationships with some people involved in my life, past, present, and future. It has also affected the work that I get at this point in my life. Because of the world of internet access, Branded T comes up when my name is googled.
Monika: Did the book affect the kind of job offers that came your way?
Rosalyne: Many employers seem to have a problem with a clinical therapist who used to perform fellatio or swing on a pole, or who has challenged the constructs of gender, and I don't get hired. I didn't think about how Branded T would affect my professional life. And that is on me.
Monika: How do you personally make peace with that?
Rosalyne: On one hand, I am sorry about how it has affected some of those that I have had a personal engagement with. On another hand, I get frustrated when I am looking for professional work and I know the reasons behind not getting the position or the call. And on the other hand, I feel those that have an issue with my history can kiss my ass.
Monika: Any final thoughts on how the book has shaped your life?
Rosalyne: And last thought on Branded T. Movie stars in their 60s or 70s write a tell-all book when they are in a place where they are not so worried about the ramifications of what is in the book. Branded T, I think, has too much introspective personal information regarding what I have thought about myself in conjunction with what I thought about others. Besides the fact that I am not, nor will I ever be, a movie star, I was not in my 60s or 70s when I wrote it.☺ I should've searched for some professional guidance before publishing.
Monika: In 2006, T. Joe Murray featured your story in the documentary "Almost Myself," alongside Kate Bornstein, Marci Bowers, and other prominent transgender women. How was it working with him?
Rosalyne: Monika, gorgeous Monika. I don't use the term transgender woman unless, of course, that is how someone identifies. Then I totally respect their reality. I believe my discussion within that documentary was more coming from a therapeutic, less personal perspective.
I think, again, I may be wrong ☺, that every voice should be heard, even the voice that may change the way in which people view things. There was one character in the documentary who had regrets, found God, and decided to live a different way. Yes, that voice should be heard. But the director, I believe, spent a little too much time on that character. The power of the editor of any film is what makes and breaks it. The trans movement was still in its baby phase, and the world has not been kind to these issues. So I believe the director should've been a little more empathetic to that cause.
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| Bryant Park New York City Pride event 2000. |
Monika: In early 2008, you took the stage with Veronica Klaus, Dee Dee Flores, Victoria Ortiz, Desiree Jade Sol, Gina Grahame, Aleshia Brevard, Leslie Townsend, Jerry Rodriguez, Angelae Le'Chastaignier, Rachel Dunn, Cheryl Hoffman, and Suzanne Shaw for Trans Sister Tales, a series exploring society's perception of trans women. Tell me more about that project, and are you still in touch with the cast?
Rosalyne: A very old friend, Leslie Townsend, was the co-director of that play. I had no desire to be in it, although I do have a theatrical background and miss performing so much. Ever since I was very young that was my dream. But my vocal tremors and my worldwide life only afforded me opportunities within the asshole end of show business, the sex industry. They had a performer drop out and they begged me to be in it. So I did it. I stay in touch with Leslie, as we have experienced many similar life experiences, and I have known her since I was 23. Although we have gone down different roads, she is one of the few women I know with my history who gets my journey on some deeper level.
END OF PART 1
All the photos: courtesy of Rosalyne Blumenstein.
© 2013 - Monika Kowalska
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