Before Sandy Stone joined the Lesbian Separatists at Olivia Records, and before she became

a founder of what we now called trans studies, before all that, Sandy was a recording engineer

in the late 60s at the record plant. That is a storied recording studio in New York City, which is still

there, and Sandy worked with people like Jimmy Hendrix and a slew of That is a storied recording studio in New York City, which is still there.

And Sandy worked with people like Jimmy Hendrix and a slew of others,

but after Jimmy Hendrix, does it really matter who else I list? And I had just dropped into the scene from, keep in mind, Annapolis, Maryland.

So I was not exactly up to speed with the rate of New York sex.

And people like Andy Warhol and the factory and all that were going in and out,

which was even more gender confusing.

And so I did not come out of that with any clear idea of who I was.

That didn't happen until later.

Sandy eventually moved to California, and it was there that the seeds of what became her essay called,

The Empire Strikes Back, a Post-Transexual Manifesto, it was the seeds of that that began to take root.

This is the document that is often pointed to as a founding document of trans studies.

It is the thing that helped to establish trans studies as an academic discipline.

And for something written 40-plus years ago,

given how much trans experience has changed since then,

it still reads totally modern.

Now, today, Sandy Stone is in her late 80s,

and just last week,

she became the first trans woman ever inducted

into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

...