Monika: When the nurses realized you were in danger, how quickly did the doctor arrive?
Margaux: In minutes, which seemed like hours, Dr. Seghers was at my bedside. Without any preparation, he removed my bandages, exposed the bleeders, and began re-suturing my labia. He applied extreme pressure to stop the bleeding. I saw a nurse with a spray of arterial blood on her uniform. Dr. Seghers used heavy “0 silk” sutures to stop the bleeding. The voices became fainter. I thought I was going to die, and then I passed out. This is difficult to talk about, but I felt a very personal and deep spiritual experience.
Monika: What do you remember about those moments before losing consciousness completely?
Margaux: The only thing bringing me back was severe pain. Dr. Seghers kept speaking to me as he tugged at my sutures. “I want you to be perfect.” I wasn’t amused and cursed him for the pain. “That’s why I’m over here, where you can’t reach me,” he replied. He knew I would have hit him if I could. Finally, he stabilized my bleeding. In a state of semi-consciousness, unclear whether I was living, dying, or hallucinating, my life really did seem to pass before my eyes, only to give way to a sense of serenity. Then everything went black again.
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| (Left) - Synth noodling at an undisclosed location. (Right) - Demonstrating Virtual Reality at the H+ symposium. |
Monika: And when you woke up, what was the first thing on your mind?
Margaux: The next morning I woke up in the hospital bed, and all I could think about was how badly my back itched. I had broken out in hives, perhaps an antibiotic allergy. My surgical complications had already receded in my memory. At that point, Dr. Seghers appeared at my bedside and cheerfully said, “Good morning, Mrs. Schaffer. Today it is President Clinton.” I had completely forgotten about Election Day.
Monika: What was your recovery process like after such a complicated surgery?
Margaux: Due to my complications, I extended my stay for ten days. After being discharged from the hospital, I felt better and was able to explore Brussels a little, but I still had my urinary catheter. Dr. Seghers removed it during my postoperative visit and instructed me not to urinate until I was back at my hotel. However, I could not urinate at all. A taxi driver in a small Alfa Romeo picked me up to take me over bumpy roads to Dr. Seghers’s home office, where I was met by Mrs. Seghers at the door holding a bucket, not knowing what to expect. Dr. Seghers reinserted a catheter and instructed me to wear it home since he didn’t want me to have an emergency on an international flight.
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| Modeling a synth shirt. |
Monika: How was the journey back home, given the situation?
Margaux: I finally flew home. Due to heightened security for an EU summit in Brussels, I had extra airport screening, but I managed to get an upgrade to first class. My roommates met me at the airport, and I was able to see a local Atlanta doctor to have my catheter and remaining stitches removed. Getting back to the routine of life after surgery, I had the sworn statement from my surgeon, which enabled me to get my legal documents changed to the correct gender. I was so happy to have the surgery completed and to have survived. I felt complete!
Monika: In recent years, some people have felt you’ve been keeping a lower public profile. How would you describe that period of your life?
Margaux: (laughter) I’ve never been described that way before, but I understand you’re alluding to my hiatus from activism, albeit short-lived. I moved to Phoenix in 1994 shortly after getting my driver’s license and doing a road trip with my friend and roommate, Becky; she had only taught me to drive just weeks before we drove cross-country to start anew.
Monika: What drew you back into activism after moving to Phoenix?
Margaux: Upon relocating, we found ourselves slowly drawn back into activism purely out of necessity, due to the utter lack of services and outreach in the area. Having worked for an internet service provider, I became aware that there was a real need for education on the World Wide Web, since most search engines only returned pornographic results when researching ‘transsexual’ or ‘sex change.’ Needless to say, it was the dark ages. This presented a unique opportunity for outreach, so almost impulsively, I registered a number of internet domains, one of which was for drbecky.com, and the rest is history! I encouraged Becky to begin journaling, having previously done that for myself, as I considered it quite helpful. She put her story online, and we both began to network and meet others.
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| Standing in front of the Pyramid of Djoser. Cairo, Egypt, 2008 |
Monika: So in hindsight, was it really a “low profile” for you?
Margaux: Looking back, it wasn’t so much about a lower profile as it was about working on a bigger canvas. We were both branching out, mentoring, and helping others. It’s hard putting the genie back into the bottle!
