Digital Transgender Archive

Appreciating the Digitization of Transgender History

In 1995, activist Lisa Ann Jayne said: "Some day ... maybe in about 20 years, the historians of our moment will not take out a pen, but will take out their cybervisor, and they will imagine words onto a screen. They will record the history of this movement, and they will record the history of our people and the folks who turned it around, who passed the first laws, who were elected judge for the first time."

As I processed this speech from the 1995 International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy, I was struck by the significance of uploading these collections to the Digital Transgender Archive. We are indeed recording the history of the transgender movement.

Phyllis Frye contributed three of our new collections with the hope that they "encourage people to know more of this history," and they document her personal life journey (from an Eagle Scout and US Army veteran to the first openly transgender judge) as well as the evolving transgender movement (from the International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy to the lobbying for trans inclusion in anti-discrimination legislation).

This speech by Lisa Ann Jayne reminded us that the work we are doing at the DTA is ensuring that the evidence of the transgender movement and experience is preserved and accessible to people around the world.