Trans* Success

Claude Cahun (1894-1954) was a French artist, photographer and writer. Her work was both political and personal, often playing with the concepts of gender and sexuality. She was the niece of writer Marcel Schwob and the great-niece of Orientalist David Léon Cahun. Her mother’s mental problems meant that she was brought up by her paternal grandmother, Mathilde Cahun. She began making photographic self-portraits as early as 1912, when she was 18 years old, and she continued taking images of herself through the 1930s. Around 1919, she settled on the pseudonym Claude Cahun, intentionally selecting a sexually ambiguous name, after having previously used the names Claude Courlis (after the curlew) and Daniel Douglas (after Lord Alfred Douglas). During the early 20s, she settled in Paris with her life-long partner and stepsister Suzanne Malherbe. For the rest of their lives together, Cahun and Malherbe (who adopted the pseudonym “Marcel Moore”) collaborated on various written works, sculptures, photomontages and collages. She published articles and novels, notably in the periodical “Mercure de France”.

Around 1922 she and Malherbe began holding artists’ salons at their home. Cahun’s work encompassed writing, photography, and theater. She is most remembered for her highly-staged self portraits and tableaux that incorporated the visual aesthetics of Surrealism. Her published writings include “Heroines,” (1925) a series of monologues based upon female fairy tale characters and intertwining them with witty comparisons to the contemporary image of women; Aveux non avenus, (Carrefour, 1930) a book of essays and recorded dreams illustrated with photomontages; and several essays in magazines and journals. Cahun’s life was marked by a sense of role reversal, and her public identity became a commentary upon not only her own, but the public’s notions of sexuality, gender, beauty, and logic. Her adoption of a sexually ambiguous name, and her androgynous self-portraits display a revolutionary way of thinking and creating, experimenting with her audience’s understanding of photography as a documentation of reality. Her poetry challenged gender roles and attacked the increasingly modern world’s social and economic boundaries. Also Cahun’s participation in the Parisian Surrealist movement diversified the group’s artwork and ushered in new representations. Where most Surrealist artists were men, and their primary images were of women as isolated symbols of eroticism, Cahun epitomized the chameleonic and multiple possibilities of the female identity.

In 1932 she joined the Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires. Following this, she started associating with the surrealist group, and later participated in a number of surrealist exhibitions, including the London International Surrealist Exhibition (New Burlington Gallery) and Exposition surréaliste d’Objets (Charles Ratton Gallery, Paris), both in 1936. In 1934, she published a short polemic essay, Les Paris sont Ouverts, and in 1935 took part in the founding of the left-wing group Contre Attaque.  In 1937 Cahun and Malherbe settled in Jersey. Following the fall of France and the German occupation of Jersey and the other Channel Islands, they became active as resistance workers and propagandists. Fervently against war, the two worked extensively in producing anti-German fliers. Many were snippets from English-to-German translations of BBC reports on the Nazi’s crimes and insolence, which were pasted together to create rhythmic poems and harsh criticism. The couple then dressed up and attended many German military events in Jersey, strategically placing them in soldier’s pockets, on their chairs, etc. Also, fliers were inconspicuously crumpled up and thrown into cars and windows. In many ways, Cahun and Malherbe’s resistance efforts were not only political but artistic actions.

Note:In some areas this role model is listed as a trans male, however, due to the fact that she appeared to go back and forth between multiple genders, we are listing her under Androgyne and Genderfluid. Apologies for any incorrect pronouns, there is no mention of Claude’s preferences.

Gluck, born August 13, 1895, was a British painter born into a wealthy Jewish family that founded J. Lyons and Co., a British coffee house and catering empire. Gluck’s American-born mother was an opera singer and Gluck’s brother, Sir Louis Gluckstein, was a Conservative politician. The parents were not supportive of their child’s artistic pursuits, but Gluck received systematic art training at their expense at St. John Wood School of Art in London from 1913 to 1916.  The dynamic young artist then traveled to Lamorna, Cornwall and worked with other artists of the “Newlyn School,” a group of landscape painters who formed an artists’ colony at Newlyn, Cornwall. Gluck’s father gave Gluck a trust fund that allowed the pursuit an independent life. By that time, Gluck had a cropped haircut, shortened name and dressed exclusively in male attire, insisting on being known only as “Gluck,”. Gluck painted landscapes, floral pieces and portraits of friends, family, and lovers (all women).

