Skip to content

Jamie Faye Fenton and transgender people

Jamie Faye Fenton is an American computer programmer and game developer best known for work on the 1981 game Gorf and what became Adobe Director (formerly Macromedia Director, MacroMind Director, and MacroMind VideoWorks), a precursor of the software Flash. Fenton was also an early innovator in creating the “video glitch” visual aesthetic.

After making a gender transition in the late 1990s, Fenton became an important figure in the transgender community for creating early online transgender resources in the 1990s. In 1995, with Cindy Martin and JoAnn Roberts, Fenton created and launched tgforum.com, an online forum for transgender people.

Background

Jamie Faye Fenton was born on April 25, 1954. Fenton attended University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the early 1970s. Fenton has created several notable early works of digital art and software:

  • Datsun 280 ZZZAP (1976)
  • Checkmate (1977)
  • Digital TV Dinner (1978)
  • Bally Astrocade BASIC (1980)
  • Gorf (1981)
  • Robby Roto (1981)

Fenton made a gender transition around 1998.

Comments on Bailey (2003)

In 2003, Fenton got involved in the controversy involving the book The Man Who Would Be Queen by anti-trans sexologist J. Michael Bailey. One issue was Bailey’s promotion of the concept of “autogynephilia,” a disputed “paraphilia” created by Ray Blanchard in 1989 as part of a sexualized way to divide transfeminine people into two groups:

  • “Homosexual transsexuals,” whom Blanchard considers gay males with a fetish for straight men
  • “Autogynephilic transsexuals,” whom Blanchard considers straight males with autoerotic interest in feminization

Bailey’s popularization of Blanchard’s ideas was a turning point in transgender history, where the community united in condemnation of this harmful book.

Fenton was one of the few trans people who did not condemn Bailey’s book outright, writing about “autogynephilia” as if it were settled science and reifying it as an acceptable term. Fenton was also a prominent member of an online “autogynephilia support” group. Fenton published an essay called “The Lemonade Stand of Desire” and promoted an idiosyncratic “dual motive theory,” part of writings about why people are transgender. In 2004, we corresponded at length after I put up a version of this page criticizing Fenton’s involvement and writings.

In 2012, Fenton requested that I remove this page. Fenton said the posts that I quoted “do not represent my views on the subject.”

Comments on Dreger (2016)

In 2015, historian Alice Dreger published Galileo’s Middle Finger, which reprints Dreger’s defense of Bailey that was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, a journal edited by Bailey, Blanchard, and other “autogynephilia” activists. At the same time, the journal’s editor Kenneth Zucker was being investigated for performing reparative therapy on gender-expansive children at Toronto clinic CAMH. Zucker was fired that year and the clinic was shuttered.

On March 27, 2016, Fenton and GenderPeace forum founder “Emily Hobbie” launched “autogynephilia” blogs on the same day, apparently in response to the Lambda Literary Foundation’s decision to rescind a nomination for Dreger’s book. Via The Advocate:

Reading through Dreger’s writings, it is hard to find many differences between her positions and those of intensely transphobic sources like The Federalist or hate groups like the FRC. All of them oppose the idea that transgender women are women. They all take the position that gender identity isn’t real, and they deny the lived experiences of transgender people. They all support autogynephilic theory, which is used primarily to label transgender people as sexual deviants. All of them oppose laws against reparative therapy. All of them oppose affirming models of care for transgender youth.

Tannehill (2016)

Dreger wrote an open letter denouncing Lambda Literary Foundation for their decision, and “Hobbie” and Fenton came out with new blogs simultaneously. Dreger is notorious for attempting to create the appearance of consensus for fringe ideas. It’s a shame that Fenton doubled down by siding with Dreger, further tarnishing a previously excellent legacy of service to the community.

References

Cates, Jon; Kinkley, Jonathan; Fenton, Jamie (2023). Stability Isn’t Everything It’s Glitched Up to Be: An Interview with Jamie Fenton. Art Institute Chicago https://www.artic.edu/digital-publications/36/perspectives-on-instability/16/stability-isnt-everything-its-glitched-up-to-be-an-interview-with-jamie-fenton

Riedel, Samantha (November 22, 2023). This Archive Offers an Incredible Window Into the Early Trans Internet. them https://www.them.us/story/early-trans-internet-archive

Pow, Whit (January 1, 2021). A Trans Historiography of Glitches and Errors. Feminist Media Histories. 7 (1): 197–230. https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2021.7.1.197 full text: https://online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article-abstract/7/1/197/115939/A-Trans-Historiography-of-Glitches-and-Errors

Pow, Whit (2020). Stored in Memory: Recovering Queer and Transgender Life in Software History. Letters and Science https://uwm.edu/letters-science/event/stored-in-memory-recovering-queer-and-transgender-life-in-software-history/ [not archived] https://www.proquest.com/openview/1605775af4a8e04c2d2b90faad6b7fef/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=44156

Cates, Jon (2018). Chicago New Media, 1973-1992. University of Illinois Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-252-08407-2.

Betancourt, Michael (2017). The Invention of Glitch Video. https://www.michaelbetancourt.com/pdf/Betancourt_TheInventionofGlitchVideo.pdf [archive] https://www.academia.edu/66641089/The_Invention_of_Glitch_Video_Digital_TV_Dinner_1978_

Dreger, Alice (March 24, 2016). An Open Letter to the Lambda Literary Foundation. https://alicedreger.com/llf/

Tannehill, Brynn (March 25, 2016). Lambda Literary Foundation Snuffs Out Anti-Trans Scandal.The Advocate https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/3/25/lambda-literary-foundation-snuffs-out-anti-trans-scandal

Torchinsky, Jason (October 30, 2014). Datsun Was The First Car Maker To Officially Brand A Video Game. Jalopnik https://jalopnik.com/datsun-was-the-first-car-maker-to-officially-brand-a-vi-1652829922

Donovan, Tristan (2010). Replay : The History of Video Games. Yellow Ant. pp. 74-75; p. 141. ISBN 978-0-9565072-0-4

Fenton, Jamie Faye (~2004). The Dual Motive Theory of Secondary Transsexuality. http://www.jamiefaye.com/dmt/index.html

Fenton, Jamie Faye (January 19, 2004). The Lemonade Stand of Desire. http://www.jamiefaye.com/lemonadestand.html

Newitz, Annalee (August 23, 2001). Secrets of Ms. Gorf. MetroActive https://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/08.23.01/work-0134.html

Resources

Fentonia (fentonia.com)

Jamie Faye (jamiefaye.com) [archive]

TG Forum (tgforum.com)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

WordPress (wordpress.com)

The earlier version of this profile that includes our extensive correspondence was at this URL: https://www.tsroadmap.com/info/jamie-faye-fenton.html [archive]