At some point in time, you may realize that you are not alone in what is at the top of your mind, and you start gathering people around you. People who are like you, or almost like you. It does not matter whether it is about playing tennis, playing cards, or doing yoga, you create a group.
In our case, it went just like that. Because we want to share experiences, inform other people, and also want to have some impact on our society, we have created a foundation.
Activities
We organize nice get-togethers (every second Saturday of the month) in a great community center in Eindhoven. But we do much more than that. Transgender persons still suffer from discrimination, even though they are just normal people. For some people this is a difficult subject to discuss. But the desire to show your gender identity at work or out on the streets, or to at least be able to speak about it, cannot be denied. That is what we fight for. We speak at schools, in organizations, and with authorities, and we take part in informative events. So we try to gain a place for transgender people in our society. Sounds good, right? And why not?
Why indeed! Because everybody has the right to be themselves. Tall or short, young or old, colored or white, male or female. And also if you feel neither a woman, nor a man, or sometimes more male or more female, or if you decide to change your gender identity forever.
We simply find that everybody should be able to feel happy about their identity and live a happy life. At home on the couch, but also at work, or in any other activities you like.
Our mission is the emancipation of transgender people and organizing get-togethers for them.
Many people may still know us as T&T Eindhoven. We have been organizing these get-togethers since 1981.
At TG040 we welcome everybody who is involved in any way with cross dressing or transsexuality, or has an interest or sympathy for this. Many of our guests bring their partner (spouse, significant other), or occasionally a friend, a neighbor, a colleague, or other family members.
The TG040 foundation is led by a steering committee, where all the hosts discuss our policies. We regularly have special events, like the New Year’s Buffet on the second Saturday of a year, gala-evenings, Oktoberfest, and workshops in make-up, hairdo, etcetera.
Goals
a. Help transgender *) people in (self)acceptation and guidance as far as we can.
b. TG040 aims at integration, social acceptance, emancipation, and equal treatment for transgender people.
c. We want to facilitate communication between people and organizations that are involved with transgender in one way of another.
d. We want to improve knowledge about and imaging of transgender people.
*) Transgender is, in our view, an umbrella term for all forms of expression ranging from cross dressing to transsexuality. This includes cross dressers, non-binaries, drag queens & kings, intersexual and transsexual people, etc.
History
T&T Eindhoven came into existence in 1981. A group of brave people followed the example they had seen in Amsterdam, and in November of that year, the first T&T-evening in Eindhoven took place. Initially the meetings took place in de Tramstraat, later in community center “De Rondweg” and nowadays in Gemeenschapshuis Genderdal. For 28 years Yvon Kraaijeveld was in charge of all this, until she had to pass on the stick due to her illness. She passed away on November 28th, 2009.
In connection with the 25th anniversary of this initiative, a steering committee was formed with the volunteers who helped Yvon during (and outside of) the evening events. When Yvon’s health started to deteriorate, we had to start thinking about a way to continue T&T Eindhoven into the future. This resulted in the foundation of “Transgendergroep Eindhoven” on December 2nd, 2009. On January 1st, 2016 this foundation was split into TG040 and a self-help group for young people, which operates under the wings of COC.
So ever since then it is the TG040 foundation who successfully organizes a T&T-evening every month in Eindhoven, Noord Brabant. In the past, it must have taken a lot of courage to organize such evenings. In those days everything had to be done secretly behind closed doors. Walking the street as a man dressed in female attire could result in getting arrested or beat up in back then. We are no longer getting arrested, but there still is a lot of intolerance out in the streets. But things are improving; there is more knowledge in our society about cross dressing, and about transgender, and transsexual people.
Lately we see a great influx of transgender internationals in the Eindhoven region. That is why we have decided we should clearly show on our site that you can also communicate with TG040 in English.