Sandy Stone: From Lesbian Separatist to Trans History

"Gender: I'm doing it in this conscious/critical/theoretical way. Kids are doing it in this totally unconscious way because many of them have just absorbed it and it feels good."

There have been many twists and turns throughout Sandy Stone’s 88 years on earth.

She got her start at the Record Plant, a storied recording studio here in New York City where she worked her way up and eventually became a sound engineer for Jimi Hendrix.

Sandy went on to work with Led Zeppelin and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young before quitting the mainstream music industry, transitioning, and then rejoining the music industry as the sound engineer for Olivia Records.

"Olivia was a lesbian separatist record company. We specifically did not want to work with male musicians. And in fact, we avoided them at all costs. We wanted to promote, to feature, to advance the cause of women musicians. And we did." 

I love this yearrrrrning love song that the now-iconic Cris Williamson released with Olivia Records in 1975, Sweet Woman.

In 1979, while at Olivia, Janice Raymond published The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. On top of being vehemently anti-trans, it also called Sandy Stone out by name. This flipped her entire life onto its head, culminating in a dramatic meeting with lesbians from across the country, which Sandy explains at length in this week’s interview.

This moment is crucial because it led Sandy to write a response, The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto, an essay that’s now considered the founding document of trans studies.

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We’ll be back next week with Ma-Nee Chacaby, a two-spirit activist and artist from Canada.

Thanks for listening.

Much love,
Jeffrey
@jeffmasters1

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