Elisa Rae Shupe

Elisa Rae Shupe (August 10, 1963 – January 27, 2025), formerly Jamie Shupe, was a soldier in the United States Army who in 2016 became the first person in the United States to obtain legal recognition of a non-binary gender. In 2019, she released a statement explaining that she had "returned to [her] male birth sex". In 2022, she published a statement reclaiming her trans identity and condemning the anti-trans movement due to her story being used to push conversion therapy.

Early life

Assigned male at birth, Shupe was born on August 10, 1963, in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Southern Maryland with seven siblings.

Military service

Shupe began serving in the U.S. Army before the enactment of "Don't ask, don't tell". That November, she was issued a birth certificate in Washington, D.C., with a sex marker of "unknown". San Diego Gay and Lesbian News'' argued that her case was a "significant victory for the trans community".

In 2018, Shupe critiqued gender-affirming surgery, cautioning against what she said were high complication rates. She also expressed opposition to transgender people serving in the military.

Detransition

In January 2019, Shupe announced that she no longer identified as non-binary and was returning to identifying as male.

Retransition

In 2021, Shupe began using the name "Lisa Shupe", and in 2022 published a statement that during her detransition she helped sell conversion therapy to the public while privately self-medicating with estrogen, which resulted in a life-threatening blood clot. She stated: "I also authored this to hopefully prevent these groups from further using me as a pawn in their vicious war, legislative and otherwise, against the transgender community. For the record, I have formally renounced my previous ties and allegiance to radical and gender-critical feminists, conservatives, and faith-based groups."

Publication and copyright controversy

In 2023, Shupe self-published an autofiction novel titled "AI Machinations: Tangled Webs and Typed Words" that was extensively written using ChatGPT artificial intelligence software.

Upon initial submission of her copyright application, the US Copyright Office (USCO) declined to register her work as their policy does not extend copyright protection to AI-generated content. Subsequently, Shupe sought an appeal, contending that she should be afforded copyright protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on the basis that she used ChatGPT as an assistive technology due to her cognitive disabilities. The appeal further asserted that she should be granted copyright for the selection, coordination, and arrangement of the AI-generated text. yet did not extend copyright protection to the actual sentences and paragraphs themselves. This effectively allows Shupe to prevent the unauthorized reproduction of the entirety of the book. and have one daughter. She was found wrapped in a transgender pride flag. In her suicide note, Shupe refused an American military burial for herself.