Interview with Cathryn Platine - Part 4

Monika: Looking back, how would you characterize NTAC as an organization in its early days? Was it more of a passionate grassroots effort driven by urgency and frustration, or did it quickly evolve into a structured, strategic movement?

Cathryn: In retrospect, NTAC’s transformation into yet another top-down organization governed by Roberts' Rules was largely due to the rushed way it was formed. We didn’t present it as a fully developed organization from the start, and I take responsibility for that, I lacked experience in setting up a national group.

Sarah and I weren’t even part of the first board. We were initially frozen out and later, quite frankly, sold out. Both of us ended up leaving NTAC. I was eventually invited to rejoin the board after I became the contact person on the Aurora Lipscomb affair, a disturbing case in which a five-year-old was taken from her mother by Franklin County Children’s Services for allowing her to transition.

I flew to the Southern Comfort Conference in 2000 to attend the board meeting. I was installed as a board member, but then effectively removed when I honored my promise to Aurora’s mother to protect certain details of the case. That conference was the only gender event I’ve ever attended, and to say it was a shock would be an understatement.

To the best of my knowledge, I was also the only fully paid lifetime member of NTAC at the time.

Monika: While preparing for our interview, I came across your powerful and dramatic statement: “Today’s trans people have effectively erased most of their own damn history.” That really struck me. What parts of our history do you feel have been forgotten or overlooked the most?

Cathryn: Almost all of it. Trans activism has always been divided between two types: those who are radical activists driven by a desire to change things, and ego-driven self-promoters. We need not go further back than Stonewall. From the first Christopher Street parade a year after Stonewall to commemorate it, gay men, the same ones who were part of the Mattachine Society that turned in protesters to the police during Stonewall, have attempted to erase trans people from the events, and Sylvia Rivera especially. Sylvia was brash, loud, outspoken, and very much a radical activist.

This continues to this day, and she is constantly being erased from the events she was central to. Being PR, which is not "colored" enough, the recent attempts have centered on replacing her with Marsha P. Johnson. Marsha and Sylvia co-founded STARR House in the seventies, and Marsha was present at Stonewall but was never the activist Sylvia was. She wasn’t really trans-identified and never actually transitioned. Gay activist Randy Wicker has been the source of the "Marsha instead of Sylvia" nonsense.

Monika: Were there other signs of efforts aimed at erasing transsexuals from public discourse?

Cathryn: During the late eighties and early nineties was the heyday of daytime talk television. During sweeps week, when the ratings were compiled, the shows tried to book the most outrageous guests they could find. Transsexuals were considered at the top of that list. Then a funny thing happened. Those transsexuals interviewed did such a great job of educating and entertaining on the subject that they were no longer freaks, but made transsexuality understandable and sympathetic. By the early 90’s transsexuals were out as sweeps week guests and replaced with married crossdressers and club kids.

 

Spring Equinox in the Temple.

 

I did not learn this next part until long after I left the snake pit of trans activism. Apparently, in the early nineties, the HRC did a survey in North Carolina about the public acceptance of gays and lesbians and transsexuals. They totally freaked out when the results were the standard 30% acceptance of gays and lesbians, but the transsexuals came in around 70%. This is why HRC did everything in its power to undermine the then-emerging trans civil rights efforts.

By the ’97 Lobby Days, grassroots trans activists, mostly poor transsexuals, were lobbying Congress with a damn good chance of making real progress. We could not figure out why Barney Frank and HRC, and even Ted Kennedy, were sabotaging us. It was because HRC has always been about money-making more than actual civil rights. If a bunch of piss-poor transsies came along and actually made progress when they had failed year after year to do so, it would have severely damaged their money machine.

The ego-driven self-promoters have always tried, and mostly succeeded, at the erasure of the activists, and thus most of our actual history has been effectively erased, along with the names that should have been remembered.

Monika: When did you come to the decision to step away from activism, and was there a specific moment or turning point that prompted you to take that step back?

Cathryn: Trans activism came at a heavy cost to me from the very beginning. When I started getting attacked by a couple of the crossdresser-identified members of the Crystal Club, one of whom later transitioned and I believe you've interviewed, I wanted to step away then.

