I Met Her

Digital Transgender Archives
College of the Holy Cross

I remember the first time that I met Alison, it was up at Fantasia Fair in Provincetown in 2000. She was one of the organizers for the fair but at the time I didn’t know who she was, it wasn’t until later that I found out about her history.

PHOTOS: This Trans Woman Dared to Be Herself in 1960s America
The Advocate

Meet Alison Laing. Between 1956 and 1965, the young transgender woman was the subject of 36 photographs, taken from  by an unknown individual (most likely her wife, Dottie Laing). These images comprise the first album in the groundbreaking Digital Transgender Archives at the College of the Holy Cross, a 173-year-old Jesuit Catholic college in Worcester, Mass. In this first image of Laing, she appears sharply attired outdoors on the boardwalk in front of a mini-golf course and a motel. —Cleis Abeni

Here Laing is seen at an unidentified person’s home sometime between 1956 and 1965. Laing’s photographs are some of the most remarkable records of a proud, out trans woman taken during that era. Today, Laing remains a prominent leader in the movement toward affirmation of transgender Americans. She founded the Renaissance Transgender Association, served a term as director of the International Foundation for Gender Education, and directed Fantasia Fair, an annual gathering in Provincetown, that, more than 40 years after its founding, remains the longest-running trans-affirming conference in the United States.

She is a remarkable woman, her health has dropped off and she is not attending Fantasia Fair anymore .