Using a portion of the trust funds, Gluck bought a studio in Cornwall. It was there in 1923 that a meeting with the American expatriate artist Romaine Brooks occurred. The two painted each other’s portrait in Gluck’s studio. Brooks’ famous portrait of Gluck, “Peter”, was done between 1923 and 1924. At the end of the 1920s, Gluck’s father increased the funds, allowing for the purchase a larger home, named Bolton House, in Hampstead. Shortly after moving in, Gluck met the decorator and society florist, Constance Spry. In the 1920s and 30s Gluck became well known for floral paintings favored by the interior decorator Syrie Maugham. Gluck insisted on being known only as Gluck, “no prefix, suffix, or quotes”, and when an art society of which Gluck was vice president identified Gluck as “Miss Gluck” on its letterhead, Gluck resigned. Gluck identified with no artistic school or movement and showed Gluck’s work only in solo exhibitions, where they were displayed in a special frame Gluck invented and patented.

In 1944 Gluck moved to Chantry House in Steyning, Sussex, living with lover Edith Shackleton Heald. In the 1950s Gluck became dissatisfied with the artist’s paints available and began a “paint war” with British Board of Trade and commercial paint manufacturers to increase their standards. Fortunately, the Arts Council of Great Britain, British Colour Manufacturers Association, and two important museums backed these efforts. Ultimately, Gluck persuaded the British Standards Institution to create a new standard for oil paints. In Gluck’s seventies, using special handmade paints supplied free by a manufacturer who had taken Gluck’s exacting standards as a challenge, Gluck returned to painting and had another well-received solo show. The three-year process of organizing the exhibition was hard work, and Gluck suffered a heart attack in November 1972. The exhibition at the Fine Arts Society in London opened six months later and was a great success. The fifty-two pieces that Gluck included in the exhibition were highly praised and also sold well. It was, however, to be the last exhibition of Gluck’s lifetime.

Note: Please excuse the lack of pronouns in the above piece.  While it is argued by some that Gluck was a trans man, several clues hint that this famous painter may have been in fact androgynous.  The absence of pronouns is an attempt to give respect to Gluck’s desire only to be known as “Gluck” and not by any other term, which we infer as he, she, xy or any other word.  Furthermore, we have found no indication that “Peter” was a first name chose by Gluck, but rather the name of a painting alone.  Because of the fact gender identity is uncertain, you may find this role model listed under both trans male and androgyne.

At birth, Tony Briffa’s doctors couldn’t determine his gender. He had a rare intersex condition known as Incomplete Testicular Feminisation that made his gonads release estrogen even though he genetically tested as male. So on his doctor’s advice his parents raised him as a girl named Antoinette—they painted his room pink, gave him dolls at Christmas and made him wear frilly dresses to school. The frequent hospital visits for hormone therapy and surgery made him feel like a freak: his parents had him castrated at age seven and even though he told his doctors as a pre-teen that he felt like a boy, they ignored him and continued administering female hormone therapy, something that filled him with desperation and thoughts of suicide as he entered his teenage years.

As an adult, Briffa married his first boyfriend, but the marriage didn’t last long. Because Briffa was raised a woman and felt attracted to females, he thought he might be lesbian, but his not-completely feminine body made him feel uncomfortable with that identity too. He eventually became a full-time foster parent to two loving siblings—a 15-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy—and decided to go into Australian politics. Tony is now the mayor of Hobson’s Bay, Victoria. As such, he’s the world’s first ever openly intersex mayor. Life as a man has not been easy for Briffa. He has suffered repeated hospitalizations due to infections associated with his ongoing testosterone treatments.

On his website, he writes:

I feel very comfortable having accepted my true nature. I am not male or female, but both. I am grateful for the years I lived as a woman and the insight and experiences it gave me. I am still ‘Antoinette’ and have now also incorporated and accepted my male (‘Anthony’ or ‘Tony’) side. I feel whole. I’ll continue to live as Tony but I feel I am now at a point in my life where I can celebrate being different.

Apologies for not knowing Tony’s preferred pronouns.

Debra “Debbie” Davis is an award-winning two spirited, transgender educator, activist and nationally renowned inspirational speaker, trainer and author.  She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Education, a Master’s degree in Media and Technology, and has completed post-graduate work in  Communications.  Debbie is the new Executive Director and creative coordinator for “Spiritual Insights” an educational cooperative who’s sole purpose is to help spiritual seekers live in joy through inner peace & personal empowerment. They orchestrate, promote and produce events, workshops and seminars, focused on living in joy.


