Jamison Green is an artist who speaks and an advocate who writes about the various aspects, issues, and challenges associated with transgender issues in general, with a special focus on the female-to-male transsexual experience and transgender men. As the leader of FTM International (from April 1991 to August 1999), Jamison worked for the 1994 passage of San Francisco’s Transgender Protection Ordinance and went on to help draft state-level legislation. He’s the author of Becoming a Visible Man (Vanderbilt University Press, 2004), awarded “Best Book in Transgender Studies” in 2005, and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Invited to give university lectures around the world, he has also provided Transgender Awareness Training for employees and managers at such organizations as IBM, Capital One Bank, Lucent Technologies, Kaiser Permanente Hospitals, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Since 1990, he has tailored sessions for groups as diverse as the International Chaplaincy program at San Francisco General Hospital, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, Community United Against Violence (CUAV), the American Psychological Association, Tulane and the U.C. Davis Medical Schools, the YWCA, and Planned Parenthood. He conducted Transgender Awareness Training for the San Francisco Police Academy from 1995 through 2005, and trained the entire City of Berkeley Police Department in March and April, 2001. He has served as an expert witness in court cases involving transgender people in California and Colorado, and has given public lectures on transgender issues and transsexualism in Tokyo, Taipei, London, Oxford, Manchester, Paris, Lyon, Stockholm, Malmö, Copenhagen, Oslo, and in numerous American cities. He has also appeared in ten educational films, most notably “You Don’t Know Dick” and “Changing Sexes: Female-to-Male,” in scores of newspaper and magazine articles, and on radio and television programs broadcast around the world.  He has 30 years of business experience in technical communications, manufacturing, and senior level management.

Jamison was born in 1948 in Oakland, California, and adopted as an infant by a couple wanting a girl, but his male tendencies were apparent from an early age. Even as a toddler, he refused to wear dresses, and although his body was female, he exhibited male traits. He was athletic and excelled in sports as a girl, and he was often ridiculed for his masculine appearance. At fifteen, he began to use the androgynous name “Jamie,” and by the time he reached his early twenties, he suspected that he was transsexual but was afraid to undergo a sex change, fearing that to do so would be an indication of mental imbalance and doom him to a marginalized existence.

As an adult, Jamison was in a long-term lesbian relationship and his partner gave birth to two children through donor insemination. Jamison was named as father on both birth certificates, although he had not yet become legally male. His daughter, with whom he enjoys a close relationship, was born in 1985. He began his transition in October 1988, roughly six months before their son was born. His partner ended their relationship two months after their son’s birth.  Jamison became legally male in April 1991, at which time his own birth certificate was corrected and reissued. Shortly thereafter, his former partner had Jamison’s name removed from their son’s birth certificate, and he was restricted from seeing the boy for the next 10 years, but he is now working to rebuild that relationship. In 2001, he met Heidi Bruins, a businesswoman and social justice activist, and they were married in 2003. Jamison and Heidi work together on many projects, and support each other in working for a safer, healthier world for all people.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Jamison currently works as a trainer and policy consultant for a variety of organizations, businesses and governmental institutions, and he is enrolled in a research Ph.D. program in Law at Manchester Metropolitan University in England, which he will complete in 2009. He holds an MFA in English/Creative Writing from the University of Oregon (1972).

Jamison also serves on the boards of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the Transgender Law & Policy Institute, The Equality Project, and on advisory boards for the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Institute for Intersex Children and the Law, Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, and the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University. He is also an active member of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT).

We are excited and proud that Jamison Green has joined TYFA. His extensive experience and many accomplishments will certainly be a valued contribution to our mission. You may send him a welcome note at jamisong@imatyfa.org