alan hart! he was a pioneer for using x-rays to diagnose tuberculosis. in general, he spent most of his life researching tuberculosis and documenting how it affects the human body. and also a novelist who wrote a bunch of really cool novels and short stories with queer characters. he was also the first documented trans man to transition medically in the united states, and one of the first trans men to have a hysterectomy in i think it was 1917.
in the seventies (so twenty ish years after he died), this guy named jonathan ned katz argued that alan was a butch lesbian presenting male in order for it to be acceptable for him to marry a woman. alan's widow, edna, flat out refused any interviews with katz on the grounds that alan was her husband, and neither of them were lesbians.
after that, in 1981, an oregon-based lesbian and gay rights organization called right to privacy began hosting a fundraising dinner called the "Lucille Hart" dinner that brought in over $100,000 yearly. (lucille was alan's deadname, and he spent years working towards changing it and being known only as alan.) right to to privacy began to portray alan as a lesbian hero, and of course the trans community began protesting this erasure like crazy, and rightfully so. there was no reason to erase alan's gender expression and replace it with an interpretation that he did not choose, especially when edna (his wife) maintained the position that she was not a lesbian and neither was alan. edna knew alan best probably out of everyone and she supported him literally undyingly.
in 1995 right to privacy released a statement defending themselves: "We continue to believe that Lucille Hart made a choice to represent herself as a man based on the oppression of society at large ... It is our belief that by honoring the beginning of her life as a woman, as well as the end of her life as a man, we bring greater dignity and respect to one of Oregon's greatest lesbian and gay heroes."
after that, the lesbian avengers and the ad hoc committee of transsexuals got together and decided that they were going to publicly protest the right to privacy dinner. ad hoc members crashed a lecture about dr hart that referred to him as lucille with a 20-foot banner that said "HIS NAME WAS ALAN!" that year, outside the right to privacy dinner, the lesbian avengers and ad hoc committee and friends protested and handed out over 400 flyers protesting the name of the dinner and the fact that they were calling alan a lesbian hero. they asked that they recognize alan as a transsexual hero alternatively.
that being said, in '96, right to privacy caved and changed the name of the charity dinner to the "Right to Pride dinner, removing Alan's name altogether.
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