Digital Transgender Archive

Janice Covington Allison oral history interview 1, 2016 April 9

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In this first in a series of interviews, Janice Covington, a transgender woman and political activist in Charlotte, North Carolina, discusses her formative years and her early adult life. She recalls her early struggles with gender identity, noting that her family doctor prescribed testosterone shots when she was an adolescent in the belief that she was not developing physically as a male. She also recounts her delight in discovering a magazine photograph of transgender people in San Francisco, which gave her insight into her identity as a female. Ms. Covington details her broader experiences growing up in Delaware with a father who served in World War II, as well as her own military service in the U.S. Army and her discharge after multiple bullet wound injuries in 1967. She recounts her experience living as a transgender woman in San Francisco where she located in search of community after leaving the military, and her move from there to Chicago around 1970. Ms. Covington relates that despite the wider gay community in Chicago, her gender identity prevented her from pursuing important life goals and she decided to live again as a male. After this reversion, Ms. Covington met and married her wife and moved to North Carolina where she raised a family and pursued a successful business career until the tragic death of her wife. Additional topics discussed in the interview include discussion of the work of the Imperial Court and the Lavender Panthers, and changes in the naming of transgender people over time.

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