I was embraced by the central Ohio lesbian community. We collectively had a lot of fun, Sunday brunches followed by long walks in the Park of Roses or visits to the Columbus Conservatory. When Sarah and I were cut out of the leadership of NTAC, even though we were among the major movers and shakers in its formation, I mostly walked away while still keeping tabs on what was going on.

But when the media circus began around the arranged surrender of Aurora Lipscomb to Franklin County Children’s Services, I got pulled back in. I made the impulsive decision to be interviewed on camera, because I couldn't stand the idea of a crossdresser being the public face of this issue.

I got to know Aurora's mother, Sherrie, and learned the father was an abusive asshole. Sarah arranged pro bono legal help for Sherrie, and suddenly NTAC wanted me back to capitalize on what became a red-hot international story. Sherrie even appeared on the Today Show. It took two years to get that poor kid back. In the meantime, she was subjected to a level of brainwashing that defies definition. NTAC dropped me like a hot rock when I kept my word to Sherrie about keeping specific details of the case private.

Monika: And how did you move forward from there?

Cathryn: After that, I focused on my religious work, until multiple back injuries left me unable to work. That’s when Marina and Laura invited me to visit them in the Catskills. I had this growing dream of establishing a kind of “transie trailer park,” a micro-community. While visiting, we went looking for a suitable place, and stumbled upon Central House in Palenville. It had a sagging tobacco-road porch, an overgrown driveway, roof leaks that caused falling plaster, and no central heat, making it impossible to finance through a bank. But it had good bones. Doors all swung square, floors mostly level and solid framing.

The realtor didn’t even want to show it to us. For ten years, the seller had refused all offers. I was told to write him a letter explaining what I wanted to do with the property. He was an old-world Italian Swiss man, and he loved the idea of restoration. Against all odds, we made an owner-financed offer, and bought the place.

 

Altar in the Temple.

 

I moved to New York, only to find myself dragged back into trans politics again. This time, it was with Sylvia Rivera, fighting ESPA (Empire State Pride Agenda) over trans inclusion in the pending SONDA legislation. Sylvia and I recognized each other as old-school activists. We organized a demonstration on the front stoop of ESPA and both spoke out. It was Sylvia’s last speech. I walked alongside the carriage at her funeral and we have a plaque dedicated to her at our Temple.

She planned to move to the Maetreum after her last battle with liver cancer, but she died before she could. On her deathbed, the bastards from ESPA promised her statewide inclusion for trans people. Instead, they only delivered it in NYC after she passed.

The level of dirty tricks ESPA pulled during our last-minute lobbying effort was the final straw for me. That’s when I walked away for good, and turned my full focus to trans housing, trans history, and the Maetreum.
Monika: When I came out at work, my male colleagues suddenly started treating me as if my transition had lowered my IQ. I became a feminist almost immediately, it felt like a survival strategy. I sometimes thought of Inez Milholland, the suffragette who led the 1913 women’s parade in Washington, D.C., dressed in white and riding a horse, symbolizing strength and justice. Of course, I didn’t have a horse or a cape, just the daily grind of pushing back against subtle biases. What has feminism meant to you in your own life and work, especially in moments when you’ve had to stand up for yourself or others?

Cathryn: I had similar experiences. I was a self-employed master cabinetmaker and worked for years with a contractor who set up turnkey offices for the Busch Corporate Center in Columbus, Ohio - Fortune 500-type offices. Before I transitioned, I designed and built full office furnishings from little more than a rough sketch on a napkin.

After I transitioned, people questioned whether I even knew what screws to use to hang a cabinet. It was quite a shock. As a lifelong feminist, I “knew” about this sort of thing, but it was still jarring to actually experience it. Those corporate jobs were my bread and butter, and transition cost me all of them. I kept the business going for a while afterwards with kitchen remodels, but I didn’t make enough to stay afloat that way.

In trans politics, I was accused of being crazy many times, again, a common experience for opinionated crones. Our eight-year battle against the town of Catskill and Greene County was, in my opinion, mostly about a bunch of uppity Pagan women, and had little to do with being trans. Before I transitioned, I had a bumper sticker on my work van that said, “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.”

 

Inez Milholland in 1913. (Source: Library of Congress)

 

We have a working telegraph office equipped with restored 1890s Postal Telegraph equipment, and we (the Maetreum) own Postal Telegraph and Cable. It’s in honor of the breakthrough industry of the 1800s for women. We also have that picture of Inez Milholland on her white horse hanging in our front hall. My feminism has sustained me through all the battles I’ve had to fight.

