THE NEW

TRANSSEXUALS

The Next Step In Human Evolution

GEORGE

PETROS

Interviews with Transsexuals,

Transgender-identified individuals,

and a gal with a hands-on fetish for Trans guys

Managing Editrix

Deanna M. Lehman

Introduction by

Fred H. Berger

Contributing Editors

Manuel Otto Vasquez, Rio Warner,

John Aes-Nihil, Stanton LaVey

First cover photo of Amanda Lepore by Fred H. Berger

Second cover photo of Buck Angel by Isauro Cairo

Digital consultant: Robert Lund

Thanks: Dr. Bruce Ritchie, Michael Andros, Christine Clemmons, Johnny Hell, Sharon Hate, Les Barany, Steven Blush, Tony Mann, Felice Ecker at Girlie Action, Bill Coleman at Peace Bisquit, Aimee Phillips, Bambi Weavil, Fred’s friend who shall remain anonymous, Paul, Peaches, Andy & Toby

Dedicated to my grandparents Robert Luther Wallace & Nellie Wallace née Carroll, and Hierapolis Demetrius Petros & Bertha Petros née Urban, my aunt Harriet Petros, and my uncle Robert Owen Wallace. Where are they now?

THE NEW TRANSSEXUALS

The Next Step In Human Evolution

by George Petros

ISBN: 978-1-84068-191-8

Published 2012 by Creation Books

www.creationbooks.com

Copyright © George Petros 2012

All world rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, posted on any internet site, stored in any database, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or by any technology not yet developed, without the prior written consent of the publisher. Any such copyright infringement of this publication may result in civil and criminal prosecution.

Contents

Preface by George Petros

Introduction by Fred H. Berger

Dr. Becky Allison by George Petros

Buck Angel by Manuel Otto Vasquez

Thomas Beatie by Rio Warner

Dr. Marci Bowers by George Petros

Mina Caputo by George Petros

Jayne County by George Petros

Laverne Cox by George Petros

Ginger Coyote by George Petros

Goddess Bunny by John Aes-Nihil & Manuel Otto Vasquez

Ian Harvie by Deanna M. Lehman

Andrea James by George Petros

Bailey Jay by George Petros

Jules Jive by John Aes-Nihil & Manuel Otto Vasquez

Harvey Katz by George Petros

Amanda Lepore by George Petros

Jordana LeSense by George Petros

Kiki Leekey by Manuel Otto Vasquez

Siobhan Meow by George Petros

Gizelle Joslyn Messina by Manuel Otto Vasquez

Pina Newman by Fred H. Berger

Our Lady J by Manuel Otto Vasquez

Romie Romak by Manuel Otto Vasquez

Nomi Ruiz by George Petros

Annie Sprinkle by George Petros

Les Nichols & Annie Sprinkle transcript of a porn video

Juliette Stray by Stanton LaVey

Terre Thaemlitz by George Petros

About The Author

Preface

by George Petros

This book is about sex changing and rearranging. In it we interview Transsexuals, Transgender-identified individuals, and a gal with a hands-on fetish for Trans guys. The interviewees range from academics and professionals to hustlers and whores. For a year we approached Trans VIPs, asking them to tell us who they are, what they do, and what they want.

This book ain’t a survey, an overview or a compendium. It doesn’t purport to be inclusive or to represent any slice of the social pie. There’re lots of other Trans VIPs out there, but they’re not part of this snapshot for one reason or another, including: they ignored us; they were suspicious of our motives; they were too cool.

I harbor a fascination with scientific and medical aspects of the Transsexual phenomenon. It’s like a Science Fiction novel come to life, wherein future people ignore geneticists’ immutable dictates and switch roles in the most basic human drama. Can’t you just imagine scenes from a Seventies Sci-Fi flick in which hot actors and actresses step into phone-booth-like boxes festooned with flashing lights, and then step out as the opposite-gender analog of themselves? And then later they switch back! All this in furtherance of pleasurable pursuits — and high-mindedness, of course.

In the beginning I wanted to do a book about Intersexuality. I believe that my grandfather’s brother, Freddy Wallace, might have been — in the lingo of a former era — a Hermaphrodite. I know next to nothing about him. He was born circa 1915, served in the Navy during World War Two, and lived in Chicago. Family scuttlebutt painted him as different, or odd, or queer. Eventually I asked my grandmother if he was Gay. “Well,” she replied, “he’s not really like that — he’s both.” Both? “Well, he’s kinda like both a man and a woman. I don’t know anything else — I don’t want to talk about it — don’t ask me about it again.” She resisted further interrogation, repeating the same answer over and over, despite my escalating resolve.

Late in his life Freddy ran off with some guy. The guy didn’t know how to contact our family when Freddy died, and so the government buried him in a pauper’s cemetery, in an unmarked grave, forgotten forever. So, as a sort of homage to him, I wanted to do a book about Intersex people. I wanted to do some sorta shout-out to mysterious Freddy who probably lived a life of great pain sprinkled with occasional great pleasure, surviving among the steel mills, factories and train yards of gritty, grimy Chicago.

When I was formulating my ideas, I thought that Intersexuals and Transsexuals existed on a morphological continuum, since both exhibit sexual characteristics of male and female genders — but I’ve discovered otherwise since then. In fact, much separates the two. In the envisioned book, I was gonna include both camps, comparing and contrasting. But I couldn’t find any Intersexual individuals who would allow me to interview them!

So, I dropped the Intersex part and focused on Transsexuality. “Amazing! Astounding! People can transform from one gender into the other. Unbelievable!” Such things were unheard of in days gone by. It opens up a whole new phase in the evolutionary process. And of course I find the Transsexuals themselves to be very interesting, very smart, very talented and very different from the everyday person — while at the same time being so normal, if I may say that, and so typical.

I wonder how Transsexuality might impact the course of human evolution. Accordingly, I had so many high-falutin’ ideas — I was gonna write all these essays and theories and treatises — but I realized, Who cares what I think? Let the interviewees tell their own stories.

I couldn’t have done this book without the amazing efforts of my cohorts. Thank You Deanna, Paul, Fred, Manuel, Rio, John and Stanton. I appreciate the interviewees taking the time to accommodate our requests. I’m grateful to those who provide the digital tools that make my work possible. I’m blessed to live in a time of limitless possibilities.

George Petros

Brooklyn, New York

December 2011

You’ve Come

A Long Way, Baby

Introduction by Fred H. Berger

Propaganda, “Heroes” issue, Winter 1998/99. Photo: Fred H. Berger

As publisher and editor-in-chief of Propaganda, America’s leading alternative-lifestyle magazine of the Eighties and Nineties, I had chronicled the tumultuous ebb and flow of various underground scenes from Hardcore Punk to Goth to Fetish to Queer (more or less in that order) and finally to the Transsexual subculture — that inevitable last-stop of the Counterculture subway line which I had traversed over a period of some twenty years. Thanks to the good offices of Eva, a Transsexed makeup artist and stylist on my staff, I was introduced to this as-yet-uncharted territory. In her capacity as a DJ at Lucky Cheng’s, the East Village Asian-cuisine restaurant famous for its Ladyboy waitresses, I was given an eye-opening glimpse into a mercurial underworld of asymmetrical gender orientation. Hanging out in the DJ booth, I had a front-row seat from which to observe the parade of painted, plucked and gender-fucked creatures of the night who weren’t going to let a little thing like XY chromosomes get in the way of their flamboyant XX identities. Not to mention their admirers, affectionately known as “Tranny chasers” — Wall Street types, frat boys and homies, some of whom would linger after hours when Lucky Cheng’s miraculously morphed from an eatery into a cathouse. It is utterly amazing how non-gender-variant people tend to really let their hair down in the presence of gender-benders who, through the process of osmosis and solicitation, prompt them to behave in an unabashedly transgressive manner. Case in point: I was having dinner at Lucky Cheng’s with a couple of discrete lady friends, both Propaganda models, who after a few drinks literally devoured one another in a deep-kissing crotch-and-boob-grabbing marathon love bout. They didn’t speak to one another for over a week after that, but eventually laughed it off, putting it down to “those darn Trannies.” Granted, one of them was a Lesbian and the other easily led, but if not for all those Transgendered sexual cues bombarding them from every direction in a forum awash in raging pheromones, it is highly unlikely such a spectacle would have ever occurred.

Following the path of gender deconstruction still further, I arranged my first Transsexual photo shoot with the incomparable Amanda Lapore, New York’s famed fashionista, model and muse to internationally-acclaimed photographer David La Chapelle. It was 1999, on the cusp of the New Millennium, and I had the distinct impression that I was about to set foot in a brave new world where all the old rules no longer applied — especially the most fundamental rules of gender. In force since the very first caveman grabbed his woman by the hair and dragged her across the rock-strewn ground, the negation of this primordial paradigm threatened to set in motion a chain reaction of tumbling dominoes representing the entire collapse of the social order. Admittedly, I suffer from Apocalypse-phobia, but it is this fear of the End of Days which has always compelled me to seek out the harbingers of its arrival in the form of extreme manifestations of human behavior. Propaganda was famous for its aestheticized forays into Anarchism, Occultism, Fetishism and Homoeroticism, but it was this crossing over into Transsexualism (the last taboo) which was my greatest leap into the unknown. But whatever anxieties I may have been experiencing at the time were quickly put to rest by Amanda’s impeccable decorum and self-confidence. Proud of her fake female body, she disrobed on command and basked in the glow of her objectification as a sexualized objet d’art. Gracious to a fault and charmingly self-deprecating, she drew my attention to a scar from a recent cosmetic procedure, asking if it was not too much trouble to retouch, adding, “I’m a science project — sometimes the science is good and sometimes it’s not.” Even so, nudity suits her, and another shoot soon followed; this time she was bound with hot-pink ribbons to a painter’s easel, with a large red ball-gag shoved into that obscenely luscious mouth of hers. In the silence of the studio, as my camera lens outlined the superbly-crafted contours of her artificially-created porn-star physique, I could just about hear the faint sound of dominoes click-clacking against one another — the chain reaction had started, and there was no stopping it.

Primed by the future-shock of these initial encounters with Transsexuality in my own backyard, I became increasingly conscious of the Transgender presence in my travels as Propaganda’s Editor-At-Large. At the main train station in Rome, I witnessed a couple of vivacious Trans-girls flagging down two young studs on Vespas, hopping onboard, and dashing off into the swirl of traffic like a scene out of a Fellini film. Casually dressed with hair blowing in the wind, their sunny La Dolce Vita attitude told me that this was just another slice of life in the Eternal City. On another occasion I was visiting Amsterdam and, aside from the ubiquitous aroma of Cannabis, what struck me most was a row of storefront windows in the Red Light District — on one side of the street they were occupied by lingerie-clad She-males, and on the other side by their biological-female counter-parts. To my surprise, the faux females were doing quadruple the trade of the genuine article, with quite-ordinary men clamoring to be next in line to get a quickie from a comely Ladyboy. I asked my friend Anton, an out-of-Drag cross-dresser, for his expert opinion as to why the Trannies were so handily beating the competition, to which he replied, “Chicks with dicks — it’s a winning combination.” I like a man who can condense a complex philosophical argument down to its most basic elements. And on the streets of Tel Aviv I saw three young Hassidim chatting enthusiastically in front of a bus stop poster of Dana International, Israel’s world famous Transsexual songstress and Eurovision musical sensation. I know some Yiddish and could glean from their conversation that they were fans discussing her recently released album Free. In their exuberance one proclaimed “Dana Ikh hob dikh lib” (Dana I love you) as the other two chuckled, which is not only highly uncharacteristic for the dowdy and sullen members of this ultra-Orthodox sect, but from a Biblical perspective their shameless adoration before this gender-bending graven image smacked of nothing less than idolatry and abomination. That’s one heavy guilt-trip to lay on a star-struck yugnt (youth) - but what’s life without a little vice? Come Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) all will be forgiven.

Bois Keep Swingin’. Photo: Fred H. Berger

Back home the Transgender tide continued to rise, with downtown Manhattan clubs like Mother, Limelight and The Tunnel catering to a mixed bag of Gay, Gender-Queer and Transsexual children of the night. In those marvelous days before gentrification, Political Correctness and 9/11 put the kibosh on unbridled excess, Mother held a gala “Nazi Party” along the lines of Mel Brook’s The Producers. Aside from all the revelers sporting their finest Storm Trooper chic, and performers strutting their stuff in black patent-leather and swastika armbands, the most memorable incident of the night occurred when a Hassid strayed into the club. Before very long he had struck some sort of a deal with a blonde Tranny-girl in Hitler Youth Drag, and in short order was stripped and whipped by the crop-wielding little bitch who administered the coup de grace by jabbing her spike heel into his groin. Divested of his wallet and all its cash contents, and with his Kosher meat standing rigidly at attention, it was clear that this Wandering Jew found exactly what he was looking for. Gender and propriety were under constant assault, with the Tunnel featuring a Pat Fields fashion show replete with Transsexual models, including the stunning and very passable Ivy, a Nordic beauty signed to the prestigious Wilhelmina modeling agency. Whipped-up into a state of Techno- and Ecstasy-driven hysteria, the crowd of Queers, Straights and gender-benders cheered wildly as the glittering procession of long-legged mannequins burned up the runway in a jaw-dropping display of over-the-top style and attitude. Even the patrons of The Roxy took time out from cruising each other just long enough to enjoy a T&A show by Amanda Lapore — who appeared on stage wearing nothing but a pearl necklace and stilettos. The sight of sweaty man-hungry Chelsea boys transfixed by a post-op showgirl baring it all and singing about champagne and cotton candy was a study in paradox and nihilism worthy of more sublime minds than my own.

Love You Long Time. Photo: Fred H. Berger

Those were the good old days, when the “L,” “G,” “B” and “T” still functioned as an integrated (if imperfect) whole, when movement between its overlapping substrata was fluid and organic and fostered an embattled “us against the world” sense of camaraderie. The Thought Police had not yet muzzled free expression. Identity Politics and the wedges it would eventually drive between Gay and Lesbian, butch and femme, non-operative and post-operative, Transman and Transwoman had yet to metastasize from academia into the community. Those who insist on strictly categorizing and segregating people to fit neatly into a hierarchy based on bias and esoteric formulations akin to “how many angels can fit on the head of a pin” should just take a step back from their microscopes for a moment and let these matters come into focus on their own. Once ideological considerations and supremacist attitudes are disposed of, it becomes clear that gender dysphoria, which is the common denominator of all Transgendered people, is a continuum consisting of varying degrees of severity — ranging from the cross-dresser to the post-op Transsexual. This discomfiture which people feel with regard to their physiological gender is not necessarily congenital but can arise (and fluctuate) at various stages of childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Nor should Homosexuality be removed entirely from the equation, since it can and does occur (at least) in conjunction with less-extreme forms of this condition. To deny the complex and subtle interaction of the Queer and Transgender phenomenon, and to judge a person based upon where they stand on the sliding scale of gender dysphoria, is not only bad science — it’s bad social policy. And yet that is precisely what so many self-righteous and self-serving intellectuals and activists are encouraging people to do. Although conversely, as those with non-normative sexual orientation and gender identity have increasingly disengaged from one another over the past decade, they and the broader mainstream culture have gradually and inexorably drawn ever closer, allowing those traditionally scorned as “degenerates” to achieve greater visibility, freedom and acceptance. But such is the fate of many a successful revolution, which in the absence of any immediate external threat turns to infighting, bringing with it the very real danger of dissolution and worse — defeat at the hands of reactionary forces in the vanguard of a societal backlash. This is in many ways what happened in Germany in the early 1930s when people, battered by economic and political turmoil and faced with the unwelcome emergence of decadent and Queer culture, turned to the Nazis to restore order. It happened before, and it can happen again — a cautionary tale.

Hiroko In Bondage. Photo: Fred H. Berger

However, we are obliged to live in the present and contend with the issue at hand — that of society’s accelerating absorption of Trans-culture into the body politic, and its offer of a seat at the table, albeit for now just a highchair, for an unruly child who has yet to learn some manners. Oh, but what a fabulous child he/she is, catapulted from total obscurity onto the catwalks of Paris and New York in the personage of Andrej Pejic, high fashion’s first-ever cross-dressing supermodel. The darling of designers Jean-Paul Gaultier and Marc Jacobs, this androgynous twenty-year-old admits that passing for a woman is something he does on and off the runway, and in a recent backstage interview was asked if he would ever consider having a sex change — to which he replied, “I would if it meant getting a contract with Victoria’s Secret.” But would he really need to go that route in light of his natural femininity? Bare-chested and breathtakingly beautiful in Marilyn Monroe wig, pearls and lacy white corset, Andrej channels the 50s screen siren in Jenna Elizabeth’s iconoclastic short film Norman Jean (Marilyn was born Norma Jean). Set to a soundtrack recording of Marilyn’s iconic Happy Birthday Mr. President and interspersed with flickering images of her reputed lover JFK and husband Arthur Miller, this tongue-in-cheek art piece is a perfect promotional vehicle for the new kid in town. And when Andrej bared his girlish nipples and hips once again, this time on the cover of the May 2011 issue of Dossier Journal, alarm bells sounded at Barnes & Noble — which sealed the magazine in an opaque wrapper, fearing he might be mistaken for a topless woman. But for all his passable womanliness, his gender-identity remains nominally “male.” New York Magazine’s Fall Fashion 2011 issue ran a cover story on him entitled “The Prettiest Boy In The World.” Modeling both male and female fashions with equal élan, he proves just how self-assured and comfortable in his own skin he really is, mixing and matching gender like a kid playing in his mom’s and dad’s respective closets. In that sense he is able to step beyond gender altogether while simultaneously merging both sexes into a scintillating singularity, a feat which subverts the status quo even more than full transitioning — which only mimics the traditional binary gender paradigm.

In 2010, the same year Ms. Pejic debuted as the new “it girl” in Paris, Chaz Bono (formerly Chastity, born daughter of Sonny & Cher) legally transitioned from female to male, after two years of gender reassignment therapy, to become America’s most famous Transman. After coming out as a Lesbian in a 1995 interview with the Gay magazine The Advocate, and working as an LGBT activist ever since, Chaz is living proof that some people have to pass through several Queer and Transgender phases before graduating to Transsexuality — in his case to a non-operative status at the age of forty. This relatively measured course of action does not sit well with radical theoreticians and physicians who advocate the fastest and most extreme route possible to a complete sex change. Chaz has undergone hormone replacement therapy and a mastectomy, but still retains female genitalia — and for that he has been criticized for not taking the last step. Come on people; what does a guy have to do around here to be taken seriously — swallow goldfish? The fact remains that most Transsexuals do not go all the way, nor should they be pressured into doing so. Bono’s rites of passage are chronicled in his book Family Outing: A Guide to the Coming Out Process for Gays, Lesbians, and Their Families (1998) and in the documentary Becoming Chaz, which screened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and later made its television debut on the Oprah Winfrey Network. But all of this media attention was nothing compared to the feeding frenzy surrounding Chaz’s appearance as a competitor on Dancing With The Stars, one of America’s top-rated TV shows. And although he and his gorgeous biological female dance partner didn’t win — despite some pretty fancy footwork — the outpouring of empathy and accolades from the judges and the press for his dignity and courage marked yet another major sea change in society’s growing acceptance of gender diversity.

OUT Magazine, December 2011/January 2012 issue. Photo: Fred H. Berger

But the true acid test of this tentative new-found acceptance came in the summer of 2011, with the release of the much-anticipated comedy Hangover 2 — which features a Bangkok bachelor party gone horribly wrong. Reeling from the effects of a heavy dosage of accidentally-ingested psychotropic pharmaceuticals, the luckless Americans inadvertently stumble into a den of Thai She-male prostitutes — it’s a perfect recipe for disaster and undreamt-of comic possibilities. This has to be the first-ever Hollywood blockbuster to feature chicks with dicks having simulated sex with A-list American actors — including Ed Helms (of the hit TV series The Office) as the hapless husband-to-be who gets his cherry popped by a well-meaning if not very well-hung Kathoey (Thai term for a feminized male). Talk about emasculation! I saw the film in an immense suburban theater in Stamford, Connecticut that was packed to capacity with people of all ages laughing hysterically at this unimaginably ballsy full-frontal exposé of Bangkok’s Transgender underbelly. The film was the biggest hit of the season and set a box office record for Memorial Day weekend releases. Judging from such an impressive showing, I’d say it’s definitely the strongest indication yet that America is as ready as it ever will be for the Transsexual Revolution. And who knows — with androgynous Andrej’s highly-publicized shattering of the Gender-Queer barrier in the august halls of High Fashion, maybe more than a few lucky Ladyboys will find their way out of the cathouse and onto the catwalk. Then we’ll be able to take the tag-line from those chic 70s faux-feminist Virginia Slims cigarette ads and tell them in all earnestness, and with just a hint of camp, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

Fred H. Berger

Queens, New York

November 2011

Dr. Becky Allison

Cardiologist

Photo: Shadow Rock UCC

GEORGE PETROS: WE’RE TALKING TO DR. BECKY ALLISON — YOU ARE A CARDIOLOGIST, IS THAT CORRECT?

Dr. Allison: Yes I am.

AND WHAT’S A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A CARDIOLOGIST LIKE?

Dr. Allison: Well, today for example, I had hospital rounds and several hospital consults. I did a procedure called a cardioversion, where I use electroshock to restore the normal rhythm of the heart. And, I had a lot of office patients, and some studies to read, echocardiograms, and so forth. So it was quite a mix of hospital and office work.

WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON PROBLEMS YOU SEE IN THE FOLKS THAT YOU TREAT?

Dr. Allison: Well, coronary artery disease, of course, is the most common thing that we see — and heart attacks, angina, the use of balloons and stents to open up clogged arteries — these are the statistically most common things in my practice.

ARE THESE AILMENTS THAT ARE OFTEN THE RESULT OF BAD LIFESTYLES?

Dr. Allison: The things that put people at risk for coronary artery disease include cigarette smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure — some of those things can’t be avoided, but they can be controlled, and sometimes people don’t make the effort to control them very well.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CURRENT HOT TOPICS IN CARDIOLOGY? WHAT ARE CARDIOLOGISTS TALKING ABOUT?

Dr. Allison: We have a number of new techniques and programs concerning our drug-coated stents that reduce the risk of future complications. We see some things about using balloons and stents to open up clogged valves, rather than having a person go to surgery. We’re seeing less open-heart surgery and more interventional procedures.

DO YOU HAVE PATIENTS WHO HAVE HAD HEART TRANSPLANTS?

Dr. Allison: I have several. The University of Arizona at Tucson is a transplant center, and so I probably have eight or ten patients in my practice who have had a heart transplant. It’s a wonderful, life-saving procedure — but of course it’s very limited in its application, because you have to have donor hearts, and there aren’t that many of those.

WHO DONATES HEARTS, GENERALLY SPEAKING?

Dr. Allison: Well, persons specify in their living will or power of attorney that they want to be an organ donor, and then if that person dies from, say, a motor vehicle accident, or if they have a death that occurs from a non-cardiac causes, sometimes they will be considered as a donor — and obviously if someone has a serious disease like cancer or severe diabetes or things like that, they probably aren’t a good donor candidate. But, people especially who have been in accidents and have brain injuries and things that don’t involve the heart — that’s where a lot of the donors come from.

IS THERE AN AGE LIMIT ON DONORS?

Dr. Allison: Well, in general the best organs come from people who are in their youth or young adulthood, but we’ve had people donate hearts into their forties. Now, in terms of other organs, like donating corneas and sometimes even kidneys, people older than that can be donors, too.

I SEE.

Dr. Allison: But for the hearts, the younger the better.

TO COME BACK TO HOT TOPICS OF CARDIOLOGY, YOU MENTIONED DRUG-COATED STENTS. COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT THAT?

Dr. Allison: Certainly. Basically we’ve been implanting stents for maybe a little more than twenty years, and the first generation of stents did not have any special drug coating — and so we would get a phenomenon called restenosis where the body would sense the stent as an intruder and it would form a scar around the stent. The restenosis is the Achilles’ heel of interventional cardiology, and it’s resulted in a lot of people having to come back to the cath lab for another procedure. If we’re able to impregnate these stents with a medication that would prevent the scar formation — and they found several candidates for that among cancer drugs — we would be able to prevent restenosis to a great extent. And sure enough, it did work out. So, a new generation of stents all have these drugs impregnated into them, and they are more successful over the long term.

YOU MUST HAVE SAVED A LOT OF PEOPLE’S LIVES IN YOUR CAREER —

Dr. Allison: It’s gratifying. I love what I do. It’s very gratifying to be able to make a difference in people’s lives.

WHERE DID YOU GO TO SCHOOL?

Dr. Allison: I’m from Mississippi. I went to the University of Mississippi in Jackson, and I went to the University of Mississippi in Oxford for undergraduate, and then medical school in Jackson — and so I did most of my training there.

AND WHERE DO YOU CURRENTLY PRACTICE?

Dr. Allison: I practice in Phoenix, Arizona. My hospital is Good Samaritan Medical Center, which is one of the larger medical hospitals in the state.

WHAT COMMITTEE DID YOU CHAIR FOR THE AMA?

Dr. Allison: The AMA formed an advisory committee devoted to issues of concern for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender persons, and the committee was formed in the year 2005, and I was one of the charter members of that committee. There were seven people on the committee. I served four years and was the chair of the committee my fourth year.

AND WHAT DID THAT COMMITTEE ACCOMPLISH?

Dr. Allison: Well, we had a number of accomplishments which were reflected in the proceedings of the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association — including changes in the by-laws to prevent discrimination among physicians, hospital staff and medical students on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and then we were able to carry that further to have the AMA adopt a policy which favored the policy. The proposition, which passed in the year 2009, allowed insurance companies to pay for medically necessary procedures related to persons transitioning gender and to support insurance coverage for hormonal therapy, surgery and so forth — which was a fairly big step for the AMA to take, and has resulted in a lot of changes in the insurance policies.

DID YOU RUN INTO A LOT OF OPPOSITION WITHIN THE AMA?

Dr. Allison: Surprisingly, we did not. There were just a few persons who were of a counter opinion — and I think that they were a distinct minority because the resolution passed with a significant majority.

YOU MUST BE PROUD OF THE WORK YOU DID THERE.

Dr. Allison: I was very proud of it. I was able to testify for the reference committees of the AMA and talk about what a difference it would have made for me to have had that insurance coverage —and by personalizing the request, it really causes people to be more aware of the importance. They realize that people who are doctors and AMA members are affected by this also.

SO YOU’RE SAYING THAT WHEN YOU TRANSITIONED, THERE WAS NO INSURANCE POLICY TO HELP YOU ALONG —

Dr. Allison: That is correct. I had to pay out of my pocket.

AND I’M SURE THAT WASN’T CHEAP — THEN OR NOW.

Dr. Allison: No, it never is.

MAY I ASK WHEN YOUR TRANSITION OCCURRED?

Dr. Allison: 1993.

1993 — AND WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN 1993? WHERE WERE YOU LIVING?

Dr. Allison: I was living in Mississippi, and I had a medical practice there. Upon transition, I moved from Jackson to Atlanta, Georgia — and I had a lot of support there. I had a support group and I had my therapist, I had someone who had done some of my surgical procedures, and so I hired a search firm to help me look for a new practice position. I went on a number of interviews in several states, and the one which I was most positively impressed by was Phoenix — and so I accepted that offer and I’ve been here ever since.

PRIOR TO TRANSITIONING, WHAT WAS YOUR LIFE LIKE? WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE IN JACKSON FOR YOU IN THOSE DAYS?

Dr. Allison: Well, to be honest, it had its pleasant moments — if one could get past the idea that things weren’t right in life in general. I was very unhappy with myself and who I was trying to be — but obviously a professional person has some degree of prestige and standing within the community. There are things that you know you’re going to give up — you know that you’re going to lose — if you tell people there’s a change that’s going to have to happen in your life, and you tell them what that change is. They’re not going to deal very well with that.

HOW DID YOUR FAMILY DEAL WITH IT?

Dr. Allison: Well, my parents were deceased some time ago, and without getting into much detail, I was married — and obviously that was something that was not going to survive, given the transition. It was a difficult family time.

DID YOU FIND ATLANTA TO BE A MORE ACCEPTING ENVIRONMENT?

Dr. Allison: I wouldn’t say so. Atlanta, at the time, was still the South — and the few encounters that I had with the doctors there, it was sort of an old-boy network, if you will, with people who graduated from the Medical College of Georgia, and outsiders just didn’t have much of a place. I didn’t really feel welcomed in Atlanta that much. Obviously it’s more urban, more metropolitan than Jackson.

WHERE DID YOU HAVE YOUR SURGERIES?

Dr. Allison: Well, the major operation was done in Wisconsin. There was a surgeon at the time, Dr. Eugene Schrang, who did surgery in Neenah, Wisconsin — and people from the eastern part of the country were very positive about Dr. Schrang. And so, living in the eastern part of the country at the time when I made my application, he was the only one I had considered.

ONCE IT WAS DONE, WERE YOUR EXPECTATIONS MET? WERE YOU HAPPY? WAS IT A SLOW ROAD TO FULFILLMENT, OR DID YOU WAKE UP ONE DAY AND SAY, “WOW, THIS IS GREAT!”?

Dr. Allison: That’s a good question. Was I happy? Yes. Did the surgery itself make me happy? It was necessary for me. It was a completion for me — but the entire process of transition, including the surgery, is what made me happy. The satisfaction with being open and being honest with myself, and living life as the person I had always felt I should be — that process began when I started my transition, and it completed with the surgery. I say “completed” — but actually you’re always completing transition, even months and years later. You find other things that make you feel better about yourself. There were some other facial procedures and so forth. Part of the process of transition involves knowing yourself — and that involves a lot of time with a counselor or therapist, and answering some questions about who you are and why you’re doing this and why you didn’t do it earlier. For me, those were very important questions to answer — and I know that there were cultural reasons for me not to transition at a younger age. Not to mention the time we were living in, in the Sixties — people did not consider this a viable alternative, and the story of Christine Jorgensen was notable mostly for its shock value, and even though persons like me strongly believed that her story was a description of our lives, the press, the media and even doctors did not see it as a viable alternative for serious people. “When I went to medical school, I headed for the medical library and tried to find any information on Transsexualism, and the only books that were available — and there weren’t very many of them — they used words like “perversion” and “deviation,” and you read that and say, That’s not me. I don’t want to be like that.” So between that, and the religious belief — growing up in the South — that if you pray and you’re sincere, that God’s going to answer your prayers and change you — you buy into that for a long, long time, and you feel that you can quote-unquote beat this, and you don’t realize that it’s who you are; it’s not a choice and it’s never going away, no matter how hard you pray or how sincerely you believe that it’s going away — it’s not. So in my case — and in a lot of people’s case — it takes years and years to really come to terms with that. But once you do, it does direct the rest of your life, and you’re able to live in a more authentic way instead of being miserable all the time and wondering why your prayers aren’t being answered.

BUT YOUR PRAYERS WERE ANSWERED —

Dr. Allison: Ultimately, yes. Exactly.

YOU SAY YOU WERE LOOKING IN MEDICAL LIBRARIES AND COMING UP WITH A NEGATIVE SPIN ON WHAT YOU WERE RESEARCHING — DID YOU EVENTUALLY ENCOUNTER HARRY BENJAMIN’S BOOK THE TRANSSEXUAL PHENOMENON? I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT IT WAS A SEMINAL WORK —

Dr. Allison: Indeed it was, and that was one of the books that I looked in — and while Dr. Benjamin himself was always positive and complimentary, he cited other people and references, because he had collaborators in collecting the material for the book. Some of those people were sexologists who felt that Transsexualism had to be a form of Homosexuality, and so they wrote using those types of terms. They couldn’t distinguish between Transsexual people and Homosexual people — or Transvestites and Cross-dressers — and we know now that there’s so much difference; we’re talking about completely different people. Back then, they sought a simple explanation out of the psychoanalytic theory that was in vogue in the Sixties. It was used to try and explain the motivations behind why people would want to transition from one sex to the other. Looking back at it, you can see that it was all a fabrication — just people trying to take their own pet theories and fit our diagnosis into their theories. I think that book was published in ’66.

MUCH HAS CHANGED SINCE THEN —

Dr. Allison: Very much, yes.

AND THERE WAS WENDY CARLOS —

Dr. Allison: Wendy Carlos was a very positive role model, and I’ve always admired Wendy. I’ve never met her, but I read her Playboy interview — and it certainly was a very powerful force in my life, at the time helping me to realize that it really is okay to accept who you are.

YES, AND HER MUSIC’S GREAT, TOO.

Dr. Allison: Absolutely.

WAS THERE ANYBODY THAT WAS A ROLE MODEL FOR WHAT YOU WANTED TO BECOME?

Dr. Allison: Well, the truth of the matter is, when I made my decision to transition in the ’92-to-’93 era, there just weren’t that many health professionals who had done this — and I was one of the first people who had had a life and had a career in my birth gender —

YOU DECIDED FINALLY TO TRANSITION, AND THAT INVOLVES AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF HORMONAL THERAPY —

Dr. Allison: It was more like I reached a point where I couldn’t go on living if I didn’t. It does come to that imperative point — and for me to go on in the old way was to invite a nervous breakdown or maybe even some self-harm. I just said, “Okay, if I’m going to continue to be productive and go on with the good life, I’m going to have to make this change” — and it did involve a lot of hormonal therapy and a lot of counseling at first to help me understand what I was getting into and what I was going to give up. I imagine you’ve heard of the Standards of Care?

YES.

Dr. Allison: The Harry Benjamin Gender Dysphoria Association Standards of Care, which is the protocol that people follow to insure a successful transition — and part of those standards of care involves seeing a therapist who’s trained in Transsexual issues. That was one of the reasons I moved to Atlanta, was because my therapist, Dr. Jim Powell, was in Atlanta and he had counseled a number of adults going through transition — professional people — and Dr. Powell also was an ordained Methodist minister, so he knew that the spiritual side of this was very important to me.

YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT PRAYERS THAT WENT UNANSWERED —

Dr. Allison: Well, you’re correct when you say that my prayers were answered — and I feel that they were, that God gave me the understanding that this is me and it’s really okay to go ahead with transition. I don’t have to keep beating myself up about why can’t I be cured because it’s not a matter of being cured, anymore than someone being left-handed or right-handed — it’s just a part of my identity to develop this gender dysphoria. It’s interesting that some of us came from backgrounds where our mothers were exposed to hormones, say, to carry a pregnancy to term — back in the Forties and Fifties people used to take diethylstilbestrol to prevent miscarriage, and I have some fairly strong evidence that my mother was one of those. I don’t know for sure whether that produced hormonal changes in my fetal development, but I’ll always have a suspicion that it did.

INTERESTING. SO, WHEN YOU TRANSITIONED, WERE YOU MARRIED AT THAT TIME?

Dr. Allison: Yes, I was.

AND I TAKE IT THAT DIDN’T LAST — HOW SOON DID YOU START DATING AFTER YOUR TRANSITION?

Dr. Allison: Well, to tell you the truth, I’m a medical professional. I’m involved in my work, and I really haven’t been interested in dating for quite some time. I love what I do. I love my life and I just haven’t had that much of an interest. I’m aware that quite a few people do transition and they date. Their sexual orientation may or may not transition with them. Some people may end up attracted to men post-transition, some may be attracted to women. For me, I’m just not in the market.

OKAY. WHEN YOU STARTED TAKING HORMONES — I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE PROPER TERM IS; I DON’T WANT TO SAY THEY CALMED YOU DOWN, BUT THEY CERTAINLY MUST HAVE CHANGED YOU PROFOUNDLY —

Dr. Allison: Calming you down is actually a very good description. There is a very disconcerting feeling that I had for years — and I found out that I’m certainly not alone in this — that’s just an angst, if you will, a sadness, a self-loathing — and it never goes away. I’ve heard it described like a car alarm that’s going all night and it never shuts off. When you start hormones, after a very brief time you start to feel more in harmony with yourself, the jarring feeling lessens, and it really does go away. It’s almost a diagnostic tool, you know — people who are really Transsexual and need to transition, they start on hormones and things just become right. Whereas some people may be a little uncertain and confused about what they need to do, and they think, “Well, maybe I need to make a transition,” and they start on hormones and they hate the effects. You know, it affects their ability to function sexually. They can’t stand that, so they stop hormones — but for me, it was the opposite. I just couldn’t conceive of stopping them after feeling the improvement they produced.

WERE THERE ANY OBSTACLES OR ROAD BLOCKS IN YOUR LIFE THAT WERE A RESULT OF YOUR TRANSITIONING?

Dr. Allison: You know, since I’ve been in Phoenix, I really wouldn’t say that there have been any serious obstacles from a professional or personal standpoint. Obviously the longer one lives in one’s new life, the smoother one gets — and the rough edges are not rough any more. There are other little procedures that one has. I had what they call facial feminization surgery done after the sex reassignment surgery, and it certainly produced a desirable appearance. Reducing the brow — typical male brow bone and so forth — and all that helps me to blend in. I’ve been very fortunate to have a voice which is pretty appropriate for my age and the person that I’m presenting to be. So that hasn’t been an issue for me like it is for some people. I would say that I have been very fortunate in not encountering a lot of resistance. That wasn’t really that way in Atlanta when I was starting transition because, number one, I still had those rough edges, and two, Atlanta is the South. It’s still enough of a phenomenon in places like Atlanta. Some people don’t deal with it well. Anything that goes against tradition is not going to be well accepted.

I SEE. DO YOU FIND YOURSELF BEING A ROLE MODEL OR A MENTOR OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT?

Dr. Allison: Well, I suppose so. My website — which I haven’t really spent time on in a couple of years because I’m so busy with my cardiology work — but for awhile, it was one of the very few sites that people could go to and find information and support for transition. Even today I got a Facebook friend request from someone who said, “Your website saved my life” — and I think that having it out there still after all these years does continue to make a difference. It’s been a very important part of the giving back, especially with the list of therapists so that people can find someone close to them who they can go to and start counseling.

RIGHT.

Dr. Allison: Some issues — like with spiritual life — a lot of people still can’t get past the idea that this is all some terrible sin. It’s a long task to work with those folks and make them realize that it’s okay to be who you are.

YOU ALSO HAVE ATTORNEYS LISTED ON YOUR WEBSITE, DON’T YOU?

Dr. Allison: I haven’t had a great response to that. I had advertised for people to submit their names for inclusion if they wanted to be listed as people who help Transsexual people with the legalities of changing their birth certificate, changing their social security and so forth —

AND YOU SAY YOU HAVEN’T HAD A GREAT RESPONSE —

Dr. Allison: No. Not as much as I had expected.

I SEE. SO, WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE?

Dr. Allison: Well, I’ve been active in the greater Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender community, with the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. I’m completing a two-year term as president and I’ve just been elected to the board of directors of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which is the new name for what was the Harry Benjamin Gender Dysphoria Association — and this is the professional body which includes therapists, surgeons and medical doctors who treat Transsexual persons and formulate standards of care. Being on the board of directors there, I hope to be able to contribute in terms of my background as a medical doctor, and to continue the emphasis on the medical needs of people in transition.

WELL, CONGRATULATIONS ON THAT.

Dr. Allison: Thank you.

SO YOU’RE HELPING PEOPLE ON TWO FRONTS — HANDS-ON AS A CARDIOLOGIST, AND AS A KIND OF A SPIRITUAL GUIDE AS WELL —

Dr. Allison: And I’ve tried to remain active in the community and give back because while I am a cardiologist — and I love my work and I do well with that — I also am in a unique position with my experiences as a transitioned person, and not everyone is comfortable with remaining in the public eye — but I am. I didn’t do it for any notoriety, and certainly not for any gain on my part, but I thought it was the right thing to do. I wish somebody would have been out there when I started my transition, with such a website and such a resource. By giving back, I feel that I have made a difference in people’s lives.

HOW DID YOU FIND THE RESOURCES THAT YOU EVENTUALLY LISTED — BECAUSE THERE WAS NO INTERNET TO SPEAK OF AT THAT POINT —

Dr. Allison: I had a few friends who I corresponded with by the very early email techniques, and there was something called CompuServe that we used at that time to get online. Searching online, I found a support group run by a husband-and-wife team, who are no longer active — but at the time people were driving from all over the South to come to the Montgomery Support Group in Atlanta, and it was through there that I was introduced to my therapist and found the resources necessary to contact people about surgery. We would have weekly group-therapy meetings, and we got to know one another pretty well.

DO YOU HAVE A CIRCLE OF FRIENDS WHO ARE TRANSSEXUALS?

Dr. Allison: Oh absolutely. Yeah. For a number of years I had a housemate who’s my best friend and confidante. She’s also a post-op Transsexual woman named Margaux Schaffer, and we’ve been friends since our Atlanta days.

WHAT LINE OF WORK IS SHE IN?

Dr. Allison: She’s an artist. She does a lot of original art and has done installations for some doctor’s offices, including our own — and she does a lot of fine and commercial art.

OKAY. REGARDING YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER TRANSSEXUAL PEOPLE — THERE MUST BE POINTS OF DISAGREEMENT; YOU MUST RUB EACH OTHER THE WRONG WAY SOMETIMES — WHAT ARE THE POINTS OF DISSENT AMONG YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS?

Dr. Allison: Well, it’s interesting that you would bring this up. There’s always a little bit of debate and dissent, because there are different types of lives that people live. I’ll use the broader term “Transgender” to designate the big tent, if you will, of Transsexual people as well as the people who do not feel the need to change their physical bodies. They consider themselves to have a feminine side, if they’re genetic males — but these people use the word “Transgender” to not only include everybody but to designate persons who don’t feel it’s necessary to complete a physical transition. They use the term “gender expression” to designate how a person appears in public, and some of these people — I suppose the old term would be “cross-dressers.” Some people would be offended by that term. There are all degrees of living in the role. There is some conflict because some people feel that it’s elitist to complete a physical transition. Admittedly there are people who cannot afford to have surgery. There are people whose health won’t let them. They live without surgery, and for some of us that’s hard to understand. I certainly wouldn’t have chosen that life for myself — but my task is to try to respect that, without yielding or diminishing myself by affirming that for me the physical transition was necessary and right. That doesn’t mean that these people are invalid. We just have to realize there are differences, and learn to live with those differences — and yet do what we can in terms of advocacy, and try to improve everyone’s lot in life. If there’s things that need to be done on a legal or political front — we have to be very sensitive to the needs of both groups.

I’VE BEEN TOLD THERE’S A HIERARCHY, AND THE TRANSSEXUALS ARE AT THE TOP, AND THEN THERE’S LIKE A DESCENDING PECKING ORDER — WOULD DIFFERENCES OF OPINION ARISE BETWEEN PEOPLE WHO FEEL THAT THEY WANT TO BLEND IN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, AND PEOPLE WHO FEEL THEY SHOULD BE MORE ACTIVE AND DRAW ATTENTION TO THEMSELVES IN ORDER TO HELP TO PROMOTE THE GENERAL CAUSE?

Dr. Allison: Oh absolutely. Several thoughts: First of all, I hear what you’re saying about people who believe that there’s a hierarchy. I personally don’t see it in a hierarchical sense. I think people who believe that are the people who consider themselves not on top and would like to change things so that they would be, in their own minds, considered equals, if you will, with the people that they consider to be on top. The fact that they say that the post-operative or post-transition transsexual person is the top of the hierarchy is their opinion, not mine, not ours. I don’t consider myself to be better than anyone else — but i feel that we have different lives, and for me it’s not a matter of, “i’m better than this person” or “that person’s better than me.” I’m doing what works for my life. I do blend in. I’m happy with that. That’s what i want to do, and i do not dismiss people as invalid who chose not to blend in — but it’s not my life. There are things that i’m not going to do in terms of my activism. My activism is going to be from a point of competence and authenticity — being who i am — and not getting in your face. Not so much political as professional.

I SEE. OKAY. IS THERE ANYTHING I’VE NEGLECTED TO BRING UP HERE? IS THERE ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE TO ADD?

Dr. Allison: You’ve done your homework and you know a lot of the right questions to ask, so I think you’ve covered it very well.

WELL, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I’M FLATTERED. ACTUALLY, I DO HAVE ONE MORE QUESTION FOR YOU — BECAUSE YOU ARE A CARDIOLOGIST, I MUST ASK YOU THIS QUESTION WHICH WAS FIRST POSED BY THE BEE GEES IN ONE OF THEIR HIT SONGS MANY YEARS AGO: HOW DO YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART?

Dr. Allison: That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?

YEAH.

Dr. Allison: You know, George, sometimes hearts stay broken — and I can tell you that even with the happiness that I’ve experienced and the completeness and the satisfaction that transition brings, there’s still some broken-heartedness over lost relationships, and it’s a loss that we live with and we accept because we have to keep going. But it’s not as though we forget some of the persons who can’t stay with us in our new lives. So there’s some bittersweetness.

OKAY — WELL, DR. ALLISON, I THINK THAT ABOUT WRAPS IT UP ON THIS END. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.

Dr. Allison: Thank you. ~

Buck Angel

Porn Star

Photo: Isauro Cairo

MANUEL OTTO VASQUEZ: SO, BUCK, YOUR TATTOOS — DO THEY HAVE ANY SPECIAL MEANING?

Buck Angel: Oh my god, I have so many different tattoos — and I started getting my tattoos way before my transition. So I think, yeah, well this one here — that’s my tattoo of my dog that died. I had my dog for ten years. So that’s a very special tattoo for me. I also have a tattoo on the side that says “Rebe” [short for Rebekka Armstrong] which is — I have an adopted daughter. Basically it’s not really a legal adoption. She is somebody I met who’s living on the streets and she’s a Playboy playmate and she contracted HIV and Playboy just sort of threw her out. So, I had met her at a party and sort of like adopted her, as her dad — and that’s her name. That has a special meaning for me. Most of the other stuff is more design work — I was designing my body before I started to do my transition. I sort of disliked my body a lot. The tattoos made me feel more comfortable in my body.

COOL, COOL. DID YOU LIKE HAVE ANY CHILDHOOD IDOLS WHO SHAPED YOU INTO WHO YOU ARE TODAY?

Buck Angel: That’s interesting. Somebody just asked me that question awhile back, and I was thinking: did I have any heroes or somebody that I can sort of look up to? You know who I said? It was kind of weird. It just came off the top of my head — but I said The Bionic Man.

OH WOW —

Buck Angel: I was obsessed with The Bionic Man — and I had a Bionic Woman as well — when I was younger, and then I thought: I wonder why I was obsessed. I think it was because that person took their body and made it into something bigger and better. You know what I mean? But I can’t say that I actually ever had anybody that I looked up to, because I never felt that I could feel the same as anyone else, because I felt so lost as a kid. There were no role models. There were no Trans role models. There were no Gay big people who were out when I was growing up. There wasn’t what kids have now — what the younger generation has to look up to. I think that had a lot to do with me being a more withdrawn-type of young person.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING BASICALLY THE ONLY FEMALE-TO-MALE ROLE MODEL?

Buck Angel: There’s others, now that Chaz Bono has come out — which I have mixed feelings about. I think it’s fantastic that Chaz has transitioned, and he wasn’t going to be able to do it secretly. I think what happens is, I get a little upset in the sense that I’ve really been putting myself out there for years and really pushing — and because Chaz is associated with Cher, he gets all this publicity that I think I have never gotten. I think my message is just as important as his message, and I think because I’m so sex-positive and I’m so body-positive that I don’t get the same kind of play that somebody like Chaz gets. Even though I think Chaz is an important role model, I think I’m an important role model too. But, because of my positivity about sexuality — a lot of my work is sexual, so I don’t get that same kind of play. Which I think is really kind of sad because I think sex is really important and I think sexual- and body-image is very important. Chaz is an obviously very body-conscious, as you can see. He’s really let himself get a little overweight. I’m pretty anti- that. I’m about being healthy and about being conscious of your body. Whatever that means! You don’t have to be like a body builder — but you need to be conscious of your body — and I think being overweight isn’t being conscious of your body. But that’s Chaz’s deal and whatever. I think I’m a good role model, and I think it’s great that I’ve been accepted. I don’t consider myself just a Trans role model; I consider myself a role model for people who’ve never fit inside the box. Whether you’re Gay, whether you’re Straight, whether you’re a little person, whether you’re Black, whether you’re Latino — you know? A lot of us have never felt that we fit into what society wants us to fit into — and that’s really what my message is. My message isn’t that I was a Trans activist. I’m not. I’m an advocate for people who don’t fit inside the box.

MAKES SENSE. SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN IN MEXICO?

Buck Angel: Mexico — it fuckin’ rocks. I moved here for a couple of reasons. I live in the Yucatan in Mexico and one of the reasons I moved here is because of my work in the adult entertainment business — when Bush was in office in the United States, he was really coming down hard on pornography, and a lot of people don’t know this but the laws changed. The obscenity laws changed. You could get arrested if they felt you were doing something obscene. It was getting out of control — and I was getting very uncomfortable. So, I decided I wanted to move out of the United States — and a friend of mine lived in the Yucatan and I checked it out and I just fell in love with it. So I bought a house here, and then I didn’t move right away. I was living in New Orleans and then Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans — and that sort of was like a nightmare, and I couldn’t believe the way that the United States treated American people. It was disgusting, and I just said, “Why am I staying in the United States? I have this amazing home in the Yucatan —” and I moved here, and that was five years ago. I moved here and I’ve never looked back, ever — and I never will move back to the United States. I have an amazing life here.

WOW.

Buck Angel: People here are amazing — just really loving — and they don’t make any judgment calls about me whatsoever. I have a family that works for me. They’re like my second family. I take care of them and they take care of me. They’ve never once judged me. When I told the woman who works for me — I had to tell her I used to be a woman. She wouldn’t believe it until I showed her pictures of me as a female, and she was like, “It doesn’t matter. You’re still the man of the house and I respect you.” It was amazing. I love it and I’m never moving from here.

AWESOME. I HEARD YOU GREW UP IN THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY.

Buck Angel: Yeah.

IS THAT HOW YOU GOT INTO PORN?

Buck Angel: No, not at all. I grew up there when I was little and spent most of my life there — and I never even thought about doing porn, to be honest with you. I started to do porn in Los Angeles — like, behind the scenes. I was making fetish movies like foot fetish, dominatrix movies — all kinds of different things. I was filming and directing and then I realized, while working on a Transsexual woman’s website, there was no Transsexual men porn, at all, in the whole industry of porn. Which — come on, you can see everything in porn, right? There’s like clown porn. There’s fucking smoking porn. There’s all kinds of porn. There was no men like me in porn — and the idea just came to me. That’s why I got into it, because nobody else was doing it. The idea just came to me.

SO IT WAS A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO BE THE FIRST?

Buck Angel: Yes, because — I knew that Transsexual women porn was huge — and I also saw how disrespectful the porn industry was to a lot of the Transsexual Porn Stars. The way they treated them — the way they talked about these She-males, these freaks with cocks — and they would say all this fucked-up shit about that, and I thought, “You know, that’s going to happen to guys like me — and I’m not gonna let that happen. Eventually, down the road, somebody like me’s gonna get into the porno business,” and I was like, “You know what? I’m gonna do this before somebody else thinks of the idea and I’m gonna make it.” Even though some people would say calling myself a man with a pussy is derogatory — but it’s not because it’s me saying it. It’s me being in control of my body. I brought it to the table — the whole Buck Angel thing, without it being a “Buck Angel, freak of nature” type of situation. It’s always been under my control, and always been however I want to present myself — being a more sexual-type being, and not a freak of nature.

COOL. HAD YOU ALREADY TRANSITIONED WHEN YOU DECIDED TO DO PORNO, OR WERE YOU TRANSITIONING?

Photo: Michael Alago

Buck Angel: I had already transitioned. I was already ten or fifteen years into my transition at the time. I was fully transitioned. I already knew I wasn’t gonna get a penis. I already knew I was comfortable sexually with my body having a vagina, and having sex with it. That was the big step, to sort of get in front of the camera and have sex with my vagina, as a man, in front of the whole world. That was a big step for me. It was very empowering for me to do that. It was to show the world, “Well look, I don’t care what you think about me. I’m okay with my body and my vagina is not what makes me a man or a woman — it’s part of my body.”

COOL. DID YOU DO FILMS AS A WOMAN?

Buck Angel: No, never. I didn’t even think about doing porn when I was female. Honestly, I wasn’t even comfortable with my body when I was female. I had sex but I was always either really drunk or really fucked up on drugs. I never felt comfortable with my body sexually as a woman, even though I did have sex with my vagina. I had to be really drunk. I was conscious of the sexual part of my body — until I had the sex change, and really became comfortable with my body. I began working out and feeling really masculine with my body. That’s when I started really having sex and really got into doing porn.

WHAT KIND OF DRUGS WERE YOU DOING BACK THEN?

Buck Angel: I was a Crackhead. I was a Coke head. I was a Crystal Meth head. It became to where I was prostituting in West Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard, as a little boy. I would dress up as a little boy. These men would pick me up and I would jack them off. I never fucked them — I only jacked them off for twenty bucks. Then I got to be so bad that I literally became homeless and ended up living on the streets — and that’s when I hit bottom and just became sober. I was really a very bad drug addict and alcoholic. I’ve been sober for twenty-eight years now.

WOW. HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU REALIZED YOU WERE A MAN?

Buck Angel: Honestly? Forever. I know it sounds really stupid but really, honestly — forever. I mean, even my parents treated me like a boy. I was always very masculine as a little girl. My parents — I had two sisters, an older and a younger — and my parents would always buy them Barbie Dolls for Christmas. My parents would buy me G.I. Joes. Even though I was a little girl, they always bought me boy toys. They felt like I was boyish. That was fine, and my family was fine about me being a little buck and all of that — but the thing that happened was, puberty hit. I was like fifteen, which was kind of old. I started growing boobs. Everything changed for me at that point, because I started becoming into my female body. It was difficult for me. It was difficult for my family. It was difficult for everybody around me because I always thought I was a boy. Now, all of a sudden I’m a girl. All hell broke loose. That’s when the drugs started happening, the alcohol. I was very self-destructive. Honestly, to answer that question, I’ve always felt like a boy. It was never even an issue for me. To actually become a girl was the hard part for me. I had to live like that for many years, as a female. That wasn’t comfortable. People didn’t understand back then. I kept telling people, “I’m really a guy!” They’re thinking I’m fucking insane. “What are you talking about? You’re a girl!”

DID YOU GET NEGATIVE REACTIONS FROM YOUR FAMILY ABOUT YOUR TRANSFORMATION, OR WERE THEY ACCEPTING?

Buck Angel: In the beginning, when I thought I was a Gay woman, my parents had a really hard time with that. I was very butchy and I was not okay. Gay wasn’t what it is now — it’s much more accepted. My parents had a very hard time of it. When I decided to transition and become a man, my parents were like, “Oh, now we get it. He’s really a guy and it’s totally cool” — and my parents were extremely supportive because they saw me become the person I was always supposed to be. I stopped getting fucked up. I stopped being out of control. I saw my life become much better — and really, that’s all your parents really want, no matter what that is. They just want you to be happy and successful. After we’re done with the interview, I’ll email you a link to a public service announcement that I did with my mom. My mom totally did that for me. It’s about family acceptance — to show that you can love your kid even though he or she is Transgender or Gay, whatever. Just love them. My mom is awesome. She’s just been totally there. My dad still has a difficult time but my mom is super-awesome.

COOL. WERE THERE ANY SIDE EFFECTS TO YOU TAKING HORMONES?

Buck Angel: Good question. Yeah, you know, for guys like me, I’ve been doing it for twenty years. There were no studies on what the hormones were going to do. There still are no studies. We’re guinea pigs. I started to get some weird pains and I never had a hysterectomy before, and so I had to go to the doctor. Come to find out that long term use of testosterone atrophied my uterus and cervix, which caused problems down there. I just basically had a hysterectomy two months ago — and that was from the long-term use of testosterone. Still there’s no studies. I had the surgery here in Mexico, which was great. They’re going to do a study on my reproductive system — see what happened, and what the long term use of that is — but yeah, there are some problems with that and I think people should look into it who are planning on using testosterone for longer than ten years, for sure.

BEFORE YOU GOT THE HYSTERECTOMY, WAS IT STILL POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO GET PREGNANT?

Buck Angel: Before I did the hysterectomy, yes. I could have if I stopped using the testosterone — then what would have happened is, my reproductive system would kick back in and I would start menstruating again. There are guys who have even had babies. Personally, my own personal opinion about that is: I don’t particularly think that it’s a good choice to do testosterone for a long time because I do think testosterone can affect the baby somehow. I don’t know how. I’m not a doctor, but I can’t imagine that it doesn’t have some sort of effect on the baby. I don’t understand why you just wouldn’t adopt a baby. I became a man, so I don’t really think I would want to become pregnant. So, I don’t understand the whole idea of becoming a man and wanting to be pregnant — but, you know, it’s their choice. They can do whatever they want with their bodies.

WERE YOU ON BIRTH CONTROL?

Buck Angel: I’ve never taken birth control because, prior to having my sex change and taking testosterone, I never had sex with men. I only started having sex with men after my sex change. That’s because I only started feeling comfortable with my body sexually as a man — and then the testosterone makes you super-horny. You become like a sixteen-year-old boy. You always want to have sex. You always have a boner. You’re always like, “Waah —” And you know, honestly, I never even thought about having sex before my sex change — and I think what happened was, the testosterone made me feel more sexual and made me feel more open to my body and more open to experimenting sexually with guys. So, now I have sex with guys and girls. I feel so much more open about my sexuality — and it’s like a freeing feeling. I don’t have to choose who I want to have sex with — I can have sex with whoever I’m turned on by. It’s not so much that I want to have sex with a man because it’s a man; it’s more about, I want to have sex with that person. It doesn’t matter to me whether that person’s gender is male or female. I don’t really care.

WHICH DO YOU PREFER MORE?

Buck Angel: I don’t prefer either. To be honest with you, that question people always ask me: “How do you identify? As a Gay man? As a Straight man?” And honestly, I identify as a sexual man. I don’t have a preference. It’s more about, like I said, the person. You know what I mean? If you’re turned on by someone, you’re turned on by someone. I don’t really think it matters to me whether or not I have sex with a man or a woman. I think a lot of people are like that. I just think people are so hooked on labeling each other — do you know what I mean? Like I have to label myself as Gay or Straight — that’s total bullshit. I think everybody is more open about sexuality than they want to admit.

COOL. SO YOU AREN’T PLANNING ON GETTING A PENIS?

Buck Angel: No way. I would never do that. It’s not that I’m against it; it’s just that I’m totally one-hundred-and-ten percent comfortable with my body — and my vagina’s not what defines me as a man. It’s just part of my body, and I use it sexually, and it’s great, and it’s there, and why would I want to fuck with something that works? When you get a penis surgery, many problems are involved in that. You know? Like, you can get gangrene. It’s not a very pretty sight and you might lose your orgasm. It’s not necessarily going to get an erection. You can’t sort of pee through it. It’s seventy-thousand U.S. dollars. Why would I go through all this massive amount of financial problems, just to have a penis — it just, for me, makes no sense. For other guys, it’s something they need to do. They really feel that that defines them as a man — and more power to them. For me, it’s not what defines me as a man.

COOL. DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THAT AFRICAN COUNTRY THAT’S TRYING TO LEGALIZE KILLING GAYS?

Buck Angel: Yes. Uganda. The world is completely crazy, man. The world is going crazy. I think what’s happening is that there’s a backlash now against the whole Gay and Trans movement. We’re coming out so much, and we’re really sort of out and about and pushing it in your face — and because of the Internet, we have free range to push our message out there. And people don’t like that. People still believe that being Gay and being Transsexual is a choice, and they don’t want people to have that freedom. So, Uganda, I think — it’s also the Christian Right, the religious Right, that’s really making people have this anti-Gay sentiment. That we’re evil — and you can’t make somebody Gay. It’s part of who you are. You can’t make somebody Transsexual. It’s part of who you are. So, I think people are getting very scared that we’re coming up and saying our message, which is: If you are, then you should be able to be who you are no matter what that situation is — and they don’t like it. People like that are sick and fucked-up, and the fact that they think it’s okay to kill somebody because you’re Gay — we need to fight that kind of message because it’s not just Gay. It might come down to, they might not want guys with long hair next, right?

YEAH.

Buck Angel: They might want to kill you because you have long hair — and that makes you a devil worshipper. If that gets passed, and the next thing gets passed — we go back to: The people need to be slaves. And, the fact that we’re putting walls across the United States of America to keep Mexicans out is fucking disgusting. Like, how dare they even think that’s okay? That kind of stuff really pisses me off. It’s sort of going back to this whole way of thinking that people can just have one way of thinking and that’s all that you can think. That’s not true. There’s so much more there — and the fact that they would put walls up to keep Mexicans out is really sick. That whole thing is just disgusting.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE 2012 THING, SINCE YOU’RE DOWN THERE IN THE YUCATAN?

Buck Angel: The Mayan calendar? The woman who works for me is Mayan, and she speaks Mayan. It’s totally cool. Actually, the funny thing is, the Mayan calendar already happened. That actually really happened in 2010. People don’t really know that. The new calendar, they fucked up. So actually, what’s happening right now is that you see a lot of destruction in the world, right? A lot of the weather change, a lot of what’s going on around the world, is because of the shift and the change that the Mayans already predicted. It’s already been happening. As you can see — just look at the world. It’s totally going crazy. The weather alone is completely freaking out. I think it’s natural, and what’s happening now is a natural progression of the world. It’s changing — and I also think a lot of the destruction from the way that we treated the Earth has something to do with that. I’m a firm believer that Mayans were way ahead of their time and that had a lot to do with seeing the future — and that’s exactly what’s happening now.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS AT ALL?

Buck Angel: Nope. I’m not religious. I’m not religious in the sense that I’m not into organized religion. I mean, I grew up Baptist but I’m not religious in that sense. I’m not Christian. I’m not Catholic. I’m not Jewish. I’m not any of those things that I feel are sort of organized and put you in another box — but I believe in spirituality, sort of what the Mayans believe in — which was worshipping the Earth and the Sun and positivity. Putting out positive energy. When you put out positive energy, positive energy comes back to you. Religion teaches you hatred, if you think about it.

YEAH, YEAH —

Buck Angel: It teaches you hatred. It teaches you to sort of judge people if they’re a certain way — and if they’re not that way then they’re bad, and that’s not really a positive message.

SO WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE WHO ARE IN THE SAME SITUATION AS YOU?

Buck Angel: Well, now there’s a lot of information on the Internet. There’s a lot of things out there people can see. When I was growing up there was none of that. What I feel is, that they need to be able to get into a group situation and talk to somebody. If you’re feeling out of it, if you’re feeling completely lost, see a therapist and contact a center — a local GLBT center. Talk to somebody. If you’re feeling really crappy — I mean, I was suicidal as a kid. I had to go into the psychiatric ward. I was suicidal. I didn’t really have a community at the time. So, there is a lot of help out there now. You don’t have to feel that way. There’s so much going on. Reach out. Don’t feel like you’re alone — because you’re not. It’s totally different now. So, my message is to reach out and find an organization that you feel comfortable talking to — and don’t feel alone.

ALRIGHT, BUCK, THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Buck Angel: Yeah. Thanks, man. I mean, sometime when I’m in L.A. we should hook up. You know, go out and have a drink or something — ~

Thomas Beatie

Parent

Photo courtesy of Thomas Beatie

RIO WARNER: FIRST OF ALL, CAN YOU INTRODUCE YOURSELF?

Thomas Beatie: My name is Thomas Beatie. In 2008, my story made international headlines when it was discovered that instead of my wife Nancy being pregnant, I was pregnant with our first child. While I am not the first female-to-male Transsexual to give birth, my case set a precedent in that I am the first fully legally recognized male and husband in the world to birth a child. This prompted the media to nickname me “The Pregnant Man.” Since the birth of our daughter Susan, I went on to have two more biological children — sons, Austin and Jensen. While many people see my decision to get pregnant as unusual, it was really just a practical way for Nancy and me to start a family together. It also solved our infertility problems, as Nancy had a hysterectomy twenty years prior due to severe endometriosis.

WHERE DID YOU GROW UP, AND WHAT WAS YOUR CHILDHOOD LIKE?

Thomas Beatie: I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii as a girl named Tracy. I was the first child between my two parents. My little brother followed five years after me. My mom was a blonde from San Francisco and my dad was of Asian roots, born and raised himself in Honolulu. My parents had different upbringings and cultural backgrounds, so in raising me, they offered a varied plate. My father was a heavy-handed disciplinarian, lax on hugs and affection. My mother was an educator, very involved and devoted to being there for me physically and emotionally. I was a tomboy for sure. I took to math and science and Legos and Hot Wheels just like my architect father. I was easily entertained and had no problem keeping myself busy. I loved sports like running and long-jump and karate. My mother made holidays fun and memorable, and I have a child-like enthusiasm for them still today. When I was twelve, my mother committed suicide. From that day forward, I was forever changed. I went from being quick to sharing my opinions to keeping to myself. Our family of three grew apart. And for the rest of my teens, my slap-stick sense of humor was replaced with a pensive face. I turned to academics and pushed myself hard and fast. I started college two years early and basically moved out of the house at age sixteen.

WHEN DID YOU START GETTING THE IDEA THAT YOU WERE DIFFERENT?

Thomas Beatie: I knew I was different for a couple of reasons. I know I looked different than either of my parents. Being bi-racial, I was an equal blend of the both of them — and not many kids in school looked like me. Aside from my ethnicity, I started noticing that I was being treated differently by schoolmates and even adults. While girls my age were focusing on the latest fashion trends, I could have cared less. I was quite content wearing my half-brother’s hand-me-downs. After I cut my hair short one year, a new girl in school developed a crush on me. She got teased because of it, because she thought I was a boy. Unfamiliar grown-ups also started to refer to me as a little boy. In the sixth grade, I tried out for the lead male role in a play, The Night Before Christmas, and I landed the part. I remember wearing blue long-johns and combing my hair over to one side, just like how my mother used to do with my brother. I was so excited to play this part.