Monika: What kinds of projects and causes were you involved with during that time?
Margaux: Before we knew it, we were fully involved again, VDAY, The Vagina Monologues, vigils, lectures, setting up booths at PRIDE and RAINBOWS. My activism wasn’t only confined to transgender causes; I also branched into other areas such as transhumanism, culture jamming, and broader social justice.
Monika: I remember your public talks about how transgender women should be represented in the media, showing that you can be articulate, attractive, and transgender all at once. How do you feel the media has evolved in this regard?
Margaux: I think there’s been some progress over time. Once you get past the sheer novelty and sensationalism of things like the treatment aspects, we finally have the chance to delve deeper beyond the same rehash and explore the diversity of today's emerging voices. Modern narratives are transcending traditional stereotypes and past biases, inspiring and motivating a new generation of firebrands. Today, the focus needs to be elevated even further. So much is at stake, safety, access to healthcare, and economic disparities. We have come so far, and we have only just begun.
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| (Left) - Performing in The Vagina Monologues at VDAY 2004 at Pacific Design Center. (Right) - VDAY Poster. |
Monika: Few people know about your involvement in creating the graphics that eventually became known as the "Transgender Pride Flag." Could you share the story behind the flag and how it came to be?
Margaux: That’s a controversial question. I think I should first digress and clarify some historical context. Back when I transitioned, there wasn’t anything resembling a movement. It was the late 1980s, and there was no fixed social identity or community like we have today.
Monika: What was the social landscape like for transgender people at that time?
Margaux: I had become aware of the Rainbow Banner and the conceptual foundations that made it a universal symbol of pride. Yet, outside of the gay and lesbian community, transsexuals and members of what were then self-identified straight crossdressing groups were fragmented and rarely interacted. There was a clear division between people on a medically supervised track of transition and drag queens who identified as gay, as well as heterosexually identified crossdressers who distanced themselves from both transsexuals and gays.
Monika: How did this fragmentation influence your idea to design a symbol?
Margaux: While involved in my first support group, I realized there was no iconic symbol representing transsexuals. To be fair, there were only adaptations of the pink triangle incorporating varied uses of the male and female symbols, yin and yang, and other permutations, all of which I found unattractive and unprofessional. Given the stigma attached to the pink triangle, I felt it was important to develop some kind of visual expression of transsexual identity, back when the term LGBT wasn’t yet part of everyday language. I should also add that the word "transgender" hadn’t yet been appropriated as an umbrella term.
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| At the wheel, 2016. |
Monika: What steps did you take to develop your design concept?
Margaux: I fleshed out some visual concepts, first using Prismacolor, then Pantone color paper. I developed a design brief and legend that presented multiple proposals for an emblem to represent our social identity in a way that appeared non-sexual. The idea was to convey transition, change, and continuity in an easily reproducible format.
Monika: How was your proposal received by others in your community?
Margaux: Despite my intentions and credentials, the idea was summarily rejected. People did NOT want to be identified as a ‘movement.’ It was a dramatic paradigm shift that many lacked the foresight to seriously consider. Despite multiple proposals, different modalities, and PMS color variations that closely resembled several later adopted designs, my role in the early visualization of the concept disappeared, like the dodo bird. Que sera, sera.
Monika: Did you ever try to claim ownership of the flag’s design?
Margaux: I know this might cause controversy, but keep in mind I never made formal claims of authorship because the idea was rejected many years before I noticed people incorporating similar designs. These often didn’t have the exact same shades of blue and pink; sometimes they included white or grey. I didn’t think much about it, except to acknowledge that it was happening organically. I rationalized that it was an inevitable design, fairly universal. I saw all four design modalities I had proposed slowly incorporated into graphics and banners, and the concept took on a life of its own even before I saw an actual flag over a decade later.
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| Rescuing a tarantula crossing the road. Sedona, Arizona, 1994. |
Monika: How do you feel about the flag’s history and your part in it today?
Margaux: I’ve never seriously tried to assert any ownership because, by the time I became aware that the flag was codified as the transgender flag, despite its earlier proposal as something completely different, I just shrugged it off. Once things diverge enough, pursuing historical credit becomes too complicated. It’s time to move on.
END OF PART 2
All the photos: courtesy of Margaux Ayn Schaffer.
© 2017 - Monika Kowalska
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