Nancy Nangeroni is an American diversity educator and transgender community activist. She is a founder of GenderTalk Radio, the award-winning talk show about gender and transgender issues that was broadcast from 1995 to 2006 on

WMBR WMBR is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's student-run college radio station, licensed to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and broadcasting on 88.1 FM. It is all-volunteer and funded by listener donations and MIT funds. Both students and commu ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

. Nangeroni served as an executive director of the

International Foundation for Gender Education International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE) was an American non-profit transgender advocacy organization. The foundation was devoted to "overcoming the intolerance of transvestitism and transsexualism brought about by widespread ignorance. ...

and Chair of the Steering Committee of the

Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition'' (MTPC) is an organization dedicated to ending discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression. The MTPC educates the public, lobbies state and local government, and encourag ...

Career and impact

Nancy Nangeroni created the talk show GenderTalk Radio in 1995. The show was focused on transgender history and contemporary issues and co-hosted by Gordene MacKenzie and Nangeroni herself. It was broadcast weekly for over 11 years, ending in 2008. In the early 1990s, Nangeroni also founded the Boston area chapter of

The Transexual Menace The Transexual Menace, or The Menace, is a transgender rights activist organization founded in New York City in 1993. It was the first direct action group of its kind, and grew to be a national organisation with 24 chapters. After a period of dorm ...

. Throughout the decade, she wrote about trans and gender issues, co-editing and publishing the collection ''In Your Face: The Journal of Political Activism'', and commented continuously on anti-transgender violence and bigotry in Boston-area newspapers. In 1995, after the murder of transgender youth

Brandon Teena Brandon Teena (December 12, 1972 – December 31, 1993) was an American transgender man who was raped and later, along with Phillip DeVine and Lisa Lambert, murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska, by John Lotter and Tom Nissen. His life and death are ...

, Nangeroni helped organize one of the first national actions against trans violence. The demonstration was held outside of

Falls City, Nebraska Falls City is a city in and the county seat of Richardson County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 4,133 at the 2020 census, down from 4,325 in 2010 and 4,671 in 2000. History The site of Falls City is located on the north side of ...

, and was attended by over 40 trans activists, including

Leslie Feinberg Leslie Feinberg (September 1, 1949 – November 15, 2014) was an American butch lesbian, transgender activist, communist, and author. Feinberg authored '' Stone Butch Blues'' in 1993.

and

Kate Bornstein Katherine Vandam Bornstein (born March 15, 1948) is an American author, playwright, performance artist, actor, and gender theorist. In 1986, Bornstein started identifying as gender non-conforming and has stated "I don't call myself a woman, I ...

. With Transexual Menace, Nangeroni led the vigil for

Rita Hester Rita Hester (22 March 1964 – 28 November 1998) was a transgender African American woman who was murdered in Allston (Boston), Massachusetts, on November 28, 1998. Hester was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1964. She moved to Boston in ...

, a Black transgender woman murdered in

Allston, Massachusetts Allston is an officially recognized neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was named after the American painter and poet Washington Allston. It comprises the land covered by the zip code 02134. For the most part, Allston is ...

on November 28, 1998. The event of violence towards a transgender person inspired the International

Transgender Day of Remembrance The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR), also known as the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, has been observed annually from its inception on November 20 to memorialize those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia. The ...

, a campaign held annually to remember and honor the lives of transgender people reported murdered during the year. Nangeroni said of the International

in 2014: "Until people no longer suffer violence for daring to openly live their true gender, the TDOR remains an important reminder of the worldwide hostility, violence, and murder that too many brothers, sisters, and genderqueers suffer every day. TDOR is about remembering and honoring victims and standing together in the community against gender-based hate

At the time of Hester's death, Nancy Nangeroni chronicled the troubled media response to the event. In 2000, to commemorate the second anniversary of the murder, Nangeroni interviewed Hester's mother Kathleen and younger sister Diana on GenderTalk. From 2006 to 2008, Nangeroni and MacKenzie co-produced and co-hosted "'GenderVision'',' an educational cable television program about gender identity."'' Nangeroni is a Chair Emeritus of the

, where she served for six years.

Personal life

Early life and transition

Nangeroni was born in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

and raised in

Milton, MA Milton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Milton is an immediate southern suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. The population was 28,630 at the 2020 census. Milton is located in the relatively hilly area between the Neponset ...

. For many years, a closeted Nangeroni privately identified as a crossdresser or

transvestite Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes traditionally or stereotypically associated with a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and express onesel ...

, but lived publicly as a

cisgender The word ''cisgender'' (often shortened to ''cis''; sometimes ''cissexual'') describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, i.e., someone who is not ''transgender''. The prefix '' cis-'' is Latin and ...

man. Later, she moved to Silverlake, Los Angeles. When she was 27, she collided with a car while riding her motorcycle, leaving her hospitalized for many weeks. This experience led Nangeroni to decide to come out to her family as a transgender woman; while her parents were supportive, she did not immediately begin to live publicly as a woman. Upon returning to Boston, Nangeroni subscribed t
TAPESTRY
a publication for trans and gender-nonconforming people published by the Tiffany Club and the

. She attended

Fantasia Fair Fantasia Fair (also known as FanFair) is a week-long conference for cross-dressers, transgender and gender questioning people held every October in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a small Portuguese fishing village and largely gay and lesbian tourist ...

Provincetown Provincetown () is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States census, Pr ...

, MA and there felt that she was able to live freely as a woman for the first time; after that she became active in the trans and crossdressing community.

Later life and activism

Starting in the 1990s, Nangeroni became an activist and leader in the Massachusetts transgender community. Nangeroni also worked as an electrical engineer until 2004, when a spinal injury forced her to leave the field. In 1998, Nangeroni met her partner Gordene MacKenzie, with whom she produced GenderVision and Gender Talk. They lived together in

Cambridge, MA Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 U.S. census was 118, ...

, and then

Beverly, MA Beverly is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, and a suburb of Boston. The population was 42,670 at the time of the 2020 United States census. A resort, residential, and manufacturing community on the Massachusetts North Sho ...

until the mid-2010's. Since 2017, she has focused on design work and memoir writing. Nangeroni and MacKenzie married in 2018 and currently live in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. Her website details her current work, including past membership on the board of the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico.

Awards and recognition

In 2000, GenderTalk received an award from

GLAAD GLAAD () is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization. Originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portrayals in the media and entertainment industries, it has since ...

for "Outstanding LGBT Radio". In 2020, Nancy Nangeroni was an honoree for the 2020 HistoryMaker Awards, presented by The History Project, Boston's LGBTQ+ archive.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nangeroni, Nancy Living people American transgender women Activists from Massachusetts People from Cambridge, Massachusetts LGBTQ people from Massachusetts Transgender rights activists 1953 births Transgender history in the United States