WERE YOUR PARENTS ACCEPTING?

Thomas Beatie: My father didn’t prevent me from molding my behavior after him. Perhaps he saw it as the greatest form of flattery. I don’t know. It wasn’t until after my mother died that he started freaking out and pressuring me to do modeling and enter a beauty pageant. Since he was now the sole parent and provider, I think he tried to overcompensate for the lack of a female role model in my life. I never did see my father smile so much. My father’s pride of me has never radiated so strongly since that 1989 Miss Teen Hawaii USA pageant I was a finalist in. My mother was always supportive of me. Whether it was helping me study or laughing at my jokes, my mom was there for me. There were times when she went through phases trying out different braids for my hair or making me wear a fancy dress, but she always defaulted to letting me do or wear what made me happiest. I can’t help but believe that if she were alive today, she’d also continue to stand behind me and what makes me happy. I think she would have been delighted to be a grandmother, especially since I named my daughter, Susan, after her.

WERE YOU SEXUALLY ACTIVE AS A GIRL?

Thomas Beatie: As a child, I was not sexually active with other people. I did start dating boys in high school, but I was never sexually attracted to them. I did have crushes on girls. I had a couple of babysitters that I was fond of, but that too was not of a sexual nature. I got butterflies around them — and I didn’t know why. I probably teased them more because I wanted them to laugh and pay more attention to me. At about the age of fifteen, I fantasized about kissing a girl. I didn’t kiss a woman until I was twenty and after I had lost my virginity to a thirty-five-year-old man, at age seventeen.

WHEN YOU STARTED HORMONE TREATMENTS, HOW WAS THAT?

Thomas Beatie: I started testosterone treatments in the late 1990s when I was in my early twenties. By that time, I had already been through a three-year relationship with a woman. During my relationship with this girlfriend, I had brought up the idea of me transitioning to male, but she was not supportive of my decision. When I entered a relationship in 1998 with Nancy, now my wife, she provided the emotional support to enable my transition. She was there to witness my second puberty, a male puberty — voice change, sparse facial hair, acne, increased sex drive and all. Taking testosterone, I felt like I was finally able to be me and express myself and my body the way I wanted to be seen. I felt like I was reborn. Aside from my decisions to have each of my children, this was the best decision I’ve ever made for my mind and body. I’m truly the person I was meant to be.

HOW DID NANCY FEEL ABOUT THE PROCESS?

Thomas Beatie: When I got together with Nancy almost fourteen years ago — I met her twenty-one years ago — I was in what I call my quote-unquote tweener phase. Many people were already addressing me with male pronouns, but the second I’d speak, my high voice confused many people. Nancy was attracted to me because I looked boyish. She was very supportive and excited to see me be the man I dreamed of becoming. There was no hiccup. The conversations led to action and the whole process was seamless. I had no internal conflict about expressing a male gender identity — and neither did Nancy in seeing me transition. The process for the both of us was easy. Nancy has always said that she loves me for who I am and what’s in my heart and my mind, not what gender I am. Any hardship we received because of my transition was from other people not understanding it.

WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO HAVE A CHILD EVEN THOUGH YOU WERE ALREADY TRANSITIONING INTO A MAN?

Thomas Beatie: Even as a young child, I knew I wanted to someday be a parent. I didn’t know when or how, but the desire was still there — regardless of my gender identity. Nancy and I had talked about having young children over the years, but in the early years, we were focused on raising Nancy’s older daughters from a previous marriage. But once they were grown and moved out and we moved to a new state and bought our first home together, that’s when we decided it was time to grow the family. In 2006, I stopped taking my bi-monthly testosterone injections in order to start the process of fertility. I had already considered myself fully transitioned as a man. Previously, I had chest reconstruction surgery and changed all of my legal documentation to being listed as male. I was also Nancy’s lawfully-wed husband. Millions — if not billions — of men want to have children and families, so it’s not at all surprising that I too wanted to have a child. But, in order for us to have a child, our options were limited to what we could produce with our own bodies. Nancy couldn’t reproduce anymore, so the weight fell on my shoulders. Doctors wouldn’t help us with surrogacy options — we were encountering discrimination because I am Transgender. So, we decided to use what was available to us — and that meant using my original reproductive organs that I kept for the very reason of having a family one day. Yes, that meant I was going to be a pregnant man. How we got our baby, to us wasn’t as much of a concern — as long as our baby got here. And when she was born, she was perfect and healthy. We were willing to make any sacrifice to have our family.

Photo courtesy of Thomas Beatie

WHAT DID THE DOCTORS SAY? WERE THERE DOUBTS IT WAS EVEN POSSIBLE?

Thomas Beatie: The first doctor we approached was a fertility endocrinologist. He was a specialist in helping couples with fertility problems. Upon meeting him, he was uncomfortable with my male identity. He didn’t like my facial hair, and asked that I consider shaving it off. He was concerned with what we might tell our baby about how he or she came into this world. He made a lot of personal and religious comments, and used the word “God” — but did proceed in getting me physically checked out. For pregnancy, my hormone levels looked good and the amount of mature follicles I had was great. This doctor had never treated anyone like me before, and he didn’t know what to expect about my ability to get pregnant and carry out a healthy pregnancy. He ultimately said he could no longer treat me because he and his staff felt uncomfortable working with quote-unquote someone like me. Nancy and I consulted with several other doctors who turned us down, until we finally found a doctor willing to help me get pregnant. Some doctors expressed surprise when they learned I successfully conceived after being on testosterone for about ten years.

CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING IMPREGNATED? HOW WAS IT DONE?

Thomas Beatie: It took about a year and a half after I stopped my testosterone until we were allowed access to a cryobank to select our donor sperm that required emergency surgery. I lost my right fallopian tube in the pregnancy that my surgeon suspected to be triplets.

DID YOU PICK THE DONOR, OR WAS IT RANDOM?

Thomas Beatie: We searched through hundreds of profiles and finally found the one that we knew was instinctually right for us. Both Nancy and I agreed on the donor. We were able to view a picture of him on a bicycle as a young child. We could see his health and family histories, his educational background, his physical stats, and an office impression of him. We even have a voice recording of him so that the kids can hear him one day. The woman who handled this donor said he was very good-looking. From the looks of our babies, we have to agree. We bought fifteen vials of him. We used the same donor for all three children — and now he is retired.

HOW DID THE HORMONES AFFECT THE PREGNANCY? WAS YOUR BODY COMPLETELY THROWN OFF WHACK?

Thomas Beatie: I had normal pregnancies — though with Nancy and I had to learn from the Internet how to thaw and prepare the cryogenically-frozen sample. We had lots of glass bowls, thermometers, gloves and water baths at different temperatures. We had bought a plastic speculum and flashlight off the Internet as well as a two-dollar plastic syringe from a pet store. It took about ten minutes to prepare the vial and transfer the contents to the syringe. Once Nancy had the sample transferred, she had under a minute to inseminate me — or else the sperm would have perished. I remember her hands shaking and her asking if she had done it correctly. In fact she had done it right. It was very low-tech, and very not-romantic, but it was successful — three times over. Nancy was the hand that helped create Susan, Austin, and Jensen. This statement is very powerful, considering our very first insemination was done by a doctor in the Portland, Oregon area. This conception resulted in an ectopic pregnancy my last pregnancy with Jensen, I did have low progesterone levels and had to take exogenous progesterone, or else I would have miscarried. The testosterone I had stopped taking years before conceiving was no longer present in my body, so only my natural hormones affected my pregnancies. I wouldn’t say that my body was thrown off whack. If anything, it was more suited to handle the demands of pregnancy. My back was muscularly strong, so I didn’t suffer from lower back pain. I walked with ease. I wasn’t so much out of breath because I was used to being an athlete. Though, I did pee a lot. I was lower in body fat, so I didn’t get fat during my pregnancies. I gained exactly twenty-four pounds with each pregnancy, and lost the weight immediately after giving birth. If anything, I was lighter after giving birth because with each pregnancy, I lost more and more muscle. On top of it, I had a sympathetic wife who had gone through pregnancies herself, so she knew how to be supportive emotionally and physically. She even knew what to cook for me. It was the perfect situation. I’m a lucky man. I have no complaints.

DID ALL THIS AFFECT YOUR SEX LIFE WITH YOUR WIFE?

Thomas Beatie: Yes, very much so. I had the irrational belief that having an orgasm in pregnancy would cause premature labor — so, being an extremist, I completely withheld. I’m so sorry, Nancy. I am trying to make up for it now.

YOU MUST HAVE GOTTEN SOME PRETTY WILD REACTIONS FROM THE PUBLIC, WALKING AROUND AS A PREGNANT MAN! ANY FUNNY STORIES?

Thomas Beatie: By the time I started to look pregnant, our story was already on Oprah. We lived in Bend, Oregon at the time of my pregnancies — a very quaint and conservative logging town. So, everyone knew who we were. Nancy did a lot of the grocery shopping, but sometimes I had to get out of the house. Going to Walmart and Safeway and Costco was a bit of a spectacle sometimes. For the most part, people kept to themselves. Nobody ever came up to us with anything negative to say. The people who did approach us only said nice, supportive things. We did get lots of funny looks, and people staring and bumping their family members to point me out. “Do you know who that is?” or “It’s the Pregnant Man!” or “Oh my Lord, it’s those people having babies” are a few of the things I could overhear people saying. We have a few funny stories. A lot of them happened when our neighbors and customers knew we were expecting — They thought Nancy was the pregnant one. She had to endure people wanting to paw at her belly and comment on how pregnant she looked. It’s amazing what people think they see when they expect to see something. I’m sure Nancy didn’t appreciate the insinuation that she was gaining weight. Another time, Nancy had to push a wine glass away from her after someone watched her take a sip. And yet another time, I had to look like a good-for-nothing jerk husband not lifting a finger to help a customer carry shirt boxes — while my pregnant wife did it for me.

HOW DID THE WORLD FIND OUT ABOUT YOUR STORY?

Thomas Beatie: After I was asked to write a short first-person article for The Advocate magazine, accompanied by a personal picture my wife took in front of our shower curtain, the story wrapped around the world in about twenty-four hours. Our intention was to share our experiences of medical discrimination due to my Transgender identity, and to ask for legal advice about how our baby’s birth certificate might be handled. We also wanted to let our community see the face of another Transgender family. We thought for certain that other married couples with a Transgender husband had gone through the same legal predicament. After time passed and there were no answers for us, we soon realized we were in fact the first to do so — and to the world, the image of a pregnant man was way more sensational and interesting than addressing our medical or legal concerns.

WE’RE YOU ABLE TO BREASTFEED?

Thomas Beatie: No, I was not able to breastfeed. I had chest reconstruction comprised of a double mastectomy and nipple and areola grafting and replacement. My milk glands were completely removed. Nancy, on the other hand, was able to breastfeed all three of our babies due to induced lactation. She had to take hormones and herbs to trick her body into thinking it had given birth. We were shocked and elated that she was able to breastfeed because she was older and had breast implants removed, so it was a long shot. But, the babies were all able to get those vital nutrients and antibodies — and Nancy got to maternally bond with her babies. It was magical. It was also a joint pregnancy for the both of us.

WHAT ROLE WILL YOU TAKE WITH YOUR KIDS?

Thomas Beatie: I am the father of my babies — legally, socially, psychologically, emotionally. I am Daddy — that is my name. That is my identity. People ask, “What about their biological father?” Biologically I am a parent to my children. I am a father in all of the other aspects I just mentioned. I respond that the person who genetically helped Nancy and I make our babies is the donor. Daddy and father represent a different kind of bond — a bond with a male figure who helps raise a child. Daddy, to me especially, represents a masculine, loving, long-term bond. The donor does not have this kind of bond with the children. While he had humanitarian efforts to help us start our family, he will not be helping to rear our children. Nancy is Mom and I am Dad.

AT WHAT AGE WILL YOU TELL THEM YOUR WHOLE STORY?

Thomas Beatie: Right now. I wrote my book solely for my children to understand where they came from and how they came to be. Nancy and I are explaining everything we can to them as they can understand it. It’s not like we’re going to wait until they’re teenagers to tell them everything It’s a full and total process starting now. We’re totally honest and open. What’s important is that they were made from love. They were planned, and will always be loved.

DO YOU THINK THE SITUATION WILL BE HARD FOR THEM AS THEY GROW UP?

Thomas Beatie: For anyone who meets our kids, the one thing that is said is that they’re so happy. They are loving, they are respectful, and they quote-unquote get it. Susan has known for some time that I gave birth to her and her brothers. She sees the cover of my book, Labor of Love, and she points to the picture of me pregnant and says, “Susan is inside your belly. Now Susan is outside your belly.” She knows she came from me and that is her normal. We’ve shown her pictures of Mommy pregnant with her older sisters Jen and Amber, and so Susan knows that women give birth too. We’re just starting to get her to understand that not all guys with big bellies are pregnant. Her preschool knows who we are as a family and know that I gave birth to her. Conversations may arise in her class when the children get to talking about things, but we are teaching our children to be respectful of different kinds of families and choices. I think times are changing and more Transmen are having babies. With the exposure its gotten, it’s not such a shocker anymore. If kids are cruel to our kids it would be because their parents aren’t teaching them right. We can’t tell other people how to parent — but we can try to show our own children how to be good people.

HOW HAVE YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS REACTED TO YOUR NEW FAMILY?

Thomas Beatie: The family I grew up with has not been supportive of me. I have little to no contact with them because they don’t want to be a part of my life and they choose not to know my children. My father hasn’t seen me in over six years. This has been sad for me, but I realize I can’t make anyone love me or my kids — and a relationship has to be mutual to be a good and loving one. Nancy’s family is also estranged — eight brothers, one sister, a few step-siblings, a father, a very large extended family — one of Nancy’s daughters, Jen, keeps in contact with us. This we cherish. The family who wants to be family is family. Our friends are few and far between, but the ones we have are precious to us. Many of our neighbors from our past and current homes are near and dear to us, and much like family.

HAVE ANY INTERESTING CELEBS REACHED OUT TO YOU?

Thomas Beatie: I may be well-known, but I’m not exactly well-liked. I have heard many famous people talking about me — and for the most part it’s been a mixed bag. We have met a few celebrities while doing media appearances. I would say one of the most unlikely celebs to emotionally reach out to us was Elizabeth Hasselbeck from The View. Before our appearance on the show, I was a little intimidated in anticipation of her potential Right-winged comments, but I was pleasantly surprised by her humanity and kindness, and my fears were unwarranted. Barbara Walters was the person who most impressed me. I respect her dearly. She is a seasoned professional and a very kind woman.

HAS THERE BEEN BACKLASH? HOW DO YOU REACT TO CRITICISM? IT MUST HAVE BEEN VERY HARD AT FIRST —

Thomas Beatie: There’s been backlash from Day One. Much of it has been directly from the LGBT community — and the lack of support from that community has been deafening. I’m not going to lie. It’s been brutal and difficult, and some days it’s hard to get through it. If you let your guard down, the intensity and cruelty of some of this stuff could break you at the knees. It also hasn’t stopped. We get negative comments every day. I heard this saying on TV the other day and I had to smile and nod my head: “Haters are my motivators.” Nancy and I have grown thick skin through it all. We also get lots of positive messages — and these comments outweigh the negative ones a thousand-fold. What keeps us going is our love for our family. We know we did the right thing. And we’re going to fight for the rest of our lives for what we believe in —our children.

WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THIS EXPERIENCE TO OTHERS IN YOUR POSITION?

Thomas Beatie: I have been contacted by dozens of Transmen who intend to get pregnant and start families. Some of them have since done so. I am happy to offer words of support and encouragement to anyone who reaches out to me. Pregnancy is an amazing experience I wish everyone could realize. It’s an extreme and it makes you feel alive. Not only that, you’re creating life inside you, from scratch. For me and my wife, this was the only biological option available to us to start our own family. This may be the same case for other couples like us. Either way, it’s a very viable option — and one that other Transmen seeking families should consider. In the end, you’re not only a man — you’re a father.

THE WORLD IS OBVIOUSLY VERY INTERESTED IN YOU, WHAT ARE SOME THINGS YOU’VE BEEN ABLE TO DO WITH THIS NOTORIETY?

Thomas Beatie: I have been honored to have the opportunity to travel with my family to over a dozen countries to tell our story. It’s been an incredible experience to be able to share the world with our children and our family with the world. It’s revealed new horizons to countless people. And not only have we inspired other people, but we have been inspired by others. One of the recent highlights of our travels was going to Stockholm, Sweden with the entire family — where I was the opening speaker for Stockholm Pride 2011. I spoke to tens of thousands of people, including one-on-one discussions with doctors and politicians about supporting an effort to tear down the sterilization law for Transgender people in that country. It was a very important message for me to stand behind — and it’s about basic reproductive rights for all people.

HAVE YOU LIKED ALL THIS ATTENTION YOU’VE RECEIVED, OR HAS IT BEEN A BURDEN?

Thomas Beatie: When I’m in a social situation, I’m usually the quiet one — the one listening. It’s awkward for me to be the center of attention. I’ve always been afraid of public speaking. But, I’ve done it in the past when I fought for marriage equality in Hawaii, and I do it for things I feel passionately about. Because of my family’s story, I was given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help educate people about diversity and the existence of Transgender people and their desire for family just like everyone else. How could I be silent when visibility and openness leads to societal awareness and acceptance? Sure, it’s taken a toll on our family. But, we’re stronger because of it and hopefully happier for generations to come.

DO YOU PLAN ON GOING THROUGH WITH A FULL SEXUAL REASSIGNMENT SURGERY?

Thomas Beatie: I already feel and look fully male. Legally, I don’t need to go through any further surgeries to be classified as male. I already have all my T’s crossed and all my I’s dotted. Does a Transman need to have his reproductive organs removed to be a man? How could having no reproductive organs make one more of either sex? Do I need to add to the size of my penis? I don’t need to do this to be considered more of a man. If I were to have any further surgeries, they would be completely elective — and not because I feel like I need to feel fully male. I already am.

ALRIGHT — ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE TO ADD?

Thomas Beatie: What do I want people to know about me? I’m not a what, an it, a thing, a he-she, or a freak. I’m a person with a family. I love and am loved. I have feelings and passions and dreams. I want what everyone wants: Love, life, and the pursuit of happiness. I am not afraid to be myself. I am a man today because of it. I am not afraid to follow my dreams. I have my family today because of it. I have found meaning and purpose in life. I am Thomas — husband and father. ~

Dr. Marci Bowers

Surgeon

Photo courtesy of Dr. Marci Bowers

GEORGE PETROS: WE’RE TALKING TO DR. MARCI BOWERS. YOU’RE A GYNECOLOGIST, RIGHT?

Dr. Marci Bowers: That’s correct. I’ve been in private practice for twenty-one years. And I did obstetrics for, including residency, twenty-five years.

YOU DELIVERED A LOT OF BABIES.

Dr. Marci Bowers: About two-thousand-something babies, I think.

WOW. THAT’S A LOT OF BABIES.

Dr. Marci Bowers: That’s a lot of babies. I worked in a clinic during my practice years and got rather skilled at doing gynecologic surgery, which I translated to the transition I made in 2003 when I left my OB/GYN practice in Seattle and moved to Trinidad, Colorado to take up the unique sub-specialty of Transgender surgery. I worked with Stanley Biber there, who was a general surgeon and had worked since 1969 doing genital reassignment. And, interestingly, we were the same age when we did our first genital reassignment — he was forty-five and I was forty-five. He had had his earlier career in general surgery and I had my OB/GYN. I found that interesting.

YOU YOURSELF HAVE TRANSITIONED —

Dr. Marci Bowers: That’s in the distant past, but yes.

IS THAT SOMETHING YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Not really. I don’t really see myself that way anymore. I just live a normal life these days. But if it helps your story, I’d be happy to talk about it.

WELL, THERE’S NO PARTICULAR DETAILS I WAS LOOKING FOR — I WAS JUST CURIOUS ABOUT THE POINT IN YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU MADE THE DECISION AND HOW YOU CHANGED, BESIDES THE OBVIOUS WAYS?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, you don’t make that decision after just a short period of introspection. You do it based on a life-long history of feeling that way. In my generation, you didn’t go to your parents and say “I’m a girl” at age four or five years old — which is when I was first feeling that way. You see it much more with children today, that they come out to their parents at age two or three, and parents don’t guilt them or shame them into the closet, so to speak. They’re much more accepting and willing to support them in whatever way they can.

I SEE.

Dr. Marci Bowers: In my case, I suppressed those feelings and made an attempt to transition at age nineteen. I left college and hitch-hiked to California and tried to transition, but there weren’t resources to make that happen. I was a poor college student, so I really didn’t have any financial resources.

WHEN YOU WORK WITH PEOPLE TODAY, DO YOU REFLECT ON YOUR OWN HISTORY —

Dr. Marci Bowers: Not really. I think every situation is different. I’m empathetic to what they go through in the struggle. Every struggle is unique and different. You have to have a pretty strong inclination to do this. You know, if you leave college to try to make it happen at that early age — I was nineteen when I left college with nothing but a female wardrobe —

IT MUST HAVE BEEN A NERVE-WRACKING DECISION —

Dr. Marci Bowers: No, not really. It just feels right, you know, so it’s just a little bit frightening because it’s a dangerous world. Even in 1978 when the world was a little bit more naive, it was still not an easy thing to do.

HOW DID YOU KNOW WHERE TO GO? YOU HITCH-HIKED TO CALIFORNIA — WHAT DID YOU DO WHEN YOU GOT THERE?

Dr. Marci Bowers: That was where I happened to get my ride. I didn’t have any direction. I just thought I’d go west.

LIKE WALT WHITMAN SAID TO DO, EH?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh. That’s right. Yep.

WHERE IN CALIFORNIA DID YOU WIND UP?

Dr. Marci Bowers: San Diego. Actually, I was dropped off on the front steps of the YMCA. There was a young woman in the lobby who was very friendly and invited me to dinner, and the next thing you know I was up with the Unification Church and they whisked me off to a retreat. They were trying to involve me in a cult, I guess you could call it. So, I did that for about ten days — until I realized what was happening. I was somewhat of a victim. I guess it wasn’t brainwashing, but they certainly were trying to recruit me into their activities. Encouraging me to sign off on all my worldly possessions and join their church or commune or cult or whatever you wanted to call it back then.

IT’S A GOOD THING YOU GOT OUT OF THERE.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, I didn’t feel any threat. I don’t know what happened to all the people who were there, but eventually you realize that it’s a bit of a dead end. So, I had to break into their headquarters to get my clothing. Not really break in, but I mean I had to go through a basement window to get my stuff out.

A BIT OF AN ADVENTURE —

Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, that’s my whole life — it’s an adventure.

NOT TO BELABOR THE SUBJECT OF YOUR FORMER PERSONA, BUT I DID SEE THAT YOU HAD A COUPLE OF KIDS —

Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh. Had kids, yeah.

WHEN YOU GOT TO CALIFORNIA, YOU DIDN’T TRANSITION — YOU WENT ON AND HAD A COUPLE OF KIDS.

Dr. Marci Bowers: No, what I did was I realized that it was going to take money and then, just as it happens, I met someone who I fell in love with. I thought I could outrun it. I thought I could just set it aside — and in fact I thought that the field of OB/GYN was a good field because I could use it to defray my own feelings by involving myself in the lives of women. I thought that was going to be an acceptable substitute for my own feelings. Which, of course, it was not. It only amplified the feelings and so, I did practice for some time — but even in residency I was taking hormones intermittently. I knew it was only a matter of time, I guess. Kids were very important to me but I didn’t feel at ease with my life as a him.

DID YOU MEET OTHER TRANSGENDERED PEOPLE?

Dr. Marci Bowers: I knew of a couple of people. I had one good friend who I took a trip with and experimented with getting out and testing out my new persona. I also used to do some coverage for a medical clinic out in eastern Washington. I used to tour the wineries, and that was another way to test out and see how successful I’d be with my new persona.

IT WORKED OUT PRETTY WELL FOR YOU.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, sure. It wasn’t too hard. I wasn’t a pretty sight initially, but I found myself good at it. So yeah.

HOW DID YOU FIND THE SURGEON WHO DID YOUR OPERATION, AND WHAT WAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP —

Dr. Marci Bowers: There was no relationship. I just talked to one person and there was a recommendation, so I said “okay.” I just scheduled surgery, came in, and had surgery. But back then, there wasn’t an Internet or anything where you could check things out. The Internet was in its infancy.

AFTER YOU HAD THE SURGERY, YOU CONTINUED TO WORK AS AN OB/GYN —

Dr. Marci Bowers: I stayed on. It was a lot of negotiating with our clinic to allow them to accept me and to support me. Their initial reaction was to fire me, and then calmer heads prevailed and some of the dissenting voices were suppressed for a time. They had a very prestigious reputation in downtown Seattle. And, at the time, I was a department chairperson in the OB/GYN department. I hate to say it, but they were kind of good old boys who don’t like to be embarrassed and that kind of thing. So, in a sense, I kind of pulled their pants down, so to speak. Initially the reaction wasn’t very positive, but then education and probably some worry about legal action changed their minds. They all considered it a wise idea to support me.

THEN YOU FOUND YOUR WAY TO TRINIDAD, COLORADO AND DR. BIBER —

Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah, 2003 that was. My practice thrived after transition but, again, there were the people who didn’t like what I was all about — and they laid in wait. When they came to power in 2001, they started to make my life harder. They began to look for flaws in me. Someone once said that everyone spills a little soup when it comes to medicine, and the fact that I was taking care of Transgendered patients — they didn’t like that. I was performing hysterectomies on patients and getting them covered by insurance. So, what they were saying was, this was a Medicare violation. They basically made it easy for me to leave my clinic. They made it sound like they would have the votes to get rid of me, so I packed my bags and went into private practice, and did that for a couple of years — and then ended up meeting Dr. Biber. I read the tea leaves and I just felt like it was a better move to just keep going forward. That’s what they say, a rolling stone gathers no moss — and I think that was the case.

WHAT WAS DR. BIBER LIKE?

Dr. Marci Bowers: He was very proud and very stoic. Even at age eighty he stood vertically upright. I mean, there was no slouch, no stoop to him whatsoever. I’ve never seen a man walk more upright than he did. He wasn’t a tall guy — but he was very folksy and charming. He had a waxy way of speaking. He just flowed, kind of sing-song, and he was a very sweet man. He called his patients honey, for the most part — the women. But he also had a way with the men — the local ranchers — and he was one of those unique, really kind people who did it for the love of medicine. Although he was obviously aware of money, it was his love of medicine that really kept him going.

HE DID HIS FIRST SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY IN 1969 —

Dr. Marci Bowers: That’s right — and he did his last one in 2003, when I was there.

HOW HAD THE TECHNIQUES CHANGED OVER THAT TIME?

Dr. Marci Bowers: His surgeries were somewhat crudely based off of drawings that were dragged from Johns Hopkins, and the original techniques of inversion that were actually invented by a gynecologist, George Burou. He worked in Casablanca. He’s a French gynecologist whose work was emulated and whose technique was disseminated, and it made it to Johns Hopkins, which in the 1960s did have a gender program — which was later abandoned.

WHY’S THAT?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, they hired someone who basically became politicized, and the politics of the day was that somebody didn’t like it, even though the criteria for having the surgery back then were extremely strict. They were very, very strict. Patients had to look impeccable. They had to jump through a lot more hoops than they do now. There’re still standards of care that we adhere to very strictly, but back then there were additional things that would be unthinkable today.

LIKE WHAT?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Divorce was mandatory. Leaving your place of familiarity was highly recommended. It wasn’t spelled out, but it was basically: pack your bags, you’re in what’s like a witness-relocation program. That kind of thing.

OH BOY.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Pack your bags. You’re leaving. You’re starting a new life. You’re starting a new identity. So, what ended up happening is that it was very tragic, in a sense. Imagine that you grew up your whole life in, say, Atlanta — and you had to move to Cleveland and start over with no history and no friends and no family. It was that kind of thing. And then you also had to look immaculate. You had to really fit the part. There were no six-foot-four Transgendered woman. Basically anybody that was not passable just wasn’t allowed to transition.

I SEE.

Dr. Marci Bowers: But people in the Johns Hopkins psychology department didn’t like what was going on. They actually hired someone to design a study to show the patients study’s been held up by conservative groups for years. “Oh look! See, see!” Of course it hasn’t been reproduced and in fact, if you look at the results, it proves their claim because it relied on self-reporting by the Transgender population — who were felt to be crazy in the first place, so their results were not reliable. Their feelings of well-being were discounted — and there were other external factors that were used to assess their well-being. So, the conclusion was that the patients weren’t happier. Basically they were using surgery to treat a psychiatric condition. It was all psychiatric, and all they needed was more psychotherapy and meds. So, they closed their program. Most university programs followed suit. They thought, “Well Johns Hopkins did it, well then — ” I think they closed their program in 1971. By then, Dr. Biber had done his first surgeries, and once the university programs around the country closed, Dr. Biber was it. It was just word of mouth. No advertising. No Internet. Nothing. But that’s all it was. And so as a result, he became the place throughout the world that people came to.

AND THIS WAS IN TRINIDAD, COLORADO.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Trinidad.

IT’S CALLED THE SEX-CHANGE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh. That was the name, of course. Until I left, but yeah —

SO OTHER SURGEONS MUST HAVE COME ALONG, AFTER HIM.

Dr. Marci Bowers: There were a few. There were a few.

DID THEY COME TO STUDY WITH HIM AND THEN GO OFF ON THEIR OWN? WERE THERE PRACTICES THAT AROSE INDEPENDENTLY OF HIM?

Photo courtesy of Dr. Marci Bowers

Dr. Marci Bowers: He ended up training a number of persons, or at least had some hand in their training. And one of them was Toby Meltzer. He spent most of his time in Portland, Oregon and then eventually Scottsdale, Arizona — where he’s still practicing. And Eugene Schrang is another one. Dr. Schrang spent weeks there, making meticulous drawings — and then, of course, these surgeons put in their own interpretations. So, around the country there were a few other surgeons — but not very many. Dr. Biber at one point was credited with doing nearly two-thirds of all the world’s sex change operations. That was during the mid-1980’s, I think. He was up there.

HE EXTRAPOLATED THE PENILE-INVERSION PROCESS. DID HE DEVELOP OTHER, DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES?

Dr. Marci Bowers: He came up with his own techniques. Every surgeon does this. They apply their own body of experience to things, and they try a few things that work and they reject things that don’t work in offering a better product or one that fits something they’re comfortable with. Dr. Biber reached a point where he was comfortable — and obviously he was very successful, and patients really flocked to him. So, when that happened, when a person gets successful, there’s not really an incentive to change unless there’s a threat from the outside or business is declining or whatever. But he got to that point, and that is what happened. Dr. Schrang and Dr. Meltzer did the same thing. They had their own legion of patients who joined —

NOW, I’D THINK THAT IT’S PART SURGERY AND PART ART. IS THAT THE CASE?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh, very much so.

BODY SCULPTING.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Yep. Very much. It’s very unique that way. I mean, it’s not like a gall-bladder operation where you go in and the stitches and the suture places and things like that aren’t necessarily noticed. This is truly artwork.

YOUR WORK AS A GYNECOLOGIST MUST HAVE HELPED YOU A LOT.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh, I think so. I’m the only one currently doing it who practices as a gynecologist too. So, that certainly gives me a unique niche about what I do. Yeah.

IS THAT PART OF THE PROCESS CALLED VAGINOPLASTY?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh.

I SEE. WHEN SOME GALS ARE SUBJECTED TO GENITAL MUTILATION, YOU DO CORRECTIVE SURGERIES. ARE THESE WOMEN WHO’VE HAD PHARAONIC CIRCUMCISIONS AND OTHER STUFF DONE IN SOME BACKWARD PLACES?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Not backward. It’s a cultural thing perpetuated by women of the communities.

AND WHEN THESE GALS GET TO THE U.S., THEY COME TO YOU. I WOULDN’T WANT TO THINK IT’S HAPPENING HERE —

Dr. Marci Bowers: They come from all over the world for the reversal because there are only a handful of doctors who do this. Most of the other doctors who do this are French-speaking. My patients are from Austria, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Japan — I mean, all over Europe, interestingly enough, but particularly patients who are more comfortable speaking English.

I WANT TO TELL YOU, I THINK IT’S PRETTY COOL THAT YOU DO THAT.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh. I think it’s very rewarding. It sort of rounds out the spiritual karma, I guess.

YOU DO IT FOR FREE, DON’T YOU?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah, that we do.

THAT IS VERY COOL. SO ANYWAY, YOU MUST HAVE DEVELOPED YOUR OWN TECHNIQUES AND YOUR OWN ARTISTIC INTERPRETATIONS —

Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh, very much so. I mean, sixty percent of what I do, nobody else does anywhere else in the world — except the people I’ve taught.

AND YOU MUST HAVE SOME SATISFIED CUSTOMERS.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh yeah. I mean, that continues to sustain the work we do. Yep, no question.

I SEE. HOW MUCH WOULD THIS COST SOMEBODY?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Which surgery?

WELL, SAY SOMEBODY CAME IN AND SAYS THEY WANT TO TRANSITION AND THEY’RE THINKING OF HAVING SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY AND —

Dr. Marci Bowers: We call it genital reassignment surgery, because it’s not about sex. It’s one thing that’s sort of changed.

OKAY.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Interestingly, Oprah Winfrey has picked that up, so that’s what they call it now. Which is a term I coined, actually.

NOT GENDER REASSIGNMENT — GENITAL REASSIGNMENT.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Genital reassignment. Gender reassignment doesn’t really fit either. “Gender-confirming surgery” makes some sense. Gender doesn’t change in these individuals. This is what we’ve been claiming all along. That’s the thing that’s been constant. We’re just doing a simple changing of the genitalia to match the gender. It has nothing to do with sex.

I SEE. IS THERE AN AVERAGE AGE OF THE FOLKS WHO GET THIS SURGERY?

Dr. Marci Bowers: It’s probably in the mid-Forties right now. This is male-to-female, obviously. It’s in the mid-Forties. There seems to be a bit of a bimodal distribution. There’s a lot of patients who come in between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five, I would say, who are supported by their parents and for the most part funded by their parents. And then there’s a steady number beyond that, but another big increase once you hit about the mid-Forties and the late Forties and the Fifties especially, of patients who have reached the pinnacle of their professional careers or they finally have the money or they just reach a point in life where they say, “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think anymore. I’m gonna be who I am.” They just say, “I live once. There’s no dress rehearsal here. This is it.”

HAVE THERE EVER BEEN INDIVIDUALS WHO’VE COME TO YOU WHO YOU DID NOT FEEL WERE RIGHT FOR SURGERY?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh sure. Usually you can tell. Someone who hasn’t thought about this their entire life is suspect. And patients who are lacking in the necessary letters, the necessary ingredients to fulfill the standards of care — they are not necessarily allowed to. I always have the final judgment.

I SEE.

Dr. Marci Bowers: I had a patient who came from New Zealand, bless her heart — I just looked at her and said, “I just don’t feel right about this.” She hadn’t had an American evaluation. So I insisted that she have an evaluation here in this country. She just didn’t seem like she was playing the part very well and so I had concerns with her going forward. But indeed she ended up being highly endorsed by the person that we sent her to and we felt much better about it. But, also, sometimes the patients are in poor physical health. Sometimes they’re smoking. Sometimes there not really living in their desired genders.

THEY NEED TO QUIT SMOKING BEFORE THEY CAN GET IT DONE, RIGHT?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah — it’s not an absolute but it’s strongly suggested.

HOW ABOUT DRINKING AND DRUGS AND THINGS LIKE THAT? DO THEY HAVE TO ABSTAIN?

Dr. Marci Bowers: You want a person who’s stable but, I mean, someone who smokes Pot or something — we don’t put them through a drug screening, let’s put it that way. But you can tell someone who has their wheels on round.

DO YOU DO ALSO FEMALE-TO-MALE SURGERIES?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Yes I do. Yes I do.

AND IS IT THE SAME CRITERIA FOR THEM?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah, very similar. I mean, we try to treat both genders relatively equally. So, yes.

WHAT PARTICULAR CHALLENGES WOULD FACE A GIRL WHO WANTED TO BECOME A MALE?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh, it’s less social — they’re very successful transitioning socially because they look so convincing as men. It’s mostly getting enough skin to get a functional penis. That’s probably the hardest part. That’s just a technical problem.

WHERE DOES THE SKIN COME FROM?

Dr. Marci Bowers: It’s the clitoris. I mean, the clitoris elongates on testosterone and we use a flap from the vagina and some skin from the inner leg and we fashion the urethra out of that. It’s very successful.

I KNOW YOU CAN’T DISCUSS YOUR PATIENTS, BUT PERHAPS THERE HAVE BEEN SOME VIP’S THROUGH YOUR OFFICE OVER THE YEARS?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh sure.

AND YOU CONSULT ON LEGAL MATTERS, DO YOU NOT?

Dr. Marci Bowers: No, this clientele doesn’t litigate very often.

NO, NO, WHAT I MEANT WAS, FOLKS COME TO YOU FOR LEGAL CONSULTATIONS, RIGHT?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Oh, there’s always things like that that are happening. Sure.

YOU GIVE EXPERT TESTIMONY IN COURT CASES —

Dr. Marci Bowers: Uh-huh. I sure do. Depositions mainly. Usually when they get my depositions it’s very powerful and it usually settles the case.

NOT BAD. ON ANOTHER TOPIC, THEY DO GENITAL REASSIGNMENT SURGERIES IN OTHER PLACES IN THE WORLD THAT ARE SOMEWHAT RENOWNED FOR IT — I’M THINKING, OF COURSE, OF THAILAND. WHAT’S DIFFERENT, IF ANYTHING, ABOUT WHAT THEY DO OVER THERE?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Just technical issues about the type of surgery — but they have some advantages, the principle one being their cost structures. It’s quite a bit reduced —

IT’S A DIFFERENT TYPE OF CULTURE AND IT SEEMS THAT THERE’S A TYPE OF PERSON THERE — AND I HOPE I’M NOT USING THIS TERM INAPPROPRIATELY — “LADYBOYS” THEY CALL THEM, AND IT SEEMS LIKE THOSE ARE THE FOLKS WHO GET THE SURGERIES. IS THAT A WAY AROUND PROHIBITIONS ON HOMOSEXUALITY?

Dr. Marci Bowers: No. That’s true in Iran. In the country of Iran, the Ayatollah issued a fatwa saying men could become women and so they condone the surgery there. I can’t speak to the quality of the kind of work they do, but they do allow that. Versus the alternative, which is Homosexuality — and that would be punishable by death. Interestingly, they don’t allow women to become men —

THEY DON’T?

Dr. Marci Bowers: No — and that would also be punishable by death. So, that way their women are women and men are men. I guess that’s how they keep it. They justify it that way. In Thailand, certainly there’s this notion of a third gender — and actually they have a little more of a Twenty-third Century viewpoint about gender in that if the child says they’re female, they’re female. If they say they’re male, they’re male. You know, at whatever age they come out —and so they’re not as hung up on rigid boundaries that the genitalia have to match the gender.

DID YOU CALL IT A TWENTY-THIRD CENTURY VIEWPOINT?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Yes.

AND THAT’S REFERRING TO SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE WHERE THESE HANG-UPS OF THE PRESENT AGE HAVE EVAPORATED?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah, I think so. I think that’s where the world is going. I think race is going to become irrelevant. I think things are going to become much more egalitarian. I think it will become much more egalitarian between the sexes.

I SEE.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Making uncomfortably-defined boundaries — it’s going to be obvious it’s not productive to society to be that closed-minded about it. Particularly when Intersex conditions at birth are so common. Presently, they’re hushed up as being, “Oh, we’ll fix that.” Pushing people to the extremes of gender when they’re not born that way genitalia-wise — and it makes a lot of sense that it’s not that way gender-wise for what’s in their brain —

THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO WOULD BE REGARDED AS HERMAPHRODITES, ARE THEY NOT?

Dr. Marci Bowers: That’s kind of an old, less PC term. “Intersex” would be the current PC term, I guess you would say.

OKAY. SO, WHEN THERE ARE INDETERMINATE OR DUAL GENITAL CHARACTERISTICS, WHO MAKES THE DECISION ABOUT WHICH WAY TO GO?

Dr. Marci Bowers: One in two-thousand live births. That’s an enormous number.

THAT IS AN ENORMOUS NUMBER. WHAT HAPPENS? DOES A DOCTOR CALL THE PARENTS IN FOR A — WHAT HAPPENS?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, they’ll say things like, “We have to run a few more tests.” The first thing every parent wants to know is, is it a boy or a girl? Well, we have to run a few more tests — that’s kind of an uncomfortable thing to be told. So, the problem is that some of the conditions have medical implications. It affects the kidneys and high blood pressure and things like that. It has to do with how the metabolic pathways go. Sometimes it has to do with the receptors for hormones. Sometimes it has to do with unknown or idiopathic kinds of conditions. We’re really not sure why it happens. Chromosome translocations and things like that — and they often lead to conditions that aren’t necessarily clear-cut. And that doesn’t even talk about the one in two-hundred-and-fifty male-born children that are born with Hypospadias.

WHAT’S THAT?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Hypospadias is a condition where the urethra opens not at the tip of the penis but further down the shaft. And the more severe the Hypospadias, the more the genitalia look like female genitalia.

OF THESE ONE IN TWO-THOUSAND INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE BORN WITH AN INTERSEX CONDITION, THERE MUST BE A FEW OF THEM WHO DO NOT HAVE ANY SURGICAL CORRECTION —

Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, that’s what people are recommending, is to let the gender declare itself before they make a permanent decision about reducing the size of the clitoris or creating a vagina. Whatever the surgical option would be at the time —sometimes it’s fashioned more into a penis. There’s a scale called the Prader Scale that basically measures the length of the phallus — and if it’s above a certain length, they’re raised as a boy and if it’s less than that, they’re raised as a girl, and it has nothing to do with chromosomes or anything else.

THAT’S PRETTY ARBITRARY, ISN’T IT?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Quite arbitrary. And the thing about a lot of these decisions is that about a third of the time they get it wrong. So the individual grows up and believes themselves to be not the gender they were assigned — and a lot of them are pissed off. Especially if they’ve had mutilating surgeries or scarring or whatever, or some sort of clitoral amputation. Here they think they’re men and they’ve had their penis basically chopped off.

HAVE YOU EVER DONE ANY RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY FOR THOSE FOLKS?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Yep. In fact, somebody just called me the other day who needs stuff done.

THAT MUST BE TOUGH FOR THE PERSON.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Well, sure. You can imagine. There have been very notorious cases over the years. They were the highlights on these problems of making gender assignments too young. And this is the important thing: Kids are very good at telling you who they are, if you just listen to them and they can do it in an environment where they’re allowed to be themselves.

BUT WE DON’T DO A VERY GOOD JOB AT LISTENING TO KIDS IN THIS CULTURE, DO WE?

Dr. Marci Bowers: No, but we’re getting better. I think the thing that is encouraging is that this current generation is really demanding honesty in these areas of sex and gender. They’re no longer listening to the strict religious dogma and attitudes about morality, making manifest destiny fit this square peg into a round hole. That kind of attitude. Past generations would just drive people into the closet until they could gain the facts or the stamina or resources to get out of that situation.

AND YOU’RE PART OF THE VANGUARD OF THIS NEW ENLIGHTENMENT, AREN’T YOU?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah, I think so. Sure — and I’m going next week to speak at the University of Kentucky Medical School. I mean, who would have thought that? Because their eyes are open. They’re listening. They put the Bible aside and started really listening to people and allowing people to be truly free and happy. That’s what it’s about.

WELL, MAYBE WE WON’T HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THE TWENTY-THIRD CENTURY FOR SOME OF THIS ENLIGHTENMENT TO SET IN.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Maybe not.

ABOUT INTERSEX INDIVIDUALS — WHAT IF SOMEBODY CAME TO YOU AND SAID, “I WANT TO BECOME AN INTERSEX INDIVIDUAL”? WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE SURGICALLY?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Is it technically possible? Yeah. But is it morally responsible? You know, there’s a point where you do have to have some ethical standards. And sometimes those are arbitrary and sometimes they’re not —

YOU DON’T THINK THAT’S A GOOD IDEA? YOU WOULDN’T RECOMMEND THAT TO SOMEBODY?

Dr. Marci Bowers: No.

IF THEY SAID THEY WANTED TO EXPERIENCE THE PLEASURES OF BOTH GENDERS —

Dr. Marci Bowers: No. That’s not my job. I can’t even say I’ve thought about that. It’s just not something that comes up.

I SEE. SO, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO BE DOING IN THE FUTURE?

Dr. Marci Bowers: We hope to get to work with local universities here, now that I’m in California — UCSF or Stanford — and get a program set up so that future doctors can be trained, and this becomes a viable sub-specialty, and then more research added. I have a lot of work to do.

BECAUSE MORE AND MORE PEOPLE ARE WANTING TO TRANSITION, AREN’T THEY?

Dr. Marci Bowers: Yeah. I think it’s gonna plateau at a certain finite percentage, which I’m not sure I know what that is yet — but I don’t think it’s gonna be some fad. I think there’s a certain biological percentage. It might be as high as half of one percent or something like that. Maybe not even that much. In other words, it’ll reach some sort of percentage. My phone’s gonna die, so I think I may have to run along.

OKAY. WELL, I APPRECIATE YOUR TIME.

Dr. Marci Bowers: Okay! ~

Mina Caputo

Rock Star

Photo: Jeremy Saffer

GEORGE PETROS: WE’RE SPEAKING TO MINA CAPUTO. MINA, WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

Mina Caputo: Brooklyn, New York.

AND ISN’T BROOKLYN THE GREATEST PLACE ON EARTH?

Mina Caputo: Sometimes. I grew up in Brooklyn, but I spent most of my time in Manhattan.

I’VE SEEN IN YOUR BIOS OVER THE YEARS ABOUT YOUR PARENTS AND STUFF LIKE THAT — SO IF THAT’S OKAY TO TALK ABOUT, MAY I KICK OFF OUR CHAT BY ASKING YOU HOW —

Mina Caputo: Don’t censor yourself. I’m pretty open. I don’t really think that there’s anything that could make me uncomfortable.

ALRIGHT. WELL, I READ THAT THEY WERE HEROIN ADDICTS AND THAT YOU WOUND UP ORPHANED. COULD YOU FILL US IN ON THAT?

Mina Caputo: I never knew my mom. She OD’ed when she was like twenty. My dad — I knew the artist in my dad, you know? He was a street dweller, and he was always in trouble, and in and out of prison, and dealing with drugs his whole life. But he’s done some great stuff. He’s a great motorcycle builder. He built jet engines. He was great with his hands. He tattooed so many people in jail — he was amazing. He’d paint, and he airbrushed. He can build a Lamborghini and a Harley from a bolt and a nut. He was amazing. He used to build old cars, like Fiats. And so my dad has great qualities, as well. He was an amazing artist. He was like my living Jim Morrison.

DID YOU INHERIT ANY OF HIS MECHANICAL APTITUDE?

Mina Caputo: The good stuff. He’s taught me so much by the choices that he’s made in his life. But he was amazing. He died in 2002 at age fifty-six. I identified his body at The Golden Gate Inn hotel in Brooklyn. He was in jail for a couple of years. They let him out on good behavior — and that night, when he got out, he copped dope and probably took his regular dosage — and that was pretty much his passing. His death wasn’t really like, you know, a sad thing to me. I do sometimes weep for my father, because life is great and life is a special miracle, and I wish he could experience me now and the choices that I’ve made for myself. Obviously life is cruel. Death — who knows what it’s like — but that’s a different philosophy, you know? Without getting too morbid, I don’t know what else to say. I watched the medics straightening his body. It’s a gruesome tale, but I’ve taken the blissful moments out of that tragedy. It was tragic — but I took the good from it, and it was so warm of an experience — feeling like the universe was right in the room. His death was like buzzing — it was like an empowering experience. It was so bizarre. Any person would drop down and break down, but it was an experience full of wisdom for me. Especially now, looking back on it. Maybe if you would have asked me this question ten years ago, I’d give you a different response — because I experience life differently now than at that time. The older I get, the prettier the experience. By them not living, they taught me how to live — and live like it’s my last waking moment. But anyway, I’m sorry —

VERY INTERESTING. YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOUR MOM — BUT WHAT DID YOU KNOW OF HER WHEN YOU WERE GROWING UP? WERE YOU IN TOUCH WITH HER FAMILY?

Mina Caputo: I don’t really know anyone from her family. I knew my Aunt Darlene, who was her sister — but she was kind of like an alcoholic and she was crazy. Her and my dad remained together for at least thirteen, fourteen years — until things started getting really heavy between them. Like, one was in jail; one was doing this — they were just not good for each other.

THIS IS YOUR MOM AND YOUR DAD YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, RIGHT?

Mina Caputo: No, this was my dad and my mom’s sister.

DID THEY HOOK UP AFTER YOUR MOM DIED?

Mina Caputo: Yeah, they were probably hooking up before, knowing my dad. He was such a womanizer — but he was great. He’s a great spirit. I love him when I think about him now. If I do cry because I miss him, it’s because I wish things could have turned out a bit differently for him. We could have actually enjoyed each other —

I SEE.

Mina Caputo: Constant confusion and disconnection, you know —aside from the drugs that he did, he had his being, and I can separate the two. So, we did have some sort of a connection — but because of the drugs, it clouds things, you know? Whatever.

WHAT DID HE DO BESIDES DOPE?

Mina Caputo: That was it. He pretty much did Heroin. I mean, years ago, if we happened to cross each others path and I slept over at my grandparents’ house — and maybe I smoked some Weed, and I asked him if he wanted Weed and he wouldn’t even take it. He hated Weed. He wasn’t a drinker. He was the quiet, artistic type.

DID HIS STINTS IN JAIL ALL INVOLVE HEROIN, OR WERE THERE OTHER THINGS THAT HE’D BEEN UP TO?

Mina Caputo: He was always doing some wild stuff, getting picked up by the cops. One time — my dad used to get high and drive a car or get on his motorcycle. One time he took my grandfather’s car and went wherever he needed to go. Maybe it was to cop Dope — I don’t know — and on his way back, he got into a car accident and wrapped the car around a tree, and he left the accident scene. My father had nine lives. The crazy shit that happened to him — everyone would be like, “Wow, I can’t believe you’re still alive.” Unbelievable. He hit a tree, and so obviously the cops came, checked out the scene, blah, blah, blah. He was all scuffed up, and we figured he got into a fight or something must have happened to him — but he was too high to talk to. My father used to disgust me, in a way. I went through that period, so I kinda like stayed far away from him — and these were the days when that was happening. So, the cops ring the door bell, and I’m in the kitchen, and my father opened the door, and it’s the police. The police are like, “Is there a Tony Caputo here?” And my father’s like, “No, why? What happened?” My father, in the car accident, lost his dentures in the car — and the police found his dentures, and his dental records revealed his current address — and so that’s how the cops got to the house. They had the dentures in a bag — and it was pretty much like such a David Lynch moment. The bag unrolled, and his dentures were in the bag — and they got my father again; they arrested him and blah, blah, blah. That is one.

WHO RAISED YOU? WHO DID YOU LIVE WITH WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG?

Mina Caputo: My father’s parents — my grandparents.

WHAT WERE YOU LIKE AS A KID?

Mina Caputo: I was quiet. I was always serious. Something was different about me, and I didn’t know what at that time. I didn’t know what was going on in my head — but a lot was going on. I knew something was wrong — like, I would call my grandma “mom,” and I would be thinking, “I’m living with my grandfather —” and wondering why my father wasn’t living with my mother. I didn’t know the truth until I was a bit older and started asking questions. “Hey mommy, why do you live with grandpa and not with daddy? Mommy, why do you look so much older than daddy?” I didn’t know when I was younger that my mom was dead. They never told me, but I knew something was really wrong. They held back from telling me what was really going on for a long time — which kind of screwed with my head.

HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU DISCOVERED THAT YOUR MOM HAD DIED?

Mina Caputo: Maybe ten years old, eleven years old — but they told me that she had died in a car accident, not from drugs. I guess to soften the blow — whatever their reasons were, at this point, it really doesn’t matter — but just to give you a little bit of history. I don’t know if I’m telling you too much —

DETAILS ARE JUST WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR. WHEN DID YOU START SINGING?

MINA CAPUTO: WELL, THAT ACCIDENTALLY CAME INTO MY LIFE — BUT I STARTED TAKING CLASSICAL PIANO LESSONS AT ABOUT FIFTEEN, FOR ABOUT FOUR YEARS. MY COUSIN WAS ALWAYS IN BANDS. MY COUSIN WOULD ALWAYS ASK ME, “HEY MAN, YOU SHOULD SING FOR THE BAND.” I WOULD DO LIKE BATTLE-OF-THE-BANDS STUFF.

THIS WAS DURING HIGH SCHOOL, RIGHT?

Mina Caputo: Yeah. We had many garage bands doing different stuff, doing cover tunes — but I didn’t really consider myself to be a vocalist or think that this was actually what I was going to end up devoting my entire life to. Back then, I didn’t really see the birth of what was actually happening for me with my musical journey.

DID YOU PLAY AN INSTRUMENT IN THE BANDS?

Mina Caputo: Well, I was still playing Classical piano and practicing the greats like Debussy, Satie, Chopin and Beethoven — not so much Bach; I always liked the preludes and the sonatas and the dreamy stuff when I was playing piano.

WHEN YOU WERE IN THE GARAGE BANDS, YOU WERE THE FRONT PERSON —

Mina Caputo: Yeah, I was pretty much reading lyrics off insect-repellant cans and stuff, and kind of doing cut-and-paste insect songs — just doing crazy stuff; just being creative and experimental, and not really giving a shit, you know?

DO YOU RECALL THE NAMES OF THOSE BANDS?

Mina Caputo: Yeah — oh my god — I believe one of them was Capital Punishment.

WHAT ROCK MUSIC WERE YOU LISTENING TO AT THAT TIME?

Mina Caputo: At that time I was into Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Doors — I was first discovering Bob Dylan, The Stones, Blondie, very early Prince — of course Classical Music, some Jazz, Queen, The Eurhythmics, A-ha — I had a pretty wide range, but Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were in heavy rotation to me when I was younger. I used to sit outside, look out my window with the headphones on, with the cassette. I used to have the cassettes — they were the only devices to play the music that you love.

WHAT JAZZ WERE YOU LISTENING TO?

Mina Caputo: Well, my uncle had Bitches Brew. He had some Coltrane and some Billie Holiday. I loved Billie Holiday. I want to do like a Billie Holiday band where I play Billie, or I interpret her in my own physical thing — but it’s something that I’ve been wanting to do, especially when I have some time off in New York. I could maybe do a residency, and do Holiday covers. I don’t know —

SHE’D BE FLATTERED, I’M SURE. I THINK SHE WAS THAT KIND OF PERSON —

Mina Caputo: Yeah, she was amazing. I love her. I read a fantastic biography about Billie Holiday just recently.

SO YOU’RE IN HIGH SCHOOL AND YOU’RE IN THESE BANDS — DID IT JUST DAWN ON YOU, “HEY, I COULD DO THIS PROFESSIONALLY —”?

Mina Caputo: I was going to college. At that point, Life Of Agony had formed. While I was in college, I was doing the album River Runs Red with those guys — but I was still in college; still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

COULD YOU MENTION WHO THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE BAND WERE —

Photo: Jeremy Saffer

Mina Caputo: Yeah. It was Joey Zampella, my cousin. Sal Abruscato — he was from Type O Negative. And Alan Robert. At this point we sold out two nights in a row at L’amour, and we were doing huge gigs in New York City — but we still really didn’t give a shit, and we were still all young and crazy and not really knowing what we wanted at that age. I was so young — I was nineteen or twenty —

TELL ME ABOUT PLAYING L’AMOUR. I USED TO LOVE THAT PLACE —

Mina Caputo: I didn’t really care, to be honest. I mean, I’ve done so many venues — I can pick a million more venues that were better than L’amour right now.

WASN’T THAT YOUR HOME BASE FOR AWHILE?

Mina Caputo: Yeah, but when you experience it directly — like when you go to Hollywood and become a big movie star, you see how people work or how they don’t work, or promise you money and not give it to you — all the politics that’s involved. When I was twenty, I couldn’t really tell you what I was thinking. I thought it was amazing that we can sell out two nights in a row. Yeah, it was fun. I wasn’t really — I had a different life. That was like the other hand of my life. I didn’t really know what I wanted back then. I really didn’t give it much thought, to be honest: “Oh wow, we’re playing L’amour!”

I GOTCHA. HOW DID YOU COME TO BE ON ROADRUNNER RECORDS?

Mina Caputo: Monte Conner was A&R at the time at Roadrunner, and he came to one of the Life Of Agony shows and didn’t like my voice. It took him a little while to give us a deal — but eventually he folded and gave us a deal. At that point, he didn’t realize the value of the band — but he woke up pretty fast.

YOU DIDN’T LIKE ROADRUNNER, RIGHT?

Mina Caputo: It’s not that I didn’t like Roadrunner. I think I’m the type of person who is anti-establishment, and when there’s too many fingers in the pot, things get fucked up — and, you know, the music business is pretty cut-throat. It’s not that I didn’t like anyone. The deal is, when someone doesn’t do their job, I’m the type of person to tell them they’re not doing their job. You know? I quit the band. People started to resent me because I quit the band at the height of our — we were about to explode on radio. Everything was lined up, and everything was just picture-perfect. Well, what happened next is, I left the band — Life Of Agony was certainly a big band.

HOW WAS YOUR LIFE AS A ROCK STAR? WAS IT GROUPIES, DRUGS —

Mina Caputo: You know, I was different by nature, and it really wasn’t my style to be sleeping with a million different girls. I’ve experimented with some drugs, but I wasn’t really like seriously addicted to any substance, you know?

RIGHT.

Mina Caputo: Coffee and wonton soup is more of an addiction than me doing a bag of Cocaine or something when I was twenty-one years old — you know, trippin’ and Mushrooms and Weed, Mescaline — I’ve never done Heroin and I never would. Never ever. I think the worst that I’ve done is Cocaine. I did it enough times to make me feel like I hate the feeling: Can’t get an erection. Can’t have sex. Can’t think straight. Your soul gets vacuumed into a different intangible dimension. You can’t even function — at least I can’t function. Have you ever done Cocaine?

I HAVE DONE COCAINE IN MANY FORMS.

Mina Caputo: Then you know how your soul kind of like — phew! — goes away. I mean, I can’t have sex. You know?

YOU HIT THE NAIL RIGHT ON THE HEAD.

Mina Caputo: I can’t operate.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR SEX LIFE. I DON’T MEAN TO BE TOO PRYING HERE — AS A ROCK STAR, WHAT WERE YOUR PROCLIVITIES, AND WHAT WERE YOU UP TO, IF ANYTHING?

Mina Caputo: Well, I’m not saying that I didn’t fall victim to stuff like that. I had lots of experiences, but I was kind of sweet about it. I don’t know. It’s happened, but it’s far from being on the agenda. It wasn’t a priority, you know? Maybe I’d meet a girl in Berlin; I’d be real sweet on her for awhile and I’d have that going on for a bit and then I’d meet someone in Sweden and we’d be sweet on one another, and I’d have that for a little while, and whatever. You know? So you were a romantic guy — I am an old romantic at heart.

I HEAR THAT IN YOUR SONGS.

Mina Caputo: I’m definitely a romantic about everything — life, poetry —

DID YOU HAVE ANY ENCOUNTERS WITH GUYS AT THAT POINT?

Mina Caputo: On the road, doing my Rock Star life?

YES.

Mina Caputo: No. That was pretty much forbidden fruit. When I’d go home I’d carry on the life that no one really knew — because things were developing in my professional life, and then things were developing in my personal life, and for a very long time they were separated and I had many identities and wore many suits and changed many colors, until it pretty much exhausted me. Normally, George, I’d always have a girlfriend. I was faithful. Maybe not all the time, but I was pretty much faithful — it depended on the arrangement that I had with the girl and at that time, yes, I’ve experimented with men — but definitely not on the road. I mean, I love beautiful people. To me, it’s just beautiful people. So —

I SEE.

Mina Caputo: I’m a bit odd when it comes to gender and sexes. To me, it’s all about energy.

THIS OTHER LIFE — WOULD YOU ADOPT A DIFFERENT PERSONA? WOULD YOU GO OUT AS SOMEONE ELSE, MAYBE DRESSED SO THAT YOU WOULDN’T BE RECOGNIZED?

Mina Caputo: No — I would just go out as my true self. I would present myself as a woman. I’ve been going out to nightclubs since I was eighteen, and going to clubs like Escuelita back in the Nineties — this was before the Internet took over the escort world, and a lot of the Transsexuals that I knew years ago — most of them were working girls. They were trying to make a living, because it was even more difficult for a Trans woman or Trans man to get the respect that they deserve and get fair opportunities for work. So, Transsexuals don’t have that many choices — especially if they’re called out as being the gender that they’re not trying to reveal or present. Because it’s hard to assume a body — at least for people with gender eccentricities.

WHEN DID YOU FIRST WEAR GIRLS’ CLOTHES?

Mina Caputo: Probably when I was like eight years old, nine years old —

AND DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU WENT OUT IN GIRLS’ CLOTHES?

Mina Caputo: Yeah, probably about seventeen, eighteen — back then I didn’t know that I was Transgender. There wasn’t a name. I didn’t have the Internet at my fingertips to find out what an endocrinologist was, that I needed to go to therapy to acquire hormones because I wanted that beautiful girl to come out of me the way they came out of all these other beautiful Transsexuals I knew and used to hang around with on the weekends — I’d learn about their lives. I’d learn about their shortcomings, their successes — back then, the information wasn’t as spread-out as it is now. Probably most twelve-year-olds are on computers already, helping discover about themselves or their interests or whatever it is — video games, gender, sexuality — if people want to find something out there, they find it.

WHEN DID YOU START TAKING HORMONES?

Mina Caputo: This February, it’ll be three years ago.

HOW DID THAT CHANGE THINGS WITH YOU?

Mina Caputo: When I was a boy I was very sad.

DID THE SADNESS GO AWAY WHEN THE HORMONES KICKED IN?

Mina Caputo: Well, the first year was very difficult to get through, psychologically. So many things were changing. It’s almost been three years, and it was the best thing that I could have done for myself, psychologically and physically. My body’s changed drastically. I feel like I’m one with myself, in a way. I don’t identify as being male. Everything changes, really. Your tastes, sex drive —

HOW DID YOUR SEX DRIVE CHANGE?

Mina Caputo: Well, obviously I was always an emotional human being — I mean, it did and it didn’t. It’s hard to break it down into simple terms. Not as aggressive — you know what I mean?

AND YOUR ROLE IN THE WORLD CHANGED. PEOPLE TREAT YOU DIFFERENTLY, I WOULD IMAGINE — RIGHT?

Mina Caputo: Yes, they do.

I HOPE THIS DOESN’T SOUND LIKE A SILLY QUESTION, BUT WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING A BOY AND BEING A GIRL, AS FAR AS HOW THE WORLD TREATS YOU?

Mina Caputo: Well, it’s strange because I’m both and I’m neither — but I do present myself as being a woman. I get different reactions. If you smile and you’re sharing your joy and celebrating yourself — it sounds cliché but it’s true: If you smile the whole world smiles back at you.

TRUE.

Mina Caputo: If you express fear and insecurity, lack of confidence, paranoia, then people won’t welcome you. As far as my fans and certain family members, I’ve been getting a lot of love and support. I’m just a human being. Human beings shouldn’t be titled and put in boxes. There is no right or wrong way of how to express your human nature. It was odd growing up identifying as a woman. My subconscious sex is female, living in a male body — it was difficult. It was confusing. It was depressing. Now that my body is changing, fat is being distributed in all the desirable areas — yeah, my heart is healing. It’s a special moment for my spirit.

I SEE.

Mina Caputo: I always thought poetically about life. Life is always precious to me, but now I feel like, I’m ecstatic making certain choices. I don’t have to hide. It’s not a secret. If you want change in the world, you have to become that change. I want to see more feminine men. I want men to not be afraid, or women to not be afraid to express their true selves — because that’s what our life’s about, to really share each other. You see, too many people live confined. Most human beings are so desperate. I was desperate. I’m still desperate, but there’s levels of desperation — and I’m less desperate. I feel like my personal life is on that road to becoming the success I need it to be so I can achieve the fullest spirit. My potential is infinite, and I have to get there at whatever cost. I have to be true to my own heart, my own self. I was ready to accept all consequences, even if it meant me starting a new life career-wise, because I didn’t know how my fans — and I don’t want to sound corny when I say that, but I have a legion of listeners —

YES, YOU DO.

Mina Caputo: I thought maybe it would be really bad. I get knuckleheads and meatheads once in awhile, but you know what? At this point, George, it really doesn’t bother me. I’m so confident in myself. You’re not born a woman; you become a woman. For a genetic woman, you’re not born a woman, you have to become a woman. I’m just a beautiful human being and I want to live beautifully. I want to share that beauty. To me, whether it’s being a Hermaphrodite or Transsexual, someone that’s gender-fluid —

ALRIGHT. HOW HAS YOUR SONGWRITING CHANGED AS A RESULT OF YOUR CHANGES?