Monika: I imagine you’ve been following the recent surge in anti-trans rhetoric in the United States, as well as troubling legal shifts in places like the UK, where trans women are increasingly being excluded from the legal definition of womanhood. In your view, what’s driving this disturbing backlash, and where do you think it might be headed if left unchallenged?

Cathryn: In the 90s, if someone found out you were trans, the assumption was that you were post-op, or at least planning to be. I used to explain that “selling” transsexuality was relatively easy. Most people could understand the idea without too much trouble. But selling the idea of women with penises? That was a much harder sell, because it went against most people’s lived experiences.

I literally begged some of the TG activists at the time to stop talking so much about their genitals. We all could have ridden the wave of growing public understanding, but they didn’t listen. Even back then, I predicted a future backlash as a result. And now, we’re living through it. I also pointed out that the poor bottom surgery options available for trans men could serve as a reason not to require SRS for trans women, but instead of nuanced discussion, things got polarized.

As I mentioned earlier, trans activists became their own worst enemies by attacking feminist women who dared to question whether all trans women were women, especially when those activists knew it wasn’t always that simple. I reached out to some of those women privately during the early online battles and, not surprisingly, I found that many of them had legitimate concerns that could’ve been addressed respectfully. Instead, they were met with over-the-top attacks, just like the ones I had experienced, and that drove some of them straight into TERFdom.

Thirty years ago, you could count the number of TERFs online on one hand. Now they’re everywhere. And honestly? We are well and truly f#cked if something doesn’t change.

Monika: Many detransitioners share stories of regret, often feeling that they rushed into transition or were influenced by external pressures, sometimes blaming the medical system for not guiding them more carefully. While their experiences are valid and deserve compassion, it’s also frustrating when their narratives are weaponized against us who are happy with their transition. How do you feel about the way detransitioners are portrayed in public discourse, and do you think their experiences should influence how gender-affirming care is approached?

Cathryn: In a word, no. Of the literally hundreds and hundreds of transitioned trans folks I’ve met, only three were regretters, and one of those was a sociopath. Surgery for transsexuals has one of the most successful outcomes of any medical treatment, with virtually zero regret. The same goes for non-surgical transition. It works. It heals. It saves lives.

I have little sympathy for someone who makes themselves into a surgically constructed transsexual through poor choices. I’m a firm believer that adults must take responsibility for their own decisions. They create in themselves the same condition that actual transsexuals are born into.

 

On the front porch.

 

Monika: If I may, I'd like to ask a delicate but important question about the personal cost of activism. Many of us, once we find stability in our lives as wives, mothers, daughters, choose to quietly step into the background, to leave the past behind and simply live. But you chose a different path: to stand up, speak out, and carry the weight of visibility for so many others. Have you ever felt the pull to step away from it all, to just live as a woman, rather than as a transsexual woman in the public eye?

Cathryn: There’s a false assumption in that question, that I don’t live as a woman every damn day. The cost of activism has been very high. When I stepped away from the political side, I took on everyday issues. When we founded Gallae Central House, the original name, we were one of only three housing efforts for newly transitioned women in the country. I insisted on a mix of trans women and non-trans women. We even became the subject of a Jay Leno Tonight Show joke.

As an intersex woman born with both sets of genitalia, I’m in a unique position to discuss biological concerns with those outside the community. I feel an obligation to do so. In my everyday life, I’m a cranky, opinionated crone, and treated as such. If asked, I say my intersex/transsex history isn’t even in the top ten most interesting things about me.

The cost I paid was that after my divorce, I didn’t take another partner. I felt my religious work would suffer if I did, and frankly, I witnessed so few trans relationships I considered healthy. I have been a mother to many women, both trans and non-trans. I was estranged from my own mother due to my sister’s non-acceptance of me, until my mother died. That is one of my regrets.

I’m better known for the legal victory for minority religious rights we won than for trans activism. I’m seen as a warrior woman who happens to have a trans history, not just as a transsexual or intersex woman. I can and have lived with that.

END OF PART 4

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All photos: courtesy of Cathryn Platine unless specified otherwise.

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