{{Short description|Transgender activist}} {{unreliable sources|date=September 2025}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = Doctor | name = Steve Dain | image_size = | caption = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1939|7|9}} | birth_place = | death_date = {{Death date and age|2007|10|13|1939|7|9}} | death_place = | education = {{Indented plainlist| *University of California, Berkeley (BA, 1961) *University of California, Berkeley (MA, MPhEd, 1963) *Life Chiropractic College West (DC, 1988), *Life Chiropractic College West (ND, 2006)}} | occupation = Teacher, professor, activist | known_for = Transgender activism | spouses = {{Plainlist| *{{Marriage|Patty Costello|1979| |end=divorced}}<ref name="Montandon">{{cite news |last= Montandon|first= Pat|date= 18 December 1979|title=My Christmas Party|location=California|publisher= San Francisco Examiner}}</ref>}} }}
'''Steve Dain''' (July 9, 1939 – October 10, 2007)<ref name="obit">{{Cite news |date=October 13, 2007 |title=Steve Dain |url=https://www.eastbaytimes.com/obituaries/steve-dain/ |access-date=September 10, 2025 |work=ANG Newspapers}}</ref> was an American educator and activist who fought to keep his job as a schoolteacher after receiving gender-affirming surgery.<ref name="eville">{{cite news |last1=Arias |first1=Rob |title=District Issues Official Apology to Trans-Rights Pioneer Steve Dain, Emeryville Street Renamed in his Honor |url=https://evilleeye.com/news-commentary/education-news-commentary/district-issues-official-apology-to-trans-rights-pioneer-steve-dain-emeryville-street-renamed-in-his-honor/ |access-date=10 September 2025 |work=The E'ville Eye |date=March 24, 2021}}</ref> Following his legal battle with the school district and his resignation in 1978, which was covered in the national press,<ref name="stumbo1978">{{Cite news |title=Transsexual Teacher, Broke and Disillusioned, Tires of Fighting |last=Stumbo |first=Bella |url=https://i0.wp.com/evilleeye.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Steve-Dain.jpg?resize=1320%2C1421&ssl=1 |newspaper=LA Times |date=July 31, 1978}}</ref> he became an advocate for transgender rights and a mentor to other trans men.
== Early life ==
Dain was born on July 9, 1939. He grew up in Oakland, CA, and attended high school at Oakland Tech, graduating in 1957. Dain attended UC Berkeley, receiving his B.A. in 1961 and his Master's degree in Physical Education and Child Development in 1963.<ref name="obit"/>
Dain taught at Arroyo, Mission, and Kennedy High Schools before joining the faculty of Emery High School as a Physical Education teacher in 1966.<ref name="obit"/>
== Transition and firing ==
Dain was a successful teacher at Emery High School, earning a "teacher of the year" award and achieving tenure, but he struggled with the distress of living as someone he was not, noting later, "I wanted to be who I was. I wanted to also fit. And to be who I was 'and' fit would not go together."<ref name="evilpride">{{cite news |last1=Arias |first1=Rob |title=Pride Month Special: Former Emery High Teacher & Trans Rights Pioneer Steve Dain |url=https://evilleeye.com/history/pride-month-special-former-emery-high-teacher-trans-rights-pioneer-steve-dain/ |access-date=10 September 2025 |date=June 25, 2019 |work=The E'ville Eye}}</ref>
In 1976, Dain took six months' sick leave to seek gender-affirming hormone therapy and surgery at Stanford with Dr. Donald Laub,<ref name="ftmint">{{cite journal |title=Dr. Steven Dain MA DC ND– 20th Century Bay Area FTM Health Care Professor |journal=FTM International |date=June 2008 |issue=67 |url=https://vault.library.uvic.ca/concern/generic_works/6006c78f-ceca-4a8e-931c-7e91c3b7a99e?locale=en}}</ref> legally changed his name, and grew a beard and mustache. When he returned to Emery High that summer, community reactions were mixed, with students showing curiosity about what had happened while parents and the school superintendent raised concerns.<ref name="evilpride"/>
=== Termination and lawsuit === In October 1976, the school district suspended Dain on grounds of "unfitness, immoral conduct and dishonest use of sick leave".<ref name="stumbo1976">{{Cite news |title="Teacher Sparks Battle Over Sexual Identity: Woman-To-Man Transformation Divides Town" |last=Stumbo |first=Bella |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times/33153886/ |date=November 22, 1976 |newspaper=LA Times}}</ref> Dain sued for wrongful termination and was successfully reinstated, but the board moved to fire him for wrongful use of medical leave.<ref name="evilpride"/>