Mina Caputo: Yeah, I’m thinking about the changes —

YOUR STUFF’S BEAUTIFUL. I LIKE THE SONG “SON OF A GUN” —

Mina Caputo: That was in 2007. Yeah, it’s a beautiful record. It’s tear-jerkin’ stuff. You don’t have to be depressed to write an amazing song. I’ve written so many beautiful songs lately. I don’t know how — I work like the dawn. I work like the dusk. I don’t really know how to talk about my stuff; it’s just what I do. It makes me feel better. Maybe because I’m more in touch with myself and I’m free about certain parts of myself — less ashamed. There was this mourning process, of me; there’s a mourning-healing process that goes on with a transition. I’ve also mourned the death of self in some strange way — and it’s still lingering —

DO YOU FEEL ANY CONNECTION TO YOUR MOM IN ALL THIS?

Mina Caputo: I do. My first theory was that, as far as the fact that I was so feminine — I didn’t identify as being Homosexual because I always loved the company of women — I loved everything about being a woman. Wearing the clothes, the posturing, the emotional state. I’m sorry — what was the question again?

I WAS ASKING ABOUT YOUR MOM. IS THERE ANY ATTEMPT TO RECAPTURE HER LIFE, OR TO — I DON’T WANT TO SAY “RESURRECT,” BUT TO, YOU KNOW, FINISH SOMETHING THAT SHE MIGHT HAVE STARTED — DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?

Mina Caputo: Yeah, it sorta does — because one of my first theories was from when I was trying to figure out, “Why do I want to be a girl? What is this feeling I’m having, and living this way in fear —” It was a different time. I handled things differently because of the way that my life was developing. I always felt like my mother, when she died, her soul went into my body — and I’m double-spirited. Maybe she went through and didn’t stay — but who knows what happens when you die? I always imagine that my mother’s soul came through my nose or my mouth when I was crying, and put a little something extra in me — but that’s my imagination going crazy.

MAYBE — MAYBE NOT.

Mina Caputo: I think science has proven that the brain is actually gendered, and that it’s in your makeup — or maybe it happens in the womb. I’m not really sure what makes a girl want to be a boy or a boy want to be a girl. It’s not them really wanting it; it’s that the brain doesn’t connect with the energy that’s inside of you. You feel something different. It was painful being a boy, for me. It was painful to live and pretend, and to live those clichés — when deep, deep down inside I wanted to be the woman that was admiring my male self. You know what I mean?

YEAH.

Mina Caputo: It’s crazy. It’s almost as if I were living through the eyes of others while pretending to be — like, the requirements of being a man, you know? Those sorts of responsibilities — energies, and what men are into — I’m so far removed from the idea of the male species, it’s not even funny. I’ve been on hormones for three years and I can never go back. I would be so miserable if I transitioned again — you know what I mean?

I DO.

Mina Caputo: God, I could never —

IS THERE AN INNER DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE GENDERS?

Mina Caputo: I’m always thinking and I’m always talking to myself, if that’s what you mean. It depends on the situation. It depends what’s going on. It’s a hard question.

ALRIGHT — COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR TATTOOS?

Mina Caputo: I have butterflies all over my body. Well, I have maybe fifteen of them — and to me, they represent empowerment, and fragility, and how a butterfly was once a caterpillar. That was pretty much the intention behind the pieces. I got them in different countries, by different artists — different states — I have Rimbaud. You know Rimbaud, the poet?

I DO.

Mina Caputo: I have Rimbaud and Van Gogh holding hands on my other arm.

AND WHAT DOES IT SAY ACROSS YOUR CHEST?

Mina Caputo: It says, “Strung Out In Heaven’s High Hitting An All-Time Low.” It’s a line from David Bowie’s “Ashes To Ashes.”

A BEAUTIFUL SONG. I LOVE DAVID BOWIE.

Mina Caputo: Me too. I love Bowie. One of the pieces is by Mike Ledger from New York City. He tattooed a lotus piece on my wrist. Actually, he gave me my second piece. My first piece is on my leg, and it says, “Sid loves Nancy.” I got it in Wichita, Kansas by some biker dude. I was tripping on Acid with Sal and we had a crazy, crazy time.

ARE THERE MORE TATTOOS FOR YOU IN THE FUTURE?

Mina Caputo: I want to finish the tattoos going from my arm to my back, down to one of my butt cheeks, down my whole leg to my feet. I don’t know — I take my time with that. I can only take about two hours of tattooing, and then I’m in bed with fever for like a week. I cut-and-pasted lots of Jim Morrison’s poetry, and I made my own poetry from his poetry — the Burroughs way. I made some wicked Morrison poetry on my leg from my ankle all the way up to my knee.

INTERESTING. WELL, MINA, I THINK WE’VE COVERED LOTS OF TERRITORY HERE. I HAVE A REALLY GOOD PERSPECTIVE ON WHAT’S HAPPENING. HAVE I MISSED ANYTHING?

Mina Caputo: If you have any more questions you could always ask me at a later date. I didn’t really know what to expect when I spoke to you. I thought it would be more about — I didn’t know what to think when you said “Transsexual revolution.” What’s your thing with Transsexuals? What’s your story?

I DON’T KNOW —

Mina Caputo: Do you like Transsexuals?

I LIKE THEM AS PEOPLE, VERY MUCH.

Mina Caputo: Have you spoken to Amanda Lepore?

YEAH, SHE’S ON THE COVER OF THE BOOK.

Mina Caputo: I love her. She’s so crazy. I think it’s really awesome that you’re doing this.

THANK YOU.

Mina Caputo: I’m happy that you asked me if I could contribute a little bit.

I’M HAPPY TO HAVE YOU IN IT. I’M HAPPY TO HEAR YOUR MUSIC, TOO. YOUR STUFF IS VERY MOVING. THANKS AGAIN —

Mina Caputo: Okay. ~

Jayne County

Rock Star

Photo courtesy of Jayne County

PART ONE: FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH JAYNE COUNTY FOR SECONDS MAGAZINE, 1993

GEORGE PETROS: WHAT WAS WARHOL’S INFLUENCE ON YOU, AND VICE VERSA?

Jayne County: Well, the major influence of Warhol with me was freedom of expression. When I was a little teenager in Georgia, I’d get magazines and read about Andy Warhol. I wanted to go to New York and meet him, and people’d say to me, “You don’t wanna meet those horrible people, they’re like vampires” — but I wanted to meet those people. I did a play in New York called World: The Birth of a Nation. It was about interchanging sexual roles. It had characters like John Wayne, and he gave birth to a three-headed baby out of his asshole; that gives you the run of the play — it was totally outrageous. This was early Seventies. Warhol came to see that, and flipped out. At one point I saw him standing up — he was screaming so much because some of the scenes were so over-the-top. That convinced him to do his play, Andy Warhol’s Pork, and to use me to play Vulva Lips, based on Viva.

WHAT IMPACT DID HE HAVE ON THE MUSIC SCENE?

Jayne County: Well, of course, The Velvet Underground was one of the most influential bands. New York bands looked up to them.

HOW MUCH OF THAT WAS HIS DOING?

Jayne County: Actually, he didn’t really contribute to the music. It was the whole atmosphere that surrounded him, the whole decadence thing, the whole New York subculture trip — vampires and witches —

WHAT KIND OF PERSON WAS HE?

Jayne County: To me, he was just — I mean this in a good way — a troublemaker. He loved to cause trouble; he loved to stir it. He never missed an opportunity to stir up trouble.

HE LIKED TO SIT BACK AND WATCH?

Jayne County: Oooh, he loved it. He loved to just mix it up good. He’d just laugh. He loved seeing people getting mad and upset — he found that very amusing. It was entertainment to him.

WHY DID YOU STOP WORKING WITH WARHOL?

Jayne County: I was more into the real music scene. When The New York Dolls came along, I was floored. I loved Alice Cooper; he was the art part of it. I went to The Factory every once in a while, for an opening or something, but I didn’t hang out there all the time. I wanted to make music and play clubs; I wasn’t a party-type of person. Plus, I didn’t want to get tagged with the Warhol thing. I didn’t wanna be tagged as a Warhol superstar freak that’s here today, gone tomorrow. I wanted to establish myself more. A lot of the Warhol people were known for a little while by doing a few little things, and then it was over.

IT WAS LIKE A MIXED BLESSING.

Jayne County: Yeah, if you got tagged, you couldn’t do anything else. I didn’t want that, so I cut myself off from that. My friend Leee Childers went to dinner with Warhol, all this kind of stuff. Andy would ask him why I never came up to The Factory. Now, I’m glad I didn’t. Pork was my heaviest involvement with him. I did a few more little things, and then I wanted to start concentrating on my music. I got really involved with The New York Dolls thing, that Glitter-Punk scene —

DISCUSS THE TRANSITION BETWEEN THE WARHOL SCENE AND THE PUNK SCENE.

Jayne County: I didn’t get heavily involved with the Warhol thing. I did the play, I did parties, I knew Candy Darling. People think Patti Smith was the first person to play CBGB, but it’s not true. I played CBGB while it was still having folk acts like Joan Baez imitators.

DIDN’T YOU DJ AT THAT TIME?

Jayne County: I did Max’s Kansas City for a long time. The Dolls came up with their acetate and handed it to me. I was the first person to ever play the Dolls. I was the first person in America to play “Anarchy In The U.K.” by The Sex Pistols. I got the first copy of that and played it. I was the first to play The Damned. In fact, when I played The Damned, Dee Dee Ramone ran over to the booth and was outraged. He said, “Who is this? They’re copying us!” I said they were The Damned from England. He said, “Those fucking English bands are copying us!” He said, “Don’t play them. Play us. Play New York people. Don’t play those stupid English bands.” Dee Dee did not like those English bands copping their sound.

WHAT CHARACTERIZED THE BANDS THAT WERE AROUND THEN?

Jayne County: A lot of the bands were very amateurish, but they had something special about them. They weren’t really professional — some of them were like seeing a bad high school band. It was like flashing back to the days of teen garage bands that couldn’t play that well.

YOU WERE A NOTED FAN OF THE DAVE CLARK FIVE.

Jayne County: I used to introduce some of my songs on stage as dedicated to The Dave Clark Five. I’ve always covered a song by The Barbarians called “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?” That was a minor hit in the Sixties. The Barbarians were a California band, and the drummer played with a hook. I tie that song into what happened to me when I was growing my hair long in Georgia and people screamed at me, “Are you a boy or girl?”

WHAT DID YOU ANSWER?

Jayne County: We didn’t have time because we were too busy running away! We didn’t know if they were gonna pull a gun on us. We got shot at one day, walking along the street. These rednecks came along on a truck and started shooting at us. The bullets were whizzing past my ears.

HOW WAS SEXUALITY AND TRANSVESTITISM RECEIVED BY THE AUDIENCE IN THOSE DAYS? I’M SURE YOU DIDN’T DO THAT IN GEORGIA —

Jayne County: I did very early shows down there — like in ’65-’66, I did some shows in bars. Believe or not, I used to do a Dusty Springfield imitation, a Janis Joplin imitation, and a Cher imitation. The Dusty was very good.

SO YOU WERE ONE OF THE FIRST WHO DID WHAT MIGHT BE CALLED SEX ROCK?

Jayne County: Not really, I was more or less taking a piss; laughing at sex, because sex upsets people so much, and I found that so laughable. I used to try to upset people. I like to upset people. I used to really love to shock people. I’ll go out of my way to shock people. A lot of times, I got into really bad trouble.

WHAT KIND OF TROUBLE?

Jayne County: Like getting shot at because of the way we dressed — totally over-the-top. Getting shot at or having fights — many times we had to run down the street and hide. People would get out of their cars and start chasing us.

WHEN YOU DID CONSOLIDATE SEX AND TRANSVESTITISM INTO YOUR ACT LATER ON, WHAT WAS YOUR BIG INFLUENCE?

Jayne County: A lot of everything, and I loved Lenny Bruce. I even have a song I never recorded: “There’s No Such Thing as a Dirty Word.” To me, how can language be bad? That you can’t sing obscenities or say them on record is so stupid. People can stand off-stage and say “fuck” but you if say “fuck” onstage, you can be arrested or banned. It’s amazing the attitude in America now towards what I call Transgender. There are so many forms of Transgender —like Transvestism, cross-dressing, Drag Queens, Transsexuals —

TRANSVESTITISM OCCURRED BEFORE SEX REASSIGNMENT WAS POPULAR.

Jayne County: The Dolls would come out in old thrift-shop women’s dresses. Later on, they toned it down. A lot of people were upset they toned it down. They used to come out wearing women’s shoes, but when they got signed, they start dressing really Glam-y, with lamé pants. I liked them better when they came out in little second-hand women’s clothes.

DID THEY TAKE ANY CUES FROM THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION? ON WE’RE ONLY IT FOR THE MONEY, THEY WORE DRESSES —

Jayne County: I understand. Also, the back cover of Alice Cooper’s Easy Action, where they’ve got their backs turned — I remember people used to get upset about that. All it was, was the backs of their heads and their hair hanging out. How could anyone get upset over that?

AT WHAT POINT DID ANDROGYNY BECOME THE SCENE?

Jayne County: I never thought of that. I just tied it all together. To me, it was blurring the sexes. I think people like Bowie and Marc Bolan commercialized it. Androgyny was a commercialization of the scene.

WHO WOULD YOU CREDIT AS THE FIRST GLAM ROCKER?

Jayne County: I know David Johansen was very much influenced by The Theater of the Ridiculous. Iggy went to see them and everyone in the whole play was covered with glitter. He went back that night and did a big show at the Electric Circus, and came out totally covered in glitter. He was directly influenced that night by the Theater of the Ridiculous. They’d have people in the play, playing different characters — loads of what became gender-bending was going on in the underground theater at that time. That influenced me. The Dolls beat me by two weeks on debuting in the New York scene.

WERE THE DOLLS YOUR PEERS OR YOUR COMPETITION?

Jayne County: A little of both.

DID YOU HAVE A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM?

Jayne County: A very good relationship with them. They loved me. They’d come and see our shows, and we’d go and see all theirs. I even played with the Dolls at the Mercer Arts Center.

HOW WAS THE DRUG SCENE BACK IN THOSE DAYS?

Jayne County: When I went to London in ‘77 and did the first 100 Days At The Roxy, everyone was doing Speed and that awful English Sulfate. That’s one reason the music was so fast — everyone was doing Speed. That stuff would make your nose fall off. In the Sixties, it was all love children doing psychedelic drugs: LSD, Mescaline, THC. I was never into the heavy Junk scene. I never did any of that; I hated it. I did do lots of Acid. The early Seveties scene was just down into Seconals and Valium.

HOW DID YOU START WORKING WITH DAVID BOWIE?

Jayne County: When we were doing Pork, Leee Childers was stage-managing, and we got moved to The Roundhouse in London. We’d read about Bowie in a magazine, and we said we should go see him. We thought we were the only ones at the time doing anything like that. So me and Sherry and Tony Zinetta, who went on to become vice-president of MainMan — we all went to check out Bowie. We were enjoying what he was doing, but we were a little disappointed, because what he was doing at that point was so Folk-y and laid back. He had long hair like Lauren Bacall, and baggy trousers, and he was doing that stuff from Changes and Hunky Dory. I expected it to be more outrageous, but it was really subtle.

HE WOUND UP SIGNING YOU TO MAINMAN.

Jayne County: Tony DeFries, his manager, did. As I found out later, that was only to keep me from doing anything. After one of his shows, me and Bowie were chatting. I’d just signed to MainMan and had all these great ideas kicking around, and I told David I had the best idea in the world. I told him I wanted to do a whole album of all British Invasion hits. Six months later he comes out with Pin-Ups. I was flabbergasted! When I’d say anything to anyone, they’d just laugh and say I was paranoid. I said, “Something’s up here.” They took me into the studio to record. I recorded “Wonder Woman,” “Mexican City,” “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?,” “Queen Age Baby” — all these incredible lyrics I’d come up with. So, I sent him all of my tapes and not long after that, Sherry is sitting at the house in Connecticut. Bowie called her up and said he wrote this great song called “Rebel Rebel,” and plays her this demo. She listened to it and said, “This sounds like one of Wayne’s songs.” Basically, “Queen Age Baby” is the mother of “Rebel Rebel.” If he’d never heard “Queen Age Baby,” he would’ve never written “Rebel Rebel.”

DID YOU EVER SAY ANYTHING TO HIM ABOUT IT?

Jayne County: I never said anything to him about it, but when it happened, my heart sank — and it began to dawn on me that I was just being used.

YOU WEREN’T THE ONLY ONE, RIGHT?

Jayne County: Oh God, no. I’ll tell you another heavy story. I did this big show. The band was on one side of the stage; we had all these huge props and theatrics for every song. He comes out with the Diamond Dogs tour, and it’s nothing but my show with his songs! He took my whole show. I got no credit for anything.

YOU NEVER CONFRONTED HIM?

Jayne County: No. I haven’t spoken to him in years, and if I did, I don’t know if I’d lose it. I don’t want to bother, because it’s been so long. What can I say? What can I do? I should’ve known better. And they promised me the moon the whole time. They set me up in an apartment, gave me a weekly check, bought me clothes. I was on drugs — not heavy drugs, but enough to keep me down all the time. A lot of my ideas pop up in other albums, too. I was beginning to think that I’m not paranoid at all; I’m getting totally ripped off. And then I heard they were getting ready to shelve me. He made me sign this life-long contract, and it had a suspension clause in it so they could keep me tied up for life. It had a clause in it that said if at any time I offended public morality, I could be suspended. I, like a fool, signed it because they told me it was just him being funny. Kiss’s management wanted to sign me. I sent them my tapes and they loved it. When they found out I was under contract to MainMan, they didn’t want to know me. I don’t wanna go on and on about this — I don’t wanna sound bitter.

DID YOU HAVE ANY RELATIONSHIP BESIDES A PROFESSIONAL ONE?

Jayne County: No, there was no relationship. There were little incidents, but he’d do that with a lot of people.

WAS HE LIKE A TEASE?

Jayne County: Yeah. Sometimes the teasing got a little out of hand — but for my tastes, I found him physically repulsive. Once, I went to see him, and he came into the room coked out of his mind and did a mock-rape on me. He threw me on the floor, pinned me down, dry-humped me, tried to put a hickey on my neck — I didn’t like that. I’d just say, “Get the fuck off of me.” Another time at a hotel, I went to the refrigerator for a Diet Pepsi and he came in and unzipped his trousers and started showing me his pubic hairs, because he shaved his hairs in a heart shape. He waited for me to do something and I didn’t. I just went, “That’s very nice, David,” and walked away.

DID HE GET HIS WAY WITH A LOT OF PEOPLE?

Jayne County: He got his way with anyone he wanted to. I just found him absolutely repulsive with skinny, knobby knees with veins in them. And that skinny body — ooh. I found him totally unattractive.

NOT TO ASK YOU TO KISS AND TELL, BUT IS THERE ANYBODY OF NOTE WITH WHOM YOU HAD A SEXUAL LIAISON?

Jayne County: Once at Max’s, I was doing my makeup in the bathroom, and Dee Dee Ramone came in. He started peeing, and he took his cock out, and he said, “Oh, look at my cock. Look at all the scars on it where my girlfriend tried to stab me. Blah blah blah.” Just little things like that. The others I can’t tell; I’ll get in trouble.

TOO BAD.

Jayne County: Y’know who Chris Spedding is? I can’t really tell —

OH, GO AHEAD.

Jayne County: I went into this Transvestite bar one night, and this guy came over, and really started doing the chat-up on me. He said, “Come back to my place; we’ll play records; I’ve got all this Coke; we’ll do all these things, blah blah blah”. I didn’t have anything else to do and I said, “Okay, I’ll come over.” I didn’t realize who it was — It was Chris Spedding. He got me coked out of my mind, wound up throwing me on the bed, and begging me to do the most disgusting things that I won’t even mention to you, they were so disgusting. Finally, I left. Then, I had to go to the fucking doctor. He gave me something — nothing too heavy. I was so disappointed in Chris Spedding, I never looked at him in the same way. It wasn’t a sexual disease; it was one of those things you get — you know what I mean?

I SEE.

Jayne County: I don’t think he’d had a bath. I was totally turned off; I just wanted to get out of there. He was so coked up — his head kept jerking, his eyes would go off in a weird way. He was totally out of his mind. He was totally fucked up on drugs — I mean totally fucked up. It scared me. He didn’t know I was Jayne County. About a year later, he came to one of my shows with his band and they were heckling me. They were being disruptive, and so I said, “This next song is called, ‘You’re Looking Cool Daddy, But You’re Bad In Bed.’ And it’s dedicated to —” and I pointed right at him, “Chris Spedding.” They were quiet after that.

WHY DID YOU LEAVE NEW YORK AND GO TO LONDON?

Jayne County: Leee Childers was in London managing the Heartbreakers. They were on the Anarchy Tour. The Sex Pistols dropped off, and The Damned continued. He rang up my manager and said, We’ve gotta get Wayne here, because England’s Punk scene is incredible; it’s a lot more theatrical, and Wayne would fit in well here.” The punk scene in England was more theatrical; it was more visual. The reaction to me was so incredible that I decided, “I’m just gonna stay here.”

AT WHAT POINT DURING YOUR TRANSFORMATION FROM MALE TO FEMALE DID WAYNE COUNTY BECOME JAYNE COUNTY?

Jayne County: It was the way I was beginning to look with my new figure. I was looking better than ever, more and more like the female gender. Coming out as Wayne just wasn’t on anymore. Patti Palladin told me there’s no way I could come onstage anymore looking the way I did and calling myself a man. If I was gonna have that image, I needed a name to fit.

TELL US ABOUT SEX REASSIGNMENT.

Jayne County: There are different degrees of Transsexualism. Because you’re a Transsexual, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have a full sex change. A lot of Transsexuals are quite well adapted to just remain in the middle. In fact, it would do a lot of Transsexuals harm to do a full sex change. It doesn’t have to be black or white; it doesn’t have to be a full sex change. If you get to a certain point with your body — from the hormone treatments and all — if you’re comfortable there, you should just stay there. There’s no point in going all the way if you feel uncomfortable. I was on the verge — I was like an inch close to doing it — then I thought, “I feel comfortable now; I don’t think I’m gonna have to do it.” If I had a full sex change, then regretted it, it’d be too late to go back over the bridge — and I might commit suicide.

ARE YOU A HERMAPHRODITE?

Jayne County: Yes. To classify myself is hard, because it’s psychological. I’d classify myself, at the moment, as that, because it takes in all forms of Transsexuality, Transvestism, Drag Queen, cross-dressing, whatever — I’d say I’m Transgender.

HOW DID YOUR FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES REACT?

Jayne County: One person who acted strange was Patti Smith. I ran into her, and I was just beginning my hormones, and my little titties were just beginning to peek out of my T-shirt. We were talking, and her eyes were fixed down there, and she started getting really nervous. I read where Patti had said things like, she was comfortable around Gay men who still acted like men, but not comfortable around people who were considered men who don’t really act like men. She was very uncomfortable because she had it in her mind that I was Wayne and I was a guy doing this little transition. I don’t know where that comes from with her. Some people got very strange and others thought it was just fabulous. Some people in the business got really weird with me.

WHY DID WAYNE COUNTY BECOME JAYNE COUNTY?

Jayne County: It helped me to deal with myself and basic reality — of what’s happening around me. It was harder for me to deal with life in general when I was just Wayne, the little boy who had a big nose and wore too much mascara. People still considered me with an attitude like I’m a real guy. I was thinking I wasn’t a guy at all, I was one of the girls.

YOU WERE PROUD OF WHAT YOU WERE, AND STOOD UP FOR THAT.

Jayne County: I’m very proud of being a pioneer in that way, and also being one of the first Transgender people to go into Straight Rock places and do what I do. A Transgender person is a culmination of both sexes. It’s one who transposes certain aspects of one’s sex and mixes it in with aspects of the other sex. I like that. To me, that’s very appealing. I find it totally fascinating. I find it totally political without marching down the street with a sign.

WHAT DO YOU THINK BOWIE’S REACTION TO ALL THIS WOULD’VE BEEN? WOULD HE HAVE RUN OUT AND GOTTEN A SEX CHANGE IF YOU’D GOTTEN ONE BACK IN THE SEVENTIES?

Jayne County: No. Maybe he should have. I think he was more of a put-on. There were completely Straight people coming into Max’s Kansas City, and they’d say they were Bisexual. Bowie was the king of that. It’s very psychological; it goes back to every aspect of your being — what you are and how you got there. It’s heavy, to cop a Sixties expression.

IT WOULD TAKE A LOT OF NERVE — ANY MEDICAL PROCEDURE IS INHERENTLY DANGEROUS —

Jayne County: Someone gave me a book that showed the whole medical procedure. They went into detail, what they had to do — it horrified me. I read about what occurred — you have to have this big round thing up yourself for six months. I don’t think I could’ve psychologically handled it. I think I would’ve totally freaked out. As someone who’s done a lot of LSD in the Sixties, I think that might be one of the reasons I couldn’t go on with the whole thing.

IF YOU WERE JUST COMING ON THE SCENE NOW, WOULD YOU DO THIS ALL OVER AGAIN?

Jayne County: The idea is old. I went to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and I was looking at this statue. It was a statue of a woman, and they had it positioned so that you could only see the back; you couldn’t really see the front. The front part was positioned more towards the wall. You could barely see it — and it was a Hermaphrodite. I could peek around just enough to see it was a statue of a Hermaphrodite laying on a couch. It had breasts, but it also had a cock. Hermaphrodites were considered to be the utmost in holiness. What’s turned people against those who have aspects of both sexes is this religion that teaches you either got to be this or that. But that’s where the problem comes in. They’re trying to make us be something that we’re not. I object to religions doing that. That messes up people’s minds more than anything. That messes people up; they should not be forced to be this or that. There’s no such thing as anyone who’s just this or just that.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?

Jayne County: What’s happened is, basically, physically I can be classified as a Hermaphrodite. I have beautiful, fabulous female breasts, a woman’s shape, my face is real feminine and everything — but I’m still what people would classify biologically as male down below.

ALRIGHT!

Jayne County: Basically, I’m a Hermaphrodite.

I GOTCHA.

Jayne County: I knew a Hermaphrodite in England — and some Hermaphrodites do have both sex organs. Others have maybe like a penis that’s small, or actually they have a vagina, but they actually have balls that are up in them, or whatever. Medically, I’d be considered a pre-operative Transsexual. A post-operative, that’s who’s got a full sex change. A pre-operative Transsexual is a Transsexual who has the female shape, the breasts and everything, but they haven’t had the operation. In general, I just consider myself Transgender.

AND ARE YOU HAPPY?

Jayne County: Yes.

WELL, THAT’S THE IMPORTANT THING. WHAT KIND OF CRITICISM ABOUT YOUR WORK BOTHERS YOU THE MOST?

Jayne County: Well, I wouldn’t wanna hear that I was uninteresting. I hate for my music to be called uninteresting. I’d hate to be called boring. I really don’t want to bore people. I hate when people miss the point.

WHAT’S THE HIGHEST COMPLIMENT YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

Jayne County: When 16 Magazine called me the Lenny Bruce of Rock & Roll.

WHAT’S THE BEST MUSIC TO HAVE SEX TO?

Jayne County: The best music to have sex to — I’d have to think about that because I haven’t had sex in over a year. I have no libido. To me, sex is very boring. It’s just too much trouble. I’d rather have wet dreams; it’s easier. Does the sex have to be good?

NO.

Jayne County: I’d say probably if you put on The Velvet Underground, the sex could probably turn out to be, shall we say, interesting. But if you put on something really laid back like — can you imagine having sex with The Mamas and The Papas on?

Photo: John Aes-Nihil

PART TWO: FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH JAYNE COUNTY, 04/07/2011

GEORGE PETROS: AND HERE IS JAYNE COUNTY. WELL, JAYNE, THIS’LL BE A SUPPLEMENT TO OUR PREVIOUS INTERVIEW OF MANY MOONS AGO. I’M WRITING THIS BOOK WHICH IS KIND OF AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE TRANSGENDER AND TRANSSEXUAL SCENE, SO YOU’LL HAVE TO FORGIVE ME IF I BELABOR THAT POINT —

Jayne County: Okay.

IT’S NOT SOMETHING I WOULD ASK YOU ABOUT IF I SAW YOU ON THE STREET, BUT IT’S THE SUBJECT AT HAND.

Jayne County: Sure.

ALRIGHT. SO, YOU’RE THE GRAND DAME, THE BIG CHEESE, OF TRANSGENDER ROCK.

Jayne County: Wow!

WHEN I LAST INTERVIEWED YOU, THIS WAS A MUCH SMALLER DEMOGRAPHIC — AND NOW IT HAS BECOME VERY BIG. COULD YOU TELL US YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT?

Jayne County: It’s nice to see that my children are carrying on my legacy. It’s nice to see that. All I’ve done was walk on stage, do my songs, and try to be the best I could, and hope that it will affect people in a good way - or if it was in a bad way, maybe it needed to affect them in a bad way. You know what I mean?

I DO.

Jayne County: So, I like that. I like what you just said about being a grand dame. I love it. I’m eating it up.

WELL, GOOD. YOU WEAR IT WELL. AND SO MANY OF THESE FOLKS I TALK TO MENTION YOU —

Jayne County: Really? Wow. That makes me feel good because I do have a lot of down periods in my life where I go thinking, like, “Well, what’s the use? What have I done? Nobody cares. Nobody knows who I am anymore.” I do that and then I have you say this — really, I have to tell you, George, you really brought me up.

WELL, THANKS.

Jayne County: It’s hard for me to recognize it ’cause I step back and I look at pictures, and some of the things I’ve done — and do you know I don’t even remember some of the stuff? Like the thing on YouTube with me and Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis, and they ask us what we think of Andy Warhol, and I said I didn’t trust him because he had power. You know, I don’t remember doing that — I have no recollection at all of doing that.

HOW ABOUT THAT.

Jayne County: And it looks to me like I’m this other person. Sometimes it’s hard for me to look at my work and realize that that is me — does that sound strange to you?

NO. NOT AT ALL. BUT I WANT TO THROW THIS INTO THE MIX: THE REASON YOU ARE NOW HIGHLY-REGARDED IS NOT BECAUSE OF THE TRANSGENDER THING BUT BECAUSE YOUR MUSIC HAS KINDA BEEN VERY IMPORTANT —

Jayne County: In general, Transsexuals or Transgendered people — particularly Transsexuals more on what you’d call the serious side about their gender — don’t usually like the kind of music that I like or the kind of music I produce. They’re not real Rock or Punk fans. And that’s why I think at the very beginning it made me stand out so much. It’s like, there’s this Tranny and she’s doing Rock. Rock Music — something that was kind of considered a male-dominated thing, you know? And a Tranny doing Rock & Roll music — and I’d like to think that my music is good. I listen to it sometimes and I say, “Okay, I did a good job on that. I like that. I could have done this better or that better, but I’m pretty satisfied.”

THAT DEMOGRAPHIC LIKES HOUSE AND DANCE AND POP MUSIC —

Jayne County: That’s right. You’ve got Dana International — she’s a Transsexual and she won The Euro Song Contest.

YES.

Jayne County: But it’s like Dance music, which is kinda like what most people would think Trannies would do. I don’t do that kind of music. I’ve tried to do that kind of music — I’ve tasted the waters and I always stepped back and thought, “My god, it’s fucking awful. Why did I do that?” I just stick to what I know and love the best: Rock & Roll, or whatever you want to call it. To me, it’s just good old Rock & Roll.

AND WHAT IS THE HALLMARK OF GOOD OLD ROCK & ROLL? WHAT IS THE ONE THING THAT ALL GOOD ROCK SONGS HAVE IN COMMON?

Jayne County: Well, they have an incredible rhythm section. I mean, if your rhythm section ain’t working, the whole song falls apart. It keeps everything standing up. You can play the best guitar and have great vocals and everything, but without a rhythm section, it changes into Folk music or something else. The rhythm keeps it rocking and moving and keeps it in the groove. The bass and the drums keeps the beat. That’s what makes Rock & Roll. Punk’s got the drums and everything. We didn’t call it Punk, of course, until Punk magazine came along. Even The Ramones didn’t call themselves Punk. In the beginning they would consider themselves a Rock & Roll band, and that’s why I think the thing that makes a good Rock Band is the rhythm section — if you want to talk about it in a strictly musical fashion. But there are other things that make good Rock & Roll — like the attitudes. To me, snotty attitude makes good music. Not that there hasn’t been pretty Rock & Roll — I mean, Buddy Holly we could rock out to. He had good drum and bass players. So did Elvis Presley. Well, look at The Beatles’ rhythm section — my God! “Eight Days A Week,” “I Call Your Name,” or “You Can’t Do That” — “You Can’t Do That” is an incredible Rock & Roll song. I loved the Beatles in their early days. Their rhythm section was so good — they were great. They had a great rhythm section when they had Pete Best on the drums. It was amazing. You listen to the early Beatles stuff and it sounds like — it sounds like Pop Music.

TELL US SOME NOTABLE BASS PLAYERS AND DRUMMERS WITH WHOM YOU’VE PLAYED —

Jayne County: One of the best rhythm sections — ever, I think — people would always comment on how great the rhythm section of The Electric Chairs was.

UH-HUH.

Jayne County: I mean, Val Haller on bass and J.J. Johnson on drums are an incredible rhythm section, people used to remark.

THEN WE MIGHT WANT TO THROW IN THAT GREG VAN COOK PLAYED GUITAR.

Jayne County: He played guitar. He played rhythm and lead. When he took his lead, though — it’s important to have a great rhythm section so the bottom wouldn’t fall out. J.J. kept the rhythm section steady, and didn’t drop out. I had many different rhythm sections, with my early band The Backstreet Boys and with the band Queen Elizabeth, too. One time Jerry Nolan, the drummer from The New York Dolls — Jerry Nolan was my drummer for a time with Queen Elizabeth. He one of the best drummers. Great drummer — and one time I had on bass Kitty Erikson. She played in a lot of big bands. And then at one time, Tommy Ramone played either drums or bass. I’m telling you, my memory’s gone. But anyway, Tommy Ramone was in my rhythm section, way way back between Queen Elizabeth and The Backstreet Boys. But I’ve always tried to be sure — no matter what band — that I had a good rhythm section. If I didn’t have a good rhythm section, I didn’t really feel confident — because you gotta rock out when you’re up there.

OH YEAH, AND THAT YOU DO.

Jayne County: That’s the framework to do my insanity. That’s the backdrop for my insanity — but the music’s gotta be good, too.

I SEE. NOW YOU WERE SAYING HOW FOLKS IN THE TRANSGENDER WORLD LEAN TOWARDS THE DANCE AND POP STUFF, BUT THERE ARE A FEW WHO ARE NOT UNLIKE YOURSELF. ONE PERSON WHO COMES TO MIND IS GINGER COYOTE —

Jayne County: Coyote’s a really very good friend of mine. She’s another good example of a Tranny who plays in a good Rock & Roll band. She’s unique in her way. Ginger’s fantastic on stage. She’s one of my best friends. She always has good bands. Ginger’s one of those to take note of, you know? Now, I can’t think of a whole lot of ’em. I’m sure there are others. I’m sure my memory could be refreshed. At the moment, that’s what comes to mind: Ginger.

WELL, BETWEEN YOU AND GINGER — THAT COVERS A LOT OF TERRITORY.

Jayne County: It does.

AS YOU’VE TOLD ME BEFORE, YOU CAME FROM A PRETTY ROUGH TIME WHEN YOUR THING WASN’T REALLY EMBRACED BY PEOPLE IN GENERAL, AND YOU HAD TO KINDA FIGHT YOUR WAY THROUGH IT, DIDN’T YOU?

Jayne County: I did. I had to fight my way through. We had some bad reactions — more good reactions than bad — but we had some close calls. Like the close call in New Jersey where we had to be escorted over the state line back into New York by the New Jersey police because these angry Italians wanted to beat us all up. They wanted to beat the band up. They didn’t want to beat me up, for some reason. They were real macho. They didn’t want to beat the front Drag Queen up, I guess. They wanted to beat the boys up.

WHY DO YOU THINK THAT WAS?

Jayne County: I don’t know. Something to do with macho. Something to do with, maybe they wouldn’t be seen as being as big of men if they beat up the one with the wig and the dress on. They’re strange — want to beat up the guys. Very odd.

YOU TOLD ME THAT IN GEORGIA YOU’D HAVE TO FIGHT PEOPLE WHO WERE GIVING YOU SHIT —

Jayne County: Oh yeah. The police, too. They would arrest people, take them to a police station and shave their head. It was bad. They have a law, I think the law’s still in the books — if you’re considered a man and your hair touched the tip of your ears, you could be arrested for female impersonation which was illegal and probably still is in the State of Georgia. But yeah, that was bad, and that was when I was growing up. Down in Atlanta, it was hard. That was awful. We’d have to hide from the police. We’d hide behind trees, and as the police car’s search lamp would shine on the tree as the car would move by, we’d move accordingly behind the tree to avoid the lamp. It was pretty bad times for Trannies or anyone who barely cross-dressed or even showed any signs — anything that was considered unmanly, you could be killed. You can be shot at for it. Times have changed a lot, amazingly. Times have changed because of the music and different ways of looking at things, and movies and TV.

THERE MUST HAVE BEEN PEOPLE DOWN IN GEORGIA WHO WERE OPEN-MINDED AND EMBRACING OF YOU. IT MUST NOT HAVE BEEN ALL ABOUT REDNECKS AND COPS —

Jayne County: You could do Drag-y things but people really didn’t do Rock & Roll. There was a Drag Queen called Diamond Lil who did Rock & Roll. She’d come out and do Janis Joplin — people like that — but it was really considered very odd, the Drag Queens that came out. The Gender Benders came out and did The Supremes, Barbara Streisand — nothing Rock-y. The Gay crowd that would come wouldn’t understand it. They just wouldn’t understand it. If you were a Transgender person and you were on stage you did The Supremes or Barbara Streisand, something like that. You didn’t do Rock. If you did Rock, you were considered a real freak. You were considered a stranger-intersexual-male thing, you know? People were booing and would throw things at you.

I UNDERSTAND.

Jayne County: They think you’re insulting them or something — or trying to threaten them.

DO YOU LIKE DANCE MUSIC?

Jayne County: I like some of it. When it comes to music, I’m not narrow-minded. I like a bit of everything — but a lot of Dance stuff just sounds the same, and if people like that and want to dance to that, great — but it’s just not really my cup of tea. I just like the Rock & Roll rhythm more — the backbeat of the snare drum and stuff like that. A real person playing that — it’s almost old-fashioned. I consider myself a Rock & Roller. Always have.

I AGREE. NOW, DIFFERENT TYPES OF MUSIC HAVE DIFFERENT TYPES OF DRUG SCENES THAT THAT GO ALONG WITH THEM -

Jayne County: Oh yeah.

FOR THE DANCE MUSIC CROWD, IT WOULD BE THESE CLUB DRUGS —

Jayne County: Ecstasy and stuff like that. Yeah. Special K.

HAVE YOU TRIED THAT STUFF?

Jayne County: I tried Ecstasy once. I didn’t like it. It was like mild LSD, and all I did was throw up. I didn’t really like that, and I only did it once. Of course I did a lot of Acid, lots of LSD — lots of stuff, a lot of drugs. I did lots of things in the Sixties like PCP or THC, FFD, FFP, I don’t know, whatever. It’s a hog tranquilizer — yippee.

UH-HUH —

Jayne County: I’ve experimented with drugs. I’ve dabbled a lot, but I’ve never been a hardcore junkie or anything.

DID YOU TRY HEROIN?

Jayne County: I’ve tried Heroin, yeah, but it wasn’t my cup of tea. I tried it.

HOW ABOUT COKE?

Jayne County: I got hung up on Coke one time in New York. I had to go end up in N.A. I got to where I couldn’t even go out to a club unless I had Coke. I just felt like I needed to do Coke all the time — and I just got to doing it too much. I didn’t have a huge huge habit like other people have, but I was doing way too much. I didn’t like the fact that when I went out, I had to do Coke. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the fact, and so I went to N.A. and got off it.

WELL THAT’S GOOD.

Jayne County: And I’m glad I did. But in New York, at one time, it don’t matter where you were — you go into a restaurant, you hear people in the stalls going [snorting sound]. Everywhere. I mean, we used to joke about it. Me and this other person, we used to go, “Oh, there’s a snowstorm in here tonight.” There was a Coke dealer in there named Snowstorm, and then you go, “Is there gonna be a snowstorm tonight?” and you go, “Si, there’s gonna be a snowstorm,” and they go “Here’s Snowstorm!” There’s gonna be a snowstorm tonight —and it would be ninety-nine degrees outside.

AND THIS WAS AT THE WORLD, RIGHT?

Jayne County: It was at The World. Yeah, but every place in New York — particularly in the Seventies, was coked out. But, big with the Punkers was — particularly when I was in England playing the Rock scene and all — the drug was Sulphate. A really wild, nasty form of Speed. It was close to like Mr. Clean-Up toilet-bowl cleaner. You’d snort it, and like your nose would come off. It was unbelievable. All the Punks were on Sulphate and they’d do it right before they’d go onstage. They be playing and we’d be like, “Oh boy, they’re sulphated out —”

THOSE WERE THE DAYS, HUH?

Jayne County: Absolutely. Boy were those the days. I’m glad I partaked. I’m glad I can say I hung out at The Roxy and did that. You know, George, I wouldn’t trade my memories for anything. If I never did anything else in my life, I have the greatest memories.

THERE’S TRANSSEXUAL AND THERE’S TRANSGENDERED PEOPLE. MAYBE YOU CAN HELP US GET THE DIFFERENTIATION RIGHT —

Jayne County: Well, when you use the word “Transgender,” it takes in Transsexuals and Transvestites, cross-dressers, people just as weekenders, whatever. You know, the gender-benders — it takes all that in. You get into details: like, “Transsexual” usually denotes someone who takes hormones and absolutely identifies as female or male-to-female, and you can have post-operative and pre-operative Transsexuals. And then you’ve got Transvestites. They dress up like women. They can be Straight or Gay, but “Transsexual” denotes that they actually identify as women. I’m talking about male-to-female Transsexuals. That’s the main thing on that I would say.

THEY’VE HAD GENDER-REASSIGNMENT SURGERY, RIGHT?

Jayne County: Not all of them. Not all Transsexuals. The more modern ones today — I was just reading about it in some magazines — a lot of Transsexuals today, they take hormones and they live as women but they don’t have the surgery. Some Transsexuals choose to do that, and some don’t. They’re still Transsexuals; they’re just pre-operative Transsexuals. They live and identify as women but they choose not to have the surgery. Even Transsexuals who don’t take hormones — they just live as women. It’s so diverse and so varied that it’s impossible to say what’s what anymore. Like if you take a Transvestite and a Transsexual, then you’ve got many different forms and versions of that. It can be very confusing in a way, even for Transsexuals themselves. It’s just very diverse. Gender’s very diverse. Gender’s a lot more diverse than I think we could ever have thought it could be.

WAS THAT A SURPRISE FOR YOU TO LEARN THAT?

Jayne County: I wasn’t real, real surprised. I kinda figured that that was the way it was. Today it’s called gender-variant. You can say someone’s gender-variant, which means they’re either both or not or a little bit of this or a little bit of that. It just means they’re gender-variant. It means they don’t have one select chosen gender they identify with. They’re not male or female, or they’re not men or women — they’re gender-variant. I guess that’s really confusing but that’s the modern way of looking at it.

I SEE.

Jayne County: They don’t really fit into the mold of being a man or the mold of being a woman or the mold of being a Transsexual or the mold of being a Drag Queen. They’re just gender-variant.

A PERSON COULD BE A HERMAPHRODITE —

Jayne County: Yes. It could be a Hermaphrodite, too. Yes.

HAVE YOU EVER ENCOUNTERED ANY HERMAPHRODITES?

Jayne County: I knew a Hermaphrodite for a short time when I was living in London. It was a person who I just thought was a pretty little boy. It turned out it was really a girl, but she really was a boy. It turned out she was a Hermaphrodite. She had both sexual organs of a male and female, and you could look at her and look and look at her and you could never ever make up your mind if they was male or female — or it could be either one. She was totally nondescript — neither male nor female.

THE SIMPLER THINGS ARE, THE MORE COMPLICATED THEY SEEM.

Jayne County: Yeah, yeah —

WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A LOVER? WHAT TURNS YOU ON?

Jayne County: I tell you, I like the fact that I’ve turned into an old-maid act. I love that. I don’t really look anymore. I don’t really have relationships because they make me crazy and it’s like a load off of my back. It’s like a load’s been taken away from me. I don’t have to worry anymore about anyone or anybody because relationships make me crazy. They make me nuts — and I just avoid them now. My last one was about ten years ago and I’d made up my mind already that I wasn’t going to have any more relationships but I went ahead with that one. It just made me crazy for forty years. It’s usually Straight boys. They always are. Usually I like girls who are attracted to Transsexuals, too. They didn’t know to begin with or whatever. They usually end up being Bisexual — or they just had a fling. The type of guy that goes with Transsexuals — there’s a type of guy that specifically likes Transgender people, and I don’t know exactly where that’s coming from. It comes from a lot of different places.

INTERESTING —

Jayne County: That’s another thing that’s very confusing to me — The type of guy that’s attracted to Transgender people. It’s like, what’s that saying about them? Sometimes they’re attracted to them because they just like the person — who the person is. They’re not really attracted to them because they’re Transgender. There are others who are specifically attracted to people who are Transsexual. That’s just what they like.

THE GUYS THAT YOU DATED — WHAT DID THEY ALL HAVE IN COMMON?

Jayne County: I don’t know if there was a common denominator. I don’t know what the common denominator was — to make me as crazy as possible, I think. I always ended up with people who were younger than me. They wanted to know more about this or that or whatever, you know? I think maybe I had too many boyfriends who were looking more for like teachers or school marms. They were like the unruly child or something. The relationships didn’t really end up that great. I’m really over-possessive — and that would affect me too much, and I would become obsessed. I really avoid relationships, man. I’m very happy. I just get totally obsessed in a relationship to the point where I don’t like myself anymore. I like to be just totally free. I like to do what I want at anytime. To have someone that’s there all the time or coming around all the time — after awhile it starts to make me nuts. Or it’s the other way: I don’t want them to leave the house. I want to tie them up and leave them in the basement. Not for real — you know what I’m saying? I get awful, really possessive.

WELL, I THINK THAT’S SWEET.

Jayne County: Horrible. I get really awful. When I’m in love, I hate myself.

WELL, THAT’S INTERESTING —

Jayne County: Different people have different capacities to hold a relationship. I became a lot happier as a person when I realized I did not have a high capacity to have close relationships with people. I’m very selfish, too. I’m very selfish in the relationship. Therefore I don’t have them any more. It’s like a burden that’s gone. I have my kitty cats and I have my friends.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR CATS.

Jayne County: I live in a house and there’s woods behind it and some wild cats come up. I have about ten cats — I have specific ones that are inside the house. Four of my cats, they come from the same litter. Their mother, Runaround Sue, gave birth to them under my couch, and they’re named John, George, Paul and Ringo. They’re four little boy cats. But Runaround Sue was a runaway. She ran off and didn’t come back. I don’t know — something might have gotten her in those woods down there. She came back and gave me the kittens and nursed them until they were old enough — and then she ran off. My Runaround Sue became my runaway, my run-run-run-runaway. But I have some other cats, too. A cat had kittens; I ended up keeping them. One is called Squeaky Cassandra, one is Bam-Bam, and one is Orange Boy — and they more or less come and go. There’s two white-and-red ones called Abbott and Costello. Costello’s just really wild. He just comes and eats and runs off again. So I have my kitties. I’m happy with them — and sometimes I have them adopted. I’m always looking for homes for them, and I have them fixed so they can’t populate. Then I let them loose and they go wild and go out in the woods or whatever.

THAT’S WONDERFUL.

Jayne County: So I do that. I can’t take them to the pound because they’ll put ’em to sleep. So, there’s all these woods behind me, and I just capture the cats and I fix them and let them go.

I FOUND ONE OF MY CATS IN A TRAIN YARD WHEN HE WAS ABOUT A WEEK OLD, AND HE’S DOING REAL GOOD. HIS NAME IS PEACHES.

Jayne County: I love that. Peaches.

THAT’S A GOOD NAME FOR SOMEBODY FROM GEORGIA. I SHOULD HAVE LEFT THAT FOR ONE OF YOUR CATS —

Jayne County: Is she the color of peaches?

HE’S A HE, AND HIS NAME IS PEACHES BECAUSE HE’S KIND OF A STRAWBERRY COLOR. IT DEPENDS ON WHAT LIGHTING YOU SEE HIM IN. HE’S AN ORANGE CAT, BASICALLY.

Jayne County: I have a cat named Orange Boy and his stripes are really dark, like a rusted flat orange. Then I have a big yellow cat, Yellow Boy. So there’s Orange Boy and Yellow Boy. I named them because their color was so distracting.

CATS ARE BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, AREN’T THEY?

Jayne County: They are. They are. I’m a real cat person.

NOW, LET’S SEE — COULD WE TALK ABOUT TRANSGENDERISM A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? WHAT DO YOU THINK IT’S GOING TO BE LIKE?

Jayne County: Well, I don’t know. I do think that people will look back on this time as a defining moment in Transgender history in America.

IN HUMAN HISTORY IN GENERAL. THIS IS ALL NEW — THE RESULT OF MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY, SCIENCE —

Jayne County: That’s right. The science and medical things have made it, in a lot of ways, new. Trans people can do things and go places they couldn’t in ancient times — because they didn’t have surgeons in ancient times. In certain cultures they castrated and stuff like that, but they couldn’t make vaginas.

RIGHT —

Jayne County: So, I don’t know. In the future maybe they’ll have something where you can bypass surgery and you can just — gosh, I don’t know. Maybe the surgery might become easier. Maybe we won’t have to have it — or maybe you can change your sex at home.

AND THEN YOU CAN CHANGE IT BACK.

Jayne County: Maybe we could go back and forth. I don’t know. That’s all that I can say. I think that’s a very likely way to go — back and forth. And maybe we’ll find out in the future that sexuality is a lot more fluid than we thought. Maybe people will want to go back and forth in their gender, or maybe it’ll be like, What gender are you today?” — well, who knows? It could be.

MAYBE THEY’LL BE A THIRD SEX — SOMETHING HERMAPHRODITIC.

Jayne County: Yeah, maybe they’ll be a total third sex — a culmination of both. There’s a lot of things that can happen. Whatever it is, I hope it’s going to be for the overall good. I hope it will be good — and better for everyone. Hopefully, things will get better and better for Trans people so that they can live their lives freely and try to be as happy as they can be — just like everybody else is entitled to be happy. Maybe people won’t be as afraid or terrified of Trans people. They’ll just be more accepting.

PEOPLE ARE AMAZED BY THEM, AREN’T THEY? THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT TO THINK.

Jayne County: Yeah, they’re totally amazed. They don’t know what to think. Even people who might find it distasteful are really interested in it. One of the most topical subjects of today is Transsexualism and all that gender variance stuff —

OKAY. BACK TO OUR DISCUSSION OF MUSIC —

Jayne County: I like Transgender Rock & Roll. I have a song called “Transgender Rock & Roll” — it’s one of my best songs.

TELL US ABOUT SOME OTHER SONGS YOU DID REGARDING THE SUBJECT.

Jayne County: Of course there’s the cover I did of The Barbarians’ “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?” Rocked it out. And, of course, the song I wrote — “Are You Man Enough To Be A Woman?” There’s some good versions of that on YouTube.

IT’S A COOL SONG.

Jayne County: I’m glad I wrote that. I really am.

WELL, CONGRATULATIONS ON EVERYTHING, AND FOR DOING WHATEVER YOU WANT TO DO.

Jayne County: Thank you, George. ~

Laverne Cox

Producer & Actress

Photo: Dan Hallman

GEORGE PETROS: WELL, LAVERNE, YOU’RE NOTED FOR YOUR REALITY TV SHOWS — COULD TELL US ABOUT THAT?

Laverne Cox: In 2008 I became the first African-American Transsexual woman to appear on a Reality television show — and that Reality TV show was I Want To Work For Diddy — and on that show I was competing to be P. Diddy’s a.k.a. Puff Daddy’s a.k.a. Sean Combs’ personal assistant. I was eliminated, but that led to me getting a meeting with VH1 — the show was on VH1 — and they were interested in me doing my own show. We pitched — I have a producing partner named Eric Miclette — I got together with him and some other folks and we pitched a show that would become Transform Me, which was a makeover show where me and two other Transgender women, Nina Poon and Jamie Clayton, traveled around the country making over women who are not Transgendered, using what we’ve learned to transform ourselves.

IN AN AMBULANCE, RIGHT?

Laverne Cox: In an ambulance — we actually called it the “glambulance.” That evolved as we were shooting. A little silly. A little campy. But we had a lot of fun with the show. For me, with Transform Me, I always felt that most of us feel we have a person on the inside who the world doesn’t see on the outside, and it’s our work, ideally, to become integrated people — to have the person we are on the inside match the world view on the outside — and that’s exactly what Transgendered people do. For me, thinking of Transgendered people as the ultimate makeover was sort of a little high-concept. I don’t know. It was a concept for me to hopefully do more than a makeover show — what I was interested in was having real Transgendered people, Transsexual women, in the homes of people in Middle America. I think so many of the attitudes changed towards Gay and Lesbian people over the past several years. I think a lot of hearts and minds have been changed as a result of diverse, humanized representation of Gays and Lesbians in the media. Transgendered people aren’t there yet, but I see it as my life’s work — my life’s mission — to change the way in which Trans people are represented in the media, and to provide diverse, humanized representation of Trans folks. This is not just about me — even though I’m an actress and producer — having a platform. It’s about me spreading platforms to other Transgendered folks to tell their stories and hopefully have diverse audiences relate to those stories, because that really was what I was trying to do with Transform Me — but I also realized that representation of diverse people is incremental. I often look to the history of the representation of Gays and Lesbians and also, more specifically, of Black people — as a Black woman myself, I look to my Black history and think of how it took several decades for diverse humanized representation of Black people to be on television and in films. So, I realized we have a long way to go. For me, Transform Me was the first step. I look forward to continuing that mission as a producer. I got into producing as a vehicle for myself as an actress. I realized years ago, I’ve been acting since I was a kid. I actually have a background in Dance. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance. I started out as a dancer, but I always knew I would end up acting — but they’re not writing a lot of roles for Black Transsexuals, so I figured I’d have to find a way to create my own work.

I SEE. ARE YOU GLAD YOU DIDN’T GET THAT P. DIDDY GIG?

Laverne Cox: You know, I am. It was very clear that I’m trying to advance my career in the entertainment industry. I feel like I’ve won. So yeah, ultimately this is what it was about — advancing my career and being on that show completely changed the trajectory of my career. I’ve been acting forever. I’ve been in New York for a long time, over ten years. And I’ve been doing student films. I’ve been auditioning and training and doing little things here and there. So that got me the visibility that I hadn’t gotten until that point. I’m just trying to take it to the next level.

HOW DID YOU GET ALONG WITH THE OTHER CONTESTANTS ON THE SHOW?

Laverne Cox: Oh gosh. It feels like ancient history. It was fine. We won a Black Media award for the show, which I’m really proud of. For me as a Black woman and Trans woman, most of the discrimination I’ve gotten has been from other Black people. Verbally and outwardly. So politically, for me, I thought it was really important for me to go and win a contest where there were mostly Black people, or at least a Black mogul. I thought it was a really big revolutionary moment, in a small way. I got along with the other contestants. For the most part I got along with everyone, actually. Except there was this one guy, Boris, who had issues with me — but I try not to focus on people who have issues with me because it’s really none of my business what other people think about me.

THAT’S INTERESTING. WHERE WERE YOU BORN AND WHERE ARE YOU FROM AND ALL THAT?

Laverne Cox: I was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama and I moved to New York for college and stayed. I went to the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, Alabama. So I’ve been performing and dancing my whole life, and it’s just all I’ve ever wanted to do. The gender stuff started — when I was a child I never really fit into the boy category. It was very painful. My refuge was performing. Generally, I didn’t have any friends, and no one really understood me. I always acted like a girl. My mom didn’t really get it even though she’s very supportive now. I have a wonderful relationship with her now — but she didn’t really understand it. She was working very hard. She was usually working two or three jobs to take care of me and my twin brother. But my refuge was really my imagination and performing. And I would always sort of have music in my head and would dance around all the time. And, the idea of getting out of Alabama, as soon as possible, was very motivating. I was aware that being what I was — and what I wanted to achieve — couldn’t happen in Mobile, Alabama. So that was also very motivating, and kept me going as a child. I was performing and achieving. I was getting really good grades at school and learning how to achieve — being quote-unquote successful within the school system, academically et cetera. It was also a source of empowerment for me, I guess. As a child, it was like, you know, you might not like me. You might call me a sissy or a fag or whatever — but I’m smart and I get good grades and I win public speaking contests and I win talent contests. I get scholarships here and scholarships there — and look at you.

NOT BAD.

Laverne Cox: You know, I was a kid.

IN THAT SITUATION YOU HAVE TO BE A PRETTY SCRAPPY KID, TO DEFEND YOURSELF. I BET SOMETIMES THOSE VERBAL TAUNTS TURNED PHYSICAL —

Laverne Cox: I was a very fast runner as a child. I was pretty much chased home from school every day. There were issues with my mother. I learned early on that I couldn’t really talk to my mother about it because she would always ask me why I didn’t fight back. I felt I was a bum — you know, having a scrapping or brawling in the school yard or whatever. I felt like I shouldn’t have to be subjected to that. So I learned that I really couldn’t go to my mother with it — and I ran really quickly. There were some times where the kids caught me — caught us — and we did get beaten up.

WHO IS “US”? YOU AND YOUR BROTHER?

Laverne Cox: My brother and me, yes.

DID YOUR BROTHER HAVE SIMILAR INCLINATIONS AS YOU?

Laverne Cox: My brother, he identifies as male. He’s in a relationship with a man — a monogamous relationship for the past eight years. He’s Goth, and into Punk Rock. Those are the things I feel comfortable saying about my brother. He identifies as male and he was assigned male genitals at birth.

SO HE’S INTO PUNK AND GOTH, RIGHT?

Laverne Cox: Yes, he still is.

HOW ABOUT YOU? WHAT DO YOU LISTEN TO?

Laverne Cox: As a kid, I was very into Top 40 and that sort of thing. When I went to art school — what was wonderful about being in an art school was that I absorbed so many different kinds of music and art. Any given week, I could go to an art show or go to an evening of one-acts or a music recital. I got into Classical Music when I was in high school. I got really into Opera. My brother actually sings operatically, but he sings his own compositions — and I studied Opera singing for about five years, myself. So I got really into Opera — and my idol was Leontyne Price — and I really got into some Jazz. Top 40 and then Classical Music, and some female Jazz vocalists were what I was into in high school.

IS THAT PRETTY MUCH STILL THE MIX YOU LISTEN TO?

Laverne Cox: Still pretty much. I’m still very Top 40 -oriented. I love Beyonce, Lady Gaga — although I feel like maybe later in the year I might not love her so much. I love Pop Music. I really love Pop Music. I still love Opera, I still love Classical singing. It’s endlessly fascinating to me and eventually I want to — even though I’m a bit of a hack — I want to explore that.

OKAY — SO THEN, YOU CAME TO NEW YORK ASAP, RIGHT?

Laverne Cox: Pretty much. Yeah. I came to New York ASAP. I had a detour to Indiana University — I studied there for a few years and transferred to Marymount Manhattan College and then finished and started exploring. I really started exploring the gender-bending stuff in high school. I started wearing make-up and wearing culottes. When I got to New York, I went for it even more. It sort of evolved from sort of an Androgynous thing — I had a lot of internalized Transphobia. As a child in third grade, my teacher called my mom and told her that I would end up in New Orleans wearing a dress if she didn’t get me into therapy right away. So the therapist asked me if I knew the difference between a boy and a girl — and at the time, I felt there was no difference between a boy and a girl, and I told this to the therapist. I was eight years old. I said, “Well, I don’t think there is a difference between a boy and a girl,” and in my eight-year-old mind I rationalized that everyone was telling me I was a boy — but I felt like I was a girl inside, so there couldn’t be any difference. Even though I had a penis, I felt like a girl — and I was a girl, in my mind. So, I didn’t think there was a difference. And that became a problem. I thought that there would be doctor-patient privilege. But there wasn’t, and the therapist told my mom, and there was a lot of yelling and reinforcing of the gender-binary models. That’s the way I like to put it: Reinforcing the oppression of the gender-binary model. If I write a book, I can use terms like “the oppression of the gender-binary model” — but when you’re on television or doing interviews for a radio show, that terminology isn’t sound-bitey enough.

RIGHT.

Laverne Cox: So, after that session with the therapist, there was this enforcing of the oppression of the gender-binary model from my mother. As a result, I internalized even more shame about the way I felt — and so the whole idea of me wearing a dress, in my mind, was the worst thing in the world that would happen. Your teacher calls your mother saying your child will end up wearing a dress if you don’t get him into therapy right away. It gets set up as the worst thing that could possibly ever happen. So, in my mind, me wearing a dress was the worst thing that could possibly happen. I was being set up to be very successful and to achieve things — and this would ruin all of it. So I had to unlearn all that conditioning before I could really transition, and I still internalized a lot of Transphobia — I have to continue to unlearn. My work now is to really love and embrace and accept myself the way I am. The person that I feel I am — and, to always look good and all that stuff.

NOW, YOU SAY “TRANSPHOBIA” — WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?

Laverne Cox: When I say “Transphobia”, I believe we live in a Transphobic culture. I think we’re all Transphobic, just like I believe that we’re all racist. Like I believe we’re all Homophobic, too. We’re all sexist. We all live in a country that valorizes sexism and, more specifically, patriarchy. We generally live in a patriarchal culture, i.e. a male-dominated culture, and women have internalized — even though a lot of women have the power to resist — we’ve internalized the idea that men are superior. That they’re going to make more money. We internalized the oppression — and to liberate ourselves, we have to free ourselves from patriarchy and the patriarchal model. For Black people, we’ve grown up with a wide spectrum of culture, right?

YES.

Laverne Cox: We grew up in a system where Blacks were devalued. So, the work for Black people is to love ourselves. We have to unlearn internalized racism. So when I say internalized Transphobia, I’m talking about something that’s systemic. That is, systemic oppression — and look at how gender roles are so strictly enforced, and how Transgender people are often thought of as aberrant and freakish. So that’s systemic. That’s something that I’ve certainly internalized because of my own personal experiences, but it’s also reinforced by the culture at large. So my work, to love myself as a Transgender person, is to unlearn all that internalized Transphobia. It’s political but it’s also psychological and emotional. For years I thought educating myself and becoming political around gender, race, sexuality and class would be a way for me to do that. So, I’ve realized for myself — because of all the childhood trauma I had — that the journey’s not just political. It’s also psychological and emotional. This is a job as well.

SO IF YOU’RE GOING TO EDUCATE THE WORLD, YOU HAVE TO START WITH YOURSELF.

Laverne Cox: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I really believe internalized Transphobia is something that the Transgender community at large is not fully talking about. I think the separatist movement, where Transsex and Intersex want to separate from everybody — I think a lot of that is internalized Transphobia, and a lot of Transgender people are not doing the work to unlearn the systemic oppression that would have us hate ourselves. A lot of us aren’t doing that psychological and emotional work. I think when we don’t do that, we take it out on each other. I think the interesting thing about oppression — when we feel badly about ourselves often we take that out on other people. I think we internalize racism — oppressed people do that all the time. If you look at Black people historically, the ways in which Black people will lash out at each other — economically-oppressed Black folks will lash out at other economically-oppressed Black people. They’re not really addressing the underlying issues of their own self-hatred. It’s still not talked about enough: Self-hatred. When I talk about internalized Transphobia I’m talking about self-hatred. So for me, as a Black woman, it’s internalized Transphobia, it’s internalized racism and it’s internalized patriarchy. So, there’s a lot of work to do.

Photo courtesy of Laverne Cox

I SEE. DO YOU SEE A SILVER LINING TO THIS DARK CLOUD?

Laverne Cox: There’s a possibility of psychological and emotional healing. I think it’s really about each of us healing ourselves; each of us changing. For Transgendered people to really and fully be accepted, everybody has to rethink what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman.

UH-HUH.

Laverne Cox: When I say the oppression of the gender-binary model, that model says if you were born with a penis, you’re supposed to be masculine and identify as a man and have a whole set of behaviors and expectations based on that. If you were born with a vagina, it’s the same thing. There’s a whole set of behaviors and a course that you’re supposed to take. Most of us don’t fit into that model, right? Whether anybody’s Transgender or not. Whether we need to go to the extremes of taking hormones or having surgery or living as quote-unquote the opposite gender — most of us don’t fit neatly into that. So for me, it’s about each individual defining for him or herself what it means to be a man or a woman outside this biological imperative that if you have a penis you’re supposed to identify as a man and be masculine.

THIS IS UNCHARTED TERRITORY. I MEAN, THIS IS THE FIRST GENERATION WHERE WE FIND SIGNIFICANT NUMBERS OF TRANSSEXUALS —

Laverne Cox: Well, yes and no. Yes and no, George. The phenomenon is surgical and medical technology that allows the modern Transsexual — and Transsexual I’m defining as a person who’s medically transitioning; it can be pre-op, post-op or non-op —basically you’ve had a medical transition to live in your chosen gender. That’s how I’m defining Transsexuality.

OKAY.

Laverne Cox: That’s a modern phenomenon because of modern technology, but third-gender — there have been such people throughout time. Historically, if you look at indigenous Native American culture, there was a category called “two-spirits”. Are you aware of that?

YES I AM. I THINK EVERY MAJOR CULTURE EXCEPT FOR THE WHITE FOLKS HAD THAT.

Laverne Cox: Exactly. So for me, people who identify as Trans don’t fall neatly into male and female. They’ve been here throughout time. Transgender people and gender-nonconforming people have always existed. The phenomena of technology has allowed for transitions that are more inclusive in terms of living more fully in one’s gender choice and quote-unquote passing more. That’s a modern phenomena — but third-gender people are not new at all. We’ve existed since the beginning of time.

