I believe that SOFFA stands for Significant Others, Family, Friends, and Allies. I'm an A for Ally. There have been many people working on trans family support and for t-inclusion in PFLAG. The history that I give you is only the part that I was involved in. As others post their intros, you'll be learning about other aspects of the our work together.
I became interested in T-issues back in the summer of 1995. Sarah DePalma and Phyllis Frye were raising the issue and I wrote to them, and then Phyllis introduced me to Sharon Stuart, who is now the office manager (is that her title?) of ICTLEP -- the International Conference of Transgender Law and Employment Policy (http://www.abmall.com/ictlep/). Sharon is bigendered and was known to PFLAG as Tom Heitz, the chapter liaison in Cooperstown New York. Sharon's intro is on the web at (late 1995 because January 1996 is mentioned in the future tense) http://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/sharon.htm
Soon after Sharon and I met, Sharon wrote to Sandra Gillis, who was then executive director of PFLAG. I was aware that PFLAG had something called "special outreach networks" and that there would be a "transgetnder caucus" at the annual meeting in Indianapolis. So Sharon and I went to Indianapolis with the intent of using the caucus to establish a Transgender Special Outreach Network (T-Son), as a stepping stone toward transgender inclusion in PFLAG. Mary Boenke, from Roanoke, who had been a regional director with PFLAG, also came to Indianapolis with the intension of establishing a Transgender Special Outreach Network. Mary had a personal interest. Her lesbian daughter had recently told her that she would become Mary's son.
Mary's intro, also late 1995 is at http://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/maryboenke.htm
My tgs-pflag intro isn't there -- all I see is my January 3, 1996 article "a day on the internet" http://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/maggie1.html
At the Indianapolis conference I somehow corralled Emily Rizzo, PFLAG cybermom exgtraordinaire, into our transgender meetings. By the end of the conference we had a PLAN :-) Emily would become owner of an internet list "tgs-pflag" which would provide family support and be the means through which we organized the T-SON and brought t-inclusion to PFLAG.
Emily is also an A for Ally. Her intro is http://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/emily.htm
Annie Johnson, the two-spirted coordinator of the 1995 TG workshop in Indianapolis was another founder of tgs-pflag, and Robyn Serven of Arkansas was one of our list facilitators back in that first year.
http://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/robyn.htm
http://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/annie.htm
In January, 1996 Kitten found the list. Note that except for Mary, the original founders of tgs-pflag were either allies or tgs. Kitten and Bob Gross were the second set of parents that were involved in tgs-pflag. Her summer of 1996 intro identifies Kitten as a leader of the upcoming 1996 TG workshop at the National Conference in Washington. There's a golden oldie on that page: Karen's first post tgs-pflag.
http://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/kitten.htm
Emily Rizzo was the listowner for tgs-pflag and we quickly had 100 members, mostly transgenders. But this was fine -- Parents were learning and the tgs had a space to talk about family issues.
I unsubscribed from the list, because my thing isn't support -- it's organizational stuff. Mary Boenke's speciality was recruigting chapter liaisons for the Transgender Special Outreach Network. T-SON had became an official PFLAG entity in the spring of 1996. This list, tgs-pflag, continued. tgs-pflag is "not managed or monitored by National PFLAG. -- it's managed by the PFLAG T-SON.
During 1996 and 1997 we developed some handouts which we distributed at PFLAG and TG conferences and mailed to chapters for local photocopying and distribution. The first one is based on a primer by Jessica Xavier. The other two were by Nancy Sharp.
Our Transgendered Childrenhttp://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/tgkidfaq.htm
http://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/gid.htm
Our first newsletter featured articles by Pat Milligan "How did I start out with a melancholy catholic daughter and wind up with a contented Jewish Son?" Jan Flecher: "Life is more fun married to a transsexual" and Kitten Gross: "Getting support on the net, giving support on the ground."
http://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/transparent.htm
The tgs-pflag list continued as a support list, and we developed a second list "pflag-t-son" for organizational business. Our first major project (all this was before the mission statement was changed) was the booklet "Our Trans Children" Jessica Xavier was the lead author. I think that 10,000 copies were printed (but Pat Milligan knows, I don't. I do recall that 13,000 copies were ordered for the 2nd edition. The booklet is, or was, on the web. But I can't find it. Romana?
Somewhere along here Emily turned the tgs-pflag list over to Jan Flecher. Mary Boenke kept developing the network of "t-coords" the liasons to PFLAG chapters. In 1998, in San Francisco, 3 years after the Indianapolis Conference, National PFLAG adopted the new transgender-inclusive mission statement.
In the meantime Kitten and Bob Gross had established the Cleveland Group, TransFamily, which she'll tell you about. Pat and Linda Milligan were leading the Philadelphia group, and others who are on this list were doing other real-world things which I really haven't ketp up with. Raquel Rice succeeded Jan Flecher as listowner of tgs-pflag and I turned over pflag-t-son to her Raquel as well.
But alas, Raquel needed someone else to be listowner, due to other committments and the job reverted to me. I'm still an ally, but transgender issues aren't where I spend my time anymore -- PFLAG is now transgender inclusive, and that was the milestone which I was focused on. I'm good at email lists, I own a bunch of them, but I've not been paying attention to this one except technically.
But I do know that a round of introductions is always a good thing.
So lets do it!! There are 181 people on this list -- Who are the Significant Others? the Families and Friends? the Allies? the transgenders? Who is working in PFLAG chapters and trans-family support groups? What writing and speaking have you been doing?