She is a retired high school librarian who came out in May of 1998 as a transgender woman (though she now considers herself to be two-spirited) at Southwest High School in the Minneapolis Public Schools.  This highly publicized transition was believed to be one of the first successful transitions in the nation, of a transgender person working with children in secondary education.  She worked successfully for the next three and one-half years in that position and recently retired after 32 years in education.  Debbie is also the founding Executive Director of the Gender Education Center, a small nonprofit organization of differently gendered people dedicated to support, advocacy and education.  Over the last 20 years they have presented over 1,100 workshops and presentations involving more than 45,000 participants.   She is consulted by employers, law enforcement, human rights agencies and nonprofit service providers regarding policies that affect transgender people and is especially effective in coordinating workplace transitions for transgender employees.

Debbie is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences and conventions throughout the country.  Many colleges bring her to their campus to draw attention to LGBT issues.  Her dynamic, thought-provoking presentations move and inspire audiences.  She spends a great deal of time with her two grown daughters, their spouses and 5 awesome grandchildren.  Debbie makes no secret of the fact that she is transgender and is well known and respected in her community.  Debbie continues to be an out, proud and visible transgender person working for human rights in our communities.

Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American singer, model and actress who is self admits to being androgynous. She describes herself as feeling both masculine and feminine, but doesn’t like to label things such as gender and sexual orientation. When interviewers have attempted to pin down if she considered herself to be bisexual, she confessed attraction to men and women but saw no need to call that anything in particular. Grace says “It’s ridiculous trying to categorize people’s feelings” and challenges us to ask: what is masculine / feminine?

Before becoming a successful model in New York City and Paris, Jones studied theater at Onondaga Community College. Her musical output is popular in American clubs as many of the singles were hits on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Play and Hot Dance Airplay charts. Jones was able to find mainstream success in Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, scoring a number of Top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart. During the 1970s, she also became a muse to Andy Warhol, who photographed her extensively. During this era she regularly went to the New York City nightclub Studio 54. The colorful artwork and design for Jones’ three first albums and accompanying single releases were created by another of Warhol’s longtime collaborators, Richard Bernstein.

Jones is also an actress. Her acting occasionally overshadowed her musical output in America; but not in Europe, where her profile as a recording artist was much higher. She appeared in some low-budget films in the 1970s and early 1980s. Her work as an actress in mainstream film began in the 1984 fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the 1985 James Bond movie A View to a Kill. In 1986 she played a vampire in Vamp, and both acted in and contributed a song to the 1992 film Boomerang with Eddie Murphy. In 2001, she appeared in Wolf Girl alongside Tim Curry.

Grace is well known for her incredibly wild behavior. To her credit she has decked an interviewer and fought with an airline pilot before getting off the plane to lay on the runway in protest. “I do what I want,” Grace says. Her outfits, outrageous and fantastic, mirror her personality beautifully. The below video is a tribute clip to just some of Grace’s many outfits that she actually wears out and about as well as models in.

S Bear Bergman (born September 22, 1974 as Sharon) is a transgender author, poet, playwright, and theater artist.  Despite a transition into a more masculine looking form, Bergman identifies as neither male nor female and prefers pronouns “ze” and “hir”.

Ze was educated at Concord Academy, was one of the founders of the first Gay–straight alliance, a member of the Governor of Massachusetts’ Safe Schools Commission for LGBT youth, and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Hampshire College in 1996.

Bergman’s work has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in the GLBT Nonfiction category and a was finalist in the Lambda Literary Award.  Bear’s most recent book, co-edited with transsexual author Kate Bornstein is Gender Outlaws: The next Generation, which won a 2011 Lambda Literary Award in the LGBT Anthology category and a special Judges Award from the Publishing Triangle.  In addition, ze continues to lecture and perform solo shows at colleges and universities throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

In 2005, Bergman was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant for playwriting, as well as a Millay Colony for the Arts Fellowship award.  Ze lives in Toronto, Ontario, and is married to activist J Wallace. They have one son, Stanley, whom you can see in the picture above.

IBM Workforce Diversity Policy

Equal opportunity in the workplace is also one of our primary concerns at Trans* Success.  Directly from their website IBM had the following to state about their policies:

Business activities such as hiring, training, compensation, promotions, transfers, terminations and IBM-sponsored social and recreational activities are conducted without discrimination based on race, color, genetics, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or status as a special disabled veteran or other veteran covered by the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Act of 1974, as amended.  In respecting and valuing the diversity among our employees and all those with whom we do business, managers are expected to ensure that there is a work environment free of all forms of discrimination and harassment.

The Advocate ran a story October 2011 talking about the fact that “In addition to offering coverage for gender-reassignment surgery, IBM created a webcast on the topic of gender identity and expression that features transgender workers talking about their experiences and answering questions from other employees. The webcast is available to all IBM employees worldwide,” says IBM executive Silvy Vluggen.  Click the photo above to be taken to IBM’s diversity website.

#2 from TQ Check out Morty Diamond on Trans* Success