HOW IS A THIRD-GENDER PERSON DIFFERENT FROM EVERYONE ELSE?

Laverne Cox: I think the biggest thing that people need to understand is that Gay and Transgender are completely different. When one is Gay, it’s about who you’re attracted to. When one is Trans, it’s about gender. It’s about how one identifies. Me identifying as a woman has nothing to do with who I’m attracted to. I could be attracted to men. I could be attracted to women. I could be attracted to both. It has nothing to do with how I identify as a woman. Absolutely nothing. Those are completely separate things. The sexual orientation — who you’re attracted to — and gender identity are two completely different things. And historically, I believe that we’re linked under the LGBT umbrella — and I think it’s problematic because Gay, Lesbian and Bisexuals have to do with who you’re attracted to, and Transgender has to do with how you identify. It’s actually a problematic umbrella, and I think that’s why a lot of Trans folks would like to separate from the LGBT umbrella. Politically and historically we are linked to Gays and Lesbians and Bisexuals — and the reason for that is because of the ways in which, historically, gender identity and sexual orientation have been equated. Historically we’re linked and politically we’re linked, right?

RIGHT.

Laverne Cox: Because patriarchy is tied to male domination, and the ideas of masculinity are tied to the idea that a man has to be masculine — and that if a man were to wear a dress, that emasculates him. Or a man getting penetrated anally —historically the man is emasculated. So, it’s becoming a woman that emasculates a man, or being penetrated anally, historically, that would emasculate him. Those things are actually very different — but ultimately they stem from this whole idea of patriarch, of this whole idea of what a man is supposed to be. That whole thing comes out of ignorance and again, the oppression of the gender-binary models by which men are to act a certain way. It’s a fucked-up history but it’s our history. So even though they’re very distinct things, if we could educate ourselves now, in the modern era, we can make those distinctions. But historically and politically, we’re linked because of that kind of oppression and ignorance.

BECAUSE WHERE ELSE ARE YOU GOING TO GO? YOU TURN TO THE MOST SIMILAR THING YOU CAN FIND. IS THAT THE CASE?

Laverne Cox: I think so. What’s interesting is that pre-Stonewall, it was illegal in New York and a lot of parts of the country to wear female clothing. You could be arrested — and they’d raid Gay bars, and if you were wearing female clothes you’d be arrested. It’s all mixed up but really, I mean, they’re really very different things. There’s a lot of Trans men who identify as Heterosexual and Trans women who identify as Heterosexual. We don’t have anything to do with the Gay or Lesbian community — and I understand that.

WELL, THERE’S A LOT OF POLITICS AT PLAY HERE, ISN’T THERE?

Laverne Cox: I’m talking very theoretically. Ultimately, when you talk about gender, it’s a political thing because Transgendered folks are really disenfranchised. There’s issues around discrimination in public accommodations, hate crimes et cetera. Transgendered folks are really disenfranchised across the country. And all the ignorance and the violence — I mean, I’ve personally experienced violence, and other Trans friends of mine experienced it. You know, we live in a really hostile world. If you transgress what folks think a woman should be, you are punished. The system punishes folks who transgress.

YES IT DOES.

Laverne Cox: Every year, hundreds of Transgendered people are murdered just because they’re Transgendered. All over the country; all over the world.

IT MUST TAKE A LOT OF COURAGE TO WALK DOWN THE STREET BEING WHAT YOU ARE —

Laverne Cox: It absolutely does. For me, sometimes I think, “Oh yeah, Transgendered people are brave” — but I do know that I was in so much pain trying to be something I wasn’t. Trying to fit this sort of thing that didn’t work for me was more painful. I really didn’t have a choice. I personally didn’t have a choice. A lot of folks will say I chose this — whatever. The choice for me really was like, do I want to kill myself or do I want to figure out a way where I can be happy and like and accept myself? Those were really the options. How do I figure out a way to like being in the world and feel integrated and feel whole and like myself — and that’s really what my journey has been about, is becoming more authentically myself. This is what it’s really about.

YOU’VE WRITTEN ABOUT THE VARIOUS LEVELS OF STATUS THAT ARE ASCRIBED TO DIFFERENT FOLKS IN OUR SOCIETY, AND THE HISTORICAL DEVALUATION OF BLACK WOMEN —

Laverne Cox: It’s really interesting because as a Black woman dating — Black women have the least chance of getting married of any group or race of women. There was a very unscientific study that looked at race and how people were attracted to each other and who was responding to whom et cetera, and Black women were the least in demand for all races of women — and there’s been a lot of statistics saying that Black women are less desired, sexually and in terms of partnership, than other races of women. So, there’s that — and then there’s adding Trans to that. It makes dating very difficult. I think being a Black actress, too — it’s still rough. There’s a lot of diverse Black female representation out there, but it’s still really rough for a Black actress in the entertainment industry. I think that’s what I was talking about — when you’re a Black woman, you’re not the most-valued kind of femininity or most-valued kind of a woman in our culture. Because I’m Trans, there’s the hypersexualization of Black women that accompanies that — but also the hyper-sexualization of the Black male that accompanies that in people’s imaginations. All these assumptions about Black male prowess et cetera projected onto Black Trans women — I’ve experienced that, attempting to date, with people’s perceptions.

I SEE.

Laverne Cox: It’s funny — I hear it all the time. I had a meeting with an executive at a TV network and we were talking and she was like, “I can’t believe you’re single.” A lot of people tell me they can’t believe I’m single — but I’ve been single for five years. I’ve dated a lot, but as a Transgender woman, my experience is: most men do not want to be in a relationship with a Transsexual woman. They want to sexually objectify us, and that’s about it. Most of the men who are sexually attracted to Transgender women are in the closet about it. I think that there’s a big misconception that men who are attracted to Trans women must be Gay. This is my experience. The Gay men I’ve encountered are not attracted to Transgender women at all. Gay men are attracted to other men. So, it’s actually Straight–identified — I like the term “Straight-identified men” as opposed to “Straight” because sexual orientation is more fluid than Gay and Straight. Straight-identified men who are attracted to Trans women, they’re in the closet about that because there’s a stigma about being attracted to Transgendered women — because, again, of the gender-binary model of the expectation of quote-unquote Straight-identified men, and liking women who were born women or a woman who does not have a penis. If a Straight man likes a woman who has a penis, that must make him Gay in the imagination of the oppression of the gender-binary model. For me, it’s been very difficult. Maybe I’m a little picky, too, but I don’t feel like I should settle. I mean, I’ve been on a lot of dates, a lot of first dates, a lot of second dates — and I haven’t had an official boyfriend in five years. It’s hard. I have moments, but I’m like, “God, this dating thing is hard” and then I get depressed about it. I get really depressed about it. Everybody wants someone to love them and everybody gets lonely as a human being.

YES THEY DO.

Laverne Cox: I didn’t transition to get a man. I didn’t. I transitioned to be true to myself. So, if the trade-off is that I’m maybe not going to have someone special in my life — then that’s the way it is. If it’s meant to be, I do believe it will happen.

WE’RE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT, IN A WAY. DATING’S HARD FOR EVERYBODY.

Laverne Cox: Dating’s hard for everybody. Everybody has these issues.

YOU GOTTA JUST STICK WITH YOUR HIGH-SCHOOL SWEETHEART —

Laverne Cox: If you had a high-school sweetheart.

DID YOU HAVE A HIGH-SCHOOL SWEETHEART?

Laverne Cox: No. There was a man — when I was a junior in high school, there was a man that I met in Birmingham, in the city. He was like twenty-seven years old. He was a P.E. teacher and a Little League coach. We sort of dated-slash-went out when I was in high school — and he was really the only guy, and I thought I was in love with him. It started a pattern for me of being with men who were closeted — that started very early for me. One relationship I’ve been in, I think the only reason it lasted as long as it did was because he never had any issues with me being Trans or everyone knowing I was Trans.

I SEE.

Laverne Cox: It ended badly. He hit on a friend of mine and it was awful. I was heartbroken. I’ve generally been heartbroken by men.

SOME GALS ARE TOO TOUGH AND TOO STRONG FOR GUYS. THEY CAN BE VERY INTIMIDATING —

Laverne Cox: Well, I have no idea. You’d have to talk to guys. I would love to have no-holds-barred interviews with some of the men I’ve gone out with on first and second dates, and get their view. I wonder if a lot of women think this. You go out with the guy, you feel like there’s chemistry — and then you never hear from him again, and you wonder what you did wrong. I used to wonder that a lot. What did I do wrong? And I have to remind myself that it’s not me, it’s them. I had two really great dates. Probably this is five years ago, when I became single. This guy — he was awesome, and I thought we had a connection and chemistry — and then he just disappeared off the face of the Earth. So, two, two-and-a-half years later, he saw me on a dating site. It’s easier to be clear about the Trans thing when you Internet date. It’s trickier out in the world. Although I just do it and it’s fine. But anyway, he wrote me and he apologized and said he was going through a difficult time in his life and it wasn’t a good time for him to date. I’ve gotten that a lot from men. It wasn’t me, it’s just they weren’t ready — or sometimes men think they are ready for a relationship, are ready to date someone seriously — and they realize they’re not. I’ve gotten a lot of that. Or an ex-girlfriend comes around. It’s rarely me. Although on one date I went on — god, I’m just going on — but I asked the guy out. I met this guy on the Internet. We met and first of all, he didn’t look anything like his picture and he had a dreadful accent and he was really boring and he was from Europe. Some Europeans I love and some I can’t really deal with — and he was one I couldn’t deal with. So, we were talking for awhile and then we got into a cab. We were going to go to another place that was quieter, and then we get out of the taxi and I was like, “Oh my god, this is awful. How do I get out of this?” He said to me, “You know what? This isn’t what I expected. I’m just going to call it a night.” I was like, “Oh, thank god” — and I left. And I was like, “This is great” and then I was like, “Wait a minute. I know I don’t like you but why don’t you like me?” So I asked him, what was the issue? What was the problem? He said to me — I don’t know if he was being honest or not — but what he said to me is that you are very artsy and expressive and that’s not what I was expecting and that doesn’t really work for me — but I think you’re hot and I would sleep with you.

WELL, THERE’S A CANDID REPLY FOR YOU.

Laverne Cox: It felt pretty candid to me. He was being honest that he would sleep with me, he said. There’s very few men that I meet who really want to date me and have me in their lives. I think I’m a pretty cool chick. I’m challenging and I’m complicated. I’m not a simple chick but I think I’m pretty cool. So yeah, I don’t know. I try to be a good person. I try to listen. I’m not perfect.

WELL, YOU’RE WORKING ON IT —

Laverne Cox: Exactly. And lots of therapy. I believe in it.

LET ME ASK YOU ABOUT THE FUTURE. IN YEARS TO COME, WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL BE THE PLACE IN SOCIETY OF FOLKS LIKE YOURSELF?

Laverne Cox: Oh gosh, I don’t know. I want to do as much as I can to facilitate social change — in particular, the way that Trans folks are represented in the media. But I don’t believe it’s going to happen in my lifetime. I really don’t. I think the change that needs to happen — the full-scale gender revolution — it’s probably going to take a couple of generations for that to happen. So, my overall goal is to focus on my work.

YOU WERE ON LAW & ORDER —

Laverne Cox: Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Bored To Death —

WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE ROLE THEY GAVE YOU ON LAW & ORDER?

Laverne Cox: I played a prostitute — and what’s interesting is that historically, especially for Black Trans women, we’re cast as prostitutes. So, my whole thing about prostitution and the sex industry is that it’s a shame the stereotype is that all Trans women are in the sex industry. I’m not in the sex industry. I know a lot of Trans women who aren’t, but those are the roles being written. That’s part of the reason that I started producing — because I didn’t want to be playing hookers on Law & Order for the rest of my career.

I SEE.

Laverne Cox: So, I think it’s a problematic stereotype — but I also think sex work is a reality of the lives for a lot of Trans women. I think it’s important to talk about it in a way where we say this is a reality for a lot of Trans women. If someone’s going to play a sex worker — I’d rather it actually be a Transgendered person. A man in Drag or a non-Trans woman playing the role — if you think about it historically, and if you think about blackface, you want to equate blackface with non-Transgendered people playing Transgendered people. We’re at the very early stages of real Transgendered people being out there. And Reality TV has been a great vehicle for real Transgender people having a voice to tell their stories the human way, on television.

SO TRANSGENDERED FOLKS ARE STARTING TO MAKE THEIR MARK ON THE WORLD?

Laverne Cox: Exactly — actual Trans folks are making a mark in media and having their voices heard and being able to tell their own stories — and there’s a lot of examples of that. Do we need more? Absolutely. We need a lot more. We have a lot of stories that get told over and over again. A lot of the representation seems to focus on our transition, but rarely do they focus on what our lives are like after we’ve transitioned. There’s so much focus on surgery. Another issue I have: Usually when people hear that you’re Transgender, the first thing that they ask is: “Does that mean you’ve had the surgery? Have you had the surgery?” The people immediately go to the genitals. They just immediately go to what is between your legs. I think that is a product of the oppression of the gender-binary model. The gender-binary model determines that if you have a penis, you’re a man and if you have a vagina, you’re a woman — and that is way too simplistic. I think that model needs to be rethought. We know that historically, so-called Straight men have had sex with men. So, sexual orientation is not neatly wrapped up into Gay, Straight and bi. Gender is not, either. We’ll begin to think differently about what a man is and what a woman is. It’s not about what’s between your legs. It’s not about your chromosomes. It’s not about your reproductive organs. It’s about who you are as a human being. Also, it’s important to distinguish between biological sex and gender. Gender varies from culture to culture. Different cultures have different gender roles. So, me being a woman in America — that’s going to take on certain ways of presenting oneself. The protocol in the world might be different. Biology’s important in terms of health and just being well et cetera. Biology is not destiny.

IT’S A VERY COMPLICATED WORLD WE’RE IN, AIN’T IT?

Laverne Cox: It is. When I do these interviews and I do media stuff, I try not to get so theoretical. I think it’s easier for me to get theoretical than it is to talk about my feelings and my emotions around gender. But a lot of it’s theoretical, really. At the end of the day, I’m just Laverne.

WELL, YOUR THEORIES SOUND WELL-FORMULATED.

Laverne Cox: Thank you. Thank you.

THIS TRANSGENDER WORLD — IT’S A WORK IN PROGRESS, ISN’T IT?

Laverne Cox: Yeah

YOU MUST GET ASKED A LOT OF QUESTIONS THAT YOU DON’T LIKE, I WOULD IMAGINE —

Laverne Cox: It depends. The only questions I don’t answer publicly are my age and what surgeries I’ve had. The age thing is because I’m an actress — and then the surgery thing, I find I feel objectified by that. It reduces the person to a surgery. If you have a certain genitalia, you are a man or you are a woman, or whatever. I don’t want to buy into that by answering the question. I believe with that question there are assumptions. We really, ideally, should not be asking that question. Ultimately, that’s for my lover or my doctor to know — because we have the right to employment, nondiscrimination, and living my life happily. It has nothing to do with what’s between my legs. Most people don’t interact with that. You know what I mean?

YES.

Laverne Cox: It really has nothing to do with that. It’s really about how I present myself in the world and who I think I am and how I’m perceived.

AND YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO PRIVACY. I MEAN, STRAIGHT PEOPLE AREN’T REQUIRED TO SHOW THEIR GENITALIA TO STRANGERS. WHY SHOULD YOU BE?

Laverne Cox: Well, I think the thing is: People assume. If someone is presenting as a man — if we look at someone and we see a man — we assume that they have a penis. Transgender people challenge that assumption. I firmly believe that people do not want that belief challenged. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world, and people want the idea of a man and a woman to be absolute — and the presence of Transgender people makes that not absolute and creates anxiety in people. It begins to make them question — “Well, what does this make me?” Particularly men, when they’re attracted to Trans women: “Well, does this mean I’m Gay, and what does this mean about me?” People have to ask questions about themselves when they’re confronted with someone who is challenging their assumption about what it means to be a man or a woman — and people do not want to ask themselves questions about who they are. I think that’s really the issue that we face in society. If we can get people to not have anxiety or assume that gender is absolute, then I think the gender question will be solved.

INTERESTING. OKAY — IS THERE ANYTHING MORE THAT YOU WANT TO ADD?

Laverne Cox: Hi mom. My mom always wants me to say hi when I’m on TV. I don’t say her name: I just say, “Hi mom.” She’s like, “You don’t say my mom is Gloria Cox from Mobile, Alabama” — and she always wants me to say that.

ALRIGHT. CAN WE PUT THAT IN THE BOOK?

Laverne Cox: Sure.

HELLO TO GLORIA COX OF MOBILE, ALABAMA.

Laverne Cox: For now, I think that that’s all. ~

Ginger Coyote

Punk Publisher

Photo: James Stark

GEORGE PETROS: GINGER, TELL US ABOUT YOUR MUSIC AND THE BANDS YOU’VE BEEN IN, AND SO ON —

GINGER COYOTE: THE MAIN BAND THAT I’VE BEEN IN IS THE WHITE TRASH DEBUTANTES. I’VE DONE SOME THINGS WITH OTHER PEOPLE. I DID A BAND CALLED FOUR ON THE FLOOR WITH JAYNE COUNTY AND CHERRY VANILLA AND HOLLY WOODLAWN. THEN I ALSO DID SOMETHING WITH JOSIE COTTON CALLED THE MANEATERS.

AND WHO’S JOSIE COTTON?

Ginger Coyote: She sang “Johnny Are You Queer?” [sings] Johnny are you Queer, boy?/Is your love for real, boy?/When you asked for a date/I thought that you were Straight —

THAT WAS QUITE A TUNE. SO, TELL US ABOUT THE WHITE TRASH DEBUTANTES.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. I just wanted to start something that was kind of like anti-all-that-debutante-stuff and I said, “What would be a better name than The White Trash Debutantes, rather than just The Debutantes?” So we formed, and I had different people in the band that have gone on and done other things, like Billy Gould, the bass player from Faith No More — and then I had Lynn Perko from Sister Double Happiness and The Dicks, and she’s also in Imperial Teen with Roddy Bottom from Faith No More.

YOU HAVE A FAITH NO MORE CONNECTION —

Ginger Coyote: Oh yeah, that’s the reason why they asked us to open up for them last April at The Warfield Theater.

SO, IF SOMEONE FROM ANOTHER PLANET WERE TO ASK YOU WHAT YOUR MUSIC SOUNDS LIKE, WHAT WOULD YOU TELL THEM?

Ginger Coyote: Probably a dash of The B-52’s, add in New York Dolls and a lot of Ramones and then The Tubes — kind of a mixture of The Tubes, Ramones, New York Dolls and maybe even Motorhead. Some of the stuff is pretty fast.

THE TUBES WERE A PRETTY INTERESTING BAND, EH?

Ginger Coyote: Uh-huh. They were from San Francisco, where I used to live.

AND THEN YOU FOUND YOURSELF IN L.A..

Ginger Coyote: We had gone down to Los Angeles and performed quite a lot when I was living in San Francisco, and I’d always see these signs saying: Move in now and pay later; get one month rent free! And I decided, Oh, it may be interesting to go down there and live there at some point — but then I just assumed that I’d be in San Francisco ’cuz I was somewhat content with living there. Then all of a sudden in ’98, our building went up for sale and they were asking like five-hundred-thousand dollars for it — and it was something that was probably worth about one-hundred-and-eighty, maybe two-hundred tops, because it had moss and was lopsided and everything. Not really that much land — so we didn’t think it was going to sell. It went on sale December 1st and by December 15th we’d already gotten notice there was a new owner and that they were going to be asking us to move out. And that was during the dot-com era, during which you’d go out and look for places and there were lines of people a block and a half, two blocks long — just for a room in a flat. It’s like you go there looking to move into a flat and then all of a sudden there’s like twenty guys with business suits on, pulling out hundred-dollar bills — thousand-dollar bills — saying, “I’ll give you this if I can move in now. I’m desperate!”

WHEN YOU WERE UP ON STAGE, IN THE EARLY DAYS OF WHITE TRASH DEBUTANTES, WHAT WERE YOU DOING AND WHAT KIND OF SHOW WERE YOU PUTTING ON?

Ginger Coyote: Definitely anti-Republican. It’s definitely a party. It’s an attitude, a lot like The Tubes were. A big combination of theater, being wild, dressed up, a lot of crazy colors and stuff — and then also we were trying to present a message, and the message was that we can all be on stage together and that was a good thing ’cuz there were all different types of people in the band. There were different races. There were different sexes. There were even some Metal guys in it at one point —but we all got along.

WERE THERE OTHER TRANSGENDERED FOLKS IN THE BAND?

Ginger Coyote: Not really, no. At one point there was a guitar player who played with us but she had abuse problems and that didn’t last for long.

I SEE. AND YOU PUT OUT THE MAGAZINE PUNK GLOBE.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. Punk Globe was originally in printed format. It came out in ’77, and in ’78 it went onto newsprint. It was xeroxed for about a year, and it came out monthly, and there were probably about a hundred of them printed — and then in ’78, I went down to Chinatown to look for printers that would print it and that would do it for nothing. So, I ended up going down to Grant Publishing, and the woman who ran the place was head of the Chinatown Business Association. Her name was Florence Fang.

THAT’S A COOL NAME.

Ginger Coyote: That’s very Punk Rock. She didn’t bat an eyelash over anything that we were doing. That was fun, and so I’d get it in to her a couple of days before it was supposed to come out and she would usually have it on time. On occasion, the printers would print things upside down because they didn’t read English — but that didn’t happen a lot.

THAT JUST ADDED TO THE PUNK ROCK FLAVOR, DIDN’T IT?

Ginger Coyote: I guess. She would do things — if it was really bad, she would just re-run the whole thing. What was even more funny was, I stopped doing Punk Globe in ’88 and then I started doing it in ’98 again, but I was doing it online. I was up in San Francisco, in Chinatown, not long ago. I was in a store in the vicinity of where I got the magazine printed, and they had glasses and stuff wrapped with paper — and the paper they wrapped the stuff in was old copies of Punk Globe.

NOW THAT’S GOING FULL CIRCLE —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, you know, like souvenirs and glasses from Chinatown, or mirrors — and they would wrap them in the old Globe newsprint.

INTERESTING. BACK TO THE WHITE TRASH DEBUTANTES. THAT’S STILL ONGOING —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, we still play. Not as much as we used to. We toured the United States three times. We toured Canada three times. Also, in Mexico we toured, and we toured in Japan.

HOW’D THEY LIKE YOU IN MEXICO?

Ginger Coyote: It was fun. A couple of times we went with Union 13 and The Kung Fu Monkeys. We played down there with them, and then we went with Tijuana No! another time — and they were like really big. So we got a really big crowd. And of course, I’d be the only blonde in the place and there would be all these Mexican guys going, “fuck gringos, gringos doing this, gringos doing that —” I looked at them and said thanks a lot. You’re putting a target on my back. They go, “Oh, we didn’t mean that —” Oh yeah, I’m sure you didn’t mean it. There were all these Mexicans and I’d look at them and say, “I’m Sally Struthers and I’m here to feed you.”

THEY MUST HAVE LIKED THAT.

Ginger Coyote: Oh, they did. One time we were sitting at a tequila place and they were selling shots of tequila. I told them I was Sally Struthers and we got really drunk for free.

WASN’T SHE IN ALL IN THE FAMILY?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. She’s the one that had that commercial about how she’d feed the homeless and the starving kids and all that stuff.

THAT’S A NICE INTENTION, IF YOU CAN GET IT DONE.

Ginger Coyote: Well, it got her on TV.

YEAH. NOW, IN THE BAND — YOU’RE THE SINGER, RIGHT?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, one of the singers. Currently there’s a girl named Chelsea Rose and then there’s Chaos or Carla McCloud. On occasion, Lula Perla sings with us. You know, different people come in and sing.

IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU MUST HIRE FOLKS FOR THEIR NAME BECAUSE YOU HAVE SOME OF THE MOST MAGICAL NAMES IN THAT BAND.

Ginger Coyote: I would say, the band in itself attracts those kind of people.

AND THEN YOU DID THE THING WITH HOLLY WOODLAWN AND JAYNE COUNTY AND CHERRY VANILLA, AND THAT’S CALLED FOUR ON THE FLOOR —

Ginger Coyote: Four On The Floor. Yeah.

WHAT WAS THAT MUSIC LIKE?

Ginger Coyote: Well, Jayne had written lyrics for a song about sexist, racist people in Rock & Roll who supported the Republican Party. And she had the words, but I had a song called “Punk Rock RepubliKKKan” that I had written. It wasn’t naming people. It was more like, you wear all the right clothes. You say all the right words — but now the truth can be told: You’re a hustler, take all you can hold, ’cuz your a Punk Rock RepubliKKKan.

IS THAT “REPUBLIKKKAN” WITH THREE K’S?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. So she decided she liked the music but she wanted to change it to where we talked about certain musicians. So we did a cover of “Rock & Roll RepubliKKKan” because Punk Rock would be too exclusive and really only one of the Punk Rockers that we were talking about, which was Johnny Ramone, would be considered a Punk Rocker. It was about Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper and Gene Simmons. Jayne was thinking about Kid Rock, but she didn’t think he was big enough to even merit a waste of breath. In Punk Globe she’s written about the Rock & Roll Hall of Shame and the ten people she considers to be sell-outs — you know, stone cold Republicans. She talked about Ted Nugent, Gene Simmons, Alice Cooper, Johnny Ramone — but her number-one person was Cherie Currie from The Runaways. I heard that she was posting on Facebook about how she was unhappy because Mexicans were taking her jobs and stuff like that. And about Obama being a Muslim — and then Bebe Buell told me that she looked on her boyfriend’s page and her boyfriend had a picture of Obama and a picture of Hitler and said, “We’ve got our Hitler now.”

NOTHING LIKE A LITTLE HYPERBOLE IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE —

Ginger Coyote: Well, Jayne hit it best when she said, From cherry bomb to clammy mom —

TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT JAYNE COUNTY AND YOUR ASSOCIATION WITH HER.

Ginger Coyote: Well, Jayne’s a mentor. She was around doing it when I was young. I mean, she was out in people’s faces, playing Max’s Kansas City, and was an inspiration. I met her when she came to San Francisco in the early Eighties. She pretty much already established herself with the Punk Rock movie and all that stuff and had been in England, and we met and we got along and we’ve always been friends. She admires what I do and I admire what she does.

SHE TOLD ME HOW TOUGH SHE HAD TO BE DOWN IN GEORGIA GROWING UP — SHE HAD TO BE TOUGHER THAN THE GUYS WHO WERE GIVING HER A HARD TIME.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, it’s like Little Richard, running around in the Fifties wearing those pompadours and lipstick and stuff and being Black —

AND EVERYBODY KNOWING HE’S MAKING A LOT OF MONEY. SO HE’S A DOUBLE TARGET. WELL, HOW ’BOUT YOU? WHAT WAS IT LIKE FOR YOU COMING UP?

Ginger Coyote: I grew up in the Midwest. It was very conservative and I knew that I had to get out of there. So, I took off to San Francisco at a very early age, you know? I stayed in high school long enough to get an early diploma and a driver’s license and I left for San Francisco. I left home, you know? Fly robin fly, at a very early age — seventeen years old.

WHERE IN THE MIDWEST?

Ginger Coyote: Iowa.

WERE YOUR PARENTS OUTRAGED BY YOUR —

Ginger Coyote: My dad died when I was very young. We didn’t know each other.

I’M SORRY TO HEAR THAT.

Ginger Coyote: And my mom, you know — it just wasn’t talked about. There were things that happened but it wasn’t an issue. I knew that I was different. My mom knew I was different. My family knew I was different. I have an older brother who was more hip who had moved to Minneapolis. He suggested I go to San Francisco and make it there because I’d probably be happier.

I SEE. WHEN DID YOU BECAME TRANSGENDERED?

Ginger Coyote: Early, when I moved to San Francisco, getting hormones and stuff —

THAT MUST HAVE FELT GREAT.

Ginger Coyote: No, it was scary, in fact, because it was something new. I was young, but I knew I couldn’t stay in the Midwest because I was just very unhappy there.

WOULD YOU HAVE DONE THE HORMONE REGIMEN HAD YOU STAYED IN THE MIDWEST?

Ginger Coyote: I don’t think so. I don’t think that it would have happened.

PUNK ROCK AND TRANSGENDERISM GO TOGETHER SO WELL —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. A lot of them, though, don’t like Punk Rock. That’s a sad thing.

WHEN YOU TAKE HORMONES, YOU’RE GOING THROUGH A PHYSIOLOGICAL TRANSITION; YOUR MOODS CHANGE AND YOU FEEL VERY DIFFERENT —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, you get very emotional and there’s a lot of ups and downs. There’s a lot of bouts that you go through where you feel the crying sort of thing, and you go through different feelings —

AM I CORRECT IN SAYING THAT YOUR LEVEL OF AGGRESSION MIGHT GO DOWN AND YOUR LEVEL OF EMPATHY MIGHT GO UP?

Ginger Coyote: I think that basically when you’re Transgender, you’re born in the wrong body and there’s a lot more female hormones in you already.

Photo: James Stark

SO YOU’RE KIND OF ALONG THE WAY A BIT ALREADY —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, I mean, there are certain things like the bigger hips and stuff, the voice that never really got real, real deep and stuff —

WELL, YOU LIVE IN AN AGE WHERE YOU COULD TAKE CORRECTIVE MEASURES, LET’S SAY.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, it’s probably a little better than when Christine Jorgensen did it but then again, I lived in an age that Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue were just beginning. Oprah Winfrey, The View, Rosie O’Donnell, 20/20, Barbara Walters — people who were doing shows about Transgenders and telling about families that are allowing their young kids to dress in the sex that they feel that they want to be. That just didn’t happen.

YOU MEAN THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN FOR YOU?

Ginger Coyote: No, it didn’t. I mean, it was cruel. It was inhuman. People were nasty and rude. They thought I was crazy. There was no enlightenment, no education. Nobody was saying, “Oh, isn’t it cool, you’re Transgender!” It was like, “You’re a dirty, sick fag” — and that’s it, you know? We paved the way for these younger kids that are able to go to grade school dressed as little girls or little boys. Whatever their so-called persuasion is yearning them to be. Or having parents who are enlightened towards it and not just wanting to kill them or put them in a psychiatric ward.

THE VIEW OF TRANSGENDERISM HAS CERTAINLY CHANGED IN THE PAST COUPLE OF DECADES.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, it’s a lot more enlightened. And thanks to Oprah, who had several shows on it—

THANKS TO YOU, TOO.

Ginger Coyote: Some people have gone out and proved that you can do more than just do this and do that. It’s like Margaret Cho — she says when she was young, role models were hard for her because it was just being an extra on M.A.S.H. or saying “fuckee suckee ten dolla.” Of course, Christine Jorgensen, April Ashley and people like that — and then Jayne came around. And also a lot of the ones who were more into Cabaret and Disco and doing Drag acts and stuff. Jayne wasn’t into that. I wasn’t into it. I didn’t want to do that stuff. That to me is boring.

WERE YOU IN A HIGH SCHOOL BAND?

Ginger Coyote: No. I learned how to play music — clarinet and piano and stuff — but the music I liked growing up was Mott The Hoople, David Bowie, that kind of stuff. I wasn’t into the whole Disco stuff. That didn’t interest me. Now I like The Village People and stuff like that.

YOU WERE SAYING THAT THERE WERE EMOTIONAL UPS AND DOWNS FOR YOU — WERE THERE MOMENTS WHEN YOU WANTED TO GO BACK AND UNDO THE REGIMEN THAT YOU’D BEGUN?

Ginger Coyote: No. There was not, ever. Sometimes life got a little tough — more prejudice, more people that meet you and then find out stuff and then they freak out — but then you just kind of have to get hip to the fact that not everybody’s into it, you know? There’s going to be certain people who are going to be cool and hip with it and not give you a rough time, and those are the sort of people I try to surround myself with. You know, they weren’t that hard to find after awhile.

AND AS TIME WENT ON, THE PREJUDICES SUBSIDED AS THE WORLD CHANGED —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. I mean, it’s just like — things change, the attitude of the people changes. People change their attitude. The whole thing gets more loose and a lot more open-minded to the Transsexuality thing. Like we were talking about earlier, they understand it. 20/20 does specials about it. Even in little towns like Fresno, the homecoming queen’s Transgender.

IT’S DEFINITELY BIG THESE DAYS.

Ginger Coyote: The only thing that was happening back in the days, the early Eighties, was Amanda Lear and Jayne County and April Ashley — those kind of people for role models. Before then, you know, Christine Jorgensen —

SOME TRANSGENDERED FOLKS GET GENDER REASSIGNMENT SURGERIES —

Ginger Coyote: Well, there’s a real momentum of getting surgeries in general. And when I say that, it’s like people that get plastic surgery, cheek implants, collagen — they have their ribs crushed to be perfect —

IT’S PRETTY PAINFUL TO BECOME PERFECT, I GUESS.

Ginger Coyote: They go through that whole thing. They spend so much money going through that process of going through the whole ordeal of trying to make yourself look a certain way and to be feminine. And most women have got a lot of masculine traits — that’s the weird thing.

YES, YES. THERE’S THAT JUNGIAN OVERLAP OF GENDER CHARACTERISTICS. DID YOU EVER CONSIDER TAKING IT FURTHER WITH YOURSELF?

Ginger Coyote: Well, you feel under pressure because there’s always the cattiness and that whole stigma thing where you don’t know whether or not — you know, femininity and all that stuff. There’s always that pressure. Everybody wants to be perfect. They want to be the Playboy-centerfold types. You know, you just gotta really be prepared. It’s expensive. If you’re going to do all that stuff, it’s gonna run money — and looking that way is not going to buy you happiness.

AND I WOULD IMAGINE THERE’S ALSO A LOT OF MAINTENANCE INVOLVED —

Ginger Coyote: I would think. Like, anybody who does plastic surgery, it’s good for like ten years and all of a sudden you have to go in and get new stuff done. You have to get lifted. To me, it’s weird that somebody would want to go and get all this surgery and at an early age go through all this pain. They crush your face, put collagen in your face — and the other thing that was scary about that whole situation is the quack doctors who are performing that stuff — the street doctors. Right now, even people like Priscilla Presley and Lionel Ritchie’s wife got that oil pumped into their faces.

SPEAKING OF DOCTORS — DO YOU KNOW OF A CASE OF A DR. BROWN?

Ginger Coyote: Yes, I know him. He’s from San Francisco.

COULD YOU GIVE US A LITTLE BIO ON HIM, IN A NUTSHELL?

Ginger Coyote: I think that probably at one point he liked Transsexuals and that he was probably supportive of them, but that he also was hungry for money and he rented really cheap offices in San Francisco and had people that were paying him off for the work that he’d done on them. Like, they’d have surgeries performed, like implants and all that stuff, and then they’d start working for him because they had to pay him off.

I SEE. WELL, HE’S IN JAIL NOW, I UNDERSTAND.

Ginger Coyote: Oh, he was in jail. He was down in Mexico for a long time, and it got really bad. He was doing really botched jobs. I think at one point he really did love people and he wanted to help them. Probably early in his career he was doing some service and certain people did get — I don’t know if you would call it really good work, but let’s say adequate work from him. I think that the more he was doing it, the more problems he was having. He lost his license in California and then he went over to Lake Tahoe and he opened something there. People who were going to Dr. Brown were also the types of people that would go and see people in the back of a van and get things done in the back of a van. Like have silicone hit up in their face and their tits and all that stuff. One of the people I know that had implants done by Dr. Brown was just a botched job. Really, it was not good.

THIS SPEAKS TO THE UNDERGROUND NATURE OF THE WHOLE SCENE AND THE BACK-ALLEY ASPECT —

Ginger Coyote: And also the economy, and the kind of mentality I’m sure that insurance companies put into these things, you know? Everything is done in Trinidad [Colorado] now. The prices are getting more and more expensive for the operations. So, back in the early days, it was still more of a novelty and you could get certain things done and get them where the work was fairly good and cheap. But now, if they’re good doctors, you have to pay up the ying-yang, and a lot of the medical insurance just doesn’t cover all this stuff that people would like to get.

THE TRANSSEXUAL UNDERGROUND, HUH?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. And it’s sad — but it often goes with the Republicans and abortions and all that stuff. too. It could be because of the naive-ness at the time — doctors just didn’t go into that sort of field. A lot of people that you had to go to were just people who were sympathetic and wanted to help. I don’t think sexual reassignment, in the Seventies, was a big thing that doctors were thinking about getting into. There was no specialty thing that was going on.

LET’S GET BACK TO THE WHITE TRASH DEBUTANTES, IF I MAY.

Ginger Coyote: Okay.

TELL US ABOUT THE DEBAUCHERY AND THE PARTYING AND SO ON —

Ginger Coyote: I think the show was more onstage. Sometimes we had parties after the shows and we’d go back to hotels. There would be times when people would party and stuff. I remember once we were down in Los Angeles and we played The Viper Room and all these people got onstage with us and one of the guys who was really part of the whole ordeal, wanting to be with us and hanging out with us, was Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains. So he came back to the hotel with us but he was just constantly doing so much Blow that he got old and we didn’t want to be around him. We had this older woman that was in the band that was like seventy-some years old. I think he was making out with her.

ALRIGHT. DID YOU GET HIGH?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, to a point. Why not? I also was well aware that I had to be — there was a time that I gave up on all that stuff and I found a new hobby called Geritol, because your body isn’t fit for it anymore. But yeah, Rock & Roll. Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll. There’s a lot of groupie guys who want to hang out with girls in bands. Then you meet other musicians who like ya, who want to party and stuff —

I SEE. WHAT ARE THE GROUPIES LIKE? YOU MUST BE SURROUNDED BY AN ENTOURAGE —

Ginger Coyote: There’s all kinds of guys. They’re the people who do the roadie work. They’re the people who like the music. Some of them are wilder and some of them are real straight. Just like anything. There’s all kinds of people. There’s actors that like Rock & Roll. There’s actors who like T-girls. There’s musicians who like them. There’s all kinds of people, you know? People who are willing to try things, experiment — they have no problems with things. So, we met all kinds of people. It’s just not hustlers and stuff like that, you know? You meet all kinds of different people who are part of the whole niche, who want to be around, who are groupies. It’s not only the drug dealers and the street hustlers. There’re actors that are nice to you — and big actors, you know, famous ones, that are very friendly and make sure that they’re available if you’re interested in them.

I KNOW BETTER THAN TO ASK YOU TO GIVE US A FEW NAMES —

Ginger Coyote: Let’s just say that I was on an airplane the other day from New York, and I was on the plane with James Franco, and he was very flirty — very, very nice. He hosted the Oscars and he’s pretty out there. I mean he’s really nice. He’s just a really good person.

IS THERE ANY OF THIS ATTENTION THAT YOU RESENT OR THAT YOU DON’T LIKE?

Ginger Coyote: Well, I think like anything, certain people are nice to you and the majority of the people who come and see you are usually very supportive. I don’t like it when they come right after you get off stage and want to take pictures. That to me is like, you know — it’s bad enough having them taking pictures onstage. I much more prefer the pictures to be taken from above. I get a little tired when people want to take pictures or when they seem to grab you and say, “Oh, can I take a picture with you?” You’re just getting off stage and you’re pouring sweat. But some of them are cool and nice about it then you feel, yeah, let’s do it. Let’s get it done. It depends. Back to me, it’s not so much sexual. It’s just more of a preference when you don’t like to get hassled with pictures.

EARLIER YOU MENTIONED OPRAH AND 20/20 COVERING THIS STUFF — DO THEY COME TO YOU?

Ginger Coyote: No. They don’t.

WHY NOT?

Ginger Coyote: I don’t wear a banner and go out there and advocate Transsexual rights. I’m just for human rights, and I’m also a musician that is a little more of a liability for them than they would want.

I SEE — YOU MIGHT SAY THE WRONG THING.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, I mean, I think with age you get more mellow, and they see that you’re educated and stuff — and when I was younger I didn’t really go into Transsexual rights. I was more into just being a human being, a woman. I didn’t wave the flag of Transsexuality. In my early years I was more into Feminism. When I was in the band and I was hanging around with the Punk Rock scene, I was more into the Feminist aspect of it and more into being treated as a female, not as an oddity or a Transsexual.

YOU WERE TALKING EARLIER ABOUT THE RECEPTION YOU GOT FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD —

Ginger Coyote: Well, I’m not on a lot of lists of famous Transsexuals because I don’t go out and tell people that’s what I am.

YOU ARE ON THE WIKIPEDIA LIST —

Ginger Coyote: That’s nice that I’m in that, but a lot of other things I’m not in because I’ve always chosen for that not to be the first thing. It was more like I’m a woman in Rock. I’m a musician and I’m a human being. Wild, and right up there with all the rest of them — Jayne included, and also Debbie and Bebe Buell and Wendy O. and Cyndi Lauper.

THAT’S QUITE A CREW —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. I was with Cyndi Lauper the night John Lennon died. Cyndi was in a band called Blue Angel, and they played at the old Waldorf with Rick Derringer. I had gone to see Rick Derringer, and Cyndi still hadn’t really hit it big and so she rode with us and we were all going to a party afterwards. I just remember we were going to this party and Cyndi was in the car and we were all laughing and then the news came on saying John Lennon had just been killed.

YOU COULDN’T BELIEVE YOUR EARS, RIGHT?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah — it was like, you didn’t know for sure. Everybody was silent. That didn’t stop anybody from partying, but it was sad and people were talking about it. But we didn’t stop partying.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN THREATENED OR FELT THREATENED?

Ginger Coyote: Oh definitely, I’ve felt threatened. There’s a lot of hostility that’s just part of life. There was somebody that was writing letters and they were saying that because I was in a National Enquirer article with Ed Asner and his son — one out of every thousand people who read the National Enquirer are killers. They’d write me letters and say “I know where you live” and stuff. I just kind of took it with a grain of salt and told people about it but never really reported anything.

WELL, THE ENQUIRER CAME TO YOU — THAT WAS ABOUT ED ASNER?

Ginger Coyote: Well, they did an article about how Matthew Asner’s band did a benefit for Punk Globe, and it talked about how I had met Ed Asner and that Ed Asner had told me about his son and had his son contact me about his band. The next thing I knew, they were up in Berkeley playing a benefit and Ed Asner and his wife Nancy were in the crowd. And we’d taken pictures of Ed Asner and with us — and it was in The National Enquirer.

WHAT WAS THE NAME OF ED ASNER’S SON’S BAND?

Ginger Coyote: Insect Idol. That was in the Eighties. But then The White Trash Debutantes got into The National Enquirer, too.

TELL US ABOUT THAT.

Ginger Coyote: Well, ’cuz we had the older lady, Punk Rock Patty, in the band — it was about the grandma in the Punk band and about how she urged people to smoke Marijuana and all that stuff. Brushed her teeth and used condoms and stuff like that.

OKAY — I LIKE WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS —

Ginger Coyote: Nowadays I’m more open to talking about Transsexuality, and more open and up front to talking about fighting for rights and all that stuff. I think when I was younger I just wanted to be accepted as female. That’s what I was fighting for. Now, it isn’t as big a deal — it’s still a struggle but you know, people don’t seem to be as uptight. It seemed like when you had a name tag on you for being a certain way, people treated you differently — and I didn’t want to be treated that way.

I SEE.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, ’cuz we’re not all alike. It’s like anybody else. If somebody’s a Transsexual and fucks somebody else over, they aren’t going to say, “Oh, it’s because she’s a Transsexual —” Not all of us like Disco. Not all of us want to be a fashion model. Not all of us are this and that. Not all of us are drug addicts. Some of us try to live normal lives. Some of us try to live not normal lives but still within a parameter. I’m certainly not a Republican by any means, nor am I a conservative — but nor am I that far gone where I’m advocating pedophilia. I have limits. I’m not in a Michael Jackson brigade.

WHEN YOU SPEAK ABOUT THE STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS — REMIND US, WHO IS SUPPRESSING THESE RIGHTS? WHO DOESN’T WANT YOU TO BE YOURSELF?

Ginger Coyote: I would say, it used to be back in the day that there was a big stereotype that was ingrained in humans. That there was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve — and you don’t change what God made. But people have opened their minds and realized this was a gender disorder and that people needed to be treated. There’s been medications and things that people do to get it treated. Hopefully, it’ll bring some happiness into some people’s lives. If they also suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar and stuff, than it’s only an added situation. I don’t think that being Transgender is a danger to society. Not everybody who’s Transgender is bipolar or schizophrenic. People who were Transgender are just people who were born into the wrong body. It’s not like we’re dual personalities that can’t remember what the other person did —

WHO ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY?

Ginger Coyote: I just think people who are short-sighted and people that aren’t educated and aren’t aware of things. People that are kind of like hillbilly hicks, like from some little town that are like, “Oh, duh —” They don’t realize that some people were born with the mindset of another sex. It’s not something that you pick up. It’s not something that you can just get rid of. It’s something that’s in your mind and your genes.

AND THERE COMES A POINT IN YOUR LIFE WHERE YOU REALIZE —

Ginger Coyote: You can either sink or swim. It’s like when you’re young and you don’t want to be around guys, boys. You want to be around girls. You want to play with dolls. You want to do this. You want to do that. You get nervous around guys. You don’t know why you’re feeling the things that you’re feeling. You don’t want to take your clothes off in front of guys because you think that you’re different than they are.

DID YOU EVER POSE NUDE?

Ginger Coyote: No. I was more into Rock & Roll. I wasn’t into that glamour stuff. I was more into Rock music and being aggressive.

OKAY. WELL, THANK YOU. I THINK WE’VE GOT MORE THAN ENOUGH HERE.

Ginger Coyote: Thank you too. ~

Goddess Bunny

Actress

Photo: John Aes-Nihil

PART ONE

JOHN AES-NIHIL: SO, SHALL WE BEGIN?

Goddess Bunny: This is the interview of the Goddess Bunny a.k.a. Sandie Crisp. Long live the queen — long live the girl, I mean —

SINCE THE LAST TIME YOU WENT INTO EXILE AT RIVERSIDE, YOU BECAME A MAN, OF ALL THINGS —

Goddess Bunny: Yes, quite scary —

SO WHAT BROUGHT THAT ON?

Goddess Bunny: Well, living with my elderly mother. She couldn’t stand the competition, so I had to get out of a dress and back into slacks.

WHAT CAUSED YOU TO GO OUT THERE TO BEGIN WITH?

Goddess Bunny: A person by the name of Mickey had this apartment over on Hoover, and I was a witness to a drive-by shooting — in fact, it almost missing my head; if it wasn’t for my quick thinking and diving to the ground, I would have been hit. So, since the gangs were over in that area — Mickey hangs out and has drugs. So I had to go into a homeless shelter, and I was going to acting classes over at Warner Bros on Wednesdays, and we had a birthday party. Well, I had a glass of champagne — and because I had a glass of champagne, they asked me to leave the shelter — and that’s when I moved in with my mother.

ALRIGHT.

Goddess Bunny: Okay.

SO, WHAT WENT ON AT RIVERSIDE?

Goddess Bunny: Not much. Absolutely not much. I did one fundraiser where I sang Country & Western songs, and basically that was it.

WAS THIS DONE AS A MAN OR AS A WOMAN?

Goddess Bunny: As a man — and I know I should shoot myself.

THE SINGING COWBOY.

Goddess Bunny: Almost. I sang all the Randy Travis songs — which is quite funny.

RATHER THAN DOLLY PARTON.

Goddess Bunny: Yes, really. I like Dolly a lot better.

SO TELL US ABOUT OPERATION RESCUE BUNNY —

Goddess Bunny: Operation Rescue Bunny — well, if you haven’t seen the movie The Goddess Bunny, you’re missing something — because it’s hilarious. Myself and one of the students — and I keep forgetting the one guy’s name —

BRUCE —

Goddess Bunny: Bruce came out and packed up my computer and my desk and everything else, and brought me back out to Hollywood — and so here I be back, and life goes on.

AND YOU MIRACULOUSLY BECAME A WOMAN AGAIN UPON RETURN?

Goddess Bunny: You got it. It took me twelve hours in total. Next question?

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR ARCH-RIVAL, THE TACKY AND TIRED COSMIC DANIEL, NOT ONLY GETTING CHICKEN POX BUT GETTING FIFTEEN STITCHES AND TWO BROKEN FINGERS?

Goddess Bunny: What? She got caught with her hand in the cookie jar again? Actually, Danny and I stopped being rivals anymore. We just have this love-hate relationship, but we get along now a lot better than we used to.

WELL, WHAT ABOUT ALL THESE HIDEOUS THINGS THAT HAVE BEFALLEN HER LATELY?

Goddess Bunny: Well, I don’t know how they happened — but I’m sure she deserved them.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT GLEN MEADMORE STILL TRYING TO GET THAT BOY BRANDON YEARS AFTER HE WAS SEEN WITH YOU AT THAT PICK-ME-UP SHOW?

Goddess Bunny: He’s still trying to get Brandon? Lord, he better dream on. Brandon only likes things with boobies. You better get back in Drag, honey, if he’s gonna get any of that —

WHAT WAS IT LIKE WHEN YOU LIVED WITH GLEN?

Goddess Bunny: Like living with a video camera. He was a voyeur. He watched everything I went to bed with — and if that wasn’t bad enough, his roommate stole one of my boyfriends.

WHICH ONE?

Goddess Bunny: Well I’d rather not name him considering he’s Straight now, and married — but that happens to the worst of them.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WHAT COULD BE CALLED A NORMAL DRAG-LIKE LOOK, WITH GUYS DOING STUFF LIKE BARBARA STREISAND AND CAROL CHANNING?

Goddess Bunny: I give them a lot of credit, but I got news for them: Joan Rivers is only five-foot-two, and when you have a six-foot-three Joan Rivers it kinda looks ridiculous. Judy Garland is only four-foot-nine and here’s a six-foot Judy Garland. Okay — I do have to give them credit because they can look facially like them, but in all body ethics it just doesn’t work.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE TRIO OF DRAG QUEENS GLEN, VAGINAL DAVIS AND RUPAUL?

Goddess Bunny: Well, I give them credit — but I just want to know: They’re already tall; why wear heels?

YOU DIDN’T THINK THAT GLEN’S SPIKES WERE HOT?

Goddess Bunny: No, I didn’t. I thought she’s already six-foot-something, and you sit there and add three inches. It’s totally ridiculous.

THE OTHER DAY YOU SAID THAT YOU’VE BEEN READING THE BIBLE. WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?

Goddess Bunny: Well, if you read in The Bible, there was only one Ark. Noah had himself, his two sons with their two wives, and his wife, and then a bunch of animals. So the planet was covered in water —

YOU THINK THE BIBLE’S COMPLETELY ACCURATE?

Goddess Bunny: It better be. There’s over a hundred-billion people who follow The Bible.

ONE-HUNDRED BILLION?

Goddess Bunny: Yep — and the country’s growing every year. I mean, now they’ve got teaching over in Russia with The Bible, and they’ve gone over to Japan. So you know it’s spreading —

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT LEVITICUS, WHERE IT SAYS THAT HE WHO LIES WITH MAN AS WITH WOMEN IS GUILTY OF AN ABOMINATION AND SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH, AND THEIR BLOOD SHALL BE CAST UPON THEM?

Goddess Bunny: Well, those were all Heterosexuals. But if everyone was Heterosexual there’d be so many kids — there’d be orphanages and god knows what else because of overpopulation. I think that’s going a little bit extreme. It says in John 3:16 that whosoever believeth in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life. And you don’t know anything about life and God if you’re putting a Homosexual to death.

BUT THAT IS WHAT IT SAYS —

Goddess Bunny: Yes — but Leviticus is in the Old Testament, and John 3:16 is in the New Testament — and we are living under a new covenant with God.

UH-HUH —

Goddess Bunny: That’s one thing I have done, is study The Bible.

WHEN I FIRST MET YOU, YOU WERE LIVING ACROSS THE STREET, AND THAT BUILDING IS NOW TORN DOWN. OVER THERE —

Goddess Bunny: Oh, the Rector Hotel —

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU WERE DOING?

Goddess Bunny: No.

I WOULDN’T WANT TO REMEMBER IT EITHER.

Goddess Bunny: Okay, well —

YOU DON’T?

Goddess Bunny: No, I don’t. Honestly.

WHEN RAFAEL BROUGHT ME OVER THE FIRST TIME?

Goddess Bunny: I don’t remember. It’s been a long time, John. A long while. What was I doing?

YOU WERE CRAWLING AROUND ON THE FLOOR LOOKING FOR PIECES OF CRACK.

Goddess Bunny: Yes, my drug days. Oh well. I’ve gotten off that since then — off of everything —

BUT APPARENTLY NOT ALCOHOL.

Goddess Bunny: Well, alcohol’s legal.

THAT MAKES IT GOOD?

Goddess Bunny: Yes. It’s legal. So anyway —

SO WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING LATELY?

Goddess Bunny: I’m trying to find some work and get back on the right track.

WHAT ABOUT THE NEW FRONTIER?

Goddess Bunny: It’s a post-nuclear war adventure. It’s a lot like Mad Max and Thunderdome and things like that —

WHAT DO YOU DO IN IT?

Goddess Bunny: I’m playing a fifty-two-year-old woman who’s the wise woman —

DO YOU THINK THAT’LL BE AS GOOD AS PLAYING AN EIGHTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD FEMALE PIMP, LIKE IN THE DRIFT?

Goddess Bunny: I think so. This one’s got an actual script with actual written-down dialogue —and I don’t have to ad-lib.

WELL ANYWAY, IN MY LATEST MOVIE YOU’RE PLAYING A SEX SYMBOL OF THE FUTURE, RATHER LIKE JAYNE MANSFIELD, AND EVERYONE’S TRYING TO EMULATE YOUR LOOK —

Goddess Bunny: Well, according to the by-laws, I can’t do anything that is not union or I lose my membership — and I’m not losing my membership. I’ve waited too long to get it. I’m sorry. Unless you’re willing to pay union wages —

YOU CAN PAY ME UNION WAGES AS A DIRECTOR, IN THAT CASE.

Goddess Bunny: I know you’re not part of the union. I read the rules last night. It said I’m not able to do any fundraisers or anything unless it has to do with a union or is okayed by the theater authority. So any other questions?

WHAT’S THAT GOT TO DO WITH PERFORMANCES?

Goddess Bunny: Well, because of the union rules about any performer who’s part of SAG is not allowed to perform without the written consent of the inner authority — which is the head honchos. Which means I am not allowed to perform anywhere unless I get paid union scale.

WHAT CONSTITUTES PERFORMANCE?

Goddess Bunny: Me getting up on stage or a platform or in a movie.

OR IN AN ART GALLERY?

Goddess Bunny: Whatever happened before I joined the union they can’t prevent — but now that I am a union member, they have the leash, and I have to remain inside that leash. So anything else?

THE NUDE SHOWER CONTROVERSY —

Goddess Bunny: Oh, well, I agree with the fact that it was a prop for a particular type of dancer — And I don’t think there’s any handicapped people that have the gall or the notion and the courage to dance in the nude, in a public place, with a physical handicap. I don’t think there’s one — and I haven’t heard of any. Most of them are so caught up because of their handicap that they’re too damn shy or too damn afraid. I don’t think it’s right for them to come down on a public bar just because a shower that’s part of a performance doesn’t have some kind of adaptation where a handicapped person can get up there. It’s not like the management sits there and looks at the audience and says, “Hey, would you like to dance tonight?” Okay? These are professional dancers, and they have — you will not find a handicapped performer who’s going to dance in the nude. I’m sorry. It’s absolutely absurd.

WHEN I FIRST TOLD YOU THIS STORY OVER THE PHONE, YOU SEEMED TO KNOW OF ONE —

Goddess Bunny: No, I said I’d try — but now that I know it’s totally nude, forget it.

YOU EXPECT TO DO UN-NUDE SHOWERS?

Goddess Bunny: Yes, like in bikinis.

ACTUALLY, WHAT THIS WHOLE THING WAS ABOUT WASN’T REALLY EXPLAINED —

Goddess Bunny: Oh really? Well, we read the whole article. There’s this bar. They have live nude shower entertainment. If handicapped people think that every time they turn around that they’ve got to have their way because they’re in a wheelchair — there’s clubs in Hollywood I can’t get into, but you don’t see me closing their doors. Okay?

ALTHOUGH IT WASN’T A MATTER OF AN INDIVIDUAL DOING IT —

Goddess Bunny: It was the ABA [Architectural Barriers Act]— and I find that the ABA is just trying to win brownie points when it comes to handicaps, because most people in the ABA are not handicapped and they haven’t the first idea of what the barriers are. I’ve tried to get people to sit down in my wheelchair and try to order drinks from bars where the bars are at least a foot, two feet higher than the wheelchair. If you’re sitting down in that wheelchair, you’re unable to reach over the bar to grab your drink. So what do you have to do? You have to sit there and ask someone to bring it down. I mean, businesses are there to make money. They’re not there to pamper to everybody — and I don’t think it’s fair. Here I’m trying to get my career going. Am I going to sit there and come unglued because of a director or a producer saying, “No, I can’t let you be in my movie because I’m afraid?” All I can do is bring it up to the union. SAG’s got two-, three-, four-hundred handicapped performers. Not all of them are working. Most of them are sitting back going, “Where do I work? What do I do?” You don’t see a handicapped person on every TV show. They’re supposed to be there — but they’re not. We have people that are physically fit, are able-bodied — as they call it — that are sitting in wheelchairs and playing handicapped. Sure, they’ll take your money for a SAG card — but when it comes down to it, the producers and the directors won’t hire a physically-handicapped person as a regular person in a cast because they feel it offends the public. That’s why most of the bars and most of the nightclubs and everything else are saying, “No, you can’t perform because of your handicap.” I was turned down at many a nightclub because of my disability. Okay? It’s just a fact. But I’m in the vanguard. This is a time where handicaps are busting out — but there’s more physically able-bodied people out there that are trying to suppress it — just like during the Martin Luther King era. Okay? Blacks wanted their freedom. We want our freedom, and it’s going to take some bruises and sweating blood and tears just in order to get there. But it will happen — Maybe not in my lifetime, but it may happen — and if one person who is in a wheelchair would sit there and show off at that club and dare to take off all their clothes and shower in a wheelchair, I want to know about it. Okay? I don’t think they will. I don’t think they would. I really don’t. Most handicapped people can’t even go to the bathroom by themselves, let alone take a shower in public. What are they gonna do, sit there with their limp bodies with water splashing all over them? Come on. It’s stupid.

BUT AT LEAST SOMEONE’S LOOKING OUT FOR THEIR RIGHTS —

Goddess Bunny: Yeah, that’s fine and dandy — but you’ve got to take a look at the logistics. I mean, come on. Think of the logic for that whole scene. It’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and I don’t see how the ABA can sit there and butt their nose in where it doesn’t belong. Am I gonna go there and dance topless with my physical handicap? I don’t think so. Okay? Am I gonna go to Casper’s, or anyplace else, and get up on stage and dance in a G-string? Come on. That’s sort of absurd. For one thing, I know I’d never make a tip. Okay? I mean, people aren’t ready for handicapped strippers. They’re not ready to see people in wheelchairs take their clothes off. What, you think you open Playboy and see a handicapped girl sprawled out on the centerfold, with her wheelchair sitting off to the side? Come on. I mean, think of it: It’s ridiculous, and that’s just why the ABA should have just butted out. It isn’t something that handicapped people are interested in — so why stir a pot that doesn’t need to be stirred?

WELL, AT LEAST YOU DID GET TO BE A GO-GO DANCER —

Goddess Bunny: Go-Go Dancing I can understand — but you know, I wasn’t taking my clothes off, okay? And I don’t even think I would have the guts to get up there and start peeling off layers of clothes. Besides, half the snaps and zippers and buttons that I wear, I can’t even undo myself. So what am I going to do? “Oh excuse me, audience member, you want to undo this?” I did do a musical video, though, a couple weeks ago. It was a song called “Pissed Down.”

AND WHAT MIGHT THAT BE ABOUT?

Goddess Bunny: I didn’t hear the song. They’re supposed to be having a party which I’m going to be taking Floyd to. It’s a black-tie affair.

A BLACK-TIE “PISSED DOWN” PARTY?

Goddess Bunny: It’s like a screening. It’s gonna be real nice. Nice party. Party, party, party! Men, men and lots of men —

WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE VIDEO?

Goddess Bunny: I was rowing a rowboat across a sea of despair. I wasn’t actually in the water; I was on top of dirt.

YOU WERE IN DESPAIR?

Goddess Bunny: I was in the ocean of despair. It had tires in the background, and they had me being carried through the hallway of this building that was all torn apart and blown up —

RATHER LIKE THE ONE ACROSS THE STREET.

Goddess Bunny: Yeah, rather like that. By Sunday I should find out where the party is. They’re going to come and pick us up —

IN A LIMO?

Goddess Bunny: No, not in a limo. With our luck it will probably be a pick-up. None of these actors own their own limo. I think not — limos are too expensive. They’re overrated anyway. They’re oversized Cadillacs. Get real! Half the time the bars don’t even work, or the TVs, or the phones. So is there anything else that you’d like to ask?

I THINK THAT’S BASICALLY IT.

Goddess Bunny: Okay. I hope the readers enjoy the interview. If you’re ever in Hollywood, just remember this: All that glitters is not gold. Okay? If you want to be an actor or an actress, there’s a lot of hard, hard work. We don’t all start on top. So, as they say in the business, break a leg — and have a good day.

Photo: John Aes-Nihil

PART TWO

Questions posed by Manuel Otto Vasquez or John Aes-Nihil or Johnny Hell while looking at a collage of stars and dicks created by Goddess Bunny: Is this you? That must be when you were a male model —

Goddess Bunny: No. You know who this is?

UH, NO.

Goddess Bunny: You know who this is, right?

I’M NOT TOO GOOD WITH CELEBRITIES.

Goddess Bunny: Angel!

ANGEL?

Goddess Bunny: On Buffy The Vampire Slayer. That was the vampire.

IS THAT ONE A REAL ONE?

Goddess Bunny: Uh-huh. That’s David Arquette. There’s the one I did of David Hasselhoff.

DID YOU TAKE THE PICTURE?

Goddess Bunny: No — I made it.

IS THAT HIM AT THE WHITE HOUSE? OH MY GOD, THERE’S A PICTURE OF YOU IN THE BACKGROUND! YOU SHOULD GET THAT PHOTO OUT —

Goddess Bunny: Oh! The picture of me with Tom Cruise — now that I have the original, I can make money.

WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE ME?

Goddess Bunny: Hey, I’ll share the profits. Shit, John, you’ve made more money off me than I have.

HAVE YOU? HE NEVER CUT YOU IN?

Goddess Bunny: Oh, he nickels and dimes me every now and then.

WHAT WAS THIS FROM?

Goddess Bunny: I was running for Miss Gay Universe.

BUT DID YOU WIN?

Goddess Bunny: I don’t believe so.

DID YOU GET ANY ACTION?

Goddess Bunny: No. Professional jealousy! Let’s get to the questions!

WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

Goddess Bunny: Goddess Bunny a.k.a. Sandie Crisp a.k.a. Jonathan Biama.

WHEN DID YOU REALIZE THE CHANGE WAS NECESSARY?

Goddess Bunny: What change?

YOUR CHANGE FROM MALE TO FEMALE.

Goddess Bunny: Ah, well, practically I’m still a man. A long time ago, back in another life, I was married to a woman. I came home from work and saw her spread-eagled, getting down with another woman. So, I found this woman on top of her. Well, she sat there and stated that she wanted to do her own thing — but by the time she stated that, I had grown breasts and become sterile.

HOW MANY YEARS HAS IT BEEN?

Goddess Bunny: Oh, about in my early twenties.

SO YOU WERE IN YOUR EARLY TWENTIES WHEN YOU REALIZED —

Goddess Bunny: Well, it wasn’t necessary — but that’s what she wanted, to keep our marriage together. She was my first wife.

SO WAS IT THAT ACT THAT MADE YOU GAY FROM THAT POINT ON?

Goddess Bunny: Oh, I’d been bisexual for years before that. I didn’t know she was a Lesbo. She did not inform me. We’d already been married six years.

WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG, DID YOU EVER TRY ON ANY FEMALE FAMILY MEMBERS’ CLOTHES?

Goddess Bunny: Oh, I tried my mom’s clothes on all the time.

DID YOU GET CAUGHT?

Goddess Bunny: No. She would have really flipped.

WHAT DID SHE THINK OF YOUR CHANGE?

Goddess Bunny: Well, when she first saw me I was twenty-eight — and she went bananas and she broke my nose.

SHE BROKE WHOSE NOSE?

Goddess Bunny: Mine. Broke it twice. Once when I was seventeen. Once when I was twenty-eight. She got arrested.

YOU CALLED THE COPS ON HER?

Goddess Bunny: Oh yeah. I’m bleeding all over. The neighbors saw the whole thing. Mommy lost her job. She was working at an attorney’s office.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN ON HORMONES?

Goddess Bunny: Since I was twenty-seven — before John met me at the Limbo Lounge. It’s now called Mickey’s; it was called the Four Star —

AND THE LIMBO LOUNGE.

Goddess Bunny: And the Limbo Lounge — and they called it Club Fuck and other names. There’s the leftover love children of the Sixties — and we had naked go-go boys up in cages. It was a wild time. Back then, I was a boy in a dress.

ARE YOU STILL?

Goddess Bunny: There’s only one difference — I have boobs.

SO, DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A WOMAN?

Goddess Bunny: No, I’m a pre-op Transsexual. There’s a large difference. A female can get away with everything — but a Transsexual has to try a little harder to get away with these things.

DO YOU STILL MASTURBATE? CAN YOU?

