Purpose Statement: This resource page exists to help guide people through resources for the history of transgender people through archives, projects, and research.

Transgender History in Colorado

  • Gender Identity Center (GIC) History
    The Gender Identity Center was founded in 1980 as the first organization to specifically service the transgender community of Colorado. In 1990, the GIC had a 10 year anniversary fundraiser. The essay above mentions cross-dressing in the 1960s and is one of the few clues we have to the history of transgender people in mid-twentieth century Colorado. For more information please see the Julia Condolora collection at Denver Public Library’s Western History Department.

Archives

  • Digital Transgender Archive
    Formed in 2008, this collection is based in Boston, Massachusetts at Northeastern University. It contains digital archives from colleges, libraries, museums, nonprofits, and various user guides across the world. It
    contains over 500+ Transgender Primary Sources related to Colorado. (May take submissions.)
  • Denver Public Library Collections 
    Julia Condolora Papers (WH 2449) - Contains essays and materials related to transgender life in Colorado and newsletters of the Gender Identity Center.

Projects

  • Transgender Oral History Project
    Community driven project with the goal to collect and share stories of the transgender community around the country, creating programming such as in person exhibits, interactive workshops and more.
  • Louisiana Trans Oral History Project
    Started in 2020 and funded by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities this project preserves the stories of the state’s transgender community along with other public programming.
  • Transgender Oral History Project of Iowa
    The Transgender Oral History Project of Iowa is affiliated with the Iowa LGBTQ Oral History Project. They have oral histories done by transgender people for transgender people. To get involved just fill out the survey on their site.
  • GLBT Historical Society
    The historical society was founded in 1985, running both a museum and archive. They run two oral history projects: the Legacy Oral History Collection, with more than 500 oral histories of Bay Area residents since the 1980s, and the San Francisco Act Up Oral History Project, which preserves the stories of ACT Up/San Francisco and other AIDS direct-action groups in San Francisco.
  • B.Trans Oral History Project
    The Black Trans Oral History Project serves the black trans community. It is run by Blu Buchanan (UC Davis) and Naomi Simmons-Thorne (University of South Carolina). They work in partnership with the Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota.
  • Pembroke Oral History Project
    The Pembroke Oral History Project at Brown University contains oral histories from Brown Alumni. Contains several oral histories from transgender alumni.

Books

(For more information see: American Library Association Bibliography

  • Transgender Warrior: Making History From Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman by Leslie Feinburg (1997) Beacon Press
  • How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States by Joanne Meyerowitz (2002) Harvard University Press 
  • Crossing the Stage: Controversies on Cross-Dressing ed. by Leslie Ferris (1993) (Routledge Press)
  • Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety by Marjorie Garber (1997) Routledge Press
  • Transgender History by Susan Stryker (2007) Seal Press
  • Black on Both Sides: A Radical History or Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton (2017) University of Minnesota Press
  • Histories of the Transgender Child by Julian Gill-Peterson (2018) University of Minnesota Press
  • True Sex: The Lives of Transmen at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Emily Skidmore (2019) New York University Press 
  • Redressing America’s Frontier Past by Peter Boag (2011) University of California Press
  • Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth Century San Francisco by  Clare Sears (2014) Duke University Press 
  • Female Husbands: A Trans History by Jen Manion (2020) Cambridge University Press
  • A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski (2011)
  • Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility By Eric A. Stanley, Johanna Burton, and Reina Gosset (2017) The MIT Press
  • Cross Dressing, Sex and Gender by Vern and Bullough (1993)
  • Drag: A History of Female Impersonation in the Performing Arts. By Roger Baker (1994) New York University Press
  • Blending Genders: Social Aspects of Cross ­Dressing and Sex­ Changing. Richard Ekins and Dave King (1996) Routledge
  • Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures. By Sabine Lang (1998) University of Texas Press.
  • The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. By Walter L. Williams (1986) Beacon Press
  • Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India. By Serena Nanda (1990) Wadsworth Pub. Co.
  • Cassell’s Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and  Transgender Lore ed. by Spark et. al (1997) 
  • Crossing the Stage: Controversies in Cross Dressing ed. by Ferris (1993)  
  • Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in America ed. by Marc Stein (2004) 
  • Passage Through Trinidad: Journal of a Surgical Sex Change by Claudine Griggs (1996)
  • Tranifesto: Selected Columns and Other Ramblings from a Transgendered Mind by Matt Kailey
  • Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America by Esther Newton
  • Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America by Will Roscoe
  • Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History by ed. by Herdt (1990)

Primary Sources