In 1978, after a two-year legal battle that drove him nearly to bankruptcy, Dain resigned in order to collect his pension. Two weeks later, an Oakland Superior Court judge ruled that he must be given a choice between the suspension or accepting an outright dismissal, which would entitle him to back pay retroactive to the day he was suspended.<ref name="stumbo1978"/> Dain was ultimately awarded $19,000.<ref name="bay">{{cite news |url=https://www.ebar.com/story/301239/redirect/News/News/ |title=Emeryville OKs last step for Dain street renaming |last=Ferrannini |first=John |date=January 20, 2021 |work=The Bay Area Reporter}}</ref>
== Later career and death ==
Unable to return to his teaching career, Dain worked as a tile-setter and in construction, then pursued and attained a Chiropractic Degree from Life Chiropractic College West in 1988, after which he opened a practice in Union City.<ref name="evilpride"/><ref name="obit"/>
Dain then became a biology professor at Ohlone College in Fremont. He completed a Doctor of Naturopathy degree in 2006.<ref name="evilpride"/>
Dain was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001 and died on October 10, 2007.<ref name="obit"/>
== Activism and mentorship == Dain became a reluctant but outspoken advocate for transsexual rights after appearing in news media. In 1977, he was interviewed with Christine Jorgensen by Geraldo Rivera.<ref name="ftmint"/> Dain was also featured in the 1985 HBO documentary "What Sex Am I?" directed by Lee Grant.<ref name="evilpride"/>
He gained recognition in 1978 and 1979 for attending Christmas parties hosted by Pat Montandan. The first party he is mentioned to have attended was in 1978. He was in attendance with other notable activists and public figures including Phyllis Lyon, Charlie Gain, Eldridge Cleaver, Daniel Ellsberg, Sacheen Littlefeather, and Dianne Feinstein.<ref>{{cite news |last= Orr|first= Robin|date= 12 December 1978|title= They all came to Pat's party|location= California|publisher= Oakland Tribune}}</ref> He attended a second Christmas party in 1979 with then-wife Patty Costello; other attendees included the activist and folksinger Joan Baez, Merla Zellerbach, Rollo May, Janet Gray Hayes, and defense attorney George T. Davis.<ref name="Montandon">{{cite news |last= Montandon|first= Pat|date= 18 December 1979|title=My Christmas Party|location=California|publisher= San Francisco Examiner}}</ref>
He was sought out as a mentor by other members of the trans community who read of his firing in the news, several recalling that his photo was the first photo of a trans man they had ever seen.<ref name="stumbo1976"/><ref name="laughed">{{cite book |last1=Sullivan |first1=Lou |title=We Both Laughed In Pleasure |date=September 17, 2019 |publisher=Nighboat Books |location=United States}}</ref><ref name="stryker2008">Stryker, Susan. "The Difficult Decades." In [https://archive.org/details/transgenderhisto0000stry_o1w1/mode/2up?q=%22lou+sullivan%22 Transgender History]. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2008.</ref>
In his diaries, activist Lou Sullivan describes reading about Dain in the Los Angeles Times and writes that when the two met in 1979, Dain encouraged Sullivan to proceed with transitioning. The two stayed in contact until Sullivan's death in 1991.<ref name="laughed"/>
Poet Jamison Green met Dain at a gathering hosted by Sullivan, and wrote about him in his book ''Becoming a Visible Man'': "He did not [transition] because being a man was somehow better than being a woman, but because it was the only thing he could do to be himself."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Doyle |first=Jude Ellison S. |date=February 28, 2024 |title=How Jamison Green's visibility paved the way for a generation of trans men |url=https://xtramagazine.com/culture/books/jamison-green-trans-visibility-263476 |work=Xtra Magazine}}</ref>
Writer Max Wolf Valerio met Dain after Green, and notes, "In those days, most trans men in the Bay area went off on a pilgrimage to meet him as we entered medical transition. [...] It was nearly a ritual, a rite of passage to meet with Steve."<ref name="ftmint"/>
== Apologies and honors ==
Dain received an official posthumous apology from the Emery School Board in 2021, stating: "We regret the harmful actions taken by the district at that time. Mr. Dain was right to expect to return to his job."<ref name="eville"/>
The Emeryville City Council renamed the street that the gym faces in Dain's honor.<ref name="eville"/>
== References ==
{{reflist}} {{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dain, Steve}} Category:1939 births Category:2007 deaths Category:20th-century American educators Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:Schoolteachers from California Category:American transgender men Category:LGBTQ rights activists from California Category:American chiropractors Category:LGBTQ people from California