Goddess Bunny: Oh, on occasion, when the urge happens.

WHAT EFFECTS DID THE HORMONES HAVE ON YOU?

Goddess Bunny: Well — weight gain, breasts, moody, emotional — I even went through menopause last year, with the hot flashes and everything.

WOW.

Goddess Bunny: I thought that was sure weird.

AMAZING. DO YOU THINK IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN PHANTOM HOT FLASHES?

Goddess Bunny: No! I went in the hospital.

WOW. SO, DOES LIKE YOUR PENIS STILL FUNCTION?

Goddess Bunny: Uh-huh. The way yours does — yes.

OH, MINE DOES. UH-HUH — HOW ARE YOUR HORMONES PAID FOR?

Goddess Bunny: Medi-Cal pays for them. The shots I get every two weeks — I’ve been on the hormones almost every day now for a week because I’m trying to lose some weight.

HAVE OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS REACTED NEGATIVELY, ASIDE FROM YOUR MOTHER?

Goddess Bunny: My sister-in-law — my brother’s wife. She still calls me Johnny. She refuses to call me Sandie.

THAT REMINDS ME WHEN I WAS VISITING YOU — YOUR MOTHER WAS LIVING THERE. THE PHONE WOULD RING, AND IF ANYBODY ASKED FOR ANYONE OTHER THAN “JOHN,” SHE WOULD HANG UP ON THEM. ABSOLUTELY NOBODY KNEW YOU BY THAT NAME — OR SHE WOULD CORRECT THEM.

Goddess Bunny: Yes! I said, “Mother, that is my stage name! Cool it.” Well, once she saw me on stage, she got the gist. It took her long enough. Anyway, I raised a son —

WHAT DOES YOUR SON THINK ABOUT IT?

Goddess Bunny: My son’s Gay, so he really doesn’t care one way or the other. My youngest daughter, Clarisse — she didn’t like it. She’s twelve. She said, “Not that, daddy!”

WHO DID YOU HAVE HER WITH?

Goddess Bunny: That’s with Lisa.

TWELVE YEARS AGO?

Goddess Bunny: Ah — well, let’s just put it this way: I stayed off the hormones long enough, and masturbated in a cup. The cup was injected into her, and she got pregnant. I never stuck it in, in my life.

SO YOUR SON WAS ARTIFICIALLY INSEMINATED, TOO?

Goddess Bunny: Uh-huh. It’s called the best planned parenting I could ever have.

WHY DID YOU FEEL THAT YOU WERE BORN THE WRONG SEX?

Goddess Bunny: I don’t feel I’m the wrong sex — or lets put it this way: I’m a confused guy with boobs.

DO YOU INTEND TO GO ALL THE WAY WITH SURGERY?

Goddess Bunny: If I could afford it. I’m not getting any younger. Yes, because I don’t see the prospect of any man comin’ to rescue me —

DO YOU CARE IF YOU PASS AS A WOMAN?

Goddess Bunny: I seem to. I get winked at all the time by men. Jewish boys —

THAT REMINDS ME OF THE RABBI.

Goddess Bunny: I know. I had a rabbi as a john for awhile.

WOW —

Goddess Bunny: And he never knew. That’s right — he never knew.

HOW MUCH WAS HE CHARGED?

Goddess Bunny: I would charge him five-hundred bucks for forty-five minutes.

WHO WAS THAT OTHER GUY?

Goddess Bunny: Which one?

THE ONE THAT WAS DOING THAT WITH YOU, MORE OR LESS. THAT BOY — LIKE, WORKING WITH YOU ON THAT —

Goddess Bunny: Ah, I don’t remember his name. I’ve had so many boys in my house. It’s like a revolving fucking door.

WHAT WAS THE YOUNGEST BOY YOU HAD IN THERE?

Goddess Bunny: Well, when I lived on Argyle, I was upstairs and a mother dropped off her son at my door. He was sixteen, and he said, “I will do anything you want me to, as long as I get to stay.”

SO, YOU TWO NEVER EVEN MADE OUT?

Goddess Bunny: No.

WHAT ABOUT THE BOY WHO WAS IN THE DRIFT, WHO WAS FIFTEEN?

Goddess Bunny: Yes, but he was also a hustler.

I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT HIS NAME WAS.

Goddess Bunny: Well yeah — he was legally emancipated. See, men in dresses get cute boys. I had some cute ones —

THE ONE WHO WAS IN PRISON —

Goddess Bunny: Oh, Rocky. He was in prison. It was when you lived off Santa Monica.

WHAT DID YOU DO WITH [A FAMOUS FILM DIRECTOR]?

Goddess Bunny: He was one of my johns when I was working at Paramount Studios. He had no idea. I showed up on the [a popular sitcom] set, and he turned pale white. He said, “Don’t you dare tell my brother” — and I was laughing.

WAS HE THE TOP OR THE BOTTOM?

Goddess Bunny: I refuse to say due to confidentiality rules. Well, put it this way: he screamed a lot.

HAVE YOU BEEN TOLD YOU LOOK BETTER AS A MAN?

Goddess Bunny: Uh-huh — and I’ve been told I’m beautiful as a woman.

HAVE YOU EVER FELT THAT YOU WERE PREGNANT?

Goddess Bunny: Oh, I go through monthly cramps. Trust me.

DID YOU GET PREGNANT WHEN YOU GOT RAPED IN THE WEDDING DRESS?

Goddess Bunny: No.

BY TWO ESCAPED CONVICTS IN AN ALLEY —

Goddess Bunny: Well, what happened was, two sailors saw me in the white dress. They dragged me in an alley, put me in a car and took me to their apartment. Then they dropped me on the side of the road. One of them dropped his keys, which I took so when I showed the cops, they went there and they arrested them.

IS THAT THE TIME THEY BEAT YOU?

Goddess Bunny: No, they basically just raped me.

HOW DID YOU KNOW THEY WERE SAILORS?

Goddess Bunny: They were in uniform.

WOW.

Goddess Bunny: And that was before the Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell rule. They didn’t realize what they messed with. They ruined the dress — they absolutely ruined that dress. There was blood all over that darn thing. They didn’t use grease, condoms — nothing. It was disquieting.

REALLY MESSY.

Goddess Bunny: Especially after all the booze down my throat —

DO YOU HAVE ANY FETISHES?

Goddess Bunny: I worship muscles. I like guys with muscles. I like guys with big, buff muscles. That’s why I liked Gilbert so much — but now that Gilbert and I are not even speaking —

AGAIN?

Goddess Bunny: No — period. I took him off my Facebook. I reported him to Facebook —

DIDN’T YOU JUST DO A SHOW WITH HIM?

Goddess Bunny: That’s when he did it. He called me a stupid cunt. So, I copied it and sent it to Facebook.

WELL, AT LEAST HE’S GETTING FAT —

Goddess Bunny: He’s gorgeous. I’ve talked to so many people that he has hurt throughout the years. He hurts women. He’s got something against me. Of course I know he’s Gay — but there’s something more psychological. He drinks to excess, and then he gets violent — and that’s when I keep him sober. He left Maxine in Las Vegas.

WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER TO BE THE FILTHIEST SEX ACT YOU EVER DID?

Goddess Bunny: Well, when I used to work at the Valley Roman Holiday Spa, I actually put my leg — up to here —

WHAT’S THE TERM FOR THAT — IT’S NOT FISTING; IT’S — LEGGING?

Goddess Bunny: I guess. Well, he said my fist was too small, so —

YOU GIVE HIM A KICK IN THE ASS.

Goddess Bunny: A real one. I can honestly say it felt good. The ankle and the sphincter feels weird.

WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIN?

Goddess Bunny: When you get that fee, fuck yeah!

HOW MUCH DID YOU GET PAID?

Goddess Bunny: Six-thousand dollars.

I’D DO THAT.

Goddess Bunny: I used to make good money as a hooker.

HOW LONG YOU DO THAT FOR?

Goddess Bunny: Let’s see, twenty-three to twenty-four. Of course, that’s back when —

HOW DID YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT? DID ANYONE SHOW YOU?

Goddess Bunny: You don’t have to know how to become a hooker. That’s easy.

SO YOU JUST GOT FIXED UP AND HIT THE STREET?

Goddess Bunny: Yep. Sat there on Sunset and Highland, right by the gas station.

THERE WAS SOME STORY WHERE YOU GOT ARRESTED FOR HOOKING AND YOU HAD TO BE BAILED OUT.

Goddess Bunny: Nobody bailed me out. I spent thirty-one days in jail. I won.

HAVE YOU EVER HAD SEX WITH JEROME [A MUTUAL FRIEND]?

Goddess Bunny: Jerome? No.

WERE YOU ATTRACTED TO HIM?

Goddess Bunny: Jerome was more girl than I was — and every person on the boardwalk knew it. He dances with his little bum leg. He used to be my roommate. We had a Transsexual landlord. I dropped my rent off. Somehow they got a hold of my rent check and cashed it. I had six other roommates all at once, and every one of us worked the streets. When I went before the judge, I said, “Would you rent this body?” I said, “How can I sell it? I can’t give it away!” — and he laughed. That’s the best line — and the cops were in court. I said, “I asked you for a ride to the damn shelter. I was in a bathrobe and curlers. Does that sound like hooking attire?” So, what have you been up to?

ME?

Goddess Bunny: Uh-huh.

NOTHING. WELL, I THINK THAT’S ABOUT IT FOR NOW —

Goddess Bunny: I’ll say! ~

Ian Harvie

Comedian

Photo: Kevin Neales

DEANNA M. LEHMAN: HI IAN.

Ian Harvie: Hi, nice to meet you.

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO BE A COMEDIAN?

Ian Harvie: It’s awesome. It’s the best job in the world. It’s probably, in the arts, one of the most fun jobs — and I would say rewarding. I’m really, really grateful to get to do what I do. Make people laugh; make them laugh about things that are really intimate and personal — and, in the end, to have had a shared experience with them. It’s not just about what I’ve gone through, but shared experience with this intimate laughter connection.

RIGHT.

Ian Harvie: That to me is really incredible and beautiful and fun, and I think there’s nothing better. I used to think in order to change people’s minds about things that I had to wag my finger at them and tell them what they should think — and now I just share my experiences through jokes, and they do it all on their own.

LAUGHTER SEEMS TO BE A GREAT WAY TO DEAL WITH PEOPLE.

Ian Harvie: Yeah. I think what I do politically as a comic is, I change people’s minds without them even realizing it, because I’m doing a comedy show. They’re laughing through everything that I’m talking about and then when they leave, they have a new frame of reference for a lot of new information. It’s a new framework that they’ve never heard before, of someone talking about something in a way that is completely relatable to themselves. You know, about their bodies and how they feel awkward. I’ll be talking about it in a way that is really funny and acceptable. “Oh my god, I feel that way too — does that mean that I’m just like him?” I think there are a lot of different kinds of experiences that happen after the show that people don’t even realize, you know? To me, those are the kind of comics that I’ve always loved — the ones that leave a massive part of themselves onstage and make you laugh and then when you leave, you’re still thinking about all the stuff that they’ve talked about. What they left you with afterwards — that’s the best art in the world. So, that’s what I’m hooked on, and I love being a comedian.

PEOPLE DON’T ALWAYS REMEMBER WHAT YOU SAY BUT THEY DEFINITELY REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL.

Ian Harvie: It’s like music. Have you ever heard a song? You don’t remember all the words but you remember how the song made you feel. When something provokes you, you may not remember the exact content, like you’re saying, but you do remember what it made you feel. Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. There was this band that I loved in the Eighties that my brother introduced me to called The Cocteau Twins, and I couldn’t understand one word that the artist was singing — not one word — but I can tell you I loved so many of their songs because of how it made me feel. Like, there was something about the sound and how art makes us feel. Comedy is more specific. It’s about words, not sounds.

WHAT MADE YOU START IN THE COMEDY FIELD? WAS IT THAT YOU REALIZED YOU’RE FUNNY AND THAT THE JOKES YOU TOLD YOUR FRIENDS MADE THEM LAUGH, AND YOU DECIDED TO GO FOR COMEDY?

Ian Harvie: First of all, in general, if somebody says, “A lot of people tell me I’m funny and that I should do stand-up comedy” — you know what? They probably shouldn’t do stand-up comedy. They’re probably not funny — because anybody who says they’re funny is probably not funny. And I’m not just saying that to justify my next statement, but I’ve never really thought I was funny. Nobody told me that I’m hilarious and that I should be a comic. No one ever said that. There was never that sort of framework in my life that was setting me up to do this. However, when I was a kid, we put on little theatrical productions for our family. Every New Year we would go to my Aunt and Uncle’s house — from the time that I was born, our whole family went there every year. So, as we were growing up, we would put on shows for my Aunt and Uncle and my parents and anybody else who happened to be visiting. We’d be there for a few days and we’d put together a show in the spare bedroom. There was like a clothesline, and we would take a sheet and hang it up, and all the characters would be behind the sheet waiting to come out and do their part. My part in every show was the intermission, and I would come out and be the comedian and tell the jokes. Jokes that I wrote, which were horrific, that didn’t make any sense. So I ate it every time. It was friendly fire. It was like my Aunt and Uncle and my parents so, of course, they laughed gratuitously. I would do impressions. I would do jokes that I had written, and it was something that I really loved back then — but it was this big chunk of my life after that. I never even dreamed it could be a way of life or a way to make a living — until I got this postcard in the mail from somebody who was a comedy-writing guy who was offering workshops in my hometown in Portland, Maine. At the local comedy club — the guy sent out a bunch of random postcards. I got one in my office. I owned a web development company. I was like, “Weird — why did I get this? Why did they send it to me?” It was basically like a comedy writing workshop, January through March.

NOW HE NEEDS A COMEDY WORKSHOP FROM YOU!

Ian Harvie: You know what’s funny is that he is still my mentor, and I talked to him yesterday for a really long time. So, I got this postcard from this guy. His name is Tim Ferrell. He is a writing coach but he also held these workshops of like fifteen wanna-be comics in a comedy club on a Monday night. He would have us do what was called rip-and-read. You’d go up there and you’d talk about all the ideas you had for jokes. In the very first class he said, “You can write about anything, but if you’re looking for places to start, it could be family. It could be politics. It could be personal experience. It could be what you observe around you in the world.” He said, “I want you to come back next Monday with a list of ideas that you want to write about. If you want to take it further than that, you can, and you can write premises and you can write even what you think is a funny joke.” What we ended up writing was pages and pages of crap that we boiled down to usually two or three sentences that ended up being a joke. We learned how to basically edit our material in that class — and he says, “Listen, I can’t teach you charisma. I can’t teach you stage presence. You’re going to have to figure that out on your own when you’re up there. You’ll figure it out — but you’ve got to get up and try it. You’ve got to do it.” So, we practiced rip-and-reading our ideas. l and the whole class joined in on commentary and said, “I don’t think you need that there.” “I think that’s really funny because it’s super-relatable,” and everybody joins in — and he would help. It was a real supportive, loving atmosphere. Some people really got the hang of it and some people didn’t, and I happened to be one of maybe three or four in that class that kind of kept going with it. After four years of doing comedy in Portland and Boston, I was like, “I want to do this, and I’ve got to go to New York or LA to continue this.” I was chasing this dream. I was hooked from my first live performance. I was just hooked. I was like, “I gotta do this.” I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know by what pathway I was going to do it, but I moved to Los Angeles — and that was seven years ago. So I’ve been doing comedy for almost twelve years. I’ve never looked back. I’ve always thought, “What is the next great thing for me to do?” I say yes to every gig, unless I can’t get myself to the gig. I love performing, and one of the things that I promised myself was that in LA I would say yes to everything. I’m not above any show. Every show is going to be an experience. Every show is going to be amazing, and it’s going to be good for me even if it’s hard — it’s going to be good. So, that’s how I got started. Six months after I moved to Los Angeles, I met Margaret Cho, who is an Asian-American comedian.

I KNOW HER ROUTINES. THAT MUST BE AMAZING TO WORK WITH HER —

Ian Harvie: Yeah, it’s awesome! I would say she’s my best friend in the biz — the comedy biz — and she absolutely without a doubt has been so supportive. She lifted me up and brought me with her for three years, and took me everywhere — all over the world. She gave me her audience. She’s not competitive. She’s not weird about bringing people up. She’s super-supportive, and someone once asked her — I’ve always gone by her example — someone once asked her, “Are you ever worried about your opener or someone like Ian stealing your thunder?” This was in an interview where we’re both sitting there, and she said, “No, I’m never worried about that. They can have my thunder. There’s plenty of thunder to go around.”

THAT’S REALLY SWEET.

Ian Harvie: It was so remarkable because it’s not how the comedy business is, really. That’s not how the world is in comedy. A lot of people are very competitive.

HAVE YOU HAD EXPERIENCES WHERE PEOPLE ARE COMPETITIVE IN A NEGATIVE WAY?

Ian Harvie: Not in a bad way — but in ways that I don’t really like to buy into. I definitely have friends who are competitive with friends, and I’m like, “We’re all so different in our comedy —” How can you say that that painting is better than another painting?

RIGHT.

Ian Harvie: It’s art, and you can’t quantify it. It’s a weird thing. When I see my friends being competitive, it bums me out. And when people say to me, “Hey, how’d you get that gig? How’d you get that?” — when I’m getting to do something that I’m really excited about or I’m proud about, and someone’s like, “How’d you get that? Can I have that contact?” I’m like, “Yeah, I’ll totally give you the contact.” Some people are really weird and proprietary about that stuff — and that’s the kind of stuff that I’m not really into in the business. It does exist. When that kind of stuff is going on around me — which isn’t very often because most of the people that I spend my time with aren’t like that — I just put my horse blinders on like it kind of doesn’t exist. Sometimes you have to do that to overlook that kind of energy when it’s happening. I don’t feel like I’ve had any bad experiences in the comedy world or the entertainment industry. Even when I’ve had people say no to me, like I’ve auditioned for something and gotten a no — I just honestly, one-hundred percent believe that it’s not the right thing for me. If I was told yes, then I might say it’s the right thing for me. If I’m told no, I don’t really take it personally. I’m just like okay, no worries. I want to know what the next right thing is. I don’t know what the wrong thing is. So I never get bummed out by someone thinking that I’m not a good fit for them because there is something that I am a good fit for, and that’s what I’m looking for. I don’t want to waste time and energy on the things I am not. You know what I mean? I’m always looking to the positive, and I know I annoy my friends sometimes because I’m that eternal fucking optimist. With every difficult thing that’s ever happened, I’ve always been able to look at the up side of it. It annoys the fuck out of all my friends because it can be something really hard, really difficult that’s happening and I’ll be like, “Okay, what is the gift in this really difficult thing?” So, that’s something that I’m constantly seeking. I don’t get dragged down by the negative stuff or the hard stuff. I’m not saying that I’m ninety-nine percent happy all the time. I am happy all the time — but there are times when I have feelings. I can be sad about something. When someone tells me no in the industry, I just don’t take it personally.

IS IT HARD TO DO A SHOW IF YOU’RE EMOTIONALLY GOING THROUGH SOMETHING? LIKE LET’S SAY YOU HAVE A FIGHT WITH A SIGNIFICANT OTHER AND THEN YOU HAVE TO GO ONSTAGE — IS THAT DIFFICULT?

Ian Harvie: No, and I’ll tell you why. If you think about that one place in your life where even if I have a rough comedy set, like if it was a tough crowd, it’s still the place that I find in my life the most joy, no matter what else is going on in my life — there’s a place in my life I can go to and everything can be alright: in that hour I’m performing. So that even if it’s a rough set, even if it’s a rough crowd, and no matter what else is going on in my life that day — I had a break-up happen on the day of a really big show —

OH NO!

Ian Harvie: I was absolutely heartbroken. I was totally in the thick of it, totally in the middle of it in that there was heart-wrenching heartbreak et cetera. But I’ll tell you that doing that show was the absolute best thing that I could have done in that moment. It was going on stage and forgetting that stuff for just a minute or an hour. Just to be consumed by something, to stop and shift gears and go, “You know what? You gotta go to work. You’ve got to go do this thing that you love, that is gonna provide some solace and some healing for you for an hour —” If I had been younger, I don’t know if I would have given in to it and cancelled the gig — but I know how much doing comedy does for me.

SO IT DISTRACTED YOU FROM WHAT WAS HAPPENING, AND IT WAS REAFFIRMING TOO.

Ian Harvie: I think it was absolutely healing to go onstage. It’s totally healing when there’s something big going on in my life. If my parents had just died or a family member had just passed, I wouldn’t stop what I was doing and go be with family. I’d be like, “I got to go do this thing —” But when something big in life happens, you don’t have to give up what you love and what you love doing, like comedy for an hour. I’m not going through a breakup but if I were going through a breakup and I was situationally depressed, to go and do a show would take me outside of myself for long enough to stop being fucking self-obsessed, for at least an hour. To not be self-obsessed for an hour would be beautiful. I think situational depression, like a breakup, is very self-obsession based.

YES.

Ian Harvie: It’s all about self-obsession. It’s like, was I not enough? Am I not this? What happened? Me, me, me and her, her, her. It’s real self-obsessed when it’s like that. So to go do something for a crowd of people that is going to do something for somebody else, I think that that can be healing. To get you to turn off your brain on all that other stuff and go do your job, go do your art — I’m sober for the last twenty years and I don’t think I would have some of these thoughts drinking. The other day I saw an old friend that I hadn’t talked to in some time and she said, “Do you know what I like about you?” I said, “What?” “You’re emotionally intelligent.” I was like, “That’s really nice! Thank you.” I don’t think she would have said that if I weren’t sober. I wouldn’t have done the work myself if I hadn’t been sober. So I’m glad that I’m sober and I’m glad that I have the clarity that I do have.

DO YOU GO TO AA OR NA MEETINGS?

Ian Harvie: Yeah, I’m a twelve-stepper person, for sure.

DOES THAT WEAVE ITS WAY INTO YOUR COMEDY ROUTINES?

Ian Harvie: A little bit, yeah. Not in general.

PLENTY OF PEOPLE HAVE THE AA AND NA EXPERIENCE.

Ian Harvie: Yeah, I do a lot of sober comedy shows with a buddy of mine. His name is Felon O’Reilly. That’s his stage name. He was in prison for like ten years. He was arrested seventy-three times, had seven incarcerations and he’s a really good friend of mine. He’s in recovery. He’s a recovering heroin addict and alcoholic. He and I put together sober shows that we perform at sober facilities — sober living — and we do benefits. So I do a lot of sober material in those kinds of crowds.

SO YOU HELP OUT WITH YOUR HUMOR.

Ian Harvie: Yeah, yeah. I do both, but when I’m doing a regular club show — like there’s a club down in Atlanta that I do every year. It’s called The Laughing Skull Lounge. It’s a really great club. There are drinkers there. It’s a bunch of normal, general public and they drink. If I were to go into a club like that and go on and on about being sober — I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer —

SURE. SOME PEOPLE CAN DRINK.

Ian Harvie: Yeah, it’s a fact. Some people can drink normally — but I’ll tell you that the material that I do in that club in Atlanta hit everybody in the audience that are normie, non-alcoholic, non-Queer, non-LGBT — maybe a few of them are, but the majority is just kind of normie Straight people that just happened to pop into a comedy club for a show on the weekend, and I’m there for that weekend. I’ll tell you that those people get just as much out of the show in a relational way as LGBT people or someone who’s in recovery. The stuff that I’m talking about is stuff that everybody struggles with. One of my friends said to me, “You know what?” She goes, “Everybody is different. Not everybody is the same — but you are trying to be the great unifier.” I took it as a huge compliment. When I first came out as Trans, I thought I was the only guy in the world who felt the way I did. I met other guys like me. I was like, “Oh, there’s others —” Buck Angel is a buddy of mine. You know? He took me to my chest surgery consultation.

THANKS TO BUCK ANGEL FOR REFERRING YOU TO US.

Ian Harvie: Yeah, I mean it’s funny. We don’t all know each other but we do. I met other guys like me, that felt the way that I did, and I was like, “Whew! I’m not the only one!” And then when I started doing and writing comedy, I was trying to find ways to relate to my audience because I thought that I was different. I was like, “Wait a second. I’m not different. I’m the same as they are.” When I moved to Los Angeles, I was like, “Oh, this is the plastic-surgery capital of the world. There are women and men modifying their bodies every day, who are Straight, who are Queer, who are not Trans-identified at all.” They’re modifying their body to be more masculine or more feminine. They’re getting pectoral implants to make their chests more masculine. They’re getting calf implants to get bigger calves. It’s something we’re all trying to obtain in some capacity. “I’m getting a breast augmentation.” “I want bigger titties.” Women are getting collagen injections from their ass to their lips — and it’s related directly to their femininity and masculinity. Some of it is age-related. They’re trying to look youthful, but the majority of it is related to masculinity and femininity. I thought, “Oh shit, I’m getting my chest taken off to be more masculine. It’s the same thing, we just call it something different.” It just clicked with me that we are all the same. We like to use different language to identify ourselves and how we feel different from each other — but we do have the shared experience of this. We like to modify our bodies in some way to feel more of that thing we don’t feel enough of. That is our common ground. Guys out there struggle with this — and girls, women and men — everybody is struggling with this, and that is our shared experience

Photo: Kevin Neales

WE ALL STRUGGLE TO BE COMFORTABLE IN OUR SKIN.

Ian Harvie: Yeah. So now I just don’t feel different at all. I don’t feel that Trans is a diagnosis. I feel like everybody out there is Trans and they just don’t know it. Nobody is Trans and they just don’t know it. So when my friend called me the great unifier I was like, “Holy shit, I do kind of feel like that onstage, and I do weave that into my material.” So it’s not just LGBT people. There’s a girl who came up to me after the show who said, “I’m Straight, but I’ve always struggled with my body image and my weight. I’m a big girl and I’m not considered feminine enough. So I totally identify with so many things that you said.” I feel like I’ve reached people in ways that I never even imagined when I first started.

THAT’S WONDERFUL THAT YOU GET TO REACH OUT TO PEOPLE WHILE YOU WORK. SO, YOU GREW UP IN BRIDGTON, MAINE?

Ian Harvie: I did, until I was twelve. Then we moved. We lived next to a pond. The pond literally came up to our backyard. Summers were spent all day outside, on the pond or in the woods. Do you remember the movie, also the book turned into the movie by Stephen King, called Stand By Me?

YES.

Ian Harvie: It was just like that, minus the dead body. It was exactly like that. Dirty white T-shirts and a blanket rolled up and tied with a rope on your shoulder, hiking on the railroad tracks. It was just like that. In fact, being a Mainer from Maine and Stephen King being from Maine — he used to come into my dad’s pharmacy when I was a kid and pick up his newspaper once a week. My mom used to nudge me and say, “Do you know who that is?” and I was like, “Nope.”

HAVE YOU BEEN TO HIS HOUSE WITH THE BATS ON THE FRONT GATE?

Ian Harvie: Well, he has several houses and the one you are referring to is one of them, but he lived in Lovell, Maine which is where I think he lives now and when he was hit. Do you remember when he was struck —

BY A VEHICLE, YEAH.

Ian Harvie: That was in Lovell. It’s one of the next towns over from Bridgton. Yeah, so it was very much hiking, lakes and building forts, you know? It was all boys in the neighborhood where I grew up. I was the only girl, and then when I was twelve we moved to a new area. My dad had sold his pharmacy and we moved to another area where he had taken a job at another private pharmacy in a bigger town. I spent from twelve to eighteen there. I went to college in Boston for a year and then came back to Portland, Maine and lived in Portland until seven years ago. Portland was like a big city compared to Bridgton. I now live in Los Angeles, but right now at this moment I’m in Portland. I’m enjoying summer here with my girlfriend. We came here from Los Angeles at the end of June.

I LOVE LA!

Ian Harvie: It’s awesome. When I moved here a lot of people were like, “Be careful!” I was like, “Do you know anybody in LA?” They think it’s weird or fake. Whatever. It’s not like that at all. I firmly believe that you will find what you’re looking for. So if you’re looking for assholes, you’ll find assholes. If you’re looking for nice people, that’s what you’ll find, too. Again, back to that eternal optimism. I really believed that I’d find nice people there — and that’s all I found. I haven’t found one mean person in LA. I feel pretty lucky.

DURING YOUR TRANSITIONAL PERIOD, DID YOU HAVE YOUR FAMILY’S SUPPORT?

Ian Harvie: My family is amazing. A lot of people don’t have that story, especially Trans folk and gender-benders and a lot of Lesbians. You know, LGBT people usually don’t have that story. Their families disown them. My family wanted to digest it, of course. At the very, very beginning they wondered if they had done something wrong — and then they realized if they had thought they had done something wrong then there must be something wrong with me, and they realized that that wasn’t correct thinking. They were like, “Wait a second, there’s nothing wrong with Ian. We didn’t do anything wrong. Ian’s okay.” They definitely had a period of digestion. We talked through everything. I’ve always shared everything with them. In the beginning, when I first came out to them as a Lesbian — I came out when I was like nineteen. I didn’t do it in a way that I was really proud of. I just threw it at them verbally, like, hey, blah blah blah. I just kind of like laid it on them. I told them that I really felt that I was a man and when I was a kid I felt like I was a boy. When I was younger I felt like a guy. I’ve always just had that feeling inside of me — that I was who I was. I wrote them a letter and they were awesome. They really were awesome. One of the things that they said to me was, “We read your letter and what we got out of it was that you were certain of who you were. Had you not sounded certain we would have tried to question you or tried to talk you out of it maybe but you really sounded certain of who you were.” They said that made them feel better because if you have a child who is questioning or in distress in some way, then that’s pretty stressful for a parent. I had taken a long time before I shared that information with them. So I was really glad that they said that. My parents never missed a beat in loving me. They did exactly what a family is supposed to do. They just loved me, no matter what. I don’t think that people deserve medals for doing what they’re supposed to do.

RIGHT.

Ian Harvie: They’re supposed to love you. They’re your family. I do think they’re exceptional compared to other people — but they did exactly what they’re supposed to do. I love them equally back and I don’t deserve a medal for it and neither do they. That is what family is. I hear people talk about their family, how difficult something was with them, and their parents disown them — and I just think that’s heart-wrenching, you know?

WAS IT WEIRD THE FIRST TIME YOU VISITED YOUR FAMILY PRESENTING AS MALE?

Ian Harvie: No, because it was so gradual. When I was younger I tried to be my mother’s daughter — attempts at growing my hair out and trying to be what she wanted me to be or what I thought she wanted me to be — I definitely made those attempts, but I wasn’t that good at it. But since the time I was twenty-two I’ve always had a super-short haircut. So visually I’ve always had super-short hair and visually I’ve always been very masculine. I was taking hormones — and then I went through a medical transformation, my physical transformation from taking hormones. That was so gradual, visually, for everybody. It wasn’t like one day I showed up and I had a beard. It was little by little. They could hear it on the phone in my voice. I would come back and visit regularly. It wasn’t like I went away and physically became this man and came back and ta-da! I’m sure that does happen with a lot of people that transition. There are people out there who feel like they need to go away and completely transform physically. It was so gradual that it wasn’t like that ta-da, come back after five years away. It was gradual, and I visited regularly, so they were there to experience things right along with me. I shared a lot of the details of my physical transformation with my mother. Going to the gynecologist and reassuring her that I was keeping up on my health and my blood work and cholesterol. She would see the little patches of hair on my face that would start coming in. She could hear in my voice that my voice had lowered. She experienced some of those things with me. So I don’t think anything was a shock. There are people out there who do think it’s necessary to go away and physically transform themselves into visually what they want to be by taking hormones or surgery, whatever their personal checklist is for their transformation — I think Transwomen like to go away and kind of do it all at once, and Transmen tend to do it gradually by taking testosterone and morphing in front of people.

INTERESTING. IT’S DIFFERENT FROM INDIVIDUAL TO INDIVIDUAL. SOME SEEM CONTENT WITH JUST TAKING HORMONES AND OTHERS FEEL THE NEED FOR MULTIPLE SURGERIES —

Ian Harvie: It really is unique to each person, because for some people it’s not even about surgery or hormones. For some it is about owning and claiming whatever gender language that they want to. I don’t care if I ever have surgery, but I am a man. No matter what you see before you, my body says to the world I am a man. For a long time I thought that changing my name and pronoun would be okay for me — and then I just had this nagging part of me that wanted more. I wanted facial hair and I wanted a flat chest. I wanted to feel better in my skin — and the main thing, claiming male or man, which I don’t really claim male — but for me, it just didn’t cut it. It’s just different from person to person. Whatever a person wants to do to themselves is okay. I judge no one else’s process. I believe everyone who tells me who they are. Here’s something else I learned. I say it onstage and I say it in every show: Who we are isn’t up for public debate. It isn’t open for discussion. It’s not up to a public forum for people to decide who we are. You are who you say you are and you are allowed to do whatever the fuck you want to do to make yourself feel better in your own skin. It took me a really long time to get to that place because I didn’t believe it for myself. Now that I believe it for myself, I believe it for everybody else.

IF YOU GET THAT MESSAGE TO PEOPLE, IT WILL PROBABLY HELP THEM OUT A LOT.

Ian Harvie: Yeah, I hope so.

SO YOU HAVE A SIGNIFICANT OTHER. HOW LONG HAVE YOU TWO BEEN GOING OUT?

Ian Harvie: We started seeing each other seven years ago. She lived in Maine. I moved to Los Angeles. So we didn’t know what we were doing for about a year. There were a lot of variables going on. We just didn’t know what to call it, and we were traveling back and forth to see each other. So about a year after seeing each other we started to figure it out, that we wanted to be together, that we did want to pursue a relationship with each other. Two years into seeing each other she lost her job. She said, “I could look for a job in Maine or I could look for a job in California.” I was like, “Look for a job in California.” So she moved out to California.

I BET SHE WAS RELIEVED TO HEAR YOU SAY THAT.

Ian Harvie: She’s so cool and even-keeled and emotionally smart herself — and she’s a normie, by the way. I think since I’ve been with her, I’ve seen her drink maybe four or five times. Maybe a half a glass of wine each time. That kind of thing. She’s a total normie. She’s like, “I don’t really like drinking. It makes me feel gross.” I’m like, “What? I loved it when it made me feel gross!” It’s so weird to hear someone be normal about booze. So anyways, she’s very emotionally smart and even-keeled. Maybe she was relieved about it, but she would have been normal and fine about it. I knew that she was somebody that I could see myself with long-term. My Trans-ness was not an issue. I don’t think, even to this day, that gender matters to her. I really think she could give a shit. I think that she mostly doesn’t want to date an asshole.

YES. [LAUGHS] THAT’S A GOOD GOAL.

Ian Harvie: It’s been awesome. I don’t think my having been born female, being Trans — I don’t think it was really important. My gender took center stage in the very beginning of our relationship until I started my physical transformation. It was something that kept nagging at me. But I think now it’s not the centerpiece of our relationship because it’s been largely dealt with. The only time it comes up now is when I have to do an interview that’s Trans-related and she happens to be in the room, and it’s all stuff that she’s heard before or stuff that she’s already familiar with.

THERE DON’T SEEM TO BE MANY PROMINENT TRANSMEN. THE TRANSWOMEN SEEM TO BE MORE IN FOCUS. TRANSMEN ARE LESS CONCENTRATED ON. MAYBE THERE ARE LESS OF THEM?

Ian Harvie: In the entertainment industry, probably yes. You know of more Trans-lady actresses, singers, comics and performers — artists and entertainers in general. Transwomen are more known — but there are Trans guys out there, making their way.

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR IAN HARVIE SUPERHERO FILM.

Ian Harvie: Oh, well thank you! I’m really, really proud of it. So, I filmed it in my home city. It was a blast. I learned so much. I raised fifteen-thousand dollars in thirty days on Kickstarter. I probably paid out fifteen or twenty thousand of my own money to finish it because I thought in the beginning I could do it on fifteen-thousand dollars — but no. You can’t do much with fifteen-thousand dollars. It won’t get you too far. In fact, fifteen-thousand dollars on Kickstarter becomes thirteen-thousand-five-hundred dollars, because they take ten percent. You’re supposed to make a movie with that? Edit it and deal with the sound and work on distribution? There’s titles, credits, color correction — all of it becomes something that you didn’t anticipate for that money. I’m super-proud of it. It’s such a labor of love. Margaret executive-produced it. To have her name on it has gotten people to review it in places and festivals that maybe wouldn’t have otherwise — but because they saw that she believed in it, they wanted to see it. So, it’s been fantastic. It’s been in all the major LGBT festivals, like Outfest in Los Angeles. It’s going to Pittsburg, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, Portland, Oregon — it’s been in San Antonio, Texas. It’s been to Kansas City. It’s going to Minneapolis. It’s going to three cities in Germany in a festival called Homochrom. It’s going to Australia and Melbourne. It’s one of those things where I’m like, holy shit! In the beginning I was like, “Ah, I’d like to get into a few festivals —”

YOU’RE TURNING INTO A GLOBAL STAR!

Ian Harvie: I don’t know — but I’m so excited that it’s going to Europe and Australia because I really hadn’t dreamed that far. When I moved to Los Angeles, I wrote down the top fifty things that I wanted to do and in six months I had done it all and I was like, “Shit, I have to write a new list!” I wrote a new list of the top fifty things I wanted to do in my comedy career, and in another six months they were already done. I was like, “Shit, I’ve got to think bigger!” All I knew is I wanted to get it done — and if it’s in a few festivals, then great. What’s happened is that one festival picks it up and then other festivals look at their roster. I got into a couple of the big ones, and a lot of other ones started writing to me. It’s kind of snowballed into this really beautiful thing. It is basically the culmination of the last four years of my comedy career into a one-hour special with some behind-the-scenes. Like, there’s Margaret putting makeup on me before the show.

I SAW THAT PHOTO ON YOUR WEBSITE.

Ian Harvie: Yeah, it’s in the film trailer, too. There’s behind-the-scenes, and then they talk to people about what they had to say about the show. It’s just a one-hour standup comedy concert and then some before- and after-the-show footage. I couldn’t be prouder, and I’m so excited. So, the guy who edited it edits specials for Showtime, and he said to me, “Listen, I’d love to give you a contact at Showtime so you can pitch the show. I’m going to do that.” I’m going to pitch it. If I get a no, that’s fine because that’s not the right thing for me. I will have no hard feelings. I want to pitch it to HBO. I want to pitch it to Showtime. That’s the order of things. You make a film, you then pitch it to networks — and if they bite, then great. You might get a licensed deal for a couple of months on their network. And that would be great but if not, no big deal. If not, then I had a beautiful archive piece of work that I can then release on Netflix or Amazon or iTunes or however I choose to. So I go to festivals, then I pitch to networks, and then it will be released to the public this coming spring.

HAVE YOU FOUND ANY DIFFERENCES IN THE WAY MEN ARE TREATED COMPARED TO WOMEN?

Ian Harvie: Yeah. You know what’s interesting is that — by the way, I didn’t transform my body so I can pass as a man in the world. I did it to feel better in my body, and I feel like to do hormones and chest surgery were the solutions to my problems. It worked and it made me feel better. One of the first times that I was recognized as a man that I remember, it was interesting. Guys call me dude and bro now and they say, “Hey man —” I’m in that inner circle of guys now that I wasn’t in before. Even as a masculine female-bodied person, I still wasn’t in that circle — but now it’s like this weird privilege. This welcoming thing that people do, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unintentional — if you’re brought into the fold in a way that you weren’t before, into that boy’s club, it’s weird. It’s a weird privilege-y sort of thing. I do notice that if I’m standing in a circle of people and someone has a question and Sarah, my partner, is standing right next to me, I have noticed even if they’re asking her the questions, they’ll look at me for answers. Historically, men are revered. They are the power structure. People look to them, even when they don’t realize it. I’m sure I do it on occasion because of what I was taught. Although I might try to be more inclusive — but I do think me having been socialized as a girl, which I’m so grateful for — I do not deny that I was born female. I do not deny that I was raised a girl because I love that part of myself and it has informed me how to act in certain situations. To be respectful to people. To give space to people.

YOU’D BE LIKE AN ULTRA-RESPECTFUL GUY.

Ian Harvie: It is a different perspective, with spatial etiquette. You’re on a plane and you’re in the middle seat. I’ll tell you, guys do not give a fuck who’s in the middle seat, they’ll sit with their legs spread wide open and steal the armrests. They take up as much space as they want whenever they want. It’s almost a bullying thing. I’ve walked down the street before and then clearly on the other side of the sidewalk the other guy comes towards me to take up my space to kind of bully me out of the way as a masculine kind of weirdness. As a girl, I was taught to not take up too much space. To be quiet and be ladylike. Don’t question things. So there’s a bit of that still in me, to some extent. All those social assessments that girls do that guys do not —

RIGHT.

Ian Harvie: Guys can walk in a room and they sit down on the couch — is there enough room for other people? I’m sure there’s some manners that go through their mind in general, but they are not thinking about how wide open their legs are. They’re not. They just don’t give a fuck. It’s not that their balls are so huge that they have to sit that way. It’s that they have very rarely been taught to think otherwise. If you do take up someone else’s space, it’s like, “Good for you, you’re a man, that’s what you’re supposed to do.” Young kids today are probably being socialized a little bit differently — but not a lot. If you have a real feminist mom, you may be differently socialized — but then you go to school. Parents do some teaching at home — but kids get a lot from school. It’s probably not going to be the parent who wins out necessarily. So I think that I am given more space and privilege in the world than I used to get. I don’t have to feel so nervous about being found out, so to speak, and being on the outskirts and what that means. I’m very out. I think the only way I can combat male privilege is to be as out as I possibly can be. Which I am in every situation that I can be. I’m out on stage and in my personal life. Someone was collecting signatures for an anti-bullying program — they were collecting signatures and money. I gave and I signed, and I know to this one guy I was just Joe Shmoe — and so I came out to the guy.

WAS HE SHOCKED?

Ian Harvie: Yeah. I didn’t transition so I could pass in the world; I did it so I could feel comfortable in my own body. That was my driving force. When I transitioned, I got all the stuff that I didn’t really care to get, which is that male privilege. So if there’s one way I feel like I can combat it, denounce it or not accept it — sometimes I get it and I can’t do anything about it, but to be as out as I can possibly be about being Trans, because I don’t really care to have that privilege —

OFTENTIMES WHEN WOMEN BECOME TRANSMEN THEY RESEMBLE TEENAGE BOYS, BUT YOU AND BUCK ANGEL RESEMBLE FULL-GROWN MEN.

Ian Harvie: Well, I think what it is, is that people are in various stages of their development either hormonally or by their different ages and stages of physical transformation. It’s like, how long have they been on hormones? What dosage? Their personal family history and genetics — will they look young for a long time? It’s interesting, and it’s really different from person to person. Yeah, I know what you’re saying. When I first started to transition I looked like a young boy, and I think in the last couple of years I became mannish.

DO YOU AND YOUR GIRLFRIEND TALK ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF HAVING A FAMILY? AND IF SO, HAVE YOU DISCUSSED WHO WOULD CARRY THE BABY?

Ian Harvie: Well, at this point for me — do you remember when Thomas Beattie came out with his pregnancy?

YES. THOMAS BEATTIE IS ALSO INTERVIEWED FOR THIS BOOK.

Ian Harvie: Well, what I said to my girlfriend is, I don’t really care to be pregnant. That’s not a personal desire of mine, but I love you enough where I would do it if you really wanted a baby, if you were really obsessed about that — about having a baby and it being my egg or your egg, whatever, I would do it for you if you really wanted me to. She was like, “You don’t ever have to worry about that.” So — I have a niece who’s twenty-four. She has a niece and nephew who are two-year-old twins. I have another niece who is four. So between our travel lives, our two dogs and our families, I think we’re both at this moment okay with where we’re at. We do talk about it, but not in specifics — because it’s not something that’s happening in our lives right now. Like maybe we’d foster or adopt. We’ve talked about that. I don’t know if that’s something that’s happening, but it has crossed our mind. I don’t think right now that it’s something that we’re completely invested in. I’m getting older and there’s part of me that really is comfortable. I like to travel. I like my life. I love to have that time with kids, but do I want to — and can I with this kind of career? I think we’re on a solo path for now. We each have two small dogs who are enough to figure out how to care for when we travel.

DEFINITELY.

Ian Harvie: I can’t imagine a kid. It’s just different. I travel more than she does. I think it would be unfair for me to leave her with that responsibility all the time, as much as I travel. I think we’re good where we’re at, for now.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE CHELSEA MANNING SITUATION?

Ian Harvie: About Chelsea Manning — I think she was right to be a whistleblower and hand over documents, personally. As far as her gender is concerned — first of all, I think the government should be questioned about what they’re doing. They should be held accountable. If we are doing drone attacks and killing innocent children and civilians, that should be questioned. I applaud her for giving that information over. I know that she’s publicly come out. I think that’s great. I think that the media and the general public are going to mix the two stories when they are very separate issues. That’s a shame, but we don’t have control over that. I have no right to comment on when, how or why Chelsea came out. She can come out whenever the fuck she wants. She can say what she wants — it’s back to that thing from earlier, that people are who they say they are and I believe them. I’m concerned for her safety in prison. It’s disturbing to me that for this kind of a crime she’s in Leavenworth, a medium-level security facility, when she’s committed a non-violent crime. I think she should be in minimum security, and she’s probably going to be in solitary confinement or segregated for her safety. She’s looking to be in prison a minimum of eight years even with good behavior. What that will do to her, just as a human, to be locked up for that amount of time by herself — I feel terrible for her that that’s something she has to endure.

ALRIGHT, I THINK THAT ABOUT DOES IT. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME, IAN.

Ian Harvie: Thank you. ~

Andrea James

Writer & Producer

Photo: Autumn Scruggs

GEORGE PETROS: IT’S ANDREA JAMES WE’RE SPEAKING TO. ANDREA, YOU WENT TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO —

Andrea James: Yeah, I went there for graduate school.

WHERE’D YOU LIVE IN CHICAGO AT THAT TIME?

Andrea James: I lived in Hyde Park. I stayed down there for a few years afterwards, and then moved up near Wrigley Field.

DID YOU LIKE CHICAGO?

Andrea James: I loved Chicago. I got a little tired of the winters, though. I used to work in advertising and I used to come out to Los Angeles a lot to shoot things, and every time I’d leave I’d be like, “I should be out here in L.A.” So, finally I’d had enough, and I moved.

CHICAGO IS A BIG MEDIA TOWN —

Andrea James: Yeah, it’s still definitely the second-biggest advertising city in America — the biggest one in terms of packaged goods, household products, food — I did a lot of beer commercials, hamburgers and stuff like that.

ALL THE GOOD STUFF, HUH?

Andrea James: Oh yeah, and the stuff that makes you fat.

COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE COMMERCIALS THAT YOU DID?

Andrea James: Yeah. I worked for one of the major breweries, and we had ads that would be on the Super Bowl. My background was, I was going to teach English — but then I wanted to get away from the people who were in the program. I just couldn’t be with people like that for the rest of my life, in some small town — some college town — dealing with those kinds of people. I was always sort of interested in advertising. I’m glad I got into it. It’s one of those things that have gotten much cooler since I did it. Now, younger people think it’s an interesting and cool job — but when I was doing it, it was definitely considered very much selling out. Trying to get musicians to do music for commercials — it was very hard to get that to happen.

I SEE.

Andrea James: So things have really changed. Having something run during the Super Bowl — that must have been quite a feather in your cap. It’s always fun knowing so many people have seen something that you worked on. It’s sad that I could probably make the most successful movie possible and it would still not be seen by as many people as have seen a household-cleaner commercial that I’ve done. The way that our country is set up, unfortunately, the most common elements — the most common denominator in terms of cultural touchstones — are commercials, at this point.

WE CERTAINLY DO SEE A LOT OF COMMERCIALS HERE IN THE USA —

Andrea James: Yes.

WELL, THANK YOU FOR THE ONES THAT YOU’VE GIVEN US.

Andrea James: Well, you know, it’s ephemera. It’s stuff that’s just writ on water, as they say. So the stuff that I did, at the moment, had its impact — but it’s pretty much eminently forgettable. The good thing about it is, it taught me how to communicate effectively and succinctly in a way that has helped me a lot in the other kinds of writing I do.

I SEE. WELL, COMMERCIALS DO COME BACK INTO STYLE IN A NOSTALGIC WAY. PEOPLE LOVE TO SEE THE OLD ONES FROM THE FIFTIES THAT LOOK RIDICULOUS IN COMPARISON TO TODAY’S WORLD —

Andrea James: Yeah, well, advertising is a time capsule. You can’t really create culture with ads, but you can certainly reflect it — and I think that’s why advertising always looks like a little moment of time. When you look back, it very much catches the sensibilities of an era.

IT CERTAINLY DOES. SO, YOU LIKED IT SO MUCH IN L.A. YOU HAD TO STAY OUT THERE ON ONE OF YOUR TRIPS —

Andrea James: Well, it was a little more than that. My business partner Calpernia Addams and I met in 1999 because we had some mutual friends who had moved to Chicago from Nashville. She had just had this terrible tragedy in her life where her boyfriend, Barry Winchell, had been murdered — and I saw how she was treated in the media. I had had a successful transition that had gone much better than most people’s. We hit it off and we started talking a lot — and then the next thing that happened was, we just started thinking about trying to make a difference in the media. I was getting tired of advertising and I wanted to see what I could do that would have a bigger impact.

YOU DIDN’T LIKE THE WAY THE MEDIA TREATED HER — COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT THAT?

Andrea James: Yeah. She was working at a club in Nashville, Tennessee that featured Transgendered performers, and was dating a guy who was in the military — and he was killed by people in his own unit, and it was because they were dating. So, it became a big thing because at the time Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was really in full force — and it became sort of this example of the problem with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: it created this environment where it was considered shameful to be out in the military, and so it got a lot of national attention. It was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, and that led to a lot of people really looking into her life in ways that she wasn’t ready for. When you’re dealing with a terrible tragedy, you’re being called “he” and “him” and being called a Gay man and all this kind of stuff in the press — I felt like, with my media training, I wanted to see what I could do to help people avoid that fate, whether it’s less tragic circumstances or not.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PEOPLE WHO MURDERED HIM?

Andrea James: They both went to Leavenworth. One has been let out on parole — the one who instigated it but wasn’t actually convicted of wielding. They killed him with a baseball bat. But the other one is still in prison.

NOT A GOOD STORY —

Andrea James: No, it’s not — and the one thing that happened out of it that was very heartening is that it was made into a movie — and that showed me that you can take a really terrible thing and turn it into something that can change hearts and minds. That film, Soldier’s Girl, came out in 2003.

HOW DOES SOMEBODY GET THROUGH SOMETHING LIKE THAT — AND THEN WITH THE MEDIA —

Andrea James: It was definitely the worst time in her life — and it’s not something she even likes to talk about at this point because she talked about it for many, many years. You just do the best you can, and you try to use it as a teaching moment, and try to make people realize that things like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell are problematic and that there are more respectful ways to talk about Trans people in the media. A lot of our work has been focused on that topic. We’ve been trying to put some positive images out there, and make a difference.

A LOT OF TRANS PEOPLE ARE THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE AND BULLYING — IT’S A VERY DANGEROUS DEMOGRAPHIC TO BE A PART OF, ISN’T IT?

Andrea James: Yeah, it’s definitely scary and disheartening. I think part of the reason I’ve tried to do so much activism is because my life hasn’t been touched by that kind of stuff, and I’ve been very lucky in that way. I was able to transition on the job, and have money and opportunities that most people don’t. It made me feel like I need to give back as much as I could. One of the first projects we did when we got out here was to do the first all-Transgender Vagina Monologues with Eve Ensler and Jane Fonda. We had met Jane Fonda at Sundance, and Soldier’s Girl premiered. She really got us inspired to think about violence and how it affects our community — and what we might do to address that. So, Eve ended up writing a special monologue just for our performance, and there was a documentary done about it — and it was just a really great, empowering experience.

I SEE. SO, AS FOR YOUR WORK IN THE MEDIA THESE DAYS — HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE WHAT YOU DO?

Andrea James: Well, I think first and foremost I’m a writer. I’ve always written professionally — and I think that’s still my primary occupation. I own several websites on consumer issues that I started when I worked in advertising, because I felt a little guilty, and so I have one of the largest websites on transition-related information — like, how to transition. I tried to look at it from a consumer-activist point of view.

IS THIS THE TRANSSEXUAL ROADMAP THAT YOU’RE REFERRING TO?

Andrea James: Yeah.

AND WHEN DID YOU START THAT?

Andrea James: I started that in ’96. It started as an AOL web page. Eventually I made it a top-level domain and yeah, it remains a very helpful site. I get a lot of nice notes from people who found it and they’ll say, “Oh, I found it when I was thirteen — and now I’m married and a lawyer and thank you for your help.” That’s really why I did it. I wanted to write what I wish someone would have handed me when I went to the library as a youngster myself.

BECAUSE WHEN YOU WERE A YOUNGSTER THERE WAS NO ROAD MAP.

Andrea James: What happened was, in the Fifties and Sixties you would just try to find a sympathetic physician, and they would help you out, and you would get everything done. In the late Sixties and early Seventies there started to be an emergence of these gender clinics, as they called them. There were three centers in the United States — and everything became very rigid. They started making all these rules about what you had to do on this level and that level. Ostensibly it was to protect the patients — but it was really more to protect the service provider from litigation. You had certain requirements that you had to meet — but luckily, since what happened in the late Seventies, a lot of those clinics fell into disrepute, and so then it started moving back to what it is now — which is more client-centered and not as rigid. The cookie-cutter approach isn’t a good way. Most people need their own time frame. They have their own needs and their own goals and the one-size-fits-all thing — it’s definitely not in the best interest of the clients.

I SEE.

Andrea James: So, the way it was in the Fifties and Sixties was that you would go to a big city. You would find people who transitioned, and our collective wisdom was sort of an oral tradition passed down through Drag Mothers, or through houses — like, there would be a collective of people who would band together and help each other out. That was very helpful — but it’s not good for people who live in the hinterlands, people who grew up in rural areas like I did —

WHERE DID YOU GROW UP?

Andrea James: I grew up in Indiana.

OKAY —

Andrea James: The Internet, I saw very quickly, was an opportunity to turn our collective wisdom into a place where there was an electronic repository of that esoteric information. So, I put up a few pages and I sort of documented my own transition, and then as people asked me questions I would add another page — and now I have thirteen-hundred pages of stuff.

THE REWARD IS WHEN PEOPLE THANK YOU FOR YOUR GUIDANCE —

Andrea James: Yeah, that’s very rewarding to me. That’s the most rewarding thing I think I’ve ever done. It’s really delightful to me to know that some people have an easier time because of the work I’ve done.

WHEN DID YOU DO YOUR TRANSITION?

Andrea James: I started my transition in the mid-Nineties and finished everything in the late Nineties.

SO IT TAKES AWHILE.

Andrea James: Yeah, it usually takes a few years. Generally speaking, younger people go full-time sooner — but it takes longer to get everything they want done. Older people tend to take longer to get ready but then once they go full-time, they get everything done much quicker. That’s a generalization, but it’s basically because the younger you are when you start your transition, generally the easier your ability to assimilate or find a place in the world is.

I SEE.

Andrea James: And like with Gays and Lesbians, people are coming out younger and younger. One of the things I do is, I’m on the board of the TransYouth Family Alliance that helps families with minors who are gender-variant and gender-questioning. They can find resources —

TELL US ABOUT THESE FAMILIES. I’D IMAGINE THAT IT WOULD RUN THE GAMUT FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE SHOCKED TO PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPORTIVE —

Andrea James: Yeah, and sometimes you see that move from shock to support, which is very good to see but, you know, it’s very challenging for parents. There’s a lot of medical and ethical and legal questions that are unresolved in our society. It’s really cutting-edge in terms of the way we accommodate people who don’t fit into these rigid categories that we’ve set up and so, you know, we might work with a fifteen-year-old who gets kicked out of the house, trying to resolve things with their family. Or we’re helping a middle-schooler who wants to come out at school, and we go and we talk with the administration and the teachers and get that all smoothed over. Or maybe it’s a kid who’s just about to start school and they want to start school in their affirmed gender instead of their assigned gender, and so we help the parents get all that figured out and make sure it’s a positive thing where these kids don’t feel shame and fear about being who they are — because I feel that shame is really what leads to a lot of the problems.

I SEE.

Andrea James: Low self-esteem, and a lot of the problems we have down the road —

DO YOU FIND THAT THE OTHER KIDS IN THE SCHOOLS — ARE THEIR ATTITUDES CHANGING? ARE THEY MORE ACCEPTING OF THIS NOW THAN THEY WERE WHEN YOU STARTED?

Photo: Calpernia Addams

Andrea James: Absolutely. I think Gay and Lesbian issues are sort of thirty years ahead of Trans issues — but things are getting better. There’s a lot more visibility. I’m also on the board of directors of Outfest, which is the LGBT film festival here in L.A. There’s just a lot more visibility in the media with Trans people, and the people are more aware of it, and it seems less freaky than it used to. It’s not the realm of Jerry Springer — it’s much more visible, and people may know somebody or have read about something in ways that are much more common now.

WELL, TO COME BACK TO THE FAMILIES THAT YOU DEAL WITH — YOU MUST HAVE DEVELOPED TECHNIQUES FOR DEALING WITH SOME PRETTY HIGH LEVELS OF HOSTILITY, I WOULD IMAGINE. WHO CONTACTS YOU?

Andrea James: Well, usually they call our hotline. We either get a call from a family member — usually a concerned family member who’s trying to work things out — or we get a call from the young person themselves, depending on how old they are. Maybe they’re reaching a point where they’re facing puberty, and they’re pretty concerned about that. For Trans people, that’s a very difficult thing — because you feel one way but all of a sudden your body is going the opposite direction. So, it’s very stressful. A lot of times the calls are about trying to help negotiate with their parents to get on delaying hormones that stop puberty until they’re adults and they can make a decision for themselves. A lot of times they want to go full-time at school — and so it’s just trying to help the family get the tools they need to make that an okay experience.

DO YOU FIND THERE ARE PATTERNS? DO YOU FIND THE FATHER HOSTILE, THE MOTHER SUPPORTIVE —

Andrea James: I think in general, the mothers tend to be more supportive — but I don’t think that it’s anything that’s across the board. I think everybody brings their own issues to this — and you never really know. Sometimes you assume someone’s going to be fine with it, and they’re not — and other times you think, “Oh, this person’s not going to be cool with this at all” — and they’re totally fine. Or sometimes they live up to your expectations, good or bad. It’s really just kind of rolling the dice. I think that’s one of the interesting things about working with young people and families is that they have all these different backgrounds. So, we’ve been trying to create programs that help any situation and any type of young person.

I WOULD IMAGINE THAT SOME CASES DO NOT HAVE A HAPPY ENDING.

Andrea James: That’s true. That’s true. I mean, sometimes it’s sort of a dream deferred, where we try to help the kids — we say, “Hang in there until you are an adult and can make these decisions on your own.” But there are some difficulties. We have a very high suicide rate in our community, and one of the things that we try to do is make sure that young people who are in crisis mode can find that kind of help, too.

AND THESE ARE JUST KIDS KILLING THEMSELVES — THEY HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED LIVING YET.

Andrea James: Yeah, you know, it’s tough because when you’re that age, you’re getting teased at school and you’re being told you’re worthless, you’re whatever. It doesn’t seem like there’s going to be another year or a next week even. It can get to the point where you’re not really equipped to deal with these levels of stress. Some people turn to self-medication. You know, they’ll do drugs. They’ll act out or they’ll start doing high-risk activity — and that’s what I would call slow-motion suicide. There’s an epidemic of that kind of stuff in our community, with people who are just trying to deal with their unhappiness on a day-to-day basis.

TELL US ABOUT HORMONES THAT DELAY PUBERTY.

Andrea James: There’re puberty-delaying drugs that block hormones, and they’re prescribed regularly for any number of people who are born with various kinds of traits where their bodies create more testosterone than they should, or they have precocious puberty — whatever. There’s a number of reasons that can happen to a child. So, these drugs have been developed for that use, but now they’re being used in this other way as well.

AND THAT ALLOWS THESE KIDS TO NOT HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE ISSUES OF THEIR SEXUALITY AND THEIR ORIENTATION AND ALL THAT STUFF AT SUCH A VULNERABLE AGE, RIGHT?

Andrea James: Exactly. It allows them, when necessary, to wait until they are considered old enough and mature enough to make their own decisions. And sometimes the parents will help minors with surgical options — but that’s a small part of what we do. Most people, when they hear that we’re helping young people who want to present a different gender, they go, “You’re giving them drugs and surgery” — and usually that’s not the case. Especially prior to middle school, but you get to high school — I would do anything to be able to go back in time and be able to start transitioning at that age, because it makes a huge difference in a lot of ways.

SO, YOU KNEW EARLY ON THAT YOU WERE GOING TO TRANSITION AND THAT THINGS WEREN’T WHAT THEY SEEMED —

Andrea James: Yeah. I just didn’t know how to go about it, and I didn’t think I was the only one — but I certainly thought, “Wow, I have no idea how to go about this. I have no personal role models. I’ve never met anybody who’s done this” — and the pressure to conform to society and do what people expect was another big reason that I held off so long.

DID YOU EXPLORE THE TRANSSEXUAL UNDERGROUND IN CHICAGO? HOW WAS CHICAGO FOR THAT?

Andrea James: In Chicago there’s a club called Baton, and I knew a couple of girls there who transitioned — and there was one of them who I still consider a role model, named Mimi Marks. She’s really lovely and very funny and talented. She performed in Chicago. That was kind of the way it was before the Internet, where if you wanted to meet people, you had to find where they were interacting with the public.

THIS MUST HAVE BEEN AN EXCITING TIME FOR YOU.

Andrea James: It was a difficult time because I was in a relationship and I wasn’t sure if it was going to survive if I moved forward — and it ultimately didn’t, despite best efforts on both our parts. So, it was a very difficult time, and it was a very difficult decision — but in the end, I had gotten to the point where I was having to go to the emergency room because I was freaking out so much about feeling so stressed. So, once I finally started to transition, it really felt like I’d been buried under a pile of rocks and every day I was taking another rock off. My mood kept getting lighter and lighter until I was eventually freed from being buried underneath all these expectations and misery.

YOU WERE WORKING IN THE AD AGENCIES BY DAY AND AT NIGHT GOING TO THESE CLUBS AND MEETING PEOPLE —

Andrea James: I didn’t go a lot, but I met enough people and asked enough questions that eventually I found a therapist, a physician, and all of that — and I started hair removal. That was a big part of the process, if you wait too long — like I did. Eventually I felt I could do this on the terms that I wanted, because it’s a bit of a leap of faith — which I think is part of the reason I held off. It’s a scary prospect. I transitioned on the job — and everything went great. I was prepared for the worst, but it all went quite nicely. I feel very grateful to the head of the creative department at that agency, because he really set the tone for how everybody else responded — I was very lucky to have that. I think things are better now, but at the time it wasn’t as likely to happen as it is now.

DOES THAT SPEAK TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF THE ADVERTISING COMMUNITY?

Andrea James: Well, I think, you know, there are a lot of Gay and Lesbian people in advertising, so I think creative people have a tendency to be a little more open-minded — but, they’re always thinking. “Oh, how are the clients going to respond?” I was working for some pretty conservative clients — but it all worked out.

HOW DID THE CLIENTS RESPOND?

Andrea James: Well, one of the interesting things — the day after I transitioned, I sold a commercial — usually you sell a couple a year — I sold a commercial the day after I transitioned, and I had to see the clients, and I had a candid moment with them. They were like, “Well, you know, I don’t get it, but if you’re happy, that’s fine.” So, hearing that from somebody who’s from a very conservative background and working at this conservative company really made me feel like, “I think this is going to be alright.”

THAT MUST HAVE BEEN A HAPPY MOMENT FOR YOU.

Andrea James: Yeah, it really was.

YOU SAY THE DAY AFTER YOU TRANSITIONED — I HAVE THE IMPRESSION OF IT BEING A MUCH MORE DRAWN-OUT PROCESS, BUT I GUESS THERE’S A DAY WHEN YOU GET YOUR REASSIGNMENT SURGERY AND THEN THE NEXT DAY EVERYTHING’S DIFFERENT —

Andrea James: Well, it’s not even the day of the surgery. There’s a day they call “going full time.” The day that you go full time — usually leading up to it you’re living part-time. A lot of people will live a double life for awhile, socially and outside of work — but they’re keeping their job and they don’t want to lose it. So they’re not doing it at work until it’s absolutely necessary. That’s what I did, and I’m of the mind that the more abrupt the transition is, the better. To me, I think it’s tougher for people to make that transition with you if you say, “Hey, a year from now I’m going to transition.” So I always tell people: wait, and then make a very clear break where you take a few days off, you come back and it’s new name. They’ve got the new nameplate on the door. They’ve got all your records pushed over. You’ve got new government IDs and your social security number has your new name and all that. It’s just a lot of little logistical things — but I think it makes it easier for people to accept the transition.

WERE YOU IN A RELATIONSHIP AT THAT POINT?

Andrea James: At that point? No.

HOW LONG HAD IT BEEN SINCE YOU’D HAD A RELATIONSHIP?

Andrea James: Probably a couple of years, by the time I went full-time.

WHAT SUPPORT DID YOU HAVE? LIKE, WHO WAS PATTING YOU ON THE BACK AND SAYING EVERYTHING’S GOING TO BE OKAY?

Andrea James: I had the support of people I knew who were also in the midst of transition. I had supportive friends who knew and were trusted enough to keep all of that a secret and not make it an issue at work. I had a pretty good support system.

I TAKE IT YOU EVENTUALLY DRIFTED INTO A RELATIONSHIP. HOW DID IT FEEL WITH YOUR NEW SELF? HOW WAS THE RELATIONSHIP AFTER THE TRANSITION?

