Monika: You knew Merissa personally, not just through the organizations she created. What qualities did you admire most in her?
Dallas: Her desire to help others, to build community, to create something enduring. Definitely. I also admired her willingness to work one on one helping newly out people work though their feelings and problems. I saw that at conferences, especially, and I’m sure it happened on a daily basis at the IFGE offices.
Monika: By the 1990s, IFGE had grown far beyond the organization Merissa had originally imagined. Did you sense that this growth was creating tensions within the organization or the wider community?
Dallas: There was tension between the transsexual and crossdresser factions of the community. There were constant complaints in Tapestry about the number of pages dedicated to crossdressing vs. transsexualism. There was no fix for this. No matter what the editor did, people were dissatisfied. I think the several editors did their best to provide balance. There was also lots of back and forth about “We have nothing in common with gay men and lesbians” versus “We have everything to gain by an alliance with the gay community.”
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| Rena Swifthawk with Merissa Sherrill Lynn while she recovers from surgery, Trinidad, CO, 1991. © Mariette Pathy Allen |
Monika: Was that tension ever resolved?
Dallas: Merissa, of course, was the first editor of Tapestry. It began as a newsletter with no name and evolved to a newsletter with the single name Tapestry and then into a center-stapled fairly thin magazine and then a fat perfect bound magazine, then back to staples in the middle. The title evolved from TV-TS Tapestry to Transgender Tapestry. There were other editors after Merissa. To my surprise, I became editor in 2000 with issue number 89 and rode that pony until issue number 111 in 2006. By the time I came aboard people were starting to abandon terms like crossdresser and transsexual in favor of transgender identities, and there was no more CD vs TS nonsense (i.e., identities as transsexual and crossdresser were being largely replaced by transgender identities). But mostly the magazine, as was the convention, was seen by the community as positive. IFGE tried to stay above the fray. It rarely took political positions. It wanted to be respectable.
Monika: Merissa’s departure from IFGE in 1995 remains one of the more complicated chapters of her history. What do you believe really happened between her and the board?
Dallas: The board became aware of Merissa’s depressive episodes and how they were negatively impacting the organization. It was clear to many of us in the community that Merissa had done remarkable things, but needed to step aside so the organization could move into its next phase. The board told Merissa that there were no funds available at the moment, but they would raise money and starting in a few months would provide a stipend for her for the rest of her life.
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| TV-TS Tapestry Issue 89 (2000) Digital Transgender Archive |
Merissa refused the offer and retreated to her home, which she soon lost, leaving her with nowhere to go. Friends, who were also friends of mine, took her to their home and looked after her for about five years. Merissa did not make it easy for them. Eventually, they helped her find a position in an assisted living facility.
Monika: Merissa received important recognition during her lifetime, including the Virginia Prince Award, yet today many people who know transgender history have never heard her name. Why do you think her contribution has faded from public memory?
Dallas: I think Merissa engineered her virtual erasure by walking away from the community which she had supported and helped build to pout and nourish her hurt feelings. After her expulsion as executive director of IFGE, she turned away from almost everyone. That is not a way to build a legacy, or at least not a positive one. I hope this piece you are doing will help others understand the tremendous role she played in the formation of early trans communities.
Monika: When you look at the transgender movement today, with its enormous online networks and vastly greater visibility, what part of Merissa’s way of building community do you think we have lost?
Dallas: I think what we have gained is a sense of oneness. It’s not that we don’t come in all shapes and sizes and identities, but we are not fractionated into isolated factions like we were before Merissa. This is what Merissa wanted. And I don’t think it’s as much about what we have lost as about what Merissa herself lost. She did not stick around to enjoy the fruits of her enormous labors.
Monika: If you could sit down with Merissa today and tell her what became of the community she helped build, what do you think would surprise her most?
Dallas: I doubt she would be surprised at all. It is, after all, the community she worked so hard to form.
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| Merissa Sherrill Lynn at Southern Comfort, 1993. © Mariette Pathy Allen |
Monika: Finally, when historians look back on the emergence of organized transgender life in the United States, where do you believe Merissa Sherrill Lynn’s name belongs, and what is the one thing about her legacy you would never want us to forget?
Dallas: I think her name forever belongs in a list of early trans organizers and activists. She stands with Louise Lawrence, Virginia Prince, Ariadne Kane, Michael Dillon, Louis Sullivan, Reed Erickson, Christine Jorgensen, Marsha Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera. They all did different work, but what they did changed things. That’s how and why I hope Merissa’s name will endure. I will close by saying I hope my impressions are counterbalanced by those who were her friends and who knew her far better than I did.
END OF PART 3
Main photo: TV-TS Tapestry Issue 58 (1991), Digital Transgender Archive, © Mariette Pathy Allen
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mariette Pathy Allen for generously allowing me to use her photographs in this article. My special thanks also go to Lana Wilson of the University of Victoria Libraries and Art Collections for her invaluable assistance in locating the other photographs.
© 2026 - Monika Kowalska
Dallas Denny was born on August 18, 1949, in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and sociology from Middle Tennessee State University (1974) and a master's degree in psychology from the University of Tennessee (1977). Before dedicating herself more fully to transgender advocacy, she worked as a caseworker for the State of Tennessee and later as a behaviour analyst for the DeKalb Community Service Board in Georgia. In 1990, she founded Atlanta Gender Explorations, a transgender support group, and established AEGIS, initially known as the Atlanta Educational Gender Information Service.
She also provided start-up funding for the first FTM Conference of the Americas. In 1993, she founded the National Transgender Library & Archive, whose collection is now housed in the Joseph A. Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan. Her other publications include Identity Management in Transsexualism, while her later literary work includes the 2018 novel Chance Down the Mountain. Recognized with several lifetime achievement and pioneer awards, including the IFGE Trinity and Virginia Prince Lifetime Achievement Award and the Transgender Pioneer Award from Real Life Experience, Dallas Denny remains an important figure in the history of transgender activism and publishing.
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