Fantasia fair

Fantasia Fair is a week-long transgender event held every October in Provincetown, MA, a small Portuguese fishing village and largely gay and lesbian tourist village on the very tip of Cape Cod. It is attended by cross-dressers and transgendered and transsexual people, their loved ones and families, and helping professionals.

At its inception in 1975, Fantasia Fair was ten days long and considered an event for heterosexual crossdressers. Most of the programs focused on personal presentation, and the registration fee, which included housing, was quite expensive. By the 1990s, however, the nature of the attendees was more diverse, including both male-vectored and female-vectored transsexuals as well as crossdressers, transgenderists, and genderqueer people of every sexual orientation. The registration fee had become less expensive, partly because the event was shortened from ten to seven days, partly because of a decision to let attendees arrange for their own housing, and partly because of cost-cutting measures. Programs had changed from a focus on cosmetics and hair to an external focus on political activism, transgender history, and personal growth.

Unlike most transgender conferences, Fantasia Fair is not based in a convention hotel. Attendees stay in a score or more small bed and breakfasts, eat in a variety of restaurants around town, shop in boutiques, and attend workshops scattered throughout the village. The number of attendees is small compared to other transgender conferences, which, in combination with the informal and friendly nature of Provincetown, gives Fantasia Fair an intimate air which is much-valued by attendees.

Fantasia Fair's parent organization is Real-Life Experiences, Inc., a nonprofit corporation which makes annual awards to transgender pioneers at a banquet held during the Fair.

Fantasia Fair's website is http://www.fantasiafair.org