Andrea James: Most people I know will say that I make a better woman than I did previously in my existence — that I just seem more comfortable and seem more upbeat and open. I really just cultivated this nondescript persona where it was like I was pleasant to people but I definitely had learned how not to stick out and not to draw attention — and I think part of that was because I didn’t feel like myself. Once I transitioned, it felt very validating. It felt very liberating and free. Dating was kind of an exciting new thing — sort of an interesting dynamic change, and there was this different set of powers that you can access when you’ve transitioned. When you live in the world of a woman, it’s just a different way of interacting with people.

DID YOU SEE A SIDE OF MEN THAT YOU DID NOT SEE BEFORE?

Andrea James: Well, I think a couple of things that stood out were, I suddenly for the first time felt a sort-of ever-present sense of, “I need to be more careful. I need to be more aware of my surroundings — I’m more vulnerable to being attacked now.” That was a little disconcerting at first.

THAT WOULD BE AN UNPLEASANT REVELATION.

Andrea James: Yeah, yeah. You know — and then the other thing that was interesting and kind of funny but annoying was: You get interrupted a lot more. So you have to get used to a very different interaction with people — especially with men when you’re speaking in conversations. You have to get used to people cutting you off.

WOW.

Andrea James: That took a long time. With the comedy writing I was doing, you’re bouncing ideas off of people. It’s about timing and saying what’s on your mind right at the moment — and you just have to get used to being interrupted a lot more, which took real getting used to.

WELL, THAT’S INTERESTING, THAT WOMEN ARE INTERRUPTED. WHAT DO YOU THINK THE MECHANISM IS THAT DRIVES THAT?

Andrea James: I think there’s an expectation for women to listen more and to be more pleasant. I think that’s one of the actual gifts of this to me, is that I feel like I do listen more and I’m more aware of what people are saying. I think a lot of guys are just waiting for their turn to talk. They’re not really listening to what’s being said to them.

ALSO I GUESS NOW YOU’RE ON THE OTHER END OF THE WOLF WHISTLES AND SO ON —

Andrea James: Yeah, and that took some getting used to as well. It’s strangely validating yet insulting, so it’s kind of this mixed bag — especially at first. I was walking to the drugstore yesterday and some guy felt the need to let me know his opinion of my attractiveness. You just learn to ignore it. That guy — I didn’t even look at him or acknowledge him, but when you hear it, it’s still oddly nice. It’s sexist and annoying, and I certainly don’t acknowledge it. It’s somewhat validating.

INTERESTING. TELL ME SOME OF THE PROTOCOL FOR TRANSSEXUAL DATING.

Andrea James: It depends on the person and the context and everything. Generally speaking, I’m in an unusual situation now where most people know because of the work I do. That actually adds a difficult layer, because they have to be okay with me being in the public eye. So, that’s a bit of an issue — but then again, it depends on the person. My general feeling is that if somebody doesn’t know and they come up to me and they want to go out, I’ll say yes or no just like I would with anybody else — and then, if I think it’s going somewhere, then I might tell them, usually within the first few dates. But if I don’t think it’s going anywhere, then I’ll just be, “Thanks but no thanks, bye —” and leave it at that. So it just depends. The weird thing is, if at a certain point you don’t tell, it starts to feel like a trust issue — that it’s sort of a lie of omission. That you haven’t brought this up or told them — if you’re wanting to get serious with somebody, it’s important at some point that you deal with that because otherwise there’s one of two things that can happen: If you tell him right off the bat, he may just walk away without ever getting to know you. That’s kind of depressing, but you run a bigger emotional risk to yourself if you get to know them and they really like you — and then you tell them, and they reject you.

SO IT’S A VERY PRECARIOUS SITUATION. NOW, MAY I ASK YOU — AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING SOMEWHAT NAIVE — WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO GET THROUGH A DATE, OR A RELATIONSHIP, WITHOUT TELLING SOMEBODY?

Andrea James: Yeah, there’s several people I haven’t told. I think it depends on who you are — how you move through the world. In my case, I just say, “Look me up online” if somebody asks me out — and then if they do, then I assume they know it. If they don’t, after that I’ll be like, “Well, I told you to look me up.” But yeah, it’s always tough to tell somebody. It’s never fun, and I don’t like to get into it — but surprisingly for me, pretty much everyone who I ended up telling was okay with it. That wasn’t the deal breaker; it was some other thing that ended up being the reason we didn’t get into a long-term.

I SEE. THERE MUST BE TRANS PEOPLE FOR WHO TRANSITIONING WORKED REALLY WELL, AND THEY LOOK GREAT — AND THEN THERE MUST BE PEOPLE WHO HAVE A DIFFICULT TIME BECAUSE THEY MIGHT NOT CONFORM TO PREVAILING STANDARDS OF ATTRACTIVENESS —

Andrea James: Exactly. I’m six-foot-one — I’m very tall, and I have my things that I can’t do anything about, and I sort of deal with those. Yeah, the thing with transitioning is that it’s really not so much a physical thing as it is a social thing. The younger you transition, the more easily it is to become socialized in your target gender. That’s why I like to help young people — because society’s a mirror, and how you move through the world is reflected back to you in other people. If you don’t come across to people as what they expect for a man or a woman, then I think it’s difficult for you personally and psychologically — because you’re not getting the validation of who you feel that you are.

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WORK WITH THE VOICE. YOU HELP OTHER PEOPLE BY COACHING THEM WITH THEIR VOICES —

Andrea James: Yeah, that’s right. I did a video that’s popular, telling people how to work on sounding more feminine. Just like anything else, it’s an affect — it’s an accent. It’s just basically changing your pitch and raising your resonance, and then knowing these certain kinds of things that distinguish what we consider a male voice and a female voice. That’s what I’m working with — actresses who are playing Trans roles and things like that — which is a nice side part of it.

YOU WORKED WITH THE ACTRESS WHO WAS IN TRANSAMERICA —

Andrea James: Felicity Huffman

HOW WAS WORKING WITH HER?

Andrea James: It was great. She’s a real pro, and she’s a really amazing actor — and to see someone like that consume herself in a role, it’s just really remarkable. That film was shot before Desperate Housewives started airing, so it was one of those flukes where, had Desperate Housewives not gotten so gigantic before the movie was released, it wouldn’t have had such a buzz to it. She did an amazing job, not only on screen but in talking to the media and really trying to get it right, in every aspect of it. It was just a real dream to work with her. I worked with her on the voice — but I mostly worked with her on the character, and gave her some background on what somebody like that would be thinking or dealing with.

ARE THERE SURGICAL PROCEDURES THAT CAN CHANGE THE VOCAL PITCH?

Andrea James: Yeah, there are — but I generally advise against doing it because they’re sort of hit-or-miss, and you still have to do a lot of training afterwards anyway. In a lot of cases it ends up making their voice sound raspy or weird-sounding. I would say it’s a lot like losing weight; it’s like, “Yeah, there’s surgery for that — but it’s better to just do exercises.”

THERE’S PROBABLY PEOPLE WHOSE TRANSITIONS NEVER REALLY END — THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW TO ADDRESS IN THEMSELVES, RIGHT?

Andrea James: I don’t know if my transition has ever really ended. I think we’re all transitioning in some way or another the whole time. I’m a different person than I was fifteen years ago — not just in terms of transitioning male-to-female, but in terms of where I am in my life and at my age and my location and all of that. We all have a journey to take — and I just happen to have this interesting aspect that is somewhat unusual.

OKAY. YOU’VE PUT OUT A LOT OF STUFF ABOUT MAKEUP, RIGHT?

Andrea James: Not a lot. We’ve done a makeup video thing, and I have some information on how to do it effectively and quickly and sort-of understanding the basics. I’m not so much a makeup chick as my business partner Calpernia — she’s very good with makeup.

ARE THERE ANY PECULIARITIES FOR THE MAKEUP OF A TRANSSEXUAL PERSON?

Andrea James: I think it just depends on your face shape and your skin condition and all of that. If you’re in the middle of hair removal, obviously there’s some things that you need to deal with that are different than later in your transition. I generally advocate that if you can come to the door with no makeup and a T-shirt and jeans, and answer the door and nobody’s aware that you transitioned — that, to me, is a goal. It’s not about clothes or makeup or anything like that. It’s truly just about how people respond to you.

IS THERE A POINT WHERE ONE GOES OVERBOARD, REALLY OVERDOING IT WITH MAKEUP OR OVERDOING IT WITH SLINKY OUTFITS?

Andrea James: Yeah, and I think everybody goes through that. I always call it “trying on the jewels of youth.” You know, when we’re younger we all try things — some of it works and some of it doesn’t. Then we sort of settle into the thing that works for us. I think I certainly used to occasionally get it wrong in the makeup department or the clothing department — but I think I found a spot that feels right to me, which generally means very little if any makeup, and low maintenance all the way.

WELL, YOU LOOK GREAT IN THE PHOTOS I’VE SEEN OF YOU — SO WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING, KEEP IT UP.

Andrea James: Right on. ~

Bailey Jay

Porn Star

Photo: Matthew Terhune

GEORGE PETROS: BAILEY, YOU’RE FROM RICHMOND, VIRGINIA — WHAT WAS IT LIKE GROWING UP THERE?

Bailey Jay: Actually, not as bad as people think. I mean, Virginia is technically the South. I was able to transition normally and have everyone treat me really well. I had a pretty easy life, I think — which sucks because I want to write a book about my life and nothing interesting happened.

WELL, WE’LL SEE WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT THAT.

Bailey Jay: I had very strange parents. That was pretty weird. In Richmond my whole family were outcasts — and they were all welcoming about me being Transgendered.

THEY WERE OUTCASTS, YOU SAY —

Bailey Jay: Oh yeah. My father and mother were both very, very, very strange. My father was a Heroin addict forever, and my mother was addicted to Amphetamines, like Speed and all that sort of stuff. So, my father left when I was young and my mom, ever since I was probably about six or so, basically has the brain of a child. So I was basically raised by a ten-year-old. When I said that I was Transgendered, it wasn’t like I was asking for permission — it was more like I was telling her. She was more like my kid. We were from Richmond, Virginia but because of the kind of family I grew up in, I don’t think I got the normal Virginia experience.

I SEE. DID YOU GET HIGH WITH THEM?

Bailey Jay: No, never — obviously, when I was a teenager I was high around my mom on different stuff. I never did drugs with her. That would have been too weird. When I was a teenager I did drugs and I’d come home and I would obviously be under the influence — she had no idea, though. She was very clueless about stuff. For someone who got into the lifestyle, she was so naïve — like a child would be. Even if I wasn’t intoxicated or high around her or whatever — she would have no idea.

WHAT ABOUT YOUR PALS IN SCHOOL? WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE SOCIALLY FOR YOU?

Bailey Jay: I found a group of kids in my school — they had like a subculture. They introduced me to everything cool, like music and John Waters films and, you know, just like weird stuff. They basically helped sculpt my personality. I had a group of probably seven really, really good friends. When they met me I was a little boy, and most of them are boys. They would always make jokes about how pretty I was. It was kind of like a joke in our circle that I was a really pretty boy. My voice was very, very high back then. So, when I finally did transition, we were all — it was almost like my family. They were all already so weird and they were such a subculture of interesting weird things — when I became Transgendered, they didn’t care. It was like a big joke. They said that I was like their little brother that grew up to be their hot little sister.

WHO WERE YOU DATING IN THOSE DAYS?

Bailey Jay: I just stopped trying to date girls. I think on a physical level I’m attracted to girls — but I think girls are fucking insane. So I don’t date them. They’re totally crazy. That was around the time that I dated my first boy. He was my long-term boyfriend, and we ended up dating for about four years — and then we broke up.

SO WAS IT BOYS AFTER THAT?

Bailey Jay: Oh yeah, ever since then, yeah. Only one girl since then — and she was crazy as all hell.

SO, NOW THAT YOU’RE A GIRL, ARE YOU CRAZY TOO?

Bailey Jay: No. You see, it’s funny — as much as I identify as a woman, I feel like I identify as Bailey, as stupid as that sounds. I don’t feel — and obviously most Transsexuals would kill me for saying this — I don’t feel like a woman. I felt like I needed to become whatever gender I became, but I don’t — by definition and by knowing women — I don’t act like the women I’ve met. I guess I should say there are plenty of strong women. I don’t shy away from noticing my more masculine tendencies, as feminine as I look in appearance. My problem-solving skills are definitely more masculine.

WHEN YOU GOT OUT OF SCHOOL, WHAT WERE YOU DOING?

Bailey Jay: I was in ninth grade when I ended up dropping out of school. All my friends were seniors and they graduated, and I didn’t want to go to tenth grade. All my friends were gone, you know? So I left school and told my mom I was leaving home. I was still going to be in Virginia, but I was just not going to be living with her, and I was going to go live with my friends or my boyfriend or whoever at the time. It’s so weird. I want to say I didn’t do anything — but at the same time, those were my most formative years. That’s when I learned about all the great music that was out there. I discovered The Pixies, and I started actually developing into a human being after I left school. I didn’t have a job. I hung out at my friends’ houses and I lived with them. I did drugs and learned about music and all that kind of stuff. I kinda did nothing and everything all at the same time. Like, my favorite bands to this day are bands I discovered in that few-year period before I was contacted about doing porn.

TELL US SOME OF THOSE BANDS —

Bailey Jay: I learned about The Pixies. I learned about The Smiths. I like the weird bands, like The Kinks. For some reason I thought that they were cool. I’m really, really obsessed with Bjork. She’s so cool. Who else? There were so many cool bands, like Trip Hop and funky stuff. I got to see Parliament-Funkadelic in concert around that time. It was pretty cool.

THAT MUST HAVE BEEN QUITE A REVELATION.

Bailey Jay: It was amazing. George Clinton gave me a hug. Pretty weird. They were all cracked out of their heads.

WHAT KIND OF DRUGS DID YOU LIKE?

Bailey Jay: Okay. So, my thing — that I quickly discovered I had to stop — was Cocaine. I just tried it. I mean, everybody does. I tried anything I could get my hands on in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. There was more than you’d think. Everything would go around. LSD was always around, and Coke and Mushrooms — which I would never do again. Oh my god, Mushrooms were awful. Mostly I was just a massive pothead, but whatever was around, obviously me and my group of friends would all try. The depressing part is that this group of friends that I constantly reference like a network or a family — they’re all still doing the same thing, you know? I went home recently to see my family and I couldn’t even see them because it was just so depressing. They’re all literally in the same living room doing the same thing four years later — only older.

DID YOU DO LSD?

Bailey Jay: Oh yeah. I used to drop a lot of Acid. A lot of that had to do with beginning my transition, and people were finding me attractive for the first time ever. Not just like, “Oh, you’re kinda cute, you look like a girl,” but like really drooling over me. I’d never experienced anything like that. When you’re in these situations where life’s offering all this new stuff to you — it’s just like, “Hey, you wanna try Acid?” It’s like, “Of course — I’m having such a great time, why wouldn’t I?” So I did. Anything anyone gave me at the time, I would do.

WHEN YOU DID ACID, WERE THERE ANY REVELATIONS ABOUT YOUR IDENTITY, OR DID YOU GRAPPLE WITH ISSUES OF WHO YOU WERE, OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT?

Bailey Jay: Well, lucky for me at that time in my life — I don’t know if it was because I was so young or I was just so horny or whatever it was — I couldn’t get introspective. Thank god for that, because I probably would have freaked out. It’s so strange. My Transgenderism and my identity — my gender stuff — I’ve never gotten incredibly introspective about it. Ever. It’s not really in my nature. It’s weird, but I feel like it’s so simple and so I don’t even delve into it. I’ve never really looked into what gender I am, or really worried about things. I was really young. I was seventeen, eighteen — any time I was high, it was just an excuse to do it with somebody. My motives were very simple. Thank god, because I can’t imagine — if I really concentrated on gender and identity on Acid, I probably would have jumped off a building.

DO YOU STILL GET HIGH?

Bailey Jay: Not at all. Not even a little bit. I never made a grand pronouncement that I’m never going to do drugs again or anything like that — I just never did. I just don’t have time and — I don’t know. It’s weird: After I stopped trying to get laid and stopped being emotive in order to get me out of my shell all the time — I like my shell, so I don’t really need to be forced out of it with drugs anymore. I mean, I do drink; I’m a drinker.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DRINK?

Bailey Jay: Vodka. Vodka tonic — or if I’m sick I drink Jager. If I have a cold or something, I drink Jager.

I SEE. WHEN DID YOUR TRANSITION BEGIN? DID IT BEGIN WITH TAKING HORMONES?

Bailey Jay: It actually didn’t. I think for a lot of people it does — but with me, hormones didn’t change me. I started taking hormones about three or four years ago, after living my life as a female. I’m five-foot-five — I’m naturally hairless. I literally shave my legs less than my sister. It’s genetic, so I never needed them. The only reason I took hormones these last couple of years is fear that maybe the gravy train would run out. I’m naturally so feminine — but who knows? Maybe I just have delayed puberty or something. So, I started hormones recently, to ensure that I wouldn’t look like a full-blown man as I get older.

I SEE.

Bailey Jay: But the only thing hormones did for me physically is that my nipples got a little bit more pronounced and my thighs got fat. You know, I got cellulite. That was the only difference. I looked cuter before hormones.

WHAT ABOUT IN THE SEXUAL PERFORMANCE DEPARTMENT? HOW HAVE THE HORMONES IMPACTED THAT?

Bailey Jay: I’m still hornier than ever. It never made my sex drive go down. It never made it harder to get erections or anything, like it does for so many. Even if that did happen, it wouldn’t be bad. I’m like a walking boner, constantly. So, the hormones maybe cut it down ten percent — but nothing noticeable. The only thing that was noticeable is, I don’t ejaculate as much. I used to come like a lot — but now I don’t really ejaculate that much. Like, a lot of semen would come out — and now not nearly as much.

HOW ABOUT THE PLEASURE THAT’S ATTACHED TO THE ORGASM? HAS THAT BEEN ALTERED OR CHANGED AT ALL?

Bailey Jay: Yeah. I notice when I get my hormones re-upped that my orgasms are — I want to say “more elusive,” if that makes sense. They’re not as straight-to-the-point, like a male orgasm is. It’s more — I wish I could find the proper way to put this — it’s more elusive. It’s almost an orgasm the first time, then I have to catch it. A male orgasm is such an easy animal. It just happens. Sometimes it’s like a little bit more in my toes or in my back — not just in my dick and my ass, like a male orgasm.

Photo: Matthew Terhune

AND HOW ABOUT SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS — HOW HAVE THEY CHANGED, IF AT ALL?

Bailey Jay: They never did. Not as a result of the hormones. My sexual encounters changed because I grew up. When you first transition and everyone thinks you’re the hottest thing on Earth, you look like a hot girl and you have the libido of a man. You’re gonna suck a lot of dick. Definitely as I got older, I mellowed out. And porn — that makes sex a lot less interesting. It’s work. You go to these award shows and you hear everybody talk about sex. It’s about as sexual as a bachelorette party. Sex becomes such a novelty that eventually, I don’t know — it stops really doing it for ya.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR INTRODUCTION INTO THE WORLD OF PORN, PLEASE.

Bailey Jay: I was sent an e-mail, or it was on MySpace or something — a guy said he’d pay me five-hundred dollars to do a solo video. I kind of attracted it, to be honest. I had been lurking on some sites and I was like, “I guess there is Tranny porn —” Not to sound like an asshole, but at the time my eighteen-year-old brain was like, “Well, I know I’m prettier than all these girls. So I know if I do this, it’s gonna be serious. It’s gonna be a career. I know there’s no way I’m just going to do one video.” I blew a lot of these tricks out of the water. Anyway, I said I would not do it. The random email came and the guy offered me five-hundred dollars and I very quickly responded with “no” — and then my rent was due, and the Italian restaurant that I waitressed at filed for bankruptcy, and so I was like, “Okay. I definitely have to pay my rent —” So I just did it. Of course, they loved me and then they wanted me back over and over again.

HOW DID THE SHOOT GO DOWN?

Bailey Jay: I met him at a Starbucks, just to make sure he wasn’t a murderer. He was kinda cool and kinda weird in a good way. Like, he liked Death Metal. He was weird and interesting and he grew up in Germany. He was just a nice guy. So I was like, “Okay.” So what I did was, I agreed to do it. We went to a hotel that was a block away from my apartment at the time. We just did it there and everything, and I got paid five-hundred dollars in cash — which at the time was awesome, awesome, awesome money. I had no money, so that was great. Obviously they called me back. I became one of their number-one girls. So I did it a few times, and they eventually offered me a solo website, and they flew me to L.A. to try to sweet-talk me about what they would offer me for a solo site, blah blah blah, and they put me in a nice place in The Hills and blah blah blah. But it felt like horseshit, to be honest, and the money that they were offering wasn’t great — then a competing company contacted me, and gave me a solo site, and now I’m amazing friends with all of them, and the owner of the company has a legal team that watches my back. She sent me a huge, amazing basket last week for my wedding. It’s more like a family. It runs really nice.

WHAT SORT OF GUYS ARE ATTRACTED TO TRANSSEXUALS?

Bailey Jay: There’s a mix. There’s guys that like cross-dressers, which are a little different. This is when I do web-cam; I’m not an escort, so I don’t know this first-hand — but when I do web-cam stuff, they say something like, “Do you own a pair of high heels?” or “Do you own a pair of panties?” or they’ll ask, do I have pantyhose or red lipstick — things that an actual genetic female my age would never wear, like red lipstick and pantyhose and shit like that. I’ll find out they like cross-dressers — I don’t get why they’re coming to me for that, because I really look like a chick, so it’s not going to fulfill the fantasy. So, there’s those guys — then there’s the guys that want to be dominated by a woman, like a chick with a strap-on. That’s pretty kosher, I suppose. Then there’s these guys, who I refer to as Tranny-chasers — they’re these guys who don’t care what you look like. They don’t care what you sound like. They don’t care how tall you are. They don’t care how the boob job is. They don’t care how big or how little your dick is. If you’re a Tranny, they want to have sex with you. They’re Tranny-chasers — and they’re nuts. It’s almost insulting, because they’ll tell me, “You’re the most beautiful person on the face of the planet,” and write me fan mail — and then they’ll do the same thing for some three-hundred-and-fifty pound guy wearing a tube-top.

IS THERE AN AGE RANGE THESE FELLOWS FALL INTO?

Bailey Jay: My fans are definitely — if you look on the forums, they’re real young guys who, instead of looking at girlie magazines, look at Trannies. They’re like eighteen and whatever. Then you get seventy-five- and eighty-year olds. I don’t share the same fan base with a lot of the other girls —mine are usually Straight guys who found out about me through one of their buddies, and they write me emails all the time. They say, “I’m so not into that; I’ve looked at Tranny porn before, and it’s kind of gross — but then I found you and I think you’re so beautiful.” It’s usually, in my experience, the military guys — Army guys. Army guys love me. That can’t get enough of me.

SO YOU’RE DOING YOUR PART TO DEFEND OUR NATION.

Bailey Jay: I am — and they get on the web-cam sometimes, and they’ll be overseas, which is kind of crazy. I’ve dated Army guys. I think some of them have romanticized being in the armed forces. They may like Trannies, but they’ll lean more towards a Tranny who has more of a pin-up look. But they’re cool. I’m treated with a lot of respect in this industry — which is surprising.

WHY IS IT THAT A LOT OF THE GIRLS DON’T GET RESPECT?

Bailey Jay: I don’t think they do. Granted, sometimes you’ll get a foreign fan who may not have a lot of respect for women, much less a Transsexual. They’ll come into a web-cam room and be like, “Jerk off your Tranny dick, you she-whore,” or something ridiculous. I think a lot of the other girls are willing to put up with that because they’re not used to being treated with respect. They’re used to being the butt of a joke all the time, being a Transsexual. But I’m treated as a woman. I’m not treated like a social pariah. So I immediately am like, “Dude, I’m not gonna let you call me a whore so that I can make four dollars on a web-cam site.” The other girls — they make my life harder sometimes, because a lot of them are hookers and escorts. I have guys who ask me how much my rates are, to come to my house and fuck me — I’m just like, “Are you kidding me?” I can’t get mad at them — it’s the other girls that put that image out there — and you can’t get mad at the girls, because it’s society that makes them have to get on their backs to make money, because they’re portrayed as social pariahs.

HAVE THERE BEEN TIMES WHERE YOU’VE FELT BAD VIBES BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU DO?

Bailey Jay: It’s hard to say, because I really have genuinely been treated with respect — because I carry myself in a way that demands respect from a person. I don’t provoke people to want to yell at me. Other Transsexuals, I think, will take out their frustration on how passable I am — Transsexuals that don’t do porn, obviously. They try to make it a point that they’re mad at me because I do porn, when I think it’s very clear they’re misplacing anger with other stuff. A genetic female can do porn, so can a Transsexual, so can a Black girl, so can a Chinese girl — you know what I mean? I used to get hate mail from Trannies: “You’re holding back the Transgender community and this, this and this.” I’m always polite and I always respond — well, I used to respond when I had the patience: “This percentage of the money that I made went towards this charity, and I do a lot for Transsexuals, and I wrote my congressperson about Gay marriage — I do a lot.” A lot of times these people, like I said, are misplacing anger. Which I totally understand. I used to think I hated so-and-so model that maybe had a better career than I did two years ago. I’d say, “I don’t hate her because her career’s better than mine; I hate her because she has bad plastic surgery —” and then I realized, Why the hell would I be mad at her because she has bad plastic surgery? I realized, after all that, that I was mad because so-and-so had the career that I wanted.

WAS THERE ANYBODY YOU THOUGHT WAS REALLY COOL WHO YOU WANTED TO BE LIKE — WHO YOU SET YOUR SIGHTS ON EMULATING?

Bailey Jay: Well, I don’t know if I’d go as far as emulating her, but I’ve always been very impressed with Amanda Lepore and people like that. I don’t know. I like the oddballs.

SHE’S ON THE COVER OF THIS BOOK, INCIDENTALLY.

Bailey Jay: Oh my gosh — that’s awesome! She’s amazing. She’s fucking rad. I’ve never had a weird love-hate thing — like, “Oh, I wish I was her,” or whatever; I genuinely am just impressed by her. She’s a weirdo. I think she’s so cool. She’s a different generation. From what I’ve gathered, her and I are nothing alike, whatsoever — but there’s this thing in me that’s like, “I want to be cool like her.” She’s cool.

IMAGINE IF YOU HAD LIVED A GENERATION EARLIER AND DID WHAT YOU DO NOW — HOW DIFFERENTLY YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN TREATED. DO YOU SEE AN EVOLUTION —

Bailey Jay: I definitely want to take it there. I really do, as an optimist — but to be perfectly honest, this is going to be the most bleak answer I could probably give, and I apologize in advance —

OKAY —

Bailey Jay: I’ve known many girls from my generation who’ve done the same thing as me, if not transitioned later or transitioned in a more accepting environment, and their stories are not as nice as mine — and it’s correlated to the fact that I transitioned with this voice, being five-foot-five, naturally hairless — and when I transitioned, I turned into a piece of ass. I didn’t transition into someone who kinda looked like a chick. I make my living by my looks. I feel like it’s a safe bet to say I’m attractive. Let me try to put this somehow without sounding like a cunt: I’m only treated as well as I am about my transition because I’m the poster child. It’s because I’m the nice tiny little package of, “This is Transgenderism at it’s best!” It’s an easier thing to swallow. I don’t have big huge hard tits. I don’t have silicone golf balls in my cheeks. I don’t have mounds and mounds and mounds of platinum blonde hair, and I don’t sound like Bea Arthur — you know what I mean? So, everyone treated me with respect — and I am so sad to say that. I would like to say that my life is easy because people are good, but the reality is that people only care about you if you’re hot. They have empathy for me because I’m sexually attractive — and that’s the only reason they have any empathy for me, whatsoever.

AND YOU’RE GOING TO HARNESS THAT EMPATHY TO DO GOOD THINGS —

Bailey Jay: Definitely. People want to listen to me because I’m hot — but for fuck’s sake they’re listening to me, so that counts. Being hot almost works against me sometimes, because people listen to me but they assume that I have nothing interesting to say — but starting my radio show and my podcast is what really made me realize that people think that I’m interesting. I fired my publicist in L.A. because he kept telling me, “Oh, we’ll get you a hosting job on G4 and we won’t tell them you’re Transgendered” and this, this and this. You know — stupid stuff like that. He was a moron and he didn’t get that I want to get political really fast and I want to be taken seriously, and I want to Traci Lords myself out of porn as fast as possible. He just didn’t seem to understand that. I told him I don’t want to be famous. He had no idea what I was talking about. It was like I was speaking another language when I told him I want to get political and I want him to get me the political events. I want him to get me a fundraiser instead of getting me some shitty made-for-TV movie about some Transgendered girl that gets made fun of in high school. I don’t want to act. I want to actually do stuff.

I SEE.

Bailey Jay: I kinda want to act. I don’t want to just be famous — that’s a double-edged sword —

AREN’T YOU ALREADY FAMOUS?

Bailey Jay: That’s what people tell me — but I don’t even think about it, because it gives me a panic attack.

REGARDING THIS POLITICAL ACTIVISM THAT YOU SEE YOURSELF UNDERTAKING — TELL US, WHAT IS IT IN THE WORLD THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE? WHAT’S THE SITUATION, AND HOW WOULD IT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED?

Bailey Jay: Well, whether I was genetic female or Transgendered female — I feel very strongly about Gay rights, and obviously I live my life as enough of a woman that I could stay far away from the Gay rights movement. But I care about it deeply, and I think that there’s going to be a lot of politicians in twenty years that are going to be pretending that they never said some of the stuff they’ve said. Same deal with the people with their tail between their legs now, who were trying to fight integration in schools. Now their tails are between their legs because they’re like, “Fuck, it was the times; it was different.” I want people to have to apologize for trying to fight Gay marriage. I know they’re going to have to hang their heads in shame in a few years, and I’ll soak it up like a sponge. I’m going to love it. I want it to be now. I want people to look at Homophobia as being ridiculous and disgusting — same way that they do racism. You know, Gay people have rights. I think Gay people are just the coolest. I fuckin’ love them.

BOTH THE MALES AND THE FEMALES?

Bailey Jay: Oh yeah. All of them. They’re fuckin’ spectacular.

DO YOU GET COMMUNICATIONS FROM KIDS WHO FEEL THEY’RE IN A BAD WAY OR IN A CONFUSED SITUATION?

Bailey Jay: Sometimes I do — but I make an effort to avoid it, because my job is inappropriate. When it comes down to it, I’m a Porn Star — and as much as I want to help a sixteen-year-old kid or a fourteen-year-old kid, as far as I’m concerned they shouldn’t even know who I am. I would love to help, but I feel that it’s inappropriate because of my job — and that’s just the world we live in. But occasionally I’ll get an eighteen-year-old or even a seventeen-year-old who will ask for advice, and I’ll break my rule and I’ll help out and give them advice. But I don’t have much advice to give. I did porn because I knew I could own porn. I can’t tell anybody else to do that. I can’t assure some kid that they’re going to have the same benefits I did doing porn. They go, “Oh, I’m thinking about doing porn; I’m thinking about doing Tranny porn; I just transitioned —” I can’t be honest because they’ll get mad. I’ll say, “Look, I have to be honest: chances are you’ll either super luck-out and do exactly what I did, or you’ll be an archive girl and you’ll get your five-hundred dollars and that’s it — and those pics are up there for the next twenty years and you can’t get them down and you can’t afford to buy them off the company, so you screwed yourself because you needed five-hundred dollars or because you were trying to find out if you were feminine in a public way. It’s not worth it.” Of course they get angry. They think I’m arrogant — because I look like a female. It really is a lesser headache to let people write me stuff and feel good they got it out — and me not respond.

I SEE. WELL, YOU GOT MARRIED THE OTHER DAY —

Bailey Jay: I did.

HOW WAS YOUR WEDDING?

Bailey Jay: It was phenomenal. It was so great. My mother and grandmother were there, and his whole family was there. It was really great. I thought I looked pretty great. I had a big old dress on. It was really fun.

HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR HUSBAND?

Bailey Jay: He was a photographer, and he said, “I’m taking a trip to Virginia to do a photo shoot. I thought I would round up some girls. I don’t know if you model, but I think you’re very pretty and I would love to shoot you while I’m in town.” He came to Virginia with his girlfriend at the time — actually, his makeup artist — and he was the photographer, and what ended up happening was, he said, “You know, you’re very beautiful and I’d love to shoot you. I’m not sure if you’ve ever modeled before.” At this point, I was already a pretty well-known adult film star, and so I responded with, “Oh, I assumed you Googled me by now, and I’m going to assume that you know that I have a penis, and that I’m male and blah, blah, blah.” He had never seen a Transsexual. He was blown away. He was like, “Oh my god — because you’re so beautiful —” and he was like, “I thought all Trangendered people are like Thai lady boys that would like give me HIV.” I was like, “No, no, no.” So we met and he said I was gorgeous and he was like blown away. I remember meeting him and meeting his girlfriend — and both of them being like, “Oh my god, this is crazy.” I remember him hitting on me and he was like, “This is so weird. I never thought I could be with a Transsexual. I just think you’re so hot —” and then I remember thinking he was a creep because he was supposed to be my photographer — and I was like, “Oh great, another Tranny chaser. This is awesome.” But he ended up being really nice. We ended up being friends and his girlfriend ended up falling in love with me because she was a crazy person and we were all friends and I hooked up with both of them. She ended up being nuts and so I told him, “Dude, I’m not trying to drive a wedge between you and your girlfriend, but your girlfriend is fucking nuts.” The three of us were friends and we lived together and eventually she was just a psycho and they broke up. I left. I had left, and then they broke up, and then he called me — and we’ve been together ever since. That was about two-and-a-half years ago.

ALRIGHT. WELL, CONGRATULATIONS.

Bailey Jay: I’m really happy, and she’s long gone — and she was bananas. That girl was nuts.

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR SUCCESS IN THE PORN BIZ. IT’S NOT EASY TO COME OUT ON TOP IN THAT RACKET, IS IT?

Bailey Jay: Oh no. Definitely not. It’s hard to make any money — I don’t know how these girls with pussies do it. The only reason I make money is because I have a dick.

WELL, I DON’T KNOW QUITE HOW TO RESPOND TO THAT, BUT IT’S AN INTERESTING STATEMENT, I MUST SAY.

Bailey Jay: Yeah, I definitely feel that way. You could just Google the word “vagina” and you’ll get five-thousand pictures of vaginas. You know what I mean? It’s very easy to find a naked girl on the Internet.

YES.

Bailey Jay: But to find a naked Transsexual that maybe looks very genetic — there’s definitely more than just me, obviously, but I feel like they’re farther and fewer between.

LET’S HOPE THERE’S MORE LIKE YOU.

Bailey Jay: Oh yeah. I think there definitely will be. There’s all these new girls that are popping up. They’re so pretty —

WELL, I THINK WE’VE COVERED SO MUCH HERE — IS THERE ANY MORE THAT YOU’D LIKE TO TELL US?

Bailey Jay: I don’t know if this is super important, but I’ve been talking to my husband and we’re going to be doing some pretty cool independent films and advertising them on my podcast. I think they’re going to be really, really, really popular. I’m gonna be a platinum blonde in it, and they’re going to be really weird, and I’m super excited about it. So we’re going to be working on those next year.

WE’LL BE LOOKING OUT FOR THOSE. SO, WE’VE REACHED THE CONCLUSION OF OUR DISCUSSION —

Bailey Jay: Okay, I’m sure we covered everything — so we should be good. ~

Jules Jive

Singer & Songwriter

Photo: Manuel Otto Vasquez

PART ONE

QUESTIONS POSED BY MANUEL OTTO VASQUEZ OR JOHN AES-NIHIL IN THE BACK OF A VAN: WE SHOULD START WITH WHO YOU ARE.

Jules Jive: I’m Jules Jewels. People also know me as Julius Jive. I’m a singer-songwriter-traveler, and I work at Walmart. That’s about it. It’s been really crazy. First, I have the controversy at Walmart: I’m just living out in the parking lot. Nobody has to know about that, but everybody does — and then the fact that I started to wear lipstick to work — then one day I come to work in really tight girl pants, and people are like, “Whoa! What’s wrong?” You know? “Are you just a rocker?” See, I would tell them that — I was just Rock & Roll. Eventually I would come to work wearing blouses and girl’s shoes, and then people started to wonder: Either I’m Gay or I just don’t know how to dress right, like I was going through a phase or something.

WHEN DID IT FIRST START?

Jules Jive: So early. I had a dream that I had pigtails and I had a one-piece bathing suit and I was going down a slip-n-slide at an amusement park, you know?

YEAH.

Jules Jive: And I ended up in the streets, at the bottom of the slide.

WHERE WERE YOU LIVING?

Jules Jive: I was living in Orlando, Florida. So it was a pretty big difference. I’d never experienced the city, so it was weird to dream about it. I must have foretold my future. Third grade came — and it was Officer’s Day. There was a contest, and whoever of the boys dressed as a girl best, and which of the girls dressed as a boy best, would get a trophy.

WHO ORGANIZED THAT?

Jules Jive: That was the teacher. So I borrowed a dress from my sister or my mom — I can’t remember — and I loved wearing that dress. Just the fact that I was in that dress, it made me feel like a princess in the classroom. I loved it.

WHAT DOES YOUR FAMILY THINK ABOUT THIS?

Jules Jive: At first, they were like, “Stop. Don’t take the hormones” — you know? My mom started seeing a psychiatrist. She got intensely sad over it. She didn’t want to deal with it. She wouldn’t respond to my messages. My dad would just bark about how much he hated it.

WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED WEARING WOMEN’S CLOTHES, WHOSE CLOTHES WERE THEY?

Jules Jive: I would sneak into my sister’s bedroom and I’d want to dig through her drawers. I’d look at all her wares. She was my stepsister; she’s not blood-related or anything. I’d try on her clothes, and then I got my own clothes, and then I threw them away, and then I got more and I threw them away — and I got more. It doesn’t take fear to come out as you truly are, but it takes fear to not be who you truly are.

THAT SOUNDED REALLY GOOD. HEY, PLAY THAT SONG.

Jules Jive: [sings and plays guitar]

ALRIGHT. WHY DO YOU HAVE A PICTURE OF YOURSELF ON YOUR GUITAR?

Jules Jive: That’s my graduation picture. I graduated high school.

WHY DO YOU CHOOSE TO DISPLAY IT ON YOUR GUITAR? AN OLD PICTURE OF YOU —

Jules Jive: Because we’re all just different states of mind at different places and times. Me, in this time, was bad. So, does that make sense?

YEAH.

Jules Jive: You can never be the same person twice. We’re always changing. Every day I have new ideas and a new version of “you,” in a different way. You know? And when enough new ideas conquer an idea — that’s when those ideas change. Like, someone who’s a hardcore Christian changes and becomes a Satanist because their ideas change.

I REALLY LIKE THE PICTURE OF YOU SPREADING THE EAGLE —

Jules Jive: That was just a joke — just to show a pink pussy on my face, because I don’t think I’ll ever get the surgery. It’s just a lot of money that I don’t have.

BUT IF YOU DID HAVE THE MONEY, WOULD YOU DO IT?

Jules Jive: It’s like getting a tattoo. It’s there forever, you know? That’s why I don’t have any tattoos. I suppose if I wanted to get tattoos I’d also want to get the little thingie cut off.

WHEN DID YOU START TAKING HORMONES FOR YOUR BREASTS?

Jules Jive: About eleven months ago.

HOW DO THEY MAKE YOU FEEL?

Jules Jive: At first it gets rid of all the tension — like a relaxation through all your muscles — and then it slowly turns your skin into like a softer skin, like butter, and it kinda looks like baloney.

SO YOUR SKIN IS FEELING LIKE BALONEY THESE DAYS?

Jules Jive: Yeah, it feels like baloney.

WOW. DO YOU MIND? [FEELS JIVE’S ARM]

Jules Jive: See?

IT DOES HAVE A BALONEY FEEL TO IT —

Jules Jive: It especially changed on my legs.

HOW MUCH DO HORMONES COST?

Jules Jive: I got really lucky ‘cuz mine costs nothing.

OKAY. WHAT’S GOING ON WITH YOUR MUSIC CAREER?

Jules Jive: I managed to join a band with another Transsexual in the band — but exactly the opposite: They were a she-to-he. She turned into a he, and he looks just like us — sounds like a boy and everything. He has acne now, and a deep voice.

ARE YOU EVER GOING TO CHANGE YOUR VOICE?

Jules Jive: Yeah. I like to think of myself as a Joan Jett kind of girl, you know? I just like have a deep voice. That’s what it’s all about: fighting for your individuality. That’s what I want to do.

DOES YOUR MOTHER DEMAND THAT YOU BECOME A GUY AGAIN?

Jules Jive: My mom hasn’t demanded it — yet. She definitely hasn’t talked to me as much anymore.

DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL BAD?

Jules Jive: I don’t think I can go over to their house for Christmas or anything —

WHY NOT?

Jules Jive: That’s what I asked them — because they’re too set in their mind.

DO YOU THINK THAT HOLLYWOOD CHANGED YOU, OR WERE YOU ALWAYS FEELING THIS WAY?

Jules Jive: Well, obviously I was always feeling this way, but coming to Hollywood — I was a stranger in a new land, so I could be whoever I wanted.

A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.

Jules Jive: Yes. [a cat enters the scene]

[TO CAT]: YOU’RE A REAL PUSSY.

Jules Jive: Isn’t she — or he?

[TO JIVE, REGARDING PICTURE ON GUITAR] WHAT’S UP WITH THE FETISH NAZI GIRL?

Jules Jive: When I graduated high school, the two things I had on my shoulders, like the devil and the angel, were music on one side — and then on the other side was like this need for deviance. I just had to be bad. So that’s what that means. In an unconscious state, I do have a connection.

I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE PEOPLE AT WALMART AND YOUR TRANSITION AT WORK —

Jules Jive: Basically, at first there was just a lot of questions. I mostly told people to get over it because I didn’t want to hear about it. It’s really ugly when people ask you, “What’s going on? Are you transitioning?” Actually, they usually don’t ask if you’re transitioning. No one thinks you’re a Transsexual; they just think that you’re Gay.

YEAH.

Jules Jive: But little do they know that I’m not even a Homosexual in that sense. So, it almost doesn’t make sense why people would think that first.

I MEAN, YOU ARE BISEXUAL, AREN’T YOU?

Jules Jive: No, but I think the estrogen makes me feel that way a little bit — but when it comes down dust-to-dust, I would rather be a woman that I lust.

BUT THAT HUSKY WHORE —

Jules Jive: I have experimented. I slept with a Transsexual once — but he was very hidden in the closet. He was an Asian, and he lived with a bunch of roommates, and he didn’t want anybody to know.

HE WAS A DRAG QUEEN?

Jules Jive: Like at night. He was a cross-dresser, but he had shaved legs and everything. I went in a very linear sequence when I was crossing over. I started with makeup, then went to underwear — any kind of underwear was like a turn-on. It moves onto lipstick and then—

WOULD YOU EVER STEAL ANY OF YOUR GIRLFRIENDS’ PANTIES AND THEN WEAR THEM?

Jules Jive: I’ve never done that to a girlfriend, but my friend’s sister —

DID YOU EVER LOOK THROUGH ANY OF THEIR DRAWERS?

Jules Jive: No. One time I stole this girl’s underwear, and they had these snaps on the sides so you can snap them off if you need to real quick.

YEAH.

Jules Jive: Very cool.

WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED WEARING WOMEN’S CLOTHES — TELL US ABOUT A COUPLE OF TIMES YOU’VE BEEN CAUGHT BY OTHER PEOPLE.

Jules Jive: I got caught by my step-dad once.

HOW?

Jules Jive: I was in the closet and for some stupid reason I had the door open, and he walked in — and I’m like taking off this little thing underneath, and taking off the top of this pajama thing that you wear to bed, and he saw me taking it off from below and he was like, “What are you doing?” I was like, “I was taking off a T-shirt” and he was like, “Are you sure?” He was like, “Was that a T-shirt?” One time I was covered in nail polish and he made me take it off. They were like very demanding parents. They would say, “Do you have a belt on?” They would check, and throw me against the stairwell. They were real jerks. That was my family — my mom and my little sisters.

DID YOU EVER STEAL ANY OF THEIR STUFF?

Jules Jive: No.

DO YOU LIKE TO HAVE SEX WITH WOMEN?

Jules Jive: Yeah — and I think it’s cool when a girl finally gives in to her own Lesbian self and we’re having sex. It’s like this great feeling that we’re both being like delinquents.

HEY — CAN ANYONE GET INSIDE YOUR VAN RIGHT NOW AND JUST DRIVE AWAY? BECAUSE THE ENGINE’S ON —

Jules Jive: Yeah.

SO WE COULD BE SOMEWHERE ELSE —

Jules Jive: No, we would have enough things to counterattack with ourselves —

ARE THE DOORS LOCKED?

Jules Jive: Yeah. Those doors? No, they’re not locked —

OKAY — THAT’LL DO IT FOR NOW.

PART TWO

Two Weeks Later, a Letter to Julius’ Father, and the Reply

Manuel Otto Vasquez: READ THAT LETTER —

Jules Jive: This is a letter I sent to my dad about me being a Transsexual:

“You are going to be upset while reading this but please open your heart and mind to my side of the story. I haven’t told you for years because of this exact response you’ve given me. You speak of privacy but you don’t even care how I feel. I’ve gone to professionals for awhile now. I’ve seen a psychiatrist. The condition I have is very normal. Thousands of people feel the same way as I do. Nothing is wrong with me, and I’m very public about my gender identity. You should also know that gender identity is separate from sexual orientation. A Transgender person may identify as Straight, Gay or Bisexual. My girlfriend is also Transgender — biologically a female. Since I plan to live as a girl from now on, I guess that means I won’t be able to participate in any family-oriented activities. I’m sorry you think of me as being selfish, but it’s who I am. It’s like trying to tell you that you have to wear a dress because society wants you that way. You don’t feel right in a dress, do you? I know it’s really hard, especially for very conservative parents. Nicole knows and accepts me, and has been the one who wanted me to tell you. Taylor knows as well, and supports me. They’ve known for a long time that there are Transgender people, and that I happen to be one. Look it up. Research it.”

This is my dad’s letter. I sent him a letter telling him that I’m Transsexual, wearing women’s clothes and shit, and this is his response:

“Sorry it took so long for me to answer. You have to comprehend that I am going through some problems in my life. This year has been very stressful financially, physically and personally. So let me say that all I hear from you is me, me and me. All that you do is whine. I am not upset, I am fucking furious. I’m pissed off and tired of having this stupid conversation. I have no heart. You fucking broke it. You didn’t have to tell me nothing because I have known for years — but what you do in your own time is your motherfucking business. You’re a grown man or a grown woman or whatever the fuck you are. I did not care then and I don’t care now. All I care is that you’re safe and that you’re healthy. Do you copy that, my friend? I do love you and care for your well-being. That does not mean I have to like what you do — and as long as you don’t mix me in your motherfucking private affairs, I don’t give a shit. You could have been death himself and we still would have been in love — but we would have not expected you to bring your business to our home. What professionals? You can say anything you want and bring as much scientific bullshit data you want. What you are talking about is still not the norm. No one is talking about society. The norm is a man and a woman. That is the principle of nature. Anything that deviates from the principle is outside the norm. Don’t you wonder why human beings are the only animals in the kingdom who don’t feel comfortable with who they are? Amazing — but this discussion is irrelevant. Again, I don’t care about your business. You believe in what you want and I believe in what I want. Fair? There is definitely something wrong with you. You always feel the need to push your bullshit on us, and I say I love you and care for you — is that not enough? You have to make a federal case of everything — and if I don’t like what you like, I don’t love you. I try to do by you the best I know of in raising you. It was not easy, and we both know it. Sorry there wasn’t a handful of real parenting. I was young and stupid and if I ever hurt your feelings or did anything out of the ordinary that you feel was not fair, I sincerely apologize from the bottom of my heart. All I could think of was to teach you to survive in the real world without us. Now you are an adult — go out there and survive. Too bad you won’t be able to attend the family reunions anymore. We will miss you there, as I wrote before. Remember these important days: Mother’s Day, birthdays, Christmas are good days to contact your mother and siblings. I’m impressed with how much they support you after you’ve given them so much grief. You have been an asshole to Evan and Taylor, and they still protect you. Do you wonder why? You are their brother and always will be. Family always comes first. Remember that. Friends come and go, but family will always be there. No one hates you. I love you and care deeply for you. Your mother loves you. Your siblings adore you. We will always love you. Remember that. This will be our last conversation because I don’t care to continue this conversation any longer. I need you to get a postal address so I can get rid of this pile of mail I receive in your name. Take good care of yourself and let us know if you need anything.”

Fucked up, right?

Photo: John Aes-Nihil

PART THREE

Two Weeks Later, on an Acid Trip

Jules Jive: There’s some trippy-ass shit going on here, man.

MANUEL OTTO VASQUEZ: HOW ARE YOU FEELING?

Jules Jive: Dude, I’m tripping balls.

TRIPPING BALLS, EH?

Jules Jive: Why are you filming this?

TELL US SOMETHING, JULIUS — SOMETHING YOU’VE REALIZED ON ACID —

Jules Jive: Okay, check this out. Acid is so bizarre because it takes you out of your reality and makes it into everything’s reality — like digging a hole through your subconscious. I’m trying to break these barriers and I’m fucking coming to you, and you’re the soul, and I’m breaking through your barriers and turning your soul down into little pieces, like the devil looking at you — and you’re filming me. I’m the devil. There we go. You got it. I’m the fucking devil.

WHAT DO YOU SEE IN THE MIRROR?

Jules Jive: You’re fucking blowing my mind, dude. That’s fucking weird. That’s how you know it exists. Whatever it is, man — stop it. You’re freaking me out and shit. Come on! You guys are dicks —

THIS IS REALITY. THIS IS THE TRUE SELF.

Jules Jive: I’m going to kick your ass. I’m going to kick your ass. Dude, fuck this guy. I’m going to take this mirror and break it. You’re a fucking idiot!

PART FOUR

Two Weeks Later, a Renouncing of Identity

MANUEL OTTO VASQUEZ: SO, WHO ARE YOU?

Jules Jive: I’m Julius Jive.

ARE YOU JULES JEWELS ANYMORE?

Jules Jive: Not really.

WHAT OTHER NAMES DO YOU GO BY?

Jules Jive: Michael Moore, Jules Jive — but I think I’m going to stick to Julius.

OKAY. SO, WHAT HAPPENED SINCE OUR LAST INTERVIEW?

Jules Jive: I did a lot of LSD. I made a lot of agreements with myself.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU’VE MADE A LOT OF AGREEMENTS?

Jules Jive: I realized I wasn’t happy with life — and the things I thought were important, I realized were not important anymore — because it wasn’t helping me get towards my goal. My goal is to just be creative with music, but it’s hard to do that if you’re always worrying about what your face looks like and how much makeup you have on and what your hair looks like and what you’re going to wear. It’s too much stuff to worry about.

SO WHAT HAPPENED ON YOUR TRIP, BESIDE ME FREAKING YOU OUT?

Jules Jive: I imagined myself being in a natural state; being born into a social realm without the ability to communicate — and what I would do in that situation — being put into the crazy society without any knowledge of what’s going on. Then I realized, I looked at myself kind of in like a movie-kind of aspect, and I was like, that’s not what I’d be doing if I was in nature, so why am I doing it just to be in this weird social-thought thing? You know? I just want to get out of that.

YOU WANT TO STOP BEING A WOMAN?

Jules Jive: Yeah. I want to get out of that social aspect of making gender important. I mean, it’s really not that important, if you think about it. Gender’s a made-up mythology.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S MADE-UP?

Jules Jive: It’s made-up because, if you think about Africa and stuff, everybody wears the same shit, you know? Everyone like has the same little — I’m not talking about ancient Africa, living in forests and stuff. No one had man-things that they’re doing or woman-things that they’re doing.

THEY HAVE THEIR SOCIAL ROLES —

Jules Jive: Yeah, yeah. Like nurturing, hunters and gatherers and stuff, yeah —

LIKE, AESTHETICALLY?

Jules Jive: Yeah — it’s completely different. It’s like women in this culture are so aesthetically driven that they forget what it means to be a woman. It almost changes their entire perception of what it means to be a woman. Think about it.

DID BILLY AND ZACK [JIVE’S AND MANUEL’S MUTUAL FRIENDS] INFLUENCE YOUR CHANGE?

Jules Jive: No.

AT ALL? BECAUSE I HEARD THAT THEY WERE TELLING YOU STUFF LIKE, “OH, YOU DON’T LOOK LIKE A GIRL, AND YOU SHOULD CHANGE BACK.” ZACK TOLD ME HE WAS TELLING YOU THAT, AND HE MIGHT THINK THAT HE’S SOMEWHAT RESPONSIBLE.

Jules Jive: No. I never listened to them if they did say that.

SO THERE WAS LIKE NO OUTER —

Jules Jive: No, it was all inner self-decisions.

HOW ARE YOU COPING WITH THE BOOBS?

Jules Jive: Well, it is a drawback from my image — but I don’t really care about image anymore. So it doesn’t really matter.

IF YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT THE IMAGE, THEN WHY DO YOU WANT TO LOOK LIKE A MAN AGAIN?

Jules Jive: Just to keep distractions as far away as possible. Like, I don’t want to be reminded every living waking second that I’m a Transsexual. I could never pass completely. I’d just rather not do it.

HOW DO YOUR PARENTS FEEL ABOUT IT?

Jules Jive: They definitely like it.

SO THEY FOUND OUT —

Jules Jive: Yeah — I told them because I wanted my mom to give me some money.

SO YOU CALLED HER AND SAID, “HEY, I’M A BOY AGAIN. CAN I GET SOME MONEY?”

Jules Jive: Yeah.

AND SHE AGREED?

Jules Jive: Well, I don’t really expect any money.

BECAUSE YOU TOLD ME HOW THEY JUST SIGNED UP ON ONE OF YOUR SOCIAL PROFILES —

Jules Jive: Yeah.

DID THEY CHECK UP ON YOU ON THERE?

Jules Jive: Yeah. I might keep all my old pictures up there just for memory’s sake, so if I die —

WHY ARE YOU THINKING YOU MIGHT DIE?

Jules Jive: You could die any day.

HAVE THERE BEEN ANY CHANGES AT WORK, OR ANY REACTIONS?

Jules Jive: Yeah — some people recognize me.

CUSTOMERS?

Jules Jive: They’re still talking about me. I’m like the talk of the town. But I definitely feel like I look good enough to make them think, like, I don’t know — whatever.

DO YOU LIKE HOW YOU LOOK THIS WAY, OR BEFORE?

Jules Jive: I don’t care what I look like.

DO YOU FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE AS YOU ARE NOW, OR AS A WOMAN?

Jules Jive: I guess if I were in a different world — I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve learned to just drop the whole aesthetic thing — the value thing — you know? I used to hold it strong and true, you know? Like I used to believe in aesthetics one-hundred percent, you know? Now it’s like this veil has been blinding me — and LSD just kind of took it away.

BUT DO YOU FEEL BETTER AS A MAN OR A WOMAN?

Jules Jive: I don’t know. What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman?

WHATEVER YOU WANT IT TO MEAN.

Jules Jive: Well, everyone has a different opinion. Whatever — it doesn’t matter. I feel comfortable both ways — but I don’t want to be bothered by it. It’s easier to be a man, you know? It’s easier to wake up and not worry about nothing, put on whatever — you know?

HAVE YOU NOTICED ANY CHANGES IN PEOPLE GIVING YOU MORE OR LESS ATTENTION?

Jules Jive: Yeah. Definitely. I was at Denny’s the other night, and some guy in the corner couldn’t stop staring at me — and he was obviously a Homosexual, but it’s like, “Why are you staring at me now more than when I was a woman?” Homosexuals really don’t like women, that’s why — but for some reason I think I still look like a Homosexual. It’s probably the hormones. I don’t know.

I’VE BEEN NOTICING THAT YOU’VE BEEN WEARING THOSE SUNGLASSES AROUND HERE LATELY.

Jules Jive: Yeah.

AND THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I’VE TALKED TO YOU SINCE YOUR CHANGE BACK —

Jules Jive: I like these glasses. I bought them awhile ago.

BUT I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU WITHOUT THEM.

Jules Jive: Everyone has like a little gimmick. It’s my gimmick. It’s easy — and you can kinda hide behind them.

ARE YOU GONNA KEEP YOUR BREASTS?

Jules Jive: I don’t know. I might work them out.

DO YOU THINK YOU’LL EVER REVERT BACK TO BEING A WOMAN?

Jules Jive: No.

YOU DON’T THINK THERE’S ANY POSSIBILITY?

Jules Jive: No — well, nothing’s impossible.

DO YOU THINK YOU MIGHT DO SOME CROSS-DRESSING STILL?

Jules Jive: Not at this point in time.

MAYBE DOWN THE ROAD?

Jules Jive: Maybe.

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO SAY, THAT WE HAVEN’T COVERED?

Jules Jive: Just, “Do what you feel, kids.” That’s all. ~

Harvey Katz

Entertainer & Educator

Photo: Amos Mac

GEORGE PETROS: WE’RE TALKING TO HARVEY KATZ. ALRIGHT, HARVEY, YOU’RE IN ATHENS, GEORGIA, AREN’T YA?

Harvey Katz: I am. Yes.

TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE TOWN OF ATHENS —

Harvey Katz: I’ve lived here for twelve years and it’s about doubled in population since I’ve been here. It’s a Southern college town. A lot of music comes out of here, which is really cool. There’s always shows to go to every night. It’s turning into a really cool city. Since the economy has gone down, a lot more people are staying after they graduate. Like, I stayed after graduating from the University of Georgia.

WHAT DID YOU MAJOR IN?

Harvey Katz: P.E. I wasn’t much for college.

YOU GONNA USE THAT DEGREE?

Harvey Katz: Probably not. I originally went into it for the sex-ed aspect of it, but this is an abstinence-only state —

EXPLAIN TO OUR READERS WHAT THAT MEANS —

Harvey Katz: I don’t know if it’s still going on, but during the George Bush era, when I got my degree, if you received money from the government for your health-ed program, you could only teach abstinence as the only safe sex. Safer sex — you can’t mention condoms. You can’t teach anything about that. You just have to show them videos of what gonorrhea looks like. I taught at a high school that had the highest teen-pregnancy rate in Georgia. It was really a circus.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

Harvey Katz: I was born and raised in Miami, Florida. I lived there until I was nineteen, and then I moved to Georgia.

WHAT WAS YOUR LIFE LIKE DOWN IN MIAMI?

Harvey Katz: I’m Jewish. I spent a lot of time in synagogue and Hebrew school. I did a lot of martial arts and played a lot outside, and it was decent. I feel once I got into teenage-hood — and a Queer youth — it doesn’t even matter whether you’re in San Francisco or Miami or in Athens, Georgia. It’s just such a lonesome existence. I think that’s changing a lot now, but I feel like that was a large part of me wanting to get out of there — to find like-minded people —

I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT MIAMI MIGHT BE A GOOD PLACE FOR QUEER KIDS —

Harvey Katz: I think it was the Nineties — you know, like the Gay-Men era of Miami — and I was a teenager, too. I wasn’t really tapped into the community that I have better access to now.

WHAT HIGH SCHOOL DID YOU GO TO?

Harvey Katz: I went to Palmetto Senior High. It’s just a public school.

HOW WAS YOUR LIFE THERE?

Harvey Katz: I was kinda a weird kid. I smoked a lot of Weed. People would yell at me in the halls because I looked like a boy.

HOW DID YOU FEEL WHEN YOU HEARD THAT?

Harvey Katz: I was pretty enraged. Until my senior year, I was really an extremely quiet kid. I mean shy. In my senior year, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and my social life changed because what did I have to be afraid of — you know what I’m saying? It seemed like school was a lot less scary when you have stuff like that going on at home.

I’M SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR MOM.

Harvey Katz: That’s okay. It’s a long time ago now.

SO THAT WAS A TOUGH TIME FOR YOU —

Harvey Katz: Yeah, it really sucked — but you get through it. Everybody’s got their thing, I think. That was just my thing.

WHEN DID YOU REALIZE THAT SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT, THAT SOMETHING WAS UP WITH YOU?

Harvey Katz: I was always very much an other. Whether it was gendered or not — growing up, I was so weird. I wasn’t much like my friends in a way that felt really tangible. My parents noticed. I had friends and I was a likeable person, but I was very much not like the other girls around me — and I don’t know if that’s a gender experience. I feel like I was very noticeably an other from the time I was very young. I came out as Queer at about thirteen to some friends. By seventeen, I was out to all my friends and family. My mom finally asked me. She said that her and my dad went to a therapist about it when I was thirteen. It came as a surprise to nobody.

I SEE.

Harvey Katz: Everybody was just twiddling their thumbs and waiting for me to say something. When I did, I was fine. Things didn’t even really change, as far as I remember. Except I changed a lot. Being able to vocalize it and give it a name, and being able to say, “This is why I feel so different.” It’s really hard to know if my memories of it are what I’ve made of it — like when I think back on it I’m like, “Oh, this is a horribly weird, sad kid with all this anger and resentment towards myself and other people.” Then I was like, “Is that really the reality?” Who knows? I had friends. I had places to go, I guess.

DID THESE THINGS LEAD TO PHYSICAL ALTERCATIONS WITH OTHER KIDS?

Harvey Katz: Rarely. I did all martial arts growing up. I was always fighting in martial-arts class. I had the capability to handle myself in any fight — and that sort of changes the way you go about fighting.

IT BOLSTERS YOUR CONFIDENCE —

Harvey Katz: It does. You know, I was attacked on a few different occasions. One guy — at a Gay bar I snuck into when I was sixteen — he grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t let go. It was a frightening experience for me. It was fine — I got away.

WHAT MARTIAL ARTS DID YOU BRING TO BEAR UPON HIM?

Harvey Katz: I know Keishinkan, an Okinawan martial arts. It’s just a straight-up martial art.

THE OTHER KIDS MUST HAVE CAUGHT WIND OF THE FACT THAT YOU HAD THESE SKILLS AND IT PROBABLY GOT THEM TO LEAVE YOU ALONE —

Harvey Katz: I don’t know. I don’t know that anybody knew about it. Who knows? I don’t know. I’m sure a lot of people said stuff behind my back but in the end, we all say stuff behind people’s backs.

THAT’S TRUE.

Harvey Katz: I just try to keep that in perspective now. High school was a time when you have these periods of, like, “I think everyone’s talking about me — why does everybody hate me?” In the end, they’re just talking about themselves and hating themselves. They could care less about you.

ALRIGHT. NOW TELL US ABOUT YOUR MUSIC AND HOW THAT CAME ABOUT —

Harvey Katz: Well, my shows are usually at least fifty-to-sixty percent spoken word, and then the other part is music. None of the Hip Hop or music pieces started out very serious. They’re all just really light-handed, because sometimes my poetry is like — you know, poetry in itself is a really intense experience to listen to — a cappella words — I understand that can be a really heavy experience for people. So I’m like “Here’s some really fun stuff — here’s a chance to take a breather.”

YOU SAY IT’S FUN BUT IT SEEMS QUITE SERIOUS.

Harvey Katz: It’s a declaration of identity. I do most of my work at universities — I perform and do workshops. One person in our group had a lot of issues with the term “fagette.” They felt it was making light of their identity, and I was like, “It’s a first-person narrative, and if anything it’s just like a call-out. Our lives don’t have to be heavy and horrible.” Because we have these intense experiences doesn’t mean that our life has to be this intense ooze of these really heavy experiences. There are a lot of funny things that happen in your life when you’re a Trans person, you know?

I BET.

Harvey Katz: It’s okay. Let’s make light of the situation. It’s okay. I’m not making light of your experiences; I’m making light of my experience, and it’s okay to have a moment of breathing in this journey. It is really an intense experience. It’s time to get this right. Especially if you don’t take a medical route — you’re constantly validating your experience. At every interaction you’re like, “Please call me a ‘he’” or “Please call me a ‘she’”. It’s so hard. I don’t care anymore. It’s hard for me too. So, I get how it can make somebody feel assaulted at all times — you know?

I DO. TELL ME ABOUT THE VARIOUS DEGREES OF MEDICAL ROUTES PEOPLE TAKE —

Harvey Katz: I actually prefer not to talk about medical stuff, if that’s okay.

THAT’S FINE.

Harvey Katz: Only because it’s the most public part of a transition. It’s actually like the least — for me it’s the most minute. You know? So I tend to not talk about medical stuff.

COULD YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT SOME OF THE EMOTIONAL TRANSITIONS THAT YOU WENT THROUGH WHEN YOU BECAME YOUR PRESENT PERSONA?

Harvey Katz: Yeah, sure.

WERE HORMONES INVOLVED?

Harvey Katz: Yeah. I’ve been on hormones for about six years now.

TELL US ABOUT THE CHANGES IN YOUR LIFE —

Harvey Katz: I was filled with so much self-hatred and anxiety. I could barely even trust myself alone with myself. I really felt like I don’t want to take a shower because I didn’t want to see my naked body. I didn’t want other people to have access to this flesh that I hated. I think that took years to calm down, and then I ended up all these years later as somebody who actually feels extremely privileged to have taken this path. I really do. I’m a really proud Trans person. I feel like this is actually a pretty fucking cool experience. I may not enjoy every minute of it, but I enjoy a lot of the moments of it — and I wouldn’t choose to have had it any other way. I know that a lot of people say that about a lot of things. I do feel like this really fits me perfectly — to be a Trans person in a Trans body. Now, I know that this is just my personal experience. I can’t speak for other Trans people at all. Beginning medical transition, if you take hormones, you’re going through puberty and you’re going through menopause — it creates the perfect storm in your body and brain.

