D.J. Beck

D.J. Beck is a person who was interviewed about their transition journey in a 1978 issue of Philadelphia Gay News. Statements from Beck indicate that if they were alive today, they might identify under the nonbinary/genderqueer umbrella.

Beck began transfeminine transition (including feminizing hormone therapy and voice training), lived as a woman for a year and a half under the name Kimberly Ann Grant, then ceased taking feminizing hormones.

In the Philadelphia Gay News interview, Beck stated "[Our culture feels] that one must be male or one must be female. Our society demands that you cannot be both, you cannot be in between, you cannot be flexible." Beck also said that "As much as I felt uncomfortable as a male, I felt unnatural as a female." The interview concludes with Beck saying, "I learned that I'm something that we haven't put a label on yet. I'm something that I think a lot of men and women will someday be able to accept and admit they are: people of a personal psyche that doesn't have to be male or female. [...] The time is coming when we will quit thinking in terms of he or she, and live in the shades of gray."