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A Brief History

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Back in the dark ages of December 1986, a letter went out saying that a group in Indianapolis Indiana was going to be formed. Our first meeting was held on Jan 29th, 1987 at the 21 Club (now defunct). There were 13 of us. Some of those were Betty Watson, Emily Singleton, Yvonne Cook, Lori ?, Laura?, Bobbi Allison and Shannon Michaels.

By April we had agreed on a name for our group. Most of us had no idea what a TV, CD or TS was, let alone M2F or F2M. And any group anyone knew about had Greek letters. Many of us had heard of Tri-Ess but didn't really know that all those Greek titles were their chapters. We wanted our name to say where we were from, Indiana. So there was an "I". Most of us were crossdressers and that was "C". We put in "S" for Society and thus was born "ICS". We then Greekafied it. Iota for the "I". There is no "C" in Greek so we picked Chi since it sounds like a "C" and looks like an "X" or a cross, (ain't symbolism great?) and Sigma for "S". Using Greek letters that becomes , (pronounced IXE) or Indiana Crossdressers Society.

Later on we dropped the title Indiana Crossdressers Society when we became more diversified and actually had a clue as to what we were doing. Now we just go by the letters IXE.

Our thanks to Heather of CrossPort for putting our activities in their newsletter in those early days. From day one we had a monthly or almost monthly newsletter. From January to June Betty put out 1 to 2 pages of information. The May 87 issue was the first to use the IXE name and to list our PO Box. In August of 87, Bobbi did one issue then took over full time in November. She did the newsletter until October of 88. Since that time, except for one or two more by Bobbi, Shannon has done the newsletter.

Since that time we have been in about every Indy Pride, from the days down at the Circle to the current location at University Park. We are still educating folks, both gay and straight about who we are. We also have celebrated our 20th anniversary. That makes us the oldest group in Indiana. Thanks to all of our members, past and present for helping us make it. May we see another twenty.