0.20. Dialing in to Gender: Tracing Trans Internet History with Avery Dame-Griff
History is Gay
Leigh Pfeffer
4.6 • 536 Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 2023
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this interview episode, Leigh sits down with scholar and creator of the Queer Digital History Project Avery Dame-Griff to discuss his book The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet and all it contains about the magic of the evolution of trans folks on the internet. From BBSes (bulletin board system) to Twitter, we discuss how trans people have always existed on and created their own unique spaces on the World Wide Web, tapping into Avery's extensive research, interviews, and media archaeology.
Where to find more from Avery Dame-Griff online:
Also, some additional awesome news about internet trans history!
As listeners may know, Leigh works at the GLBT Historical Society for their day job. And recently, a volunteer archivist, Cara Esten Hurtle, discovered an amazing CD-ROM containing the entirety of Transgender Forum, (TGForum.com) from 1995 to 1998, one of the largest trans communities online at that time, that Avery Dame-Griff also covers in his book! Hurtle uploaded the CD-rom online for anyone to peruse and it's absolutely amazing to see the 90s trans community right there before your very eyes!
The discovery has been covered by them online in a fantastic article which you can read here: This Archive Offers an Incredible Window Into the Early Trans Internet.
And you can peruse the CD-Rom of TGForum.com here, where Cara uploaded the archive! Just click the "START.HTM" file in the tgfcd window, and browse to your heart's content! Want Leigh to do an interview with Cara about her discovery? Let us know!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, y'all, just a quick little bit up in the intro here before we get into this amazing interview. |
| 0:07.6 | I wanted to let you all know that in this interview, I'm going to be talking with Avery Dame Griff about the history of the early trans internet. |
| 0:17.3 | And there's actually been a really, really wonderful discovery that has just come out |
| 0:21.5 | as I was working on this episode. As you may know, I work for the GLBT Historical Society for my |
| 0:27.6 | day job. And recently, one of our volunteer archivist, Kara Esten Hurdle, found this amazing CD-ROM |
| 0:36.0 | of the first four years of TransgenderForum.com, which was one of the |
| 0:42.5 | largest repository of trans materials and community on the 90s internet. And she has uploaded it |
| 0:52.1 | online for anybody to see. It was covered in Them magazine online. And so we've put |
| 0:58.7 | links to this in our show notes as well as the blog post on our website. And you should definitely |
| 1:04.0 | go check that out if you want to see some of the really wonderful kind of spaces that trans folks were talking to each other on the internet |
| 1:13.2 | in those early days that me and Avery go into a little bit in our conversation. |
| 1:18.2 | Enjoy. |
| 1:19.4 | We've always been here every single year from ancient gays right up to today's see history is queer |
| 1:33.3 | Some think it's a new way |
| 1:37.3 | But we've got something to say |
| 1:41.3 | History is very, very, very, very, very gay. |
| 1:47.0 | Hello everyone, welcome to a bonus episode of History is Gay. |
| 1:55.0 | I'm Lee Feffer, your host, and today I'm sitting down with a wonderful scholar who has written the book that I wish I had |
| 2:04.2 | when I was younger on the dark, dark corners of queer internet as I was growing up. I am sitting |
| 2:13.3 | down today with Avery Dame Griff. He is a lecturer in the Department of Women's and Gender |
| 2:18.5 | Studies at Gonzaga University. He founded and curates the Queer Digital History Project, |
| 2:23.4 | and he is the author of a new book that just came out in August called The Two Revolutions, |
... |
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