Profiles of Transgender Courage: Holly Boswell

Holly Boswell was an American transgender woman and activist, advocate and organizer who carried out most of her work in North Carolina. She was an author and is credited with creating the first transgender symbol of the emerging transgender movement in 1993.

She was born in November of 1950 and studied English literature at Oberlin College in Ohio. Many of her family members were religious and she endeavored to follow in their footsteps until she realized that her deepest sense of spirituality existed in nature. This and her background in literature and performing arts led to a movement of free gender expression in Asheville, North Carolina in 1980. She founded the Asheville Phoenix Transgender Support Group, the first open transgender support group in the southeast corner of the United States and organized innovative seminars at transgender conferences starting in 1991. In 2000, she built a year round retreat facility for people who questioned their gender identity or their spirituality.

In 1990, Boswell published an essay which appeared in Chrysalis Quarterly which was entitled "The Transgender Alternative". She also had many other essays published in a variety of other publication outlets. Boswell wrote in one of her essays. “We need to recognize that each of us, in our own small way, are makers of our culture, We can exercise that function best by expressing our true selves, not by simply fulfilling our culture’s expectations. We are all in transition.”


Holly Boswell, a pioneer of the modern transgender movement, died on August 12, 2017, of heart failure. She was 66 years old.