WOW —

Photo: Tim Gunther

Harvey Katz: This is a really bizarre thing that’s happening, and you have to counteract. You have to find a balancing act and a way to do it that’s healthy. If you don’t have a good support system around you, it’s even more difficult. It’s really cool how hormones — my body really took to them. I felt I was so calm, cool and collected through this whole experience —

YOU SAID YOU FELT KIND OF LUCKY. PART OF THIS PROCESS IS THE RESULT OF MEDICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES SO THAT HORMONES CAN BE AVAILABLE. IN HUMAN HISTORY THIS IS A VERY NEW PHENOMENON.

Harvey Katz: Totally.

A COUPLE OF GENERATIONS AGO, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE SCIENCE FICTION TO EVEN IMAGINE SUCH A THING.

Harvey Katz: Absolutely.

SO, HATS OFF TO THOSE MEDICAL RESEARCHERS OUT THERE AND THOSE DOCTORS WHO MAKE THIS HAPPEN —

Harvey Katz: Yeah. When you’re in it, you’re like, “Why don’t you have more information?” Nobody knows what we’re going to look like in forty years, you know? We’re a little bit like lab rats at this point. We’re doing their experiments for them.

YOU ARE?

Harvey Katz: Yeah — there’s a lot of issues with access to proper patient care and stuff like that, but yes, in the end I’m extremely happy they were able to get the formula together.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU TOOK HORMONES?

Harvey Katz: Yeah. I had access to hormones for about a year before I actually initiated taking them. Once you start a medical transition, it’s no longer your personal experience. People are going to bear witness to the change in you. It’s going to become public. That, for me, was really difficult to get over. It becomes everyone else’s business. They get to visibly see it happening, and there are awkward periods — and I did it all on stage. I medically transitioned, and I was performing all the time. Sometimes I just felt like a cadaver laying on the slab. People just get to poke and prod —

I SEE.

Harvey Katz: That was the hardest thing, for me, with my decision —

THAT IT WOULD ALL OCCUR IN PUBLIC?

Harvey Katz: Uh-huh.

BUT YOU WERE ABLE TO HARNESS THAT PUBLIC-NESS OF IT. WAS IT GOOD MATERIAL FOR YOU TO WORK WITH ON STAGE?

Harvey Katz: Oh yeah, for sure. Especially when you travel and you have all these experiences with strangers. It was fine. In the end, I don’t come across a lot of haters at my shows. I generally come across a pretty willing-to-listen audience. When I come across anybody who’s got an issue or wants to take the conversation somewhere that I’m not okay with — I’ve been pretty good at humorously talking them down off the inappropriate-question bridge. I’m really fortunate — the people who come to my shows are pretty bad-ass people, and I like them a lot. I’ll continue to stick by them as long as they continue to stick by me.

BUT THEY ASK AN INAPPROPRIATE QUESTION NOW AND THEN?

Harvey Katz: Or like — not even inappropriate — I’ll play in a space where they want to start heckling. I played this sports bar, and it was a really awkward evening — and I ended up going back to that place because I enjoyed how awfully awkward it was. I like to deflect the anger. Throw a joke in — “You think you’re upset? Speak to my parents —”

EVEN I LAUGHED. SO YOU’RE A COMEDIAN —

Harvey Katz: It’s not anything I assume to be, but if it gets people to enjoy it then I’m into it.

A COMEDIAN AND A RAPPER — THAT’S A GOOD COMBO.

Harvey Katz: Why not?

I’D LIKE TO ASK YOU ABOUT PEOPLE YOU’VE DATED AND STUFF LIKE THAT —

Harvey Katz: I dated a few women in high school.

ANY GUYS?

Harvey Katz: The last boyfriend that I had, I was like sixteen and I had known him since I was five years old. I have a scar above my lip from when we played He-Man when I was five, and I fell down. I dated him for like six months. I told him on the first date that I was Gay and he was like, “Yeah — can’t say I haven’t thought of it myself —” We just hung out and made both our parents really pleased.

DID YOU DATE GIRLS WHO WENT TO YOUR SCHOOL?

Harvey Katz: Yeah.

WAS THAT SOMETHING THAT YOU KEPT ON THE SLY, OR WERE YOU WALKING DOWN THE HALL HOLDING HANDS?

Harvey Katz: In my senior year I was pretty righteous about it. It’s like, “Riot Grrrl —” I didn’t want to feel like I had to hide it — I’d walk her to class, and I remember one time a teacher called me a boy when I walked into class, and the whole class just roared with laughter.

WHAT DID YOU DO?

Harvey Katz: I was mortified. I think I left school. It was not hard to convince me to skip school. It was the catalyst I needed that day to get out of there.

DOES A SHITTY REMARK BY A TEACHER CONSTITUTE BULLYING?

Harvey Katz: At this point, yeah. Like a teacher doing that — first of all, she thought I was a dude. It wasn’t hard to think that about me — and who knows? After all the kids started laughing, they could have had a whole talk about it in the class. I doubt they did —

IT WAS PROBABLY NOT A LEARNING MOMENT.

Harvey Katz: All the kids laughing was something that definitely stuck with me.

SO THEN YOU MOVED TO ATHENS —

Harvey Katz: Yeah.

WHO’D YOU START DATING THERE?

Harvey Katz: I dated women and Trans men. I’ve gone on the occasional date with non-Trans men. It’s really hard for me to find non-Trans men who are into dating me, in any way that doesn’t feel like fetishistic. It’s really important to me that I feel like a whole person going on a date with somebody, and I don’t feel like a story that somebody needs to fulfill in their life. They go tell their friends about this really bizarre date they went on — I don’t feel like a bizarre person. I’ve had some bizarre experiences — but haven’t we all? And so, when that becomes the situation, it’s a real turn-off for me.

SO, YOU’RE IN ATHENS BUT YOU TRAVEL AROUND A LOT DOING YOUR SPOKEN WORD, AS AN EDUCATOR — IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE?

Harvey Katz: Infotainment.

AN INFOTAINMENT SPECIALIST, HUH?

Harvey Katz: Yeah.

DO YOU FIND YOURSELF PREACHING TO THE CHOIR?

Harvey Katz: You know, it depends. I always set up the workshop where it’s like, “Well, let me find out how everybody is —” Then we can have a more intricate discussion, like a one-on-one. We talk about issues at the school. We troubleshoot things that folks can do. Sometimes I’m like, “Here’s another poem about me.” That’s the best I can do — and hope that somebody out there catches something that feels right to them and makes them feel better or makes them feel validated or makes them feel like their experiences have been justified and borne witness to. I can perform to very like-minded people, and I hope it doesn’t feel trite or boring.

SO THESE AREN’T FORUMS FOR DEBATE —

Harvey Katz: No.

WHAT ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF THINGS THAT ARE ON KIDS’ MINDS THESE DAYS?

Harvey Katz: Well, Trans people are more likely to be assaulted than any other community. There’s a lot of issues surrounding safety on campus. There’s a lot of issues surrounding paperwork —

PAPERWORK?

Harvey Katz: Because it’s like you come into a class — I didn’t legally change my name until last year. So legally, I didn’t have a name that swung both ways. My old name is Elizabeth. And so, paperwork-wise, when you come into class, you’ve already come out in a way that you didn’t want to or mean to. Before your teacher gets to know you, they know you as a Trans person.

I SEE.

Harvey Katz: Because changing your name is expensive — a pain in the ass — and it may be something you don’t want to do. There’s issues around housing. It’s a really tricky issue, like dorm life — bathroom use, which hall —

THESE ARE TOUGH QUESTIONS, AREN’T THEY?

Harvey Katz: They are. They really are. Often what they’ll do — if you’re lucky enough to have a school that will work with you — they’ll put you in a single where you don’t have a roommate — but then you’re not getting the dorm experience. I would have been happy to have that experience — a single room versus my jail cell. So there’s issues around that — housing and paperwork and campus safety —

SAFETY AND SECURITY — THAT’S A PROBLEM BEYOND COLLEGE. MANY TRANSGENDERED FOLKS GET KILLED EVERY YEAR —

Harvey Katz: People tend to murder mostly Trans women of color — and the assaults are extremely violent —

THESE ARE OFTEN SITUATIONS WHERE A STRAIGHT MALE PICKS UP A TRANSGENDERED GAL AND THEN COMES TO DISCOVER THAT THINGS AREN’T AS HE THOUGHT THEY WERE GOING TO BE —

Harvey Katz: Right.

WOULD IT BE BEST TO TELL PEOPLE UP FRONT WHAT’S GOING ON WITH ONESELF? IS THAT THE WAY TO DIFFUSE A BAD SITUATION?

Harvey Katz: I mean, no. I’m always like, “Make sure that your safety officers know that there are Trans people on campus.” You don’t have to pin-point them out — it’s a person’s right to say “I’m Trans” or not. It doesn’t affect the other person at all. Unless you’re going to have sex with the person, there’s no reason for anyone to know any of your business. For a campus, they need to have the word out that assaults on Trans people are going to be handled extremely seriously, and that this is a campus that supports and protects its Trans population.

ALRIGHT. NOW, ABOUT YOUR POETRY — WHAT DO YOU WRITE POETRY ABOUT?

Harvey Katz: It’s mostly just the human experience. It’s whatever comes out of my mouth. Some of them are fun poems — a lot of Pop Culture references. I recently wrote a new poem called When I Was Fourteen I Was Closer To Fun. Anyway, because I publicly transitioned in this city, I call myself the Trans-pa of Athens, Georgia.

HOW DO YOU CLOSE YOUR SHOW?

Harvey Katz: I close with Fagette — because it’s what people came to see.

YOU MEAN THE SONG, RIGHT?

Harvey Katz: Totally — but at the end I’m just like, “Thanks for coming out, be good to yourself today.” I just feel like our community needs to be reminded to be gentle with yourself.

BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF — THERE’S A GOOD CLOSER.

Harvey Katz: A very good one. ~

Amanda Lepore

Diva

Photo: Fred H. Berger

GEORGE PETROS: WE’RE TALKING TO AMANDA LEPORE. YOUR SONG “MY PUSSY” — THAT’S KIND OF AN ANTHEM. COULD YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT THAT TUNE?

Amanda Lepore: Larry Tee wrote that and he wanted to do a song with me and he thought that everyone wanted to hear me talk about my pussy.

DID YOU HAVE AS MUCH FUN SINGING THAT AS YOU DID “COTTON CANDY”?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah. They’re both really a lot of fun. I think “Cotton Candy” has more lyrics. So, it’s definitely more challenging.

SO THIS IS DANCE MUSIC THAT YOU’RE DOING —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, it’s like Pop and Dance.

WHAT WAS THE EARLIEST STUFF YOU REMEMBER LISTENING TO? WHEN YOU WERE A KID, WHAT DID YOU LIKE?

Amanda Lepore: I liked a lot of Rock & Roll-kinda stuff, I guess. Madonna I liked a lot — especially the early stuff.

WHEN YOU WERE A KID, YOU KNEW YOU WERE A GIRL. THAT’S A TIME WHEN MOST PEOPLE ARE GETTING THEIR FIRST KISS OR FIRST SOMETHING OR OTHER. YOU SEEM TO HAVE BEEN A BIT MORE ADVANCED THAN THE OTHER KIDS YOUR AGE —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, in some ways. I guess I put all my focus to wanting to be a girl. I didn’t feel comfortable with my body. It was like a different sort of development.

AND YOUR FAMILY WAS NOT SUPPORTIVE, RIGHT?

Amanda Lepore: They didn’t really like it but I think they were used to me from over the years, and I was always really feminine, so it wasn’t really a shock to them.

I SEE.

Amanda Lepore: They were just used to me.

YOU MUST HAVE FELT MORE COMFORTABLE AND RELAXED IN THAT FEMININE ROLE, BUT IT MUST HAVE BEEN TOUGH AT SCHOOL.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, I had a hard time at school. I didn’t really go. Whenever I could skip school, I would skip it — definitely. Finally, they gave me a tutor, the second year of high school. I was able to get a high school diploma and be at home.

THERE MUST HAVE BEEN A FEW KIDS THAT YOU WERE TIGHT WITH, WHO LIKED YOU FOR YOU. WAS THERE A CREW THAT YOU RAN WITH?

Amanda Lepore: No, I didn’t really run with a crew — but I had close friends in and out of my life. For sure. I spent a lot of time by myself, though.

THAT’S A MIXED BLESSING FOR A KID, ISN’T IT?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, I think I would rather have been around a lot of people, you know, if I could change the past. It’s just the way things were.

WHERE DID YOU HANG OUT?

Amanda Lepore: I didn’t really hang out so much, you know? Occasionally I went to night clubs and things. I was more a loner. I spent a lot of time by myself.

WHEN YOU WERE FIFTEEN YOU GOT A RHINOPLASTY?

Amanda Lepore: Yes.

AND THAT WAS A GIFT FROM SOMEONE, RIGHT?

AMANDA LEPORE: YEAH.

WAS IT FROM YOUR BOYFRIEND?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, it was a boyfriend at the time.

SURGERY CAN BE A VERY LIBERATING MEDIUM, I WOULD SUPPOSE.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, definitely — if something is bothering you, it’s definitely important to dismiss it so that you can focus on other things.

SURGERY’S AN ART FORM, FROM THE SURGEON’S PERSPECTIVE —

Amanda Lepore: Yes.

IN YOUR QUEST TO PERFECT YOURSELF, IF I COULD CALL IT THAT, YOU SUBSEQUENTLY HAD OTHER SURGERIES. YOU GOT A BOOB JOB, RIGHT?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah — well, I actually had my sex changed before I had big boobs.

I SEE. GENITAL REASSIGNMENT — THAT STRIKES ME AS A MEDICAL MIRACLE.

AMANDA LEPORE: YEAH, IT REALLY IS.

IT’S ALMOST LIKE A SCIENCE-FICTION THING. AND, YOU KNOW, THERE’S AN ELEMENT OF BRAVERY NECESSARY —

Amanda Lepore: A lot of people told me that, but I don’t think it’s really bravery. It’s more a necessity. I mean, it was for me.

SO, DOES A HORMONAL REGIMEN PRECEDE THIS SURGERY?

Amanda Lepore: Yes.

AND HOW LONG DOES THAT GO ON?

Amanda Lepore: You have to be on it at least two years before they will allow you to have the surgery and live as a girl.

HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU STARTED THE REGIMEN?

Amanda Lepore: I think like fifteen. Around the same time I had the nose done.

AND THE HORMONES OBVIOUSLY MADE YOU FEEL A LOT DIFFERENT, I WOULD BET. DID YOU FEEL MORE RELAXED AND MORE CHILL —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, definitely. It makes you more content and relaxed.

AND IT ALSO CAUSES CHANGES TO THE BODY —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, it was pretty dramatic with mine, I think. It was a gradual kind of thing — but I had boobs really quickly, within a month. Like, there would be breast pains, and if you took a shower the water would hurt — but I think it was because I was taking it while still in puberty. So, they worked really quickly.

IT’S PROBABLY GOOD YOU TOOK HORMONES EARLY ON AND HAD THEM COINCIDE WITH YOUR BODY’S DEVELOPMENT.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, definitely. I think it’s just more of a natural sort of a thing, when you start really young. Because male hormones don’t start to set in — they told me that after you’re twenty-four-years old the male hormones set in —

WELL, GOOD TIMING.

Amanda Lepore: It’s harder to change because you have to correct the maleness that went into your body, you know? And then, characteristics like Adam’s apples and things like that — over the years it just settles in more.

I’M INTERESTED IN HOW YOU FEEL DIFFERENT ON HORMONES.

Amanda Lepore: I remember that after I took them, I was more calm. I was always sort of passive but it definitely made me feel more calm.

SO, YOU TOOK THEM FOR TWO YEARS. WHAT ELSE DID YOU DO FOR THOSE TWO YEARS TO PREPARE YOURSELF TO TRANSITION?

Amanda Lepore: I didn’t really do anything. I was seeing a psychologist. They would like talk to you. They wanted to make sure that I was adjusted and had support. By that time I had a boyfriend and his family was supportive of me. That seemed to please the doctor a lot.

WHERE DID YOUR BOYFRIEND LIVE?

Amanda Lepore: He lived in New Jersey. That’s where I’m from. I actually didn’t come to New York until after my marriage was finished — after the sex change and everything. I didn’t really have an interest to come to New York.

SO WHILE YOU WERE GOING THROUGH THAT, YOU MUST HAVE BEEN GETTING SHIT FROM PEOPLE. I’M SURE THAT OVER THE YEARS YOU’VE BUILT UP YOUR DEFENSES AND YOU KNOW JUST WHAT TO SAY TO EVERY TACKY REMARK —

Amanda Lepore: Not really. I would walk away from anything — and nothing really bothered me. I think I was so harassed as a kid that afterwards I didn’t get bothered as much, instead I just got bothered for being a girl. I noticed really quickly that it was easier for me socially to be a girl.

INTERESTING.

Amanda Lepore: And it was very difficult as a boy.

HOW DID THE OTHER GIRLS TREAT YOU ONCE YOU WERE A GIRL?

Amanda Lepore: I guess it was more a competitive kind of thing. They would be like friendly, too, and compliment you.

GIRLS ARE PROBABLY AN EASIER GROUP TO INTERACT WITH THAN BOYS WHEN ONE’S AN OUTSIDER — IS THAT TRUE?

Amanda Lepore: I don’t know. I really didn’t have a lot of — beside love interests — a lot of boy friends. It was more with girls.

SO YOU HAD THE GENITAL REASSIGNMENT AT LIKE SEVENTEEN OR EIGHTEEN?

Amanda Lepore: Uh-huh.

HOW DID YOU COME TO SELECT THE DOCTOR YOU USED?

Amanda Lepore: Well, I went to the doctor for hormones and things, and I think my father-in-law found out about the surgery.

WHERE DID THE SURGERY TAKE PLACE?

Amanda Lepore: In Yonkers. He was a New York doctor but he was practicing there.

HOW LONG WERE YOU IN THE HOSPITAL?

Amanda Lepore: I think like about a week. Because you have a catheter, whatever, like where your urine — you pee into a bag. So, you had to be monitored.

AS THE WORK HEALED UP, WERE YOU ANXIOUS ABOUT WHAT THE OUTCOME MIGHT BE?

Amanda Lepore: I was more relieved — and I really didn’t know what a vagina looked like. So, I trusted him and I was just so happy to have one that I didn’t really think of it coming out good or bad. I just wanted it so bad. It was more like a mind-over-matter kind of a thing. It was a big relief to me.

I SEE.

Amanda Lepore: It was sort of a work in progress that I didn’t really understand so much. I would just listen to what the aftercare was. I wanted it to come out good, so I worked with it.

WAS IT ONE SINGLE SURGERY OR A SUCCESSION OF OPERATIONS?

Amanda Lepore: It was a single surgery. There was packing in the vagina, to heal the vagina. So, I would be on painkillers and stuff — but it wasn’t so painful because there was only gauze in there at first. After it healed in a week or so — it heals very quickly. My healing was very good. It was coming out good. Then they put like a dilator, like a dildo-thing in it, and you’d have to wear it all the time — and that hurt like a knife. It was very painful. Because at first I was saying, “Oh, this is not so bad.” But after they put that in, it felt different than the gauze, and it was still healing, so it was like really, really painful.

AND HOW LONG DID THAT LAST?

Amanda Lepore: Well, the pain would be literally every day. But it was really painful and you would have to leave it in, wearing like a girdle and pads. If you went to the bathroom or took a shower you would take it out but then you’d have to put it right back in. If you sat down, it would go in deeper and hurt more. It was painful.

I SEE. AS IT HEALED, DID IT BECOME MORE SENSITIVE? WHEN DID THE EROTIC ELEMENT KICK IN FOR YOU?

Amanda Lepore: Well, the dilator was always in, all the time. So it started getting more pleasurable — but it was still sort of weird. Part of my stomach didn’t have any feeling in it. I would wonder if the feeling was going to come back. It did come back, but it took a long time. And then eventually I had sex with my boyfriend and it would get more pleasurable. Like I would say, “Oh, this feels good!” But I think the nerves and stuff got more sensitive over the years. And the sensation in part of the stomach came back — those feelings — so it would get more natural and sensual.

I SEE.

Amanda Lepore: I have better sex now than I did back then.

IN THAT IT FEELS BETTER?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, it feels better. It got better and I understand my body more. Like, it’s not one-hundred-percent natural, but I learned you have to work with it. In that sense it’s a lot better.

YOU MUST REMEMBER THAT FIRST TIME THAT YOU HAD SEX AS A GIRL WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah.

THAT MUST HAVE BEEN QUITE A NIGHT.

Amanda Lepore: It felt great. I always fantasized about being a girl. To actually really do it — you know, having a guy on top of you — just the whole thing was incredible. It’s psychologically so fulfilling. And that’s what I remember the first time being like. It was like a dream come true.

THEN YOU WENT ON TO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah.

THE SURGERY WAS VERY SUCCESSFUL FOR YOU. BUT I GUESS THERE WERE STILL DETAILS THAT YOU WERE UNHAPPY WITH, BECAUSE YOU HAD MORE SURGICAL ADJUSTMENTS HERE AND THERE, DIDN’T YOU?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, I felt like my breasts — I would want them to be bigger. I was pretty and looked good in certain kinds of clothes, but some clothes I didn’t really fill out. So, I got breast implants.

HOW LONG IS ONE IN THE HOSPITAL FOR A BREAST IMPLANT?

Amanda Lepore: I think I went home — I spent the day in the hospital and then was released to come home. Or maybe I spent the night, I don’t know. It was short. It was either that night or one day.

Photo: Scott Ewalt

WAS IT THE CASE THAT YOUR BREASTS FELT BETTER AND BETTER AS THEY HEALED UP?

Amanda Lepore: I wasn’t so happy with the breasts. I think that’s because I was skinny and they weren’t really big enough. It didn’t really have cleavage. The breasts are something that got better with time by doing it again.

HOW MUCH LATER DID YOU GET IT DONE AGAIN?

Amanda Lepore: Well, I waited — it was like over five years before I redid them, and then the second ones came out better but they weren’t exactly what I wanted because I wanted more cleavage.

WELL, YOU LOOK GOOD NOW —

Amanda Lepore: They look beautiful right now. These came out the best.

THAT’S THE SURGEON’S ART AGAIN. WHAT WERE SOME OTHER MODIFICATIONS THAT YOU GOT?

Amanda Lepore: I had my behind made bigger.

WHAT DOES THAT INVOLVE?

Amanda Lepore: It’s more like body shaping. I think it’s sort of a proportion thing. Like with bigger breasts — the behind is more in proportion. It just looks different with different things.

WELL, IT LOOKS PRETTY GOOD, WHATEVER THEY DID TO IT.

Amanda Lepore: Now it’s perfect.

SO THEN YOU HAD SOME OTHER STUFF DONE —

Amanda Lepore: Well, I wanted to get my eyebrows raised and then he said that he wanted to pull my hairline down a little bit, that it would look better. It did. I hadn’t thought about doing it — he suggested it. He did it, and it did look more feminine.

DID YOU ONCE SAY THAT YOU WANTED TO LOOK LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN JESSICA RABBIT AND —

Amanda Lepore: Marilyn Monroe. I think I ended up looking more like Jessica Rabbit than Marilyn Monroe but yeah, something like that.

YOU LOOK GREAT.

Amanda Lepore: I’m very happy with everything.

AND YOU LOOK UNIQUELY YOU, TOO, SO YOU’VE GOT YOURSELF A SIGNATURE LOOK THAT’S GONNA BECOME PART OF HISTORY. I GUESS THAT WOULD MAKE YOU A ROLE MODEL FOR OTHERS. IS THAT THE CASE?

Amanda Lepore: I think so. I think a lot of younger Transsexuals look up to me. You know, I was in the media so much with David LaChapelle and all that — I think it really helped.

HE TOOK A LOT OF PICTURES OF YOU.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, the pictures were successful. You know, it certainly helped — like, a lot.

BUT YOU’VE GARNERED A LOT OF CELEBRITY JUST BY YOURSELF, AS YOURSELF —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah.

I SEE YOU ALL OVER TV AND THE INTERNET —

Amanda Lepore: Uh-huh.

YOU MUST BE PRETTY PROUD OF THAT.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, it feels great to accomplish so much.

WITH FAME COMES THE ENTOURAGE AND THE HANGERS-ON AND THE CREW — HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU?

Amanda Lepore: I work in nightclubs. It’s really important to be social and everything but in my everyday life, I have just a few close friends.

TELL US ABOUT WORKING IN NIGHTCLUBS — WHAT YOU DO, AND WHO YOU MEET —

Amanda Lepore: Well, like tonight, I introduced strippers. It’s more a low-key kind of event. Sunday, it’s more like a crazier party.

AND WHERE IS THIS AT? WHAT CLUB?

Amanda Lepore: Tonight it was G Lounge.

I SEE. AND HOW ABOUT SUNDAY? WHERE IS THAT?

Amanda Lepore: That’s at Vandam at Greenhouse.

HOW HAS THE NEW YORK CLUB SCENE CHANGED OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS?

Amanda Lepore: There was a period where it was more like bottle-service clubs. I think that was a big change — but it seems to have gone back to how it was, I think.

THE BOTTLE-SERVICE CLUBS WERE SORT OF LIKE A MORE EXPENSIVE TYPE OF A PLACE WITH SNOOTY BOUNCERS —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, but it seemed to dominate a few years ago.

AND BURLESQUE WAS BIG THEN TOO.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, that was really popular.

WERE YOU INVOLVED IN THAT?

Amanda Lepore: Not really. I mean, definitely my singing has a burlesque influence but I wasn’t really involved in the shows.

WELL, DO YOU DO THE NIGHTCLUBS IN L.A. WHEN YOU’RE OUT THERE? THEY’RE QUITE DIFFERENT, AREN’T THEY — THE NEW YORK AND L.A. CLUBS.?

Amanda Lepore: I think they’re a lot smaller and they close earlier. I noticed in L.A. that people go to friends’ houses as a group.

BECAUSE THE BARS CLOSE VERY EARLY, BY NEW YORK STANDARDS —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah.

DO YOU SMOKE HERB?

Amanda Lepore: I have in the past, but I’m not much of a drug person. I don’t really drink so much, or anything — I’m more like a health nut.

IS THERE A DRUG YOU DO LIKE?

Amanda Lepore: No. I like going to the gym and going to yoga and stuff — more health conscious —

DO YOU RUN?

Amanda Lepore: No. I think it’s bad for girls, especially if you have the boobs and everything. Because of the gravity.

YOU LOOK LIKE YOU WORK OUT A LOT.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, I work out a lot.

BECAUSE YOU’VE GOT TO SQUEEZE INTO SOME PRETTY TIGHT CLOTHES —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah.

LIKE THE STUFF I SAW YOU WEARING IN THE “COTTON CANDY” VIDEO. WHO DOES YOUR CLOTHES?

Amanda Lepore: I have different people — like Garo Sparrow does some of them. It’s mostly costumes. And Jimmy Helvin does a lot of them. Sometimes I’ll buy things and then take them to the dry cleaners and tell them what to do — “Take them in,” and stuff — but usually I get it done custom.

I IMAGINE THAT THERE WOULD BE DESIGNERS WHO WOULD BE ANXIOUS TO HAVE YOU WEAR THEIR STUFF AND BE SEEN IN IT.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah. A lot of people give me things, too.

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR SHOES? WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR HEELS?

Amanda Lepore: I like Christian Loubatin a lot. I always buy their shoes — like a lot. I think they’re made really well and they’re almost like a stripper shoe that I always wore when I first started working in the clubs. When I got money, I invested in stripper shoes. They were very high, like fetish shoes.

TELL US ABOUT THE ART OF LEARNING TO WALK IN HIGH HEELS.

Amanda Lepore: Well, that was always like easy for me. I mean, you just have to be more careful, and slower.

WERE YOU TRYING ON HEELS FROM AN EARLY AGE?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, I tried on my mother’s when I was a kid.

DID YOU TRY ON OTHER CLOTHES OF YOUR MOTHER’S?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah. I was more focused with the shoes and the lipstick, though.

IT MUST HAVE BEEN FUN PUTTING MAKEUP ON.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, I love it. I still like getting made up.

WHAT MAKEUP DO YOU USE?

Amanda Lepore: Well, my favorite lipstick is YSL, Red Venus. And I like lip gloss — Christian Dior lip gloss.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?

Amanda Lepore: I like red or nude. But I get sick of nude quicker.

NOW, HOW ABOUT YOUR HAIR? WHO’S DOING YOUR HAIR THESE DAYS?

Amanda Lepore: I have different people do pieces for me — but I always try to mix my own hair in with it. I mostly do my hair myself, besides getting it colored.

WHEN YOU WERE A YOUNG BOY, DID YOU HAVE LONG HAIR?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah.

WHEN YOU TRANSITIONED YOU LEFT YOUR HAIR LONG —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, and I dyed it blonde to look more feminine.

WHEN DID YOU FIRST GO WITH A HAIRDO?

Amanda Lepore: Well, I would always kinda try to fix my hair like a girl’s in my free time. I would try to fix it as much as I could to look feminine.

DID TAKING THE HORMONES CHANGE THE NATURE OF YOUR HAIR?

Amanda Lepore: It changed it by making it more silky. I think I remember it being thicker as a boy. Coarser.

I SEE. WHAT MUSIC PROJECT ARE YOU WORKING ON AT THE MOMENT?

Amanda Lepore: Well, I did a new video with Marilyn and another one, Get Into It with Cazwell, and I have a full-length album coming out in the spring.

WHAT’S IT GOING TO BE TITLED?

Amanda Lepore: I, Amanda Lepore.

WHAT LABEL ARE YOU ON?

Amanda Lepore: Peace Biscuit.

DO YOU DO ANY OF THE TECHNICAL STUFF?

Amanda Lepore: No. I’m not that good with technical things; I’m more artistic. I do like to make things — I make a lot of my costumes and stuff. I like rhinestoning things, and making jewelry, and sometimes I’ll do the embellishment on the dresses and things like that.

I LOVE RHINESTONES. WHAT ELSE DO YOU LIKE TO PUT ON A COSTUME?

Amanda Lepore: I like Swarovski crystals a lot, especially on stage. They look amazing.

TELL US ABOUT THOSE —

Amanda Lepore: It’s just like crystals that you buy. They’re high-quality and have an amazing shine.

SO YOU PLACE THEM ON STAGE —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah.

WHAT OTHER ACCESSORIES DO YOU LIKE?

Amanda Lepore: I like jewelry a lot. I like earrings. Rings and things. And I like pasties and garter belts and things like that.

TIMELESS —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, yeah. Definitely.

THERE WAS A TIME WHEN A GAL COULDN’T TAKE HER CLOTHES OFF IN PUBLIC.

Amanda Lepore: Right.

YOU MUST BE QUITE A CATCH, SO THERE MUST BE A LOT OF PEOPLE COMING ON TO YOU ALL THE TIME —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah.

THAT’S PROBABLY BEEN THE CASE FOREVER.

Amanda Lepore: Uh-huh.

NOW, HOW DO MANAGE THAT? HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE TRAFFIC IN COMERS-ON?

Amanda Lepore: Well, sometimes if you have a connection with someone, it’s right. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes you stay with people and sometimes you don’t. They might do something that you don’t like.

HAVE YOU EVER FELT THAT SOMEONE WAS MORE INTERESTED IN YOU FROM A CLINICAL VIEWPOINT THAN FROM A ROMANTIC ONE?

Amanda Lepore: Well, there’s definitely guys that have a fetish for it, and you just kind of figure that out as time goes by.

SOME GUYS HAVE A FETISH FOR TRANSSEXUAL GALS?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah. Like, some guys have fetishes for bondage or shoes or whatever. Some do have a fetish for sex changes.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?

Amanda Lepore: I mean, it’s fine if you get along with someone — but it could interfere, you know? They’re not really liking you as an individual — it’s just a fetish.

RIGHT. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A BOYFRIEND?

Amanda Lepore: I just like being happy. You know, someone that makes me happy — if it’s not something that I like, then they won’t be my boyfriend for long.

YOU WERE MARRIED, RIGHT?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah. Just once.

FOR HOW LONG?

Amanda Lepore: I think like five years.

AND HOW WAS MARRIED LIFE?

Amanda Lepore: It was good.

WHERE’D YOU LIVE?

Amanda Lepore: In New Jersey.

DID WORD REACH YOUR NEIGHBORS OF YOUR IDENTITY? WHEN YOU WERE MARRIED, HOW DID OTHER COUPLES —

Amanda Lepore: There was a problem because he didn’t want people to find out. So, it kind of interfered — like, he didn’t want me to work, and that’s why the marriage didn’t work out.

I SEE. HE WANTED YOU TO BE AN ANONYMOUS HOUSEWIFE.

Amanda Lepore: And I had a lot of energy and wanted to at least work at a cosmetic counter or something. He didn’t want me to, and you know, it really had to do with that he didn’t want to make people talk about us.

WAS HE EMBARRASSED ABOUT IT?

Amanda Lepore: Well, I think when he met me, he didn’t know — and when he found out, of course he saw me as a woman, and he was attracted to women, but I think it played on his mind. And I think he thought he could handle it — but he probably couldn’t forget.

HOW DID HE FIND OUT AND WHAT WAS HIS REACTION?

Amanda Lepore: Well, when I first met him, I wouldn’t have sex with him or anything — and then it got to the point where he wanted to kiss my vagina and not penetrate me. So, I had to tell him that I didn’t have one at the time —

OH, THIS IS BEFORE THE OPERATION.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, I met him right before. His father actually paid for the surgery.

SO, YOU HAD TO TELL HIM THAT YOU DIDN’T HAVE A VAGINA YET —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah — and he didn’t accept it because he was thinking that I did the whole time.

HE MUST HAVE BEEN SURPRISED.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah.

BUT HE MUST HAVE REALLY LIKED YOU FOR YOU — BECAUSE HE HUNG IN THERE.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah — I mean, we definitely developed with liking each other.

WAS HE ANGRY AT FIRST?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, he was angry.

WAS HE THREATENING TO YOU?

Amanda Lepore: No.

BUT HE CAME AROUND.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah.

AND WHEN YOU TOLD HIM THAT YOU WERE GOING TO HAVE GENITAL REASSIGNMENT SURGERY — THAT MUST HAVE INTRIGUED HIM.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, he was very supportive of it. We thought the same.

WERE YOU THE SAME AGE?

Amanda Lepore: He was a little older.

I SEE. HAVE YOU BEEN IN SITUATIONS, AFTER THE OPERATION, WHERE GUYS HAVE HAD A HOSTILE REACTION TO YOU?

Amanda Lepore: For the most part, guys are really accepting. Once, I thought that someone knew — and they didn’t know — and it was way after I modeled for David — it was more known — and I thought this guy knew, and he didn’t, and he was a little angry about it.

OH?

Amanda Lepore: That I didn’t tell him.

WOULD HE HAVE FOUND OUT ANYWAY? I MEAN, WHAT IF YOU DIDN’T TELL HIM?

Amanda Lepore: Some guys know and some don’t. I think it was more easy to fool people before I was well-known.

NOW YOU CAN NEVER ESCAPE YOUR FAME.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah. It’s more difficult to find a guy who doesn’t know.

DOES THAT CHANGE THE EQUATION FOR YOU?

Amanda Lepore: It makes it easier for me, I think.

BUT WASN’T IT A THRILL WHEN SOMEBODY DIDN’T KNOW?

Amanda Lepore: Like when I first left my husband, it was exciting that a guy wouldn’t know. But now, I prefer someone that knows and accepts me. It’s more important to me than just like the thrill of fooling someone.

THE STEREOTYPE IS A GUY FREAKING OUT WHEN HE FINDS OUT ABOUT IT —

Amanda Lepore: You know, my body is so feminine right now that it’s easy for a guy to do it, I think.

AS FOR THE ONES WHO DON’T —

Amanda Lepore: I think they’re someone that doesn’t get the whole thing. You know, the guy thinks he’s gonna get pussy and doesn’t, and then he freaks out.

GUYS ARE CERTAINLY VOLATILE CREATURES.

Amanda Lepore: Yeah.

MOST PEOPLE KNOW WHAT’S UP WITH YOU, BUT FOR A KID OUT THERE IN THE HINTERLANDS WHO DOES THIS, IT’S A PRETTY DANGEROUS LIFE, ISN’T IT?

Amanda Lepore: Yeah. I mean, it really does have danger to it.

IT SEEMS LIKE A LOT OF TRANSGENDER PEOPLE WIND UP HUSTLING. IS THAT BECAUSE IT’S AN EXPENSIVE LIFESTYLE TO KEEP UP?

Amanda Lepore: I think it started out with prejudice, too — they didn’t really have a choice. Then they probably found that they make so much money — and then it’s really difficult to get a regular job. And then it just snowballs. You know, where it’s almost like a tradition.

THOSE FOLKS GET EXPOSED TO A LOT OF BAD MEDICAL STUFF, A LOT OF DISEASES —

Amanda Lepore: Yeah, but I think it stems from not being accepted, you know?

SURE. BUT THAT’S CHANGING, ISN’T IT?

Amanda Lepore: I think it’s changing a lot. Like, you find a lot of Transsexuals now have regular jobs and don’t have any interest in going that route. Where before it would be really hard for them to get a regular job or whatever — but now they have choices. There’s a lot more acceptance and good things going on.

THERE MUST BE AN ENDLESS STREAM OF CHARITIES AND CAUSES THAT COME TO YOU FOR YOUR HELP — I MEAN, THERE MUST BE NO END TO THE CHARITIES YOU’RE ASKED TO SHOW UP FOR, RIGHT?

Amanda Lepore: Yes. Well, I always like to support the underdog. I grew up as an outcast, so whatever I can do —

WHO IS IT THAT DOESN’T LIKE YOU AND IS AGAINST WHAT YOU’RE DOING?

Amanda Lepore: I don’t really know. I put myself in a really comfortable situation. I don’t have problems. I live in New York City and work in nightclubs and model and do music. It’s all things where it would be very accepted. I don’t know what it would be like to work every day where maybe it wouldn’t be as accepted. Sometimes I go away to perform and I’ll go to places like Ohio and be really surprised at how open-minded people are.

WHERE DO YOU FEEL THE MOST COMFORTABLE?

Amanda Lepore: I’m pretty comfortable wherever I go, you know? I adapt really well.

OKAY. WELL, THAT GIVES ME PRETTY MUCH WHAT I NEED HERE.

Amanda Lepore: Great.

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE TO SAY? ANYTHING I MISSED?

Amanda Lepore: No, I think that you did good.

WELL, THANK YOU.

Amanda Lepore: Oh, you’re welcome. I’m glad that we got it done. ~

Jordana LeSense

DJ & Producer

Photo courtesy of Jordana LeSense

GEORGE PETROS: WE’RE TALKING TO JORDANA LESESNE — JORDANA, WHAT IS DRUM & BASS?

Jordana LeSense: Well, Drum & Bass is best described as a form of Electronic Dance Music that brings together Techno, Reggae, Jazz, and a lot of other elements as well. It can go in any direction. It’s a pretty fast tempo, around one-hundred-eighty beats per minute, give or take ten in either direction. It became really popular in the Nineties.

AMONG THE THINGS THAT DISTINGUISHES IT FROM OTHER ELECTRONIC MUSIC IS THE INVERSE USE OF THE BASS AND THE DRUMS, WHICH I GUESS IS WHERE IT GOT ITS NAME. THEY CARRY THE MELODY, IS THAT NOT THE CASE?

Jordana LeSense: That is the case. The bass actually carries the melody. Even the drums can be processed in such a way that rather than sounding like just percussion, they can actually become part of the melody.

IS THIS SAMPLED, OR IS THIS LIVE, OR IS IT A COMBINATION?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. Jungle and Drum & Bass — many people now consider them pretty much the same thing, synonymous. It started out more as a Reggae influence, and that’s what’s called Jungle, and then there was more of a Techno-Ambient offshoot that became known as Drum & Bass — but it’s pretty much considered the same stuff now.

IT’S GENERALLY VERY BEAUTIFUL MUSIC.

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, it certainly can be. I always describe it in my mind as being like a soundscape of a future that hasn’t happened yet. Where a lot of its beauty comes from is in looking at the music as sort of a canvas, and the soundscape — the drums and bass — are all the various paints.

INTERESTING. YOU WORKED WITH CARLOS SOULSLINGER’S LABEL JUNGLE SKY —

Jordana LeSense: That’s correct, yeah. I recorded three albums for Jungle Sky. I was on a lot of their compilations and had a couple of videos on MTV Amp. It was pretty cool.

JUNGLE SKY WAS SORT OF A CREW. IT WAS DJ DARA AND SOULSLINGER AND WALLY —

Jordana LeSense: Yes, all of them. Also, I don’t know if you know of David Barrett — he went by DJ Yellownote. The American Spacetravellers and DJ Odi were also other Jungle Sky DJs & producers.

DID YOU SUBMIT STUFF TO THEM, OR DID THEY FIND YOU?

Jordana LeSense: I think what happened was, I was performing at a Rave in Ohio, and Soulslinger was one of the headliners, and so he became familiar with me because I had a keyboard — and there weren’t many DJs or producers at that time who were playing live Drum & Bass. I think he took note of it, and then I sent a demo and they signed me for a single — and that’s how it took off.

JUNGLE SKY RELEASED SOME WILD STUFF — IT HADN’T QUITE SMOOTHED OUT INTO DRUM & BASS YET. IS THAT A FAIR CHARACTERIZATION?

Jordana LeSense: I would say that it’s pretty fair. We’re Americans, so we have to put our own spin on things. There was a lot of experimentation. They were trying to make it New York; to make it its own sound. It didn’t sound like London Drum & Bass or Bristol Drum & Bass.

THOSE WERE MUCH SMOOTHER, RIGHT?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, English Drum & Bass was kinda more refined. There were more rules that they set — and with Soulslinger and that crew, I remember they were opposed to those rules. “Let’s make new ones —” that was kinda how it was with Jungle Sky.

PRIOR TO YOU DOING JUNGLE, WHAT WERE YOU DOING? WHAT KIND OF STUFF WERE YOU LISTENING TO AND SPINNING?

Jordana LeSense: I was listening to a lot of what I call Midwest Acid Techno. The stuff from Detroit, and Richie Hawtin and Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins — just a lot of Midwest Techno.

DID YOU LIVE IN THE MIDWEST AT THAT TIME?

Jordana LeSense: Well, I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, and it’s sort of a border town between the Midwest and the East Coast — it has elements of both. The Techno scene and, at that time, the Dance Music scene was way more influenced by Industrial Music and Detroit Techno than anything else.

I SEE. AND WHAT OTHER KINDS OF MUSIC WERE YOU INTERESTED IN BACK IN THOSE DAYS?

Jordana LeSense: I listened to New Wave stuff like The Cure, but I hung out with the Alternative crowd, I guess you could say. So, a lot of Punk, a bit of Metal — pretty much anything that wasn’t like the normal stuff you’d flip on the Pop station and hear. My circle of high school friends, we were kinda the weirdos and stuff. I hung out and listened to weirdo music.

AND IT SEEMS LIKE YOU’RE RETURNING TO THOSE WEIRDO ROOTS.

Jordana LeSense: Yes, absolutely. Well, I’m not actually going back to Punk — but even when I was in a Punk band, they always said that I played more Metal. I have a project now, here in Seattle, and it’s a Goth Metal band which I am fronting. Kinda like melodic Goth Metal, similar to Lacuna Coil, Flowing Tears — stuff like that.

THE METAL AND THE GOTH OF TODAY — HOW IS THAT DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU GREW UP ON?

Jordana LeSense: Well, I think everything is an evolution — and I also believe that technology has played a part. Perhaps not so much in Metal as much as in Electronic Music forms. Even in Metal, there are things that sound a lot more technical, a lot more tight, I would say, than in the Eighties —

DID YOU HAVE A GOTH PHASE WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER?

Jordana LeSense: Didn’t we all? No, I’m just joking. Yeah, actually I did. I had a very good friend — her name was Jen — and I have to credit her for taking me to a club in Pittsburgh called Metropol, and it was primarily an Industrial New Wave club, but because it was kind of a small city, you’d have Goths, you’d have Punks at a lot of these shows — especially if a really big band came through. It was at one of those shows that I heard a DJ before the band — the first time I’d heard Techno in a club environment. So, yeah, I was in my Goth phase when I knew her and when we hung out and stuff —

REGARDING THE NEW GOTH-ISH MUSIC THAT YOU’RE DOING — HAVE YOU RETURNED TO ITS FASHION ROOTS?

Jordana LeSense: I don’t know — at my age, I’m not shopping at Hot Topic for my day-to-day wear. I’ve always had a penchant for black. So, that’s pretty good.

COULD YOU TELL ME A BIT ABOUT GROWING UP IN PITTSBURGH, AND WHAT YOUR LIFE WAS LIKE —

Jordana LeSense: Well, here’s the full story from the very beginning: I grew up in Pittsburgh. I was one of five children, and I was the youngest — the baby of the family. My parents were very hardworking working-class people. My mom was a secretary and my dad was working as a heating-and-air-conditioning repairman for the city. I guess I had a working-class, middle-class upbringing. We lived in a decent neighborhood, with a fairly decent school. My early childhood was not fun, for obvious reasons. I got beat up in elementary school. Looking back on it, maybe it wasn’t as frequent as I thought — but it seemed like every other day I was being harassed or beaten up.

AND WHAT TRANSGRESSION HAD YOU ALLEGEDLY COMMITTED?

Jordana LeSense: Well, in kindergarten I started saying I was a girl — and at the time people thought I was a boy. In those days, people weren’t as enlightened as they are now. I took a lot of abuse, especially in first and second grade. I joined the school chorus just as an outlet — and then I got harassed about that because I sang like a girl. So, I guess that’s what happens —

DID THAT CONTINUE ON THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, it did — but when I got older I learned to keep out of the way of the bullies. I found ways to try and avoid being targeted — but I still got targeted. So, it wasn’t fun. I wouldn’t fight back, and that just caused more trouble. It was almost like sharks with blood in the water. “So, here’s a target for abuse!” Yeah.

BULLYING MIGHT BE THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN AMERICA.

Jordana LeSense: I believe it is. I truly believe it is. Sometimes I’ll tell people it’s amazing that I survived the bullying that I took — because I know a lot of people that were not able to hold it together. They suffered trauma and internalized it — but yeah, it was pretty bad all the way up through high school. That’s why I support the It Gets Better Project, which gives support to kids who are like I was, and who are targets of bullying for who they are. The best part of high school was, I found the Punks. I found the nerds, and together we had a bit more strength. It’s not a bad thing if you’re weird or Queer or something if you’re at the Queer table at the high school in the lunch room —

WAS THIS A MIXED-RACE SCHOOL?

Jordana LeSense: Yes, pretty much. My sisters and my brother — all four of them went to the same high school. We were only the second family of color, and they sort of fought the battle for integration for me, way before I was anywhere close to high school. So, it was pretty well integrated by the time I was there.

SO IT WOULD BE PUNK ROCKERS OF ALL COLORS.

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, there were the people who fit in and the people who didn’t, of all colors. If you were part of the weird burnout Punk New Wave crowd, it didn’t really matter what color you were. That was its own breed in and of itself. You were all in the same boat.

DID YOU TELL YOUR PARENTS ABOUT THE BULLIES?

Jordana LeSense: Yes. I did. I had to. The principal would call them to the school and say. “It happened again.” My dad — he was the stereotypical dad. He tried to tell me, “Hey, here’s how to fight back. Here, you gotta be tough. Don’t be such a sissy. Blah, blah, bah. They’ll leave you alone.” But they didn’t. One time I did try to fight back. I actually got beat up worse. Like I said, it wasn’t my thing — I wasn’t into fighting.

IS IT ANY CONSOLATION TO REALIZE THAT THOSE BULLIES ARE PROBABLY OCCUPYING THE LOWEST SOCIO-ECONOMIC RUNG OF SOCIETY TODAY, WHILE YOU’RE SPINNING AND HAVING A GOOD TIME?

Jordana LeSense: It is, I guess, but I don’t look at it that way because we all end up where we are based upon choices. I was fortunate enough to have talent that afforded me the ability to do something else. Once, when I was in Pittsburgh visiting my family for the holidays, I went to this Gay club and I ran into one of the bullies. He was the chief bully in my elementary school who gave me hell, and I saw him and I recognized him and he didn’t recognize me — for obvious reasons. So I went over to him and I said, “You know, you used to give me hell every other day in elementary school,” and he’s like, “Huh, who are you?” I told him, and it turns out he was actually on an Ecstasy pill — and he just started crying. He was apologizing profusely about it. So, I figure people like that — at a certain point they’ve got to reconcile what they did. I’m not going to judge them. That’s not my role.

WHEN PEOPLE HAVE AN EXPERIENCE LIKE THAT ON ECSTASY, IT USUALLY GOES PRETTY DEEP INTO THEIR PSYCHE — SO THAT GUY PROBABLY STILL FEELS BAD.

Jordana LeSense: Oh yeah. He told me so. He wrote me after that, and he said that he bullied me because he didn’t want to be bullied — because he knew he was different and it was kinda like, let’s pick on the even weaker so that there was not as much focus on him. That’s how he explained it to me.

VERY INTERESTING. SO, YOU SAID THAT WHEN YOU WERE LITTLE YOU IDENTIFIED AS A GIRL —

Jordana LeSense: I knew that I was a girl for as long as I can remember. I have my sisters who have told me that. I used to call myself Shelly — I would basically go and grab a cover off a bed and wear it like a dress, and it was just something that I guess was natural for me. Once you get reprimanded for certain things, you start thinking, “What’s wrong with me?” I must have been only three or four. I knew then, so it wasn’t much of a stretch that I’d have problems in kindergarten.

HOW ABOUT YOUR EARLY DATING EXPERIENCES?

Jordana LeSense: See, this is the thing: I tried to avoid all that. I certainly avoided it when I was in middle school, because when you grow up like that, you’re not really looking to cause further problems. You know? And so, like, that was like the last thing I wanted to start to do, was dating anyone. But I guess my earliest dating experiences weren’t really much to talk about. I can tell you my first boyfriend — I was fifteen, and he knew; I told him all about me and stuff. It was when I had run away from home for a brief period of time. When you grow up this way, it seems to be a common denominator that that’s just another layer of complications that you don’t want to have to deal with. You aren’t necessarily in a position to do anything.

WHAT ABOUT AFTER HIGH SCHOOL? WHAT DID YOU DO WHEN YOU GRADUATED?

Jordana LeSense: Well, I didn’t go straight to college. I knew that I had to get out from under my parents, obviously. At the same time, they really couldn’t afford college. So, I decided to start working, in order to save up money to complete my transition. I think one thing I left out of this was that I actually hormonally started my transition at thirteen. Then my mother found out, and she raised hell. So, I had to stop — but from thirteen until about fifteen, I had basically found me a doctor who would write me prescriptions. I had a sister who helped me find this gender-identity center. Being fifteen, I was underage — and anything that I wanted, I would have had to get my parents’ permission. Even the hormones — I had to go under the table for them. Basically, I had a slightly older Trans friend — who was seventeen — who said, “Here’s a shady doctor who’ll write the prescriptions.” So I did that, and my mom found out, and she raised hell. I came back from a field trip to New York — I was in high school — I came back looking not too different than I look now. I kinda used that field trip to say, “Okay, this is my statement.” I got my ears pierced. I got my hair done. I decided: okay, this is it. And, like I said, all hell broke loose in the house. It was hard. I had to stop my transition for a couple of years.

WHEN YOU STOPPED TAKING THE HORMONES, WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT WAS YOUR PHYSIOLOGICAL REACTION TO STOPPING?

Jordana LeSense: There wasn’t a huge physiological reaction, because I’d already started developing — and I was told by the endocrinologists, years later, that it was actually good that I started when I did because the pathways or something had already been opened up or whatever —

GOTCHA.

Jordana LeSense: One reaction I did have was that I got depressed because I felt like my one chance to live a normal, decent life was being taken away. I didn’t understand it. I thought, “If my parents love me, why are they doing this?” It was mainly my mom. My dad, I must say, has been cool throughout the whole thing. He’s been the most supportive throughout the whole thing — and my mom came around later. She was trying to protect me, and she did it the only way she knew how. They were parents from a totally different generation. They were born in the 1920s; they were Depression-era children who grew up to become my parents. What did they know about gender identity and things of that nature? Not a whole lot. Once I was able to move out of my parents’ house, I continued my transition — which was difficult, because I was working at a factory in Pittsburgh that assembled notebook binders. I had a hard time there. I got sexually harassed in an elevator by my supervisor — it was just so much weirdness —

A MALE SUPERVISOR, I BET —

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, a male supervisor — and I couldn’t say anything because back then, that was a good way to get fired. I didn’t want worse to happen from it. It’s a factory. You know the kind of people that work in factories — maybe not the most open-minded people in the world —

OKAY — YOU WERE WORKING IN THIS FACTORY — WHAT STEPS DID YOU TAKE TO RESTART THE TRANSITIONING?

Jordana LeSense: By that time I was old enough; I could do it on my own. I was in a support group for other girls and women like myself — and they pointed me in the right direction, to the right support within Pittsburgh. I decided to go about things legally, and so it was tough — and expensive on a minimum wage. At the same time, I still had to hide things from my parents and from my family. It was an odd time of my life. It was almost like I had to pretend to be one thing for the family — you shouldn’t ever have to pretend to be something for your family. Those are the people you should be most real with. But my close friends knew what was going on with me.

HOW DID YOU DRESS WHEN YOU WERE WORKING AT THE FACTORY?

Jordana LeSense: Very Androgynous. I mean, honestly, very Androgynous. The thing that was the hardest was with the Rave scene, at first. I was going to Raves to get away from the sort of bleak existence I had. This was during the time that my mother had a freak-out. She basically put all of my girl clothes in a huge garbage bag and put them in the trash. I had to plead with her and my dad: “I think I’ve been a good kid. I don’t steal. I don’t rob. I don’t cuss or anything that I think I would deserve this for —” I needed to be honest. I worked hard. I was working a summer job when I was sixteen, and I bought all those clothes. “I bought everything — and you throw it out? What’s that telling me? That hard work isn’t worth anything? Or that I should lie about who I am?” One day I came home from school and everything was on my bed. She gave everything back — but it was very uncomfortable. It was kinda like at that point, she didn’t want to know. We didn’t talk about it any further, and because of that I felt I had to hide it from her as best as I could — and it was really a difficult time. I’d go to Raves or clubs and I’d look like a girl — and then by the time I would get home, my mother would be home, and I didn’t want to catch hell from her. So as a result of that, in the Rave scene there were people that knew me one way, and others who didn’t know me that way. It became more of an issue later. But at a certain point I told my mother, “I’ve got to actually get out there and be who I am — and whatever may come, may come.” My mom was in denial, and I don’t know if she actually heard me when I told her. I guess I kind of started to get popular. When I played the gig where Soulslinger saw me, I did not look like a girl — but I wasn’t the most masculine-looking boy, either; I did what I could to not cause a problem. I would be Androgynous up to a point, and then I’d be like, “Okay, you have to do this for your mom.” There was a point where I was both who I was and who my mom wanted me to be.

I SEE.

Jordana LeSense: When I was fifteen, I was really depressed about what was going on with my mom. I had a very good friend, and I let her know that I was going to kill myself — I left my friend a suicide letter. She took it to the school principal. Then, after another attempt where I took a bunch of pills, I got sick on the living room floor — and that’s when my parents decided to send me to a psychologist. He was not very good. He was like a normal psychologist who didn’t know anything about gender identity or anything like that. Every time I would try and steer the conversation in that direction, he would take it somewhere else. So I said, “Okay, this is just a waste of time. I could be studying. I could be doing other things.” So, I convinced him that I was better, and I wasn’t going to kill myself, and that I didn’t need him anymore. Around that time I told one of my sisters what was going on and she referred me to Persad, a gender-identity and sexual-identity center in Pittsburgh.

OKAY — YOU’VE STARTED YOUR TRANSITIONING AND YOU’RE GOING TO RAVES TO DISTRACT YOURSELF FROM WHAT YOU DESCRIBED AS A BLEAK TIME IN YOUR LIFE. WERE YOU GETTING HIGH ON ANYTHING IN THOSE DAYS?

Jordana LeSense: Well, let’s just say that I did partake. I did inhale. Some people said that a lot of what I did then was self-medication. I’ll tell you flat out: I took Ecstasy. I smoked Weed. I think I dropped Acid a couple of times. I didn’t do large quantities of any of it — just experimentation. Acid was trippy and sort of went with the Techno; Marijuana was relaxing to the point of making me sleepy. I saw very little of personal value in Weed or Acid. Out of all three of those drugs, the only one that I could actually say anything good about was Ecstasy, because at one point — I think it was the first time I took it — I saw, in front of me, my life — and I felt like I knew absolutely who I was to become and, without question, what I needed to do. I always knew who I was, but people will try to persuade you to change who you are — but at that point I said, “Okay, this is it.” I’m not saying this to advocate drugs. Far from it; don’t do drugs. They’re bad, but I credit them as part of something that helped me realize that my dream was achievable — it was therapeutic. Ecstasy was used as a therapeutic drug in the 80s.

IT STILL IS, ACTUALLY.

Jordana LeSense: It helped me open up to my family.

I THINK DRUGS ARE A GREAT THING. PEOPLE SHOULD BE PROUD OF IT IF THEY DO THEM. THEY CAN BE EASILY ABUSED AND THEY CAN HURT YOU IF YOU’RE NOT CAREFUL — BUT YOU’RE TELLING A STORY ABOUT A VERY POSITIVE EXPERIENCE THAT CAME OUT OF IT —

Jordana LeSense: I won’t say that I’m ashamed of my drug use. I will say that there are friends that I no longer have, who were part of that scene, who definitely went too far and abused them — but for me and the little group of friends that I had within the scene, we kinda looked at our drug use like it was something we would do and then we would write down our experiences. A lot of us kept notebooks and were like, ”Okay, what did I learn from this?”

COOL.

Jordana LeSense: ABC or CBS would do something on Raves, and they’d look at it and they would say “drugged-out kids” — but I would have to say that we were probably one of the most intelligent groups of drugged-out kids because we totally would analyze our drug use after the fact, and evaluate it. This was at the time where the Internet was finally starting to really become popular. There was a site called HyperReal and it was almost like a repository for Rave information as well as drug information. One of the things that they would say was, the best way to use drugs was to be informed about them. We weren’t unintelligently using them — you know, “Hey, here’s a pill, let’s pop it!” It was more like, “Okay, this is what I know about this drug, before I even take it. This is what I should expect, and I’m going to write about it afterwards and see if I can get anything good from it.” So, the first time I did Ecstasy, afterwards, I got out my diary — I used to keep a diary when I was little. I hadn’t written in it in years because it was kind of depressing looking at it, but I got it out and I saw the dreams and stuff I’d had and who I thought I would be, and I realized all those dreams were still possible — and that was the morning after the first time I took Ecstasy. That was when I said, “Regardless of what happens, I’m going to continue my transition and whatever may come, will come. I have to do this.”

ANOTHER POSITIVE ECSTASY STORY THERE. IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE THE STUFF’S ILLEGAL, ISN’T IT?

Jordana LeSense: Absolutely — and I think some of the most anti-social drugs are legal, unfortunately. I know Ecstasy was one thing that broke down barriers. It broke down barriers between races, between different social classes — everything. We were all partying together — and I truly believe that had to have done some good.

IT WAS THE LOVE DRUG — THAT’S WHAT WE CALLED IT.

Photo courtesy of Jordana LeSense

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, it was a love drug — but I think that it was even more than that. I think it was more a get-to-know-you drug. It would make you very talkative. It wasn’t sexual, but social. Everybody would want to share a little bit of their life with each other at a Rave. So, you learn to appreciate different perspectives. You learned a lot about other people when they didn’t have their barriers up.

YES, YES. SO, ON ECSTASY YOU SAID “I’M GONNA GO THROUGH WITH MY TRANSITION.” YOU’RE IN PITTSBURGH —

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, and I saw no future there at all. I knew that if I was going to do this and make it work — you know, actually be able to get on with life — I had to at some point leave the city, because it was such a small town. I was thinking, “Okay, how am I going to do that? I’ve got no college education —” I dropped out from the 9-to-5 world. I didn’t want to do anything illegal. I promised myself that I would never prostitute myself or anything of that nature. Then I looked at the DJs, and I’m thinking, “Hmm — I see these guys and a couple of girls come through. They’re making decent money. I can do that. My brother was a DJ. I think I can learn to do that —”

DID YOU HAVE A VINYL COLLECTION?

Jordana LeSense: I did, but it wasn’t anything I could spin at a Rave. It was like 80s New Wave, Punk records, some Metal, the occasional Hip Hop record handed down from an older sibling — but no, I didn’t really have much of a Dance Music record collection. However, when I told my brother that I was going to start DJing, he was very helpful. He gave me his turntable, his sound system, everything that was still in my parents’ basement. Then, it was just about me going to buy records. Luckily, that wasn’t hard because in Pittsburgh there was one popular underground alternative record store, Eides Records. I was already very familiar with it because it was where all the Punks and Metalheads and Hip Hop heads had to buy records. And, there was Industrial stuff. I came across Lords Of Acid, and I recognized some of the music from a couple of the clubs that I had frequented. There was another section called Techno. So I just started buying up — every week they’d get a new record and I’d buy it. I started learning how to mix from that, and so I guess I sorta became pretty good at it.

I’D SAY SO.

Jordana LeSense: I sold my guitar. I sold my amp. I bought a keyboard. I said to myself, “I’ll try and make one of these records —” and my first attempts were just laughable, but at a certain point I got good enough. I posted something online at a group that was called alt.rave — it was an early Internet Rave discussion group. Because somebody was talking about Blondie, I said, “Well, my brother has ‘Heart Of Glass’” and I said I would love to make a Drum & Bass remix of that. This was like in ’94. A guy from EMI Chrysalis came across my message. He sent me an email saying, “Well, we’ve already got somebody who’s going to do ‘Heart Of Glass.’ But I have another Blondie song you can re-mix if you want,” and so I said yeah — of course. That actually became my very first vinyl record.

SO, YOU REMIXED “ATOMIC” — AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?

Jordana LeSense: Not much happened at first. A whole year or so went by — ’94 to ’96 — but I just kept perfecting the beats, trying to make things better. Working with them. Learning how to use all of this technology. It wasn’t easy, especially back then. I kinda sorta just confined myself — when I wasn’t working, I was studying music, studying DJing, studying Dance music, learning more about the history, learning more about different artists, figuring out how to put it all together and how to make my own sound. In 1996, I put out my first record with Jungle Sky.

WAS THAT ROCK STONE FOUNDATION?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, exactly — and that was with a local Reggae MC. He went by MC Soy Sauce.

AND MAY I REMIND YOU THAT THE VILLAGE VOICE CALLED YOU “WIDELY REGARDED AS THE TOP U.S. DRUM & BASS PRODUCER.”

Jordana LeSense: I’ve seen that stuff. I don’t know if I really agree with it because I know so many other people who should probably share that honor — but I will say that at the time, there weren’t that many of us. Even years later, there still weren’t a whole lot. So, I’ll accept the praise — but there were other people I traded samples with — we sent floppy disks through the mail to each other. They were equally good. I think I just became popular.

WELL, YOU ARE REGARDED AS THE TOP U.S. DRUM & BASS PRODUCER AND WHETHER YOU AGREE WITH IT OR NOT, THE VILLAGE VOICE SAYS IT’S TRUE — SO, WHAT CAN I TELL YOU?

Jordana LeSense: I accept it.

I THINK IT’S PRETTY COOL.

Jordana LeSense: I think it’s cool too. I just know that there are people out there who, if I don’t give props to, they will hate on me — but whatever. I trust them and if they believe I’m on the top, I accept it.

TELL US ABOUT WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE —

Jordana LeSense: When Worlds Collide was my first album, and it was a theme album. The whole idea was pretty simple. It was imaging the soundscape of first contact between the Earth and an alien species.

WOW.

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. It starts with this landing of a craft, and there’s samples and stuff for that. It basically sets the tone for the rest of the album.

VERY INTERESTING. YOU HAVE A SCI-FI ELEMENT IN YOUR STYLE.

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, I guess I always have. At least with the Drum & Bass, I’ve definitely always had a Sci-fi element. Mainly because it was futuristic music. The whole Rave movement was about the future: Let’s create a future we can imagine, now. Let’s live the future today. Let’s party like it’s 1999, even though it’s 1992. So, I decided, “Well, this is my first album on a pretty decent record label. I want it to have some kind of coherence, some kind of overarching theme. Okay, here’s where my underground world collides with the actual record industry.”

INTERESTING. LET ME COME BACK TO THE STORY OF YOUR TRANSITIONING, IF I MAY. NOT TO BELABOR THE POINT —

Jordana LeSense: No, that’s okay.

WHERE DID YOUR TRANSITION TAKE PLACE?

Jordana LeSense: I moved to Philadelphia, and that was where it took place mostly. I prefer to call it my re-transitioning because I started my transitioning when I was younger, then I had to stop and de-transition — but my re-transition took place in Philadelphia. It was great. I didn’t really have a whole lot of problems other than a couple of friends who — well, this one promoter in Philadelphia, he just totally turned on me afterwards — but for the most part, I think I did okay. I think I had a fairly uneventful transition.

I SEE. TELL ME WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH — THE SURGERY, THE RUN UP TO IT, THE THERAPY —

Jordana LeSense: There’s what’s called the real-life test. Usually when someone goes through a transition, if they go by the book they go through psychological evaluations first, then they may be put on hormone therapy, and then they decide, “Okay, this is who I am.” They come to the realization that, “I can go further now into the world as who I am” — and that’s when what’s called the real-life test begins. When I went to the psychologist, she evaluated me over the course of a month or two. I told her how I tried to transition earlier and what happened with my mom, and she said, “Well, obviously you’re taking hormones now. Let me refer you to an endocrinologist so they can take your blood work and see that you’re healthy and can continue.” I did that, and then I told her that ultimately I wanted to get surgery and she said, “Okay, we’ll start the real-life test, and what that involves basically is that you live and you work as who you are. Can you function in society on your job? Will this cause you any ill effects?” Surgery’s not right for everyone — and some people decide on surgery for the wrong reason. They usually at that point, during the real-life test, come to the conclusion that maybe it’s not the best path or choice for them. So, it’s kind of a filter. If you’re not in this for the right reasons, you’re gonna know during your real-life test.

YOU OBVIOUSLY PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS —

Jordana LeSense: Yeah — and I couldn’t be happier for the choice that I made.

DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF YOUR TRANSITION? I DON’T WANT TO ASK YOU ANY PERSONAL QUESTIONS THAT ARE OFF LIMITS —

Jordana LeSense: Sure. I look at this as educational. If there’s a girl like me who happens to come across this — since the world found out about me, I’ve helped plenty of younger girls who’ve sought me out for one reason or another, and this stuff can be scary if you don’t know a whole lot about it. So, ask away. What do you want to know?

I HOPE THIS ISN’T TOO TACKY OF A QUESTION, BUT HOW ABOUT THE FIRST TIME YOU HAD SEX WITH FEMALE GENITALIA IN PLACE? DO YOU RECALL THAT?

Jordana LeSense: Absolutely. I recall it like it was yesterday. I can tell you that it was the best experience that I ever had, sexually. Let me put it this way: when I had boy parts, they didn’t do anything for me. I tried not to even think of them. Then, well after I healed from the surgery and had my first sexual experience, it was like, “This is what I should have had from the beginning!” Imagine living your life in a black-and-white movie — and then, after surgery, it’s in color!

THAT’S A VERY NICE METAPHOR. BACK TO THE SURGERY ITSELF — WAS IT NERVE-WRACKING WAITING FOR IT TO HEAL, HOPING EVERYTHING WAS GOING TO TURN OUT OKAY?

Jordana LeSense: I am a Buddhist. I practice meditation. It was the one thing that calmed me through a lot of the anxiety. I may have done drugs in the Rave scene, but once I started doing Raves professionally, I stopped — because it’s not conducive to making your flight on time. So, I took up meditation, being able to put myself in an almost pseudo-hypnotic trance to the point where I might even disassociate from my body itself. After surgery, I would say that it might have been painful in just the few days afterwards — I don’t know that I experienced severe pain from it because I was pretty good at meditating. But at the same time, if you need painkillers, take them. In this case, drugs are good. I knew that there would be pain involved — but I looked at this like, what would be more painful, trying to live a life that wasn’t mine, or the short-term pain involved with finally completing the process to live the full life I’ve had?

SO, WHATEVER PAIN THERE WAS, PHYSICALLY SPEAKING, YOU WERE ABLE TO DEAL WITH IT THROUGH YOUR MEDITATION.

Jordana LeSense: Whatever pain I had physically after surgery did not equal the emotional pain that I had when I was younger. I looked at it as a trade-off. “There’ll be pain for a short period of time after surgery — but think of all those years that you were in pain from being beaten up physically, or had pain inside for being forced to live a life that isn’t yours.” That little bit of pain — I looked at it as a trade-off that was well worth it. It wasn’t severe in my case. Everyone goes, “Well, did it hurt?” Of course it hurt. All surgery hurts!

DO YOU RECOMMEND IT FOR OTHERS?

Jordana LeSense: I would recommend it — but it has to be right for you. There are many people who’ve had surgery and are successful after surgery — but there’s a small minority that had surgery for the wrong reasons, and it’s not going to make their life better — and in some rare cases, it’s made it worse. So, I would say that if you are considering this path, please, please, please don’t skip any step. Make sure that you have a great psychologist. Make sure that you complete your real-life test. Make sure you’re okay with you, and make sure that you’re doing it for the right reasons. Ultimately, once you’ve done it, you’ve done it — so, you have to be happy with it and happy with you.

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO HEAL?

Jordana LeSense: I was in the hospital for ten days, which is kind of a long stay by today’s standards. Back then they kept you under observation for ten days just to make sure that there were no complications. After that point, you’re starting to heal — and the actual soreness took probably a month to go away. You might have some numbness — but then that goes away, too. Then it’s more about the internal stuff. I don’t want to make it seem like it’s this huge painful thing — I can’t remember much pain after the second week.

OKAY. HOW DO THE ORGASMS COMPARE? YOU SAID THAT WHEN YOU HAD THE BOY PARTS THEY DIDN’T REALLY WORK FOR YOU —

Jordana LeSense: I didn’t get much use out of the boy parts. I can’t really compare, because it wasn’t something I had much of a desire to do. Okay, everyone pleasures themselves — even if you lie about it. Prior to surgery, on the rare occasion that I tried, it didn’t do much for me. I didn’t like to think much about those parts prior to surgery. Like I said: night and day. It’s not comparable. They’re totally different feelings. To me, it’s just a much more full thing. I’m comfortable with my body now.

HOW DID YOU GET THE FUNDS TO DO ALL THIS?

Jordana LeSense: Well, let me just put it this way: At the peak of my career, I got paid two-thousand dollars an hour.

NOT BAD.

Jordana LeSense: Roughly about fifteen hours of DJing.

OKAY. DID YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND DURING THAT TRANSITIONAL TIME?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, there was a guy I had met. I actually met a number of guys when I was living in Philadelphia before surgery. But, I only had one boyfriend, and he was awesome. He knew about my past. I met him during my real-life test, but he never knew me as anything different than who I am. He was also big into Japanese anime, and I guess a theme in anime is transformation — so he was okay with it. He was pretty cool. He completely accepted the whole thing. He was my boyfriend after the surgery as well. He had quite a lot of patience because you really can’t — it’s not advisable that you have sex like for months after surgery, during the healing process. But yeah, that was how that went. We sorta grew apart. I was getting a lot more bookings and I wasn’t able to be around so much, so we kind of mutually sort of split. That’s kinda how that went.

HOW LONG AFTERWARDS DID YOU SPLIT WITH HIM?

Jordana LeSense: Probably about a year-and-a-half later.

HOW ABOUT THE FIRST TIME YOU SAW YOUR PARENTS AFTER THE OPERATION?

Jordana LeSense: My mom gave me this huge hug. They were all expecting me. They had a welcome-home banner. It was awesome; the mood was like one-hundred-and-eighty degrees from where it had been when I left. She gave me a hug and said, “Oh my gosh, you look so beautiful.” By that point, she had come to accept everything — and it was great. My dad was always cool. When he first called me — after I had written him a letter to tell him I was scheduled for surgery which said, “Dad, I’m going to go through with this” — he was like, “Yeah, I got your message.” I was anxious about how he felt, and had left him an answering-machine message several days after mailing the letter. He called me back and said, “Yeah, I got your message. I just wanted to say: cool. Just be careful and I trust that you know what’s best for you.” So, my parents were great. My family was great. My brother was great. My sisters were all great, as they always were — and it was awesome. I felt like, “Okay, all the hell I went through all during my childhood — everything’s finally turned out well. Even my mom is welcoming me. This is awesome.” We grew closer as a family as well.

WHAT ABOUT THE MUSIC COMMUNITY?

Jordana LeSense: I would say that it was mostly supportive with a couple of exceptions. For the most part, most of the music community was okay. I did have an encounter, though, that you probably know about —

IS THIS IN OHIO?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. You know about that —

I DIDN’T KNOW WHETHER TO BRING IT UP —

Jordana LeSense: No, it’s okay — because, ultimately, where I am today might be totally different had that not happened.

THIS IS IN THE YEAR 2000.

Jordana LeSense: Yes, this is the year 2000. I was touring on my third album, titled The Cities Collection. It was another themed album. Every song was named after a city. So, I was touring. One of those gigs took me to Kent, Ohio. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was sick with the flu. I had wanted to stay in San Francisco — that was where I had played the night before. A very nice guy had brought me a bottle of wine and a note and left it at my hotel. I kinda wanted to get to know him but I said, “Nope, I must go on. I’m a professional. I will suffer through this flu and see how I do, right?” The next night, the Kent gig was bad. The sound system was bad. My flu was bad. Everything about it was just bad. It was like one of my worst gigs ever. But, I was a professional; I got through it. People were dancing. They had fun. It didn’t seem like they cared so much, and when I was being led from the venue back to the car for my hotel, this group of guys attacked me.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Jordana LeSense: I was knocked out. I was unconscious. A married couple saw them beating me. They stopped them, and I ended up being taken back to the hotel. We probably should have gone to the hospital, but I had a flight that I had to catch in the morning. I filed a police report — and that’s a whole other saga. They knew who the guy was. They had a hard time arresting him. Years later, they still hadn’t served an arrest warrant. So —

I DON’T WANT TO GIVE THIS GUY ANY PRESS HERE — IS THIS MATTHEW GOSTLIN?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. He wasn’t the only one. Things happened after that. I received email from somebody who knew him that said that if he ever saw me again he’d finish the job. You can imagine how I felt. That area wasn’t far from Pittsburgh, where my family lives. I was afraid. I didn’t want to go out much because I thought, “That guy is out there. He’s still out there.”

WHAT WAS HIS BEEF WITH YOU?

Jordana LeSense: It was a hate crime. A pure Transphobic hate crime. That’s what happened. He was associated with a group that threw a party that I had played, but I didn’t know him. I didn’t know who he was. I’d never heard of him before. As the couple that rescued me said, he had hate in his eyes.

BEING YOURSELF IS A CRIME TO SOME PEOPLE, I GUESS.

Jordana LeSense: Well, yeah, I guess so. I don’t want to say anything about the area, but some of the people who lived there weren’t the most open-minded people — and at the same time, I had a bad set that night. I didn’t play my best because A, I had the flu and B, the sound system was sub-par. Things were going wrong. I don’t know. Who knows? Maybe he was drunk, maybe he was on drugs. None of that’s any excuse for what he did. The stuff that he said during the attack, while I was unconscious and afterwards — using male pronouns to refer to me! That pretty much says all you need to know about his motivation. There’s been cases like that since, and they’ve been prosecuted as hate crimes. Unfortunately, back then Ohio didn’t have a hate crime law that would have covered me.

WHAT EVENTUALLY HAPPENED?

Jordana LeSense: You’ll have to ask the Portage County prosecutor’s office, because as far as I know, for some reason, they never arrested him, I heard that they tried to serve the warrant. By now, it doesn’t even matter. They didn’t even put it down as a felony. It was a simple assault in their eyes. So, it’s a misdemeanor. What do they care?

BEING A TRANSSEXUAL CAN BE A VERY DANGEROUS THING.

Jordana LeSense: I don’t want anybody to get the idea that if you’re Trans then you’re in danger because, honestly, today most people who are Trans get on with their life, and they’re okay. I could have not been Trans and some crazy person could have attacked me. That happens. This guy’s motivation was definitely because of me being Trans. That happened — and he should have been prosecuted under a hate-crime law.

WAS THERE A RACIAL COMPONENT TO IT, POSSIBLY?

Jordana LeSense: There could have been, but I don’t know. I don’t know if he used racial terms. I was unconscious, and the couple that saved me was an interracial couple. But I do know that I felt like I got no justice. At that point, I was really upset. Around that time, I got a call from Liquid Sky’s lawyer, and he said that he had something for me if I wanted it. It was licensing my music to Paramount Pictures —

FOR A MOVIE?

Jordana LeSense: Absolutely. It was for Zoolander.

THAT WAS A GREAT MOVIE.

Jordana LeSense: I’m not going to give the amount of money because it’s tacky, but it was five figures — and it was enough so that I could move. At the time I had had an on-line radio show. It was on a server with a bunch of other Dance Music shows. So, I was like, “Well, these guys are over in England running this thing and DJing a sort of related genre to Drum & Bass called UK Garage, or Two-Step —”

IS THIS WHEN YOU USED THE MONIKER 1.8.7.?

Jordana LeSense: No, that was when I was doing Drum & Bass. Back when I first began, at one of the gigs that I did in Pittsburgh, the keyboard blew out one of the speakers and the sound guy said, “You just murdered one of my speakers with that low note,” and I said, “Really?” He said, “Yeah, you 187ed it.” I didn’t have a DJ name then. I was like, “Hmm, 187 — that’s kind of like cool. It doesn’t have a gender associated with it.” I remember reading an interview with Drum & Bass pioneer DJ Rap, and she said she had picked her DJ name because it didn’t have a gender. So, for Drum & Bass I used 1.8.7. — but my UK Garage and Two-Step moniker was Lady J. It was common for women in the UK Garage world to use a such a name — there was Lady Destiny, Lady G, Lady Sovereign et cetera. Everything that I produced under that name — Lady J — was mostly in the world of UK Garage, Two-Step and maybe New School Breakbeat.

UH-HUH.

Jordana LeSense: J-DNA was my Techno moniker. I didn’t release much on it —

J-DNA.

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, like some of the letters from Jordana. You know, genetics and things like that. Now you’re one of the few people who know about that.

LET’S HOPE EVERYBODY READS THIS AND FINDS OUT ABOUT IT.

Jordana LeSense: That would be awesome — but anyways, I moved to London. I thought, “I’m not going to get any justice, and as long as I live anywhere on the East Coast — even anywhere in America — this guy can come and get me.” So, I thought the best thing to do was pack up, take the money from Paramount and move to London. That’s exactly what I did. I have to say, it was probably one of the best decisions I ever made — because I got to start all over. When I say “start all over,” I mean Start All Over. I didn’t go over there using my name or using what I did — and to be honest, I don’t think many people would have cared. I started again, from the bottom. I started working at a pirate radio station called Flex FM 106.3, and I became involved with the guy who owned the station. He was pretty cool. He was a big fan of the stuff that I produced. He got me a couple of gigs — we even went over to Germany together for some — and I had a weekly time slot on his station.

NOW, YOU WENT OVER THERE AND NOBODY KNEW YOUR BACKGROUND —

Jordana LeSense: I liked it that way.

AND YOU’RE MEETING GUYS. YOUR IDENTITY AS A TRANSSEXUAL — IS THAT AN ISSUE IN DATING?

Jordana LeSense: The first thing to correct is that you said my “identity as a Transsexual” — I don’t have a Transsexual identity. My identity is as a woman. Transsexual is something that is part of my life. That’s how I got to where I am — but I don’t feel that that’s my identity. I don’t have a Transgender or Transsexual identity. I don’t identify myself as Trans. I don’t wave the Transgender flag. Please understand, I’m not ashamed of it, it just isn’t a big part of how I see myself nor is it how others who meet me without knowing my past see me. What does Transgender or Transsexual mean? The root meaning of “Trans” is to get from one place to another. I got from one place to another. At that stage in my life, in London, it didn’t really come up. The only time I brought it up was when a relationship got serious — and that only occurred twice. The first was with the station owner — but again, he had no clue. I wasn’t gonna tell him, and it wasn’t like everybody was Googling my name. I was just some Yank that came from the States. So, there was not that interest to really care. The guy that I spent most of my life with in London, the guy who became the love of my life for more than two years — I did tell him, but only after six months. I only did it because it became that serious. I was taking care of his kids from a previous marriage and I thought, “Okay, if he comes across this stuff on his own somehow, I don’t want it to be that I wasn’t honest with him —” and at the same time, he was talking marriage and things like that. It’s best that I tell him, “Okay, here’s where I come from; this is my past —” because he told me about women he had been with prior to us meeting, and things like that. I thought, “Well, okay, I’ve got to be honest with him.” And so I was — and he was okay with it.

HAD THERE ALREADY BEEN A SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP WHEN YOU TOLD HIM?

Jordana LeSense: It depends. A kiss is a sexual relationship, right? So in that respect yeah, there had been — but it wasn’t like we were having intercourse five times a day at the time that I told him. We were still sorta feeling each other out, figuring out “do I really want to be with this person long term?” — at one point we kinda both decided, “Yeah.” That was when I told him. And he said — I still remember — “It doesn’t really matter. You’re who you are, now. That’s all I know. That’s all that you should care about. All that stuff doesn’t mean a thing to me. I know who you are. You know who you are. The kids love you. Let’s not bring it up again.” That’s about it.

I SEE. WHEN DID YOU COME BACK TO THE STATES?

Jordana LeSense: I came back to the States in 2004 because I hadn’t seen my parents in over two years and I said, “Okay, I need to go back for Thanksgiving.” As it turned out, my big mistake post-9/11 was that I didn’t have a return ticket — when I went back to England after visiting my parents, I didn’t have a return ticket to the States. So, they deported me.

THEY DEPORTED YOU?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. They deported me because they said I was in danger of overstaying my visa. The kind of visa I was on was good for two years. I actually left a week before it was set to run out, so that I could renew it upon re-entry, as I had done when returning to the UK from Germany. Well, this woman pulls me aside. There’s a little holding area where they put people who are being deported. She comes to me and she says, “Listen, it’s nothing personal — it’s just that your government is doing it to our people, so we’ve got to do it to you. We know you paid tax and you do everything that you’re supposed to. You didn’t overstay your visa — but it’s just that everything has become more strict now because of 9/11.” So, I got deported back to the States. All my life was in London. I had a nice flat in South London with my boyfriend. The kids — I got them up for breakfast. I got them off to school every day. I had become a part of their life in those years, right? But suddenly I wasn’t there. I was back in the U.S. Every time my boyfriend would call, he’d put them on to talk with me. One was seven and the other was eleven. They were like, “When are you coming back?” It just tore my heart apart. So, at one point my boyfriend came over to visit me. The idea was, we were going to decide: What are we going to do? We’d talked about marriage in the past — and that would have helped. We’d have to go through the British High Council in New York to get my deportation revoked. He at that point told me he had started seeing someone, and that he was over here to break it off. He said he tried to wait, but it was already too long — over a year and a half —

ANOTHER VICTIM OF THE WAR ON TERROR, THAT RELATIONSHIP —

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. I sit and I think what could have been. During that time, I was the most happiest I had been since the attack in Ohio. I wasn’t out gigging anymore. I had settled down. I was working. I had my 9-to-5 job. It was a joy for me to have to be there for him and his kids. His wife who he had split with was a crack addict; that’s why he got custody of the children. So they really had no mom. I was that for them. They latched on to me. So, all those things went through my mind: “Who’s going to get them up for school every day?” Then I realized, “Okay, well, he’s found someone else —” and when he told me, I kinda half expected it.

OH BOY.

Jordana LeSense: But things have changed. I’m engaged for real.

THAT’S WONDERFUL —

Jordana LeSense: He just this past summer proposed.

IS HE A FAN OF GOTH METAL?

Jordana LeSense: No, not really — but he doesn’t mind it. We listen to it in the car. He doesn’t mind it at all. This guy — we would have never met had it not been for being in the same place at the same time. We come from different worlds. He’s like a big sports fan. He’s like a jock. He’s like the kind of guy I would have been afraid of in high school. So, it’s kinda funny —

IT SEEMS THE WORLD COMES FULL CIRCLE, HUH?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. It does. It totally comes full circle. He didn’t know anything about my past, what I did or anything. I have to be honest. You asked about telling a guy about my past, right? How does that work with dating? One of the things about dating I will tell you — I had one guy that I met when in New York on record-label business during the Nineties. He was awesome. He was an investment banker. He worked in New York. But he told me, “Jordana, I’ve got no problem with you being Trans. My problem is the fact that you were in music, so the whole world knows about it.” I mean, if I met a guy and told him I was Trans and he didn’t really care for me after that, so be it. But with this guy, it was like, “My problem’s not that you’re Trans, it’s that the whole world knew about it because you were in music” — and he was an investment banker.

WE WOULDN’T WANT HIS STUFFY FUCKIN’ CLIENTS TO GET THE WRONG IDEA, HUH?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. He had to look after his clients. You got it.

AND PROBABLY HIS CLIENTS WOULD HAVE BEEN DELIGHTED TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR SITUATION —

Jordana LeSense: Well, who knows?

HOW DID YOU WIND UP IN SEATTLE?

Jordana LeSense: After I was deported, I kinda got depressed. I got back in touch with a friend who had started out as a fan who wrote me an email. She was another girl who walked a similar path as me, and we became close friends through the Internet, by phone and whatnot. She’d moved to Seattle. She said, “As long as you’re back in the States, and as long as your attacker is still out there, why don’t you move to the West Coast and see how you like it?” I visited her in 2005, and in 2006 I moved. I’ve been here ever since. I joined my band; I met this guy and girl playing on the street. I tossed a twenty-dollar bill in their guitar case. They said they didn’t want it. I said, “Well, I used to be a musician and I know how hard it can be.” They’re like, “We don’t want it. We’re just out here practicing. What did you play?” I told them I DJed, I’ve made Electronic Music, and I played guitar and bass. She was like, “Well do you like Metal? We need a bass player for our band.” So I joined this girl’s band. Her name was Shelita and she was the lead vocalist. We became very good friends. I would not have gone into Goth Metal had it not been for that moment. Our band, Apparatus, eventually split due to personal differences with the guitarist, but Shelita and I remained good friends. She continued learning guitar — I gave her lessons — and she does the singer-songwriter coffeehouse thing now. I’ve continued developing my singing voice — she gave me lessons — and am now fronting a Goth Metal band. She was instrumental in starting me down that path — and the few people who know about my past in the Metal community have been nothing but supportive.

NOW THERE’S A HAPPY ENDING —

Jordana LeSense: Yes it is. Yes it is.

OKAY. WELL, I THINK THAT NAILS IT. THANK YOU SO MUCH —

Jordana LeSense: Thank you too. ~

Kiki Leekey

Actor & Dancer

Photo courtesy of Kiki Leekey

MANUEL OTTO VASQUEZ: WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

Kiki Leekey: Kiki Leekey. Why? I don’t know. I just thought I wanted to do something I could spell. My first name — my original name — it took me three years to learn how to spell my own name when I was a little kid. So I thought, “This time I’m going to do a simple name.”

COOL. WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?

Kiki Leekey: Right now I’m go-go dancing at a Tranny club called Transfest — but normally I do impersonations. I do impersonations at Drag shows under Pretty Kitty Delight.

UNDER PRETTY KITTY DELIGHT?

Kiki Leekey: Uh-huh. That’s my stage name. I’ve been slowly doing an acting career. I haven’t had big, big roles yet — but I had little small ones here and there. So, hopefully that breaks through —

WHAT SMALL ROLES HAVE YOU DONE SO FAR?

Kiki Leekey: I played a prostitute in a movie. It wasn’t that far from what I was doing in real life. So, there wasn’t too much acting — it came natural.

HOW IS PROSTITUTING IN LOS ANGELES?

Kiki Leekey: It was hot and then cold. Yes and no — it was like a Katy Perry song. I never wanted to do it, but my ex-boyfriend left me in L.A. homeless — and when you’re homeless you’ll do things you thought you would never do, like an old eighty-nine-year-old guy and his father for money —

HIS FATHER?

Kiki Leekey: That never actually happened, but it would be pretty awesome if it did. No, it’s just something that you would not expect to do — Guys who like to pay for sex really want you to do weird things. I would do anything except sleep with a woman. So, that was my limit —

WHAT IF A WOMAN CAME TO YOU WITH A LOT OF MONEY?

Kiki Leekey: Unless she was Christine Aguilera, that would still be a no. Maybe Angelina Jolie, too.

DO YOU CARE IF YOU PASS?

Kiki Leekey: If I pass? Oh no, I don’t care. I don’t like passing; I like being Transgendered. It’s different. I wish you wouldn’t live in this life and want to be like everyone else — be a norm. Nobody’s normal, first of all. So passing’s not such a big issue for me. I clock myself — “clocking” is a term that we use to tell people that we’re Transgender. I will clock myself in front of guys and in front of girls, especially if the guy’s being rude. If he’s like, “Hey baby, I want to see your tits,” I would just take out my tits, out of my bra, and say, “Here — you can keep it.”

YOU’D TAKE OUT THE PADDING AND SHOW IT TO THEM?

Kiki Leekey: I would take out the tit — the fake chicken cutlet —and I would throw it to him and say, “You keep that one.”

WHEN DID YOU FEEL THE NEED TO TRANSITION?

Kiki Leekey: I think you always know what you want to be. It’s just like, when are you able to be yourself? When you’re living with your parents? I think for anybody, you have your limitations. Like, your parents might not want you to ever get a tattoo. So you wait until you get out and then you get a tattoo. Your parents might not ever want you to suck a cock. So you wait until they weren’t home, and then you suck your brother’s cock. It usually depends on, when are you more comfortable to be yourself? I always knew I wanted to be Transgendered, so I did it slowly. I kind of put on makeup here and there. I had a very quiet Catholic Hispanic family —

YOUR FAMILY?

Kiki Leekey: Uh-huh. So, they didn’t really speak too much about what was going on until it got out of control or people complained — like, outsiders who weren’t a part of our family complained about it to them. Then they would say something about it.

HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU REALIZED YOU WERE A GIRL?

Kiki Leekey: When I saw Clueless and realized I wanted to be Dionne and not Cher and not any of the other guys. I wanted to be the hot popular girl who got fucked by all the hot jocks. That’s when I realized I wanted to be a girl. That was at a very young age. That was when the Power Rangers first came out, so I was five or eight — I knew I wanted to be a big slut since then.

COOL. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK?

Kiki Leekey: I don’t give a fuck. I don’t know what they think. I really don’t. I don’t think they really care about anything. They don’t know — I think it’s because I don’t live with them. I think that’s really why —

DO YOU STILL TALK TO THEM?

Kiki Leekey: Yeah.

HAVE YOU HAD ANY FRIENDS THAT STOPPED TALKING TO YOU BECAUSE OF IT?

Kiki Leekey: No — it’s more like I’ve had friends who fucked me and then claimed to be Straight after — but I’ve never had a friend stop talking to me because I am who I am. Actually, all my friends like me, but they’re a little bit embarrassed by me because I have such an outgoing personality. I have no filter.

DO YOU TAKE HORMONES?

Kiki Leekey: I start taking hormones in two weeks. So, I’m as much of a man as every other man in this room. It’s just that I make a pretty bitch.

DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF TRANSGENDER AT THIS POINT?

Kiki Leekey: Yeah. I’m Transgender as hell — but some people are more fortunate. They took hormones when they were fifteen because their parents understood. Now I live in L.A. and it’s easier to get hormones. So now that I live here, I’ve been trying to do it — and I start in two weeks.

ARE YOU EVER GOING TO GET REASSIGNMENT SURGERY?

Kiki Leekey: No. I hate vaginas so much, I don’t even want one. That’s how much I don’t like girls.

THAT’S A GOOD ONE; I’VE NEVER HEARD THAT.

Kiki Leekey: When girls used to try to talk shit about Trannies, I’d be like, “Fuck you, bitch — you’re mad because you want what I have and I don’t want what you have. It looks like Freddy Krueger stuck his fingers in-between your legs and shredded it.” No, I don’t want a vagina. I hate vaginas. They’re the weirdest things. I want to be a woman; I don’t want a vagina.

ARE YOU EVER GOING TO GET IMPLANTS?

Kiki Leekey: I don’t know. I’m going to let the hormones take my tits where they want to go. Some girls get the tits and shit, and it’s too fake — but you know what? That is a good idea. I might get tits for the fact that I can fall out of an airplane and float in the water.

HELL YEAH.

Kiki Leekey: I would never drown. So, I take that back — I am going to get tits. I wish they had a little button on them so you could only inflate them up when you need them. “Oh, I need a promotion, tits —” or something like that.

DO YOU HAVE ANY WILD STORIES FROM HANGING OUT ON HIGHLAND AND SANTA MONICA?

Photo courtesy of Kiki Leekey

Kiki Leekey: No, ‘cause I really don’t hang out over there — because I should avoid the ugly Trannies. No, I’m just kidding. I’m pretty sure I do. There’s a lot of stories. I don’t know — one time I had a threesome with these two guys at a bathhouse and I needed money so badly — they were so high on Crystal Meth that as they were fucking me, I was stealing the money right out of their pockets. They were just so fucked-up on Crystal Meth they had no idea what I was doing. And I just left, and left them to fuck each other.

WOW.

Kiki Leekey: I did some brave shit. My friend was next door fucking another guy and he stole an eight-ball out of his room.

AN EIGHT-BALL OF WHAT?

Kiki Leekey: Crystal Meth. I don’t do drugs. I just sell them. It’s not that bad if you do them. You never want to buy drugs off of somebody who does their own drugs.

WHY NOT?

Kiki Leekey: Because that’s like working at McDonalds and eating every other burger that you make. You’re not supposed to do that.

WHAT DRUGS HAVE YOU DONE ON THE STREETS HERE?

Kiki Leekey: On the streets here? None. But before I moved here I done Cocaine, Speed, Ecstasy and Weed. Weed — that’s the only drug I have done since I’ve been out here. I don’t have an addictive personality to drugs — only to cock. So, I’m a little bit different. I have a sexual addiction. I actually went to therapy classes for that. That’s the craziest thing I did since I’ve been out here. I went to sexual-compulsive-anonymous classes — but ironically I had more sex while I was trying to take those classes than I did before I went to those classes. So instead of it decreasing my sex drive, it like increased it by a whole lot. I was fucking everybody’s father.

WOW. YOU WERE SAYING SOMETHING BEFORE ABOUT TUCKING AN UNCUT COCK —

Kiki Leekey: An uncut cock, when you’re not like circumcised — that shit hurts. When you tuck, it’s like when you have to push it in and push it under — it’s like a roller coaster. But when you have an uncut penis, you have all that extra skin — so sometimes you pinch it, and I call that the “cushy clowns” — and I made a video on YouTube about it, and how you might see a Tranny diggin’ around — it means they’ve got the cushy clowns and it’s pinching their dick. Sometimes it turns me on. Sometimes I remove it purposely so I can feel all that tug.

DO YOU EVER HOOK UP WITH ANY OF THE OTHER FELLOW TRANNIES?

Kiki Leekey: No. That’s Lesbianism. I don’t care if they had the biggest penis in the world. I don’t care if they look like Dennis Rodman — I would never go with a Tranny. I want a guy that’s so masculine that he beats the shit out of me for no reason.

HAVE YOU SEEN THE GUY WHO WALKS AROUND HERE WITH THOSE HUGE, HUGE TITS, WHO PICKS UP ALL THE CANS?

Kiki Leekey: I see a lot of guys who walk around here with huge, huge tits. They think they’re Transgender. No, I’m just kidding. I’m not sure — because I really do see a lot of homeless Trannies with huge tits. I’m not sure which one you’re talking about.

IT DIDN’T REALLY RELATE TO ANYTHING, ANYWAYS —

Kiki Leekey: I like asses. Ask me if I’ve seen any Trannies with big asses. I like ass; I’m not a tit person. I’m an ass-and-cock person. I don’t pay any attention to boobies or vaginas. Oh, I’m a Homo; I can never say no to a penis. I’m Gay. Well, now I’m married. I have a husband. He’s in jail — but I’m trying to be faithful.

WHY IS HE IN JAIL?

Kiki Leekey: Parole violation. He should be getting out —

HOW LONG HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN TOGETHER?

Kiki Leekey: Like two weeks. It’s a Lesbian relationship. That’s what we call Lesbians — they get into a quick relationships, and move in together after a week or two. No, we were friends before, though. We were friends before we started dating. I always liked him, so I know this is going to last, hopefully.

DID YOU HAVE ANY ROLE MODELS THAT HELPED YOU?

Kiki Leekey: I’m twenty-five percent Negro, so I love Beyonce and Angelina Jolie.

WHAT IS THE OTHER SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT?

Kiki Leekey: I’m fifty percent Hispanic and twenty-five percent Italian.

SO THAT’S WHERE YOU GET YOUR EXOTIC LOOKS FROM —

Kiki Leekey: I get these exotic looks from all the cum I hash out onto my face by all my mysterious johns. It just naturally makes me look exotic.

HAVE YOU EVER LEFT IT ON YOUR FACE FOR THE NIGHT, LIKE A FACIAL?

Kiki Leekey: I hear that that actually works — but I get too excited about it, so I just lick it off my face and back in my mouth. Also, I heard a story that that makes your teeth whiter.

I CAN SEE THAT —

Kiki Leekey: Yeah — it’s a pretty dumb theory. I’m pretty sure a few years from now I’ll catch a disease. Luckily, I got tested today. It was negative — and I have it in my purse. I don’t know why I walk around with my tests. Yeah, I’m pretty surprised I never caught anything. I always knew that I was negative. I’m too much of a germophobe — but I do love cum.

WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW ABOUT YOU?

Kiki Leekey: I don’t know. If you ever meet me on the streets and you want to give me a present, buy me a lace-front wig.

A WHAT WIG?

Kiki Leekey: A lace-front. It looks like real human hair growing off your scalp. I love wigs. Actually, I have really long hair beneath my wigs — but I still prefer to wear wigs. I’d rather damage a wig that damage my real hair. Don’t speak when we’re having sex; if you do a lot of moaning, hitting, biting and scratching, I don’t want to call you Daddy or Papi. I might well fuck your brother if he’s cute enough. Maybe your father — and even your grandpa, too. I don’t know — I’m an open book. If the world wants to know anything about me, they’ll just see me and know everything. I don’t really close anything about myself. The more you let people know about you, the less you have to worry about in life. What’s anyone going to say when they don’t know what to say?

COOL, KIKI. THANK YOU.

Kiki Leekey: You’re welcome.

WHAT WERE YOU SAYING EARLIER ABOUT HOW YOU THINK TRANSGENDER PEOPLE HAVE THE HARDEST LIFE?

Kiki Leekey: I think Trans life is like one of the hardest lifes you can live. You hear a lot about gang life or being a gang member or being Gay or being Lesbian — “Oh, it’s so hard because of this —” Well, growing up in the community as a whole — starting off as a Homosexual and then becoming Trans later on in my life — I’ve heard friends tell me their family would rather have them as a little Gay boy than as a Trangendered. I hear Gay people talk shit about Transgendered. I hear Lesbians talk shit about Trans people. I hear Straight people — it’s like nobody wants to deal with the people who are raising their heads. That’s the way the world sees it. We always have to have somebody be better than the others. That’s just how life is — and unfortunately we just put Trans at the bottom of the totem pole.

WHY DO YOU THINK THAT?

Kiki Leekey: Because when Gay people fight for their rights, they rarely include the Trans community — and I think they feel like they already have to deal with getting their own rights; why do they have to deal with something that’s more complicated? We didn’t ask to be born this way, just like Straight people didn’t ask to be born Straight. Nobody knows why people are the way they are. We just are the way we are. I mean, you’re not just getting fucked over by the Straight community when you’re Trans — you get shit from the Gay community as well.

DO YOU THINK IT’S A POPULAR DELUSION THAT, “OH, TRANSGENDER PEOPLE ARE PROSTITUTES —”?

Kiki Leekey: In that stereotype — just like, everybody thinks, “Oh, Black people can sing or play basketball.” It’s all this big ol’ stereotype. Not all Transgender people are prostitutes — because I know some of them who are doctors, who are social workers, who go around doing HIV testing. That’s not true — not all of them are prostitutes — but I see why a big majority of them become prostitutes.

WHY?

Kiki Leekey: I’m not going to use a lot of people’s experience to speak for myself. In my experience, when I tried to apply for jobs and stuff, I feel like because I was Trangendered I could never get a job. Me, working at Target? I had a really good job at Target. I was like a team leader, kind of like a supervisor-type thing. I think the reason I got that position — and even why I got hired — was because the boss, she was a Lesbian. She was a butch Lesbian and she was practically a man. I feel like she was more sympathetic to me being Trans, and I think that’s why she gave me a chance to work there. I think people are just too aware — like, “Oh, we can’t show the kids that.” “Oh, Trans are so bad,” — that they don’t even want to hire people. I went dressed up head-to-toe in actual interviewing clothes, and I was walking down there in West Hollywood — that’s like the gayest area in the world. I’m getting called a “ho” and a “slut” by the Homosexuals who live there.

ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Kiki Leekey: And I was like completely covered. I was wearing like one of those female pantsuits.

YOU PROBABLY FOOLED THEM. THEY PROBABLY THOUGHT YOU WERE JUST A STRAIGHT WOMAN, AND THEY WANTED YOU OUT.

Kiki Leekey: I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what their issue was. I hear that that’s just how they think. They see a Trans person and they think you’re a prostitute. They see you walking along the boulevard and they think you’re a prostitute. When I got arrested, I didn’t even agree to have sex with nobody. I got arrested and charged and everything. Never even agreed to have sex with a guy, but the police were like ”Oh, you got in a car with a guy, so we’re just going to assume that you’re a prostitute.” So it was like exactly a big factor. Stereotypes — they’re shitty, but people actually do believe them — and then you get shit from that! You get people hating you. You get people not willing to help you out — and then they want to talk shit about who you are and why you decided to be who you are. Yet you don’t want to help to change the process! If you feel like a Trans person is a prostitute — well, instead of talking shit to them, why don’t you let them, when they come dressed up properly and try to get a job — maybe you could be saving somebody’s life or maybe start a new trend where you won’t see as many Trans people out there selling their bodies. Imagine if people could be more accepting or open-minded. Just because you’re Transgender doesn’t mean you’re not professional. There’s going to be prostitutes.

OH YEAH. HAVE YOU COME ACROSS ANY CELEBRITIES OUT HERE ON THE STREETS IN HOLLYWOOD? HAVE YOU HEARD OF ANY CELEBRITIES GOING OUT WITH ANY OF YOUR FRIENDS OR PICKING UP ANY OF YOUR FRIENDS?

Kiki Leekey: I’ve heard that that whole [a prominent actor] thing is true. He likes to pick up girls and make them wear high heels and walk around in heels for like an hour. He’ll pay you four-hundred dollars — and let you keep the heels. That’s what I heard about him, but I’m not one-hundred percent sure because girls just talk —

YOUR FRIENDS TOLD YOU THAT?

Kiki Leekey: Yeah. And I think I might have been with people who were like somewhat celebrities, prostituting — but when you do it for a period of time, you don’t pay attention to who people are. You’re just like, “I need my money” — and go. Unfortunately, I had to do it because I was homeless at the time. It was like the needs of survival. I did try to get a job. Everybody’s like, “Why didn’t you work?” Well, it’s a little bit harder when you’re Trans —

WHY WAS IT HARDER BECAUSE YOU WERE TRANS?

Kiki Leekey: Because they just like to be dicks. Being Gay — sometimes you can’t tell if a person’s Gay or not, but you can clearly tell when a man is wearing a wig and walking around and pretending that he’s a woman. So, I think that discriminates against you right off the bat. They don’t even need to know your name. You just walk in and they’re like, “No, we’re not hiring.” Or you do the whole process and they’re like, “Oh, you have such a great personality —” and then they see that your name doesn’t match your look. “Oh well, I’m sorry but you didn’t qualify.” But I do have a semi-celebrity person who I worked with —

WHO?

Kiki Leekey: I can’t say who. I’ll just say that he has a lot of money and he’s CEO for a phone company.

OH WOW.

Kiki Leekey: That’s all I’m giving. He works for a phone company. I’m not saying cell phones. I’m not saying regular phones. I’m not saying if it’s a phone line or anything. He just works for a phone company and he’s a pretty, pretty nice little client.

COOL. ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO TELL US?

Kiki Leekey: No, that does it. That’s enough. ~

Siobhan Meow

Artist & Cat Rescuer

Photo: George Petros

GEORGE PETROS: SIOBHAN, HELLO. YOU WERE TALKING EARLIER ABOUT GENDER, AND YOU SAID THAT ONCE YOU HIT MENOPAUSE IT DIDN’T MATTER ANYMORE, RIGHT?

Siobhan Meow: Yeah. Actually, I felt that way even before I got the surgery. Gender wasn’t the issue.

REGARDING GENDER ROLES —

Siobhan Meow: Now that I can tell you about. Gender roles are just fucked. You’re not supposed to do all these things like smoke a pipe, for one thing. [lights her pipe] I have two daughters and I don’t want them to fucking grow up thinking that they’re limited in anything that they do.

WHAT IF YOUR DAUGHTERS WANTED TO HAVE SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY?

Siobhan Meow: I would tell them to make god-damn sure that that’s what it is first, because sometimes people jump into stuff. I went ten years where I tried — I did everything I could to go, “No, I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to be this. I’m going to live within the body that I have” — and I just got more and more and more suicidal. I used the twelve-step program to try to cure the gender dysphoria — and it worked for about three years, and then I had literally had a physical and a nervous breakdown where the real part of my brain took over the character I had created to cope with society. It’s like I got a multiple personality having to deal with the dual role — and so there was this huge fight. This was in ’92, when a lot of physical stuff was going on in me — the female was talking to the male —

HANG ON — I WANT TO START FROM THE BEGINNING, IF I MAY. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

Siobhan Meow: In Brooklyn.

AND WHAT WAS YOUR FAMILY LIKE?

Siobhan Meow: God, Irish, Catholic Republican — they voted for Nixon. Anti-abortion, so super Right-wing — it was hell. I had to eventually just drop out of that one, and I made my own family at this pet store I worked at in high school, where there was this woman who was twenty-something years old and I was like fourteen. She was totally the opposite — like, all liberal. She was more like a mother to me than my own mother.

WHAT WERE YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS LIKE? WERE THEY ON YOUR SIDE THROUGH ALL THIS?

Siobhan Meow: They didn’t know until I did it. My family was never that close because there were so many kids. I’m the oldest of eight children. It wasn’t that close knit, really.

WHAT WERE YOUR EARLIEST SEXUAL EXPERIENCES?

Siobhan Meow: Earliest?

WELL, YOU KNOW, THE FORMATIVE STUFF. WHO WERE YOU DATING FIRST, BOYS OR GIRLS?

Siobhan Meow: Nothing. I was asexual — and then I didn’t get laid until I was in college — and that would be a situation where I would just sit at a party and get wasted out of my mind. I’d get wasted, and then usually some fat girl would drag me off and fuck me — and that’s how it worked. I was totally not out there pursuing it.

WERE THERE ANY ENCOUNTERS WITH MEN AT THAT POINT IN YOUR LIFE?

Siobhan Meow: No, just pervs that kept trying to hit on me when I was a teenager. Like, I’d hitchhike and always get picked up by a perv. I’m lucky I didn’t end up in a ditch somewhere because, you know, as soon as you get in the car they’re going to reach for your leg and stuff like that. I’d be ready to jump out the door — but that was the only thing with men at that point. I got pretty grossed out by them from the get-go.

WHAT CHANGED THAT?

Siobhan Meow: I met a fetishist. That’s what a pedophile is, is a form of fetishist — and fetishists objectify this thing they’re having sex with. They’re in their own head. They’re just using you as this thing to jerk off on. But it’s true — this is what it’s about, and so that was my first experience with men. My first experience with women was a fat girl dragging me off to have sex with me because I was that easy and I was that wasted. So, I wasn’t having enjoyable sex then, either.

WERE YOU A NERD?

Siobhan Meow: I was more than a nerd. I was like semi-autistic from the conflict that was going on inside.

TELL US ABOUT THAT CONFLICT —

Siobhan Meow: Well, at the time it was repressed so deeply — I wasn’t aware. I knew in the back of my head, but I wasn’t even looking at it anymore. I was just in this weird, like almost autistic state where I just closed off to everything outside of me except my art work, and I read a lot and shit like that, you know? And then, I even fell into a marriage to try to escape and try to do everything right. It just pushed me further into depression — and that’s like where you’re literally living one life and your whole being is stuck down. It creates this weird, heavy conflict.

HOW DID YOU MEET THE PERSON THAT YOU CAME TO MARRY?

Siobhan Meow: I met her in a dream first. That was the weird thing — about five years before I met her in person. So, when I met her in person at a party, I turned to my brother who was with me and I said, “I’m marrying her.” The minute I saw her, I recognized her from a dream. That’s cuz we were supposed to have those kids. But I didn’t want to get married.

WELL, YOU HAVE TWO DAUGHTERS.

Siobhan Meow: Yeah.

SO YOU DIDN’T WANT TO GET MARRIED, BUT YOU GOT MARRIED TO HELP RESOLVE THE CONFLICT.

Siobhan Meow: No, to satisfy everybody around me who were giving me shit constantly because of my conflict. I had to conform. I didn’t feel I had a choice. I had to conform because I got beat up so much when I was a little kid for trying to be who I was.

WHO WERE YOU?

Siobhan Meow: I was just me.

WERE YOU FEMININE?

Siobhan Meow: I was whatever I wanted to be.

I SEE.

Siobhan Meow: I was mostly more towards the female end of things. I behaved more girly than a boy should have.

OTHER BOYS RESENTED THAT?

Siobhan Meow: Oh, fuck yeah. They terrified me.

BACK TO WHEN YOU WERE MARRIED — HOW WAS SEX THEN?

Siobhan Meow: That was the other totally twisted aspect of it, was the fact that sex — in order for me to get anything out of sex, I started doing what I call “psychic vampirism”. I would actually become the woman I was with. I’d live vicariously through her experiences. So therefore I was so totally into pleasuring her and seeing how she was reacting to it, so I could experience it — because that’s who I really was.

SO YOU WERE PROJECTING YOURSELF INTO THE GIRL?

Siobhan Meow: Transferring myself, more like. It got really creepy because later, after marriage, I started seeing other women. I started realizing what I was doing and what happens in my relationships with women. At first, what I was doing was really good, and they were having a good time and everything. As I started becoming — or taking — their actual personality traits on and their movements and everything, it got really creepy — because it’s kind of right back to fetishists. That’s kinda like this thing where you’re substituting something for something, and so it’s kind of false and it’s kind of weird when you’re using another person to get these other things from them that they’re not aware of. And it creeps them out. So, all my relationships would always end miserably. By then, I was so invested in being that person that when that person was ripped away from me, I would try to kill myself. I wasn’t anybody anymore. I had no ego. I didn’t exist because I was the woman I was having the relationship with.

NOW WHEN YOU SAY YOU’D TRY TO KILL YOURSELF, DO YOU MEAN LITERALLY THAT YOU MADE ATTEMPTS AT SUICIDE?

Siobhan Meow: Fuck yeah.

WERE YOU EVER HOSPITALIZED?

Siobhan Meow: Yeah. Numerous times.

AND WERE YOU MEDICATED BECAUSE OF THAT?

Siobhan Meow: Uh, yeah — they overmedicated me at this one clinic, and they almost killed me because they diagnosed me as bipolar. That’s a problem with many women who went through what I went through — they end up getting misdiagnosed. Well, not any more, thank god, I hope — but back in the days when I was doing this and getting diagnosed, it was like multiple personality disorder. You keep getting misdiagnosed. “Oh, you’re bipolar.” “Oh, you’re borderline.” “Oh, you’re schizophrenic.”

WHAT WOULD THE CORRECT DIAGNOSIS HAVE BEEN?

Siobhan Meow: Well, first of all, I’m from the movement who doesn’t think we should pathologize it. It’s a state of being, but in the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] — whatever it was back then — it was a pathology: gender dysphoria, which means you’re totally uncomfortable in your body’s physical gender.

RIGHT.

Siobhan Meow: And Transsexualism means you have to get the surgery to cure it. There’s no other way to deal with it outside of surgery. Now there’s a whole other thought, and there’s been more research done into what this is, so there’s a lot more viewpoints now, thank god.

SO NO DOCTOR CAME CLOSE TO THAT DIAGNOSIS —

Siobhan Meow: I actually knew when I was nine, when I first read about Christine Jorgensen in the Daily News. When I was nine years old, the light bulb went “bing!” I knew right then. Because of the environment I was living in, I knew I could not expect that. I had to suppress it. Then when I was thirteen, I was reading the big thick book The Three Faces Of Eve — disassociative identity disorder — and, “ding!” This is what happened to me because of a biological quirk which this society couldn’t deal with.

COULD YOU EXPLAIN THAT BIOLOGICAL QUIRK? TELL US WHAT WAS OUT OF SYNC —

Siobhan Meow: There’s all different theories on it.

BUT IN YOUR CASE —

Siobhan Meow: In my case — it’s in all the cases. Nobody knows yet for sure, but the way I think it happened was, at a certain point as a fetus, my mother — something went on in her body, and I got hormones while I was developing — because a fetus, at a certain stage, it starts turning — all embryos are female in the beginning, and they don’t become male until later on. I think at that one crucial point where the body was already done but the brain forms last, and the brain was still forming, it got that dose of hormones — and that disrupted the chemistry. That’s one version. The other version is, it could actually be in the DNA. They’re finding that out now, when they’re tracing the genomes. So, it could end up that was the real reason I was this way — a mutation.

I SEE.

Siobhan Meow: So it exists. It exists in the DNA already.

IF IT EXISTS IN THE DNA, IN YOU AND IN OTHERS, THEN THERE MUST BE SOME PURPOSE IN THE BIOLOGICAL SCHEME OF THINGS THAT A PERSON SUCH AS YOURSELF WOULD BE —

Siobhan Meow: Nah, I don’t think there’s any purpose in biological schemes. I think what happened is, it’s all about human beings being superstitious, egocentric beings — as compared to the other mammals, because we got this extra brain stuff that we don’t know what to do with. We make shit up — like god and religion, the meaning of the universe and all that. There is none. Ask a cat what they think, you know? It just is. That’s the nature of the universe, and this is what happens. Now, in the culture I was born in, on this planet, in this space-time continuum, it was very repressive about sex, about gender roles, about everything. So naturally, I got squished — but then all of a sudden we were lucky enough — our generation — to go through this thing that happened in the Sixties, where everybody got sick of that repression. Otherwise, I could have been dead.

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN DOING HAD YOU BEEN BORN IN ANOTHER TIME?

Siobhan Meow: I’d be a cat, because I’m technically trans-species. I’m not human, though. I’m trans-species. I should have been a cat. Look at it this way: Think about two-hundred years ago — what would happen to someone who was a Transsexual then?

WELL, THERE WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN A TRANSSEXUAL, BECAUSE IT’S A FUNCTION OF TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICAL SCIENCE —

Siobhan Meow: No. No, no. We’ve established there’s Hermaphrodites already. This is a DNA thing. It’s a genetic thing. So they couldn’t get it; there wasn’t the technology. They just had to live in the body they had and make whatever adjustments they could. I’m trans-species. I should have been a cat. Five-hundred years from now, they’re going to be able to make you whatever you want to be — whatever animal you want to be.

OKAY. WOW.

Siobhan Meow: I say, a hundred years from now people will be doing the Transgender surgery just as a style statement.

ALRIGHT — LET ME COME BACK TO YOUR HISTORY. YOU’D TRANSFER AN IDENTITY INTO THE GIRLS YOU MADE LOVE WITH AND—

Siobhan Meow: No, I would become them.

YOU WOULD BECOME THEM.

Siobhan Meow: I had no identity. I lived vicariously through them. It’s like a parent living vicariously through their child. It’s really creepy and it fucks up the child. I lived vicariously through the women I had a relationship with. It was really creepy and it fucked up the relationship that I had with the woman.

BUT IT HELPED YOU TO ESTABLISH YOUR IDENTITY, DIDN’T IT?

Siobhan Meow: No. It didn’t help anything. It was just a bonding mechanism I used to deal with the situation I was in at the time because I was so horribly repressed. Do you know what repression is? Repression is when you don’t even know that you stuffed it down, it’s stuffed down so far.

WERE YOU ABUSED AS A KID?

Siobhan Meow: Fuck yeah.

I MEAN, WERE YOU SEXUALLY ABUSED?

Siobhan Meow: Oh, I don’t know about that, other than those pervs who tried to hit on me when I was hitchhiking all the time as a kid. I don’t have any memory of actually getting fucked by anybody.

SO ANYWAY, HOW LONG WERE YOU MARRIED?

Siobhan Meow: I would say functionally for three years, and then it took a full seven before finally it — it was like three years of functional marriage and four years of fucking living hell. Fucking Gulag, Siberia would have been better. Yeah, it was technically seven.

AND YOU HAD SEPARATED FROM YOUR WIFE DURING THAT TIME?

Siobhan Meow: Not until the last two years. I kept trying to separate, but I missed my kids. I’d go back, and it just got worse.

DID YOU HAVE AFFAIRS?

Siobhan Meow: She had affairs. I stayed at home, took care of the kids, did my painting, and she went to work. Then one day she comes home and says, “I want to be the woman now,” and I said, “No” — and then from there on she started having affairs and torturing me with them. You have to study Lesbian relationships — they get like really hot and dramatic with that kind of shit.

YES, THEY DO.

Siobhan Meow: And it was the worst. It was horrible. It was bad.

ONCE YOU WERE DIVORCED, HOW LONG WAS IT BEFORE YOU WERE HAVING SEX WITH OTHER PEOPLE?

Siobhan Meow: That would resume the way it was in college. I would wait until some girl just dragged me off.

OKAY —

Siobhan Meow: But I didn’t really. No, wait — no, no. Here’s what happened: The marriage ends in ’85. ’85 is when it hits me. I’m drinking like constantly, like — oh my god. I would be drinking from eight in the morning until four at night and then still go to work and everything. When you drink like that, there’s one point where you’ll be drunk and then you’ll be totally sober and have a wake-up moment. I realized that the trouble with me was, I’m a girl — and that’s when it hit me. ’85 is when I separated for good, to do the stuff necessary to get towards the surgery.

Photo: George Petros

ONE DAY YOU REALIZED, “I’M A GIRL” — AND THAT WAS THE MOMENT AFTER WHICH EVERYTHING WAS DIFFERENT IN YOUR LIFE?

Siobhan Meow: No. It’s not like that. It’s a wake-up moment. It’s not, “everything is different.” It’s a “ding” — like, what goes on? And it’s all that stuff which was repressed. It goes like, “Oh — duh!” So then I realized I have to do this — because the reason I’m so fucked-up is I’m not doing this.

AND “THIS” BEING, “I HAVE TO BECOME A GIRL.”

Siobhan Meow: I have to self-actualize myself as who I am, which is this brain with a female body instead of a male body. Okay, because that’s who I am — so, I begin a big thing. I started in Brooklyn, working for minimum wage at some McJob, and I started going to see a doctor and get hormones and stuff like that — and that was a beautiful thing. When the estrogen first hit me, it was like, “Whoa!”

WHO PAID FOR IT?

Siobhan Meow: I did.

WAS IT EXPENSIVE?

Siobhan Meow: Yes. It was very expensive, but oh my god, colors changed — everything.

IT WAS A SENSORY CHANGE?

Siobhan Meow: Yeah, it was totally sensory because it’s like, back to DNA. Women were always looking for the berries and differentiating between colors — no poisons and stuff like that — and men, who are color-blind in their DNA, were trained to see motion. So, that’s why the colors changed. It was like the testosterone was getting flushed out and the estrogen was connecting to the right terminals which my brain had plenty of, as opposed to a male brain — and I knew everything was right then. I was becoming myself. So, anyway, I work at this shit job, and I’m trying to save money to get stuff done — and it was impossible. So, eventually, I started dressing the right way and everything like that. I was still ignorant of the whole bullshit gender-role thing. I was trying to appease everybody in society, like you’re supposed to. So I’m starting to feminize and everything like that, but I’m in that awkward stage and so I’m getting a lot of serious fucking discrimination and shit like that. You know, jobs and stuff like that. It was really bad. Eventually I ended up homeless. I couldn’t afford the hormones anymore. I couldn’t afford the surgery. The whole thing is about getting the surgery — and how am I going to do that? I went into this total suicidal despair, survived the suicide attempt, ended up homeless, and went for ten years without doing anything towards gender reassignment — and then, as I said, in ’92 came the great breakdown. Things started happening. I went back. I got the right doctors. I got the psychiatrists — and all of a sudden my brother just threw the money at me and said, “Go for it.”

HOW MUCH DID IT COST?

Siobhan Meow: It was twenty-five grand, all together. That’s not counting the electrolysis. The electrolysis itself was like ten or fifteen.

WHEN DID YOU FIRST HAVE SEX WITH A GUY?

Siobhan Meow: That was back in my first try at it, in Brooklyn when I was working down there. I always came to Manhattan on the F train. I blew a couple of cops, construction workers, Mafia guys — you know.

WERE YOU IN FEMALE ATTIRE WHEN YOU DID THIS?

Siobhan Meow: I was in female attire — but I still had male organs.

DID THEY KNOW THAT WHEN YOU BLEW THEM?

Siobhan Meow: Of course they did. Of course they did — and that’s what they were into. That’s where you get into that fetish thing. That’s where I got grossed out by men again.

SO THEY WERE REAL MACHO GUYS WHO WERE TURNED ON BY THE FACT THAT THAT YOU WERE A —

Siobhan Meow: They weren’t interested in me. They had this thing in their head — like I had a thing in my head — and they were jerking off to this thing in their head, and I wasn’t even there. You know? But there’s women who deal with that every day — and they actually work in the sex trade doing it all the time, and make money at it. I wasn’t even making money at it.

HOW DID YOU COME TO BLOW A COP, IF YOU DON’T MIND ME ASKING? DID YOU DO SOMETHING WRONG, AND WERE TRYING TO GET OUT OF IT?

Siobhan Meow: No, no, no. I was standing on a platform waiting for the F train, and this guy came up to me. He just started coming on to me, and I said, “Okay, let’s go.” You know?

AND YOU WERE DRESSED AS A GIRL?

Siobhan Meow: Well, of course. What’s dressing like a girl? I’m dressed like a girl right now.

I’M JUST WONDERING WHAT SIGNALS IN PARTICULAR HE WAS RESPONDING TO —

Siobhan Meow: He was responding to the fact that he was a sex addict and he had to fucking get some, and I was standing there and he knew he would get some from me. Something just told him.

OKAY. SO, YOU’VE FIGURED OUT THAT YOU NEED TO HAVE GENDER-REASSIGNMENT SURGERY, AND YOU’RE TAKING HORMONES AND SEEING A PSYCHIATRIST, AND EVERYTHING’S GOING SMOOTHLY IN THAT REGARD, RIGHT? HOW LONG WAS THE PREPARATORY TIME OF TAKING HORMONES?

Siobhan Meow: The second time I did it, it was two years.

AND THAT WAS A TIME OF HORMONES AND THERAPIES — AND YOU NEEDED ACCREDITATIONS FROM THERAPISTS —

Siobhan Meow: Yeah, a psychiatrist actually. Can you believe that? Like you have to get permission to be who you are.

YOU HAVE TO GET PERMISSION — IT’S LIKE GETTING A LICENSE. YOU GOT TO GET A LICENSE TO BE A CHICK. ALRIGHT — HOW DID YOU FIND A SURGEON?

Siobhan Meow: That’s just well-known stuff. I’d go to a group meeting for Transgenders, and people would start talking about doctors — and then I’d know.

I SEE. DO YOU WANT TO NAME THE DOCTOR YOU WENT TO?

Siobhan Meow: Oh god, I can’t even remember his name.

WAS HE IN MANHATTAN?

Siobhan Meow: No, he was in Arizona.

OKAY, SO YOU GOT OFF A PLANE IN ARIZONA — WHO WERE YOU WITH?

Siobhan Meow: Myself.

HOW OLD WERE YOU?

Siobhan Meow: Oh fuck, ’95 minus ’56 — I was 39. That much time’s gone by — that’s scary shit.

YOU MUST HAVE BEEN PLENTY SCARED, STANDING THERE WITH YOUR LUGGAGE ON THE HOT TARMACK OF THE ARIZONA AIRPORT, RIGHT?

Siobhan Meow: Yeah. I worked out. It was like training for the Olympics, because I knew it was going to be a big, heavy physical surgery.

YEAH —

Siobhan Meow: It was going to be heavy. Very heavy — like, for the body to just come out of that, you know? So, I trained for it. I was in great shape. I was psyched. They were so nice over there at that place — everything was just so beautiful. The best attitudes and everything like that. It went smooth as anything — until I came back here.

THE SURGERY WENT SMOOTHLY — HOW LONG WAS IT UNTIL THAT COULD BE ASCERTAINED? WHEN COULD THE DOCTOR LOOK AT THE RESULTS OF HIS WORK AND KNOW THAT YOU WERE GOING TO BE OKAY?

Siobhan Meow: Oh, he knew it the minute he did it.

DESCRIBE YOUR OPERATION —

Siobhan Meow: It’s called a vaginoplasty.

DOES THAT INVOLVE THE INVERSION OF THE PENIS?

Siobhan Meow: Well, that’s kind of a weird way to look at it. It’s more like they removed the meat in it, and line your vagina with it— with the nerves and buckles of skin. And they make the clitoris out of the gland. It’s the same thing as the woman’s, except — see, it’s so simple to go surgically from male to female, but it’s nearly impossible to go from female to male. But that’s only because the whole medical profession is dominated by men, you know?

DID THEY REMOVE YOUR PROSTATE?

Siobhan Meow: No. That’s not even an issue anymore because I’ve been on estrogen for so long. That would be like what the Bartholin gland is in the female — it’s like the prostate gland. You gotta just open a biology book and look at the two — because they’re really the same material in different positions — and that’s all the surgery was, was rearranging the positions of the genitalia.

AND HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO HEAL UP?

Siobhan Meow: It took me two weeks.

OKAY — HOW DO I WANT TO ASK THIS — IF SOMEBODY COMES INSIDE OF YOU, WHERE DOES THE SEMEN GO?

Siobhan Meow: Where it goes for anybody — down your leg.

I SEE.

Siobhan Meow: Better, in the fucking condom — where it belongs.

VERY GOOD. AND AS FOR PEEING — THEY REARRANGE THE CANAL THAT THE PEE TRAVELS THROUGH —

Siobhan Meow: Yeah.

SO, LIFE GOES ON, IS WHAT YOU’RE SAYING —

Siobhan Meow: Why wouldn’t it?

DID YOU ORGASM THE FIRST TIME YOU HAD SEX AFTER THE OPERATION?

Siobhan Meow: Double orgasm. Multiple double orgasm — but that was me doing it. I don’t ever expect a guy to be able to do that shit.

IS THE MECHANISM OF MASTURBATION THE SAME, WHERE YOU’RE RUBBING IT —

Siobhan Meow: That’s the way it is with everybody. I have more area to rub than guys do now.

I SEE. AT WHAT POINT DID YOU HAVE BREAST AUGMENTATION?

Siobhan Meow: I had that — let’s see — two years before the vaginoplasty.

SO, TELL US ABOUT THE FIRST TIME THAT YOU HAD SEX — WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST ENCOUNTER AFTER THE SURGERY?

Siobhan Meow: After the surgery? Sex? That was as a stunt for the Howard Stern show.

BUT WERE THERE ANY GUYS WHO WERE PURSUING YOU?

Siobhan Meow: I had this one guy pursuing me for a bit — and honest to god, there was a chemical reaction. It was so fucking strong — but he turned out to be too fucked-up to make anything out of him, so I had to cut him off.

ALRIGHT — SO YOUR FIRST TIME HAVING SEX WAS FOR THE HOWARD STERN SHOW —

Siobhan Meow: Yeah. It was filmed in my room.

AND HOW WAS THAT?

Siobhan Meow: It was comedy.

HOW DID IT FEEL? DID IT HURT?

Siobhan Meow: No, it felt normal.

HOW LONG DID IT LAST?

Siobhan Meow: Not too long. By the time we got around to letting him in me, he was like — he couldn’t hold it anymore. So, he didn’t last too long.

HOW DID YOU COME TO BE ON THE HOWARD STERN SHOW?

Siobhan Meow: Oh, that was back when I first came to New York. And that was just being on a Dial-a-Date. I wrote to them — that was back when they were just on K-Rock.

GOTCHA.

Siobhan Meow: He was only on one station here in New York, and he had this dry spell where he didn’t have any celebrities or weird people for Dial-a-Date. So I wrote a letter. I moved here after the marriage; I turn on the radio and I hear this radio show that was the funniest thing I had ever heard in my life — and so I was listening to it all the time, and I was like, “I can be the Dial-a-Date for that show!” So that’s what I did.

AND YOU HAVE GARNERED QUITE A BIT OF NOTORIETY SINCE THEN.

Siobhan Meow: It’s not that big a thing now. I haven’t been on that show in a long time. But back in the day, it was more of a thing. I was notorious — and I think that kept me alive. It kept me from getting the shit beat out of me, because people recognized me. But eventually it got to the point where he was becoming a superstar, and I remember getting mobbed one time at one of his events by fans — and it was so scary, but it was weird because they were all really protective.

FROM AMONG HIS FANS, WEREN’T GUYS WRITING LOVE LETTERS TO YOU, OR COMING ON TO YOU?

Siobhan Meow: Not his audience. I was more of like a — well, the Wack Packers are more like mascots.

WERE YOU ONE OF THEM?

Siobhan Meow: Yeah. I was one of the original ones.

WERE ANY OTHER TRANSSEXUALS WACK PACKERS?

Siobhan Meow: I don’t know — I think I was the only one at the time. There weren’t that many people going out on the radio like that before me.

DID OTHER TRANSSEXUALS, OR PEOPLE WITH TRANSSEXUAL ASPIRATIONS, CONTACT YOU OR LOOK TO YOU FOR GUIDANCE?

Siobhan Meow: No. I was buried in Brooklyn at that time.

WHAT ABOUT AFTER THE HOWARD STERN SHOW —

Siobhan Meow: Yeah, I’ve had people come up to me. I’ve had people thank me for doing what I did.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?

Siobhan Meow: That’s great. That’s like the reason for existence. If I made it easier for kids who are born like I was, to go through this process — if I made it any easier for them, then hey, that’s the greatest thing in the world I could have done with my life.

SOME DERISION CAME YOUR WAY AS ONE OF THE WACK PACKERS. I MEAN, PEOