Nancy Nangeroni bio

Nancy with Gordene
Nancy (L) with her life partner Gordene O. MacKenzie

Nancy Nangeroni has been doing transgender education, advocacy, and activism since joining the community in 1990.  In 1995 she founded GenderTalk Radio, the award-winning talk show about gender and transgender issues on WMBR in Cambridge, MA.  GenderTalk attracted an international audience to GenderTalk.com and broadcast weekly for over 11 years as the leading media program on transgender issues.  She also co-produced GenderVision, an educational cable and online video series about gender.  In 1998 she led the vigil for murdered transwoman Rita Hester that inspired the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, and she went on to lead Boston’s TDOR Organizing committee for over 10 years.   She served 6 years as Chair of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and helped build the organization.  She continues to advocate for transgender dignity and equality and has been repeatedly honored for her contributions to, and pioneering work on behalf of, the transgender community.

Gender Education

At Boston Pride in 2013

Nancy currently serves on the Board of the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico, an amazing resource for trans folks all across New Mexico.  She served as Chair of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition from 2008 to 2014.  During her tenure MTPC grew from a tiny group of volunteers into one of the country’s leading statewide trans advocacy organizations.  MTPC led the successful passage of the statewide Transgender Equal Rights Act, as well as subsequent legislation securing public accommodations rights.   Nancy previously served as executive director of the International Foundation for Gender Education, a leading transgender education and outreach organization, in 1997-8, in order to rescue the organization from impending insolvency and improve the quality of its flagship publication, Transgender Tapestry magazine.

At MIT in 2006
At MIT in 2006

Nancy is a respected writer and editor on transgender issues and has published many articles and essays in a variety of publications, including chapters in several books and pieces in Bay Windows; The Boston Phoenix; Transgender Tapestry magazine; Sojourner, the Women’s Forum; GCN, The National Queer Progressive Quarterly, and more.  In the early days of the transgender movement, in the 1990s, Nancy made pivotal presentations on gender issues to the American Psychological Association, the Human Rights Campaign, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, Lucent and Bell Atlantic Corporations, MIT and Harvard University, University of New Mexico and more.  Her work was noted in the New York Times in 1996 and she has appeared on local and national commercial prime-time radio and television broadcasts to discuss issues of gender and transsexualism. She was profiled in a groundbreaking A&E Investigative Reports piece, The Transgender Revolution, which first aired in 1998.

GenderVision

GV-bannerIn her first co-creation with her partner Gordene O. MacKenzie, she co-produced the music video In Memory of Rita in remembrance of the candlelight vigil for murdered transwoman Rita Hester, an event that inspired the International Transgender Day of Remembrance. From 2006 to 2008, Nancy and Gordene co-produced and co-hosted “GenderVision“, a cable television program aimed at educational use. They periodically co-produce video pieces, most recently Rally for Transgender Rights, a short film that played in the 2011 Boston Museum of Fine Arts GLBT Film Festival.

GenderTalk Radio

In 1995 Nancy began producing and hosting “GenderTalk”, a radio talk show about gender, transgender issues and progressive politics airing weekly on WMBR-FM in Cambridge, MA, and worldwide starting in 1997 at www.gendertalk.com. She was joined in this effort by her partner Gordene in 1999, and in April 2000 GenderTalk received the GLAAD award for “Outstanding LGBT Radio”. GenderTalk’s website provides easy access to an archive of over 400 programs. While the production of GenderTalk ended in late 2006, the website continues to serve thousands of visitors monthly.

Gender Activism

photo by Mariette Pathy Allen

Nancy founded the Boston chapter of The Transexual Menace, a ‘disorganization’ of transgender activists, and co-initiated, starting in 1995, a nationwide campaign to put a stop to violence against transgender people by direct action. Over the next few years, she was a lead organizer and participant in demonstrations in Kansas City, Falls City Nebraska, Colorado Springs, Washington DC, Chicago, Burlington Vermont and Boston. At the same time she led Boston’s Transgender Pride contingent, and authored the amendment to the Cambridge Human Rights Ordinance which passed unanimously and broke new legislative ground in providing broad protection for freedom of gender expression and identity. She co-edited and published In Your Face, the journal of political activism against gender oppression, the first periodical to chronicle hate crimes committed against transgender persons. She conducted early trans diversity trainings for the Human Rights Campaign national board of directors and governors, as well as local chapters of GLAD, Planned Parenthood, Lucent Technologies, Verizon, Bell Atlantic and more. She led the candlelight vigil for murdered transsexual Rita Hester in 1998, which inspired the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, and for many years led the committee that organized the annual Boston TDOR observance.  Nancy has been interviewed countless times and continues to speak out on issues relating to transgender people.

Technology

An MIT-degreed electrical engineer with over 20 years of industry experience, Nancy ended her successful engineering career in 2004 because of a spinal injury.  In a stunning bit of good fortune,  the injury self-resolved in 2017 and she is now returning to doing design work, along with finishing and getting published her memoir of transition from engineer to activist.

Personal

Nancy
Nancy enjoys writing, designing, empowering other activists, and communing whenever possible with nature and animals.  But most of all, she enjoys spending time with her partner of over 20 years, the love of her life, Gordene.  Newly moved to Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico, she and Gordene got “legally hitched” in February of 2018, and are enjoying developing their connections to animals, including humans, in and around their new home.