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• 1 2021-02-20T19:18:29-08:00 Striving for Trans-Inclusion 8 plain 2021-02-21T20:33:32-08:00

  
  Curve’s writers and photographers documented their community’s diverse gender presentation and increasingly embraced trans inclusivity over the years. Stevens told Buzzfeed that Curve was radical within lesbian culture for including women who wore makeup, grew long hair, or had children, all of which seem obvious today.¹ At the same time, Curve regularly included positive depictions of androgynous and butch lesbians.
  
  
  
  The publication explored the continuum of butch and transgender identity early on, in its groundbreaking interview with Stone Butch Blues author Leslie Feinberg, who told Victoria Brownworth in August of 1993,
   

  “I am a woman, I am a butch, I am attracted by high- femme. Does that mean who I am is defined solely by those aspects of me? [We] have such narrow definitions of who we are as a community. I want to see that broadened.” - Leslie Feinberg ²

  In September of 2006, Curve published a series of articles by transgender people their lovers, and family members, to start a dialogue within the lesbian community. Editor Diane Anderson Minshall had a personal stake in such conversations after her partner transitioned, and struggled “to maintain my identity as a lesbian (or a lesbian-identified bisexual) without invalidating my partner's identity as a man. ³ ” Sonja Elen Kisa taught readers the basics of transgender identity and explained how lesbians could avoid transphobic behaviors like asking questions about surgery and conflating transgender individuals with crossdressers in “How to Respect a Transsexual Person.” ⁴ The issue also included an interview with Kate Bornstein, and articles on trans documentaries and trans activists “every dyke should know about.” This issue demonstrated that Curve respected difference and strived to unite the lesbian and queer community.
  
  
   

  1. Bianco, Marcie. “This Is What 25 Years Of Lesbian Culture In Print Looks Like.” BuzzFeed. Accessed December 22, 2020. https://www.buzzfeed.com/marcieb4f1ba695b/25-years-of-lesbian-culture-curve-magazine.
  2. Brownworth, Victoria A. "Leslie Feinberg and Transgender Liberation,” Denueve, August 1993.
  3. Anderson-Minshall, Diane. “Gender 101” Curve, vol. 16, no. 7, Sept. 2006, p. 52.
  4. Eager, Jo. “How to Respect a Transsexual Person,” Curve, vol. 16, no. 7, Sept. 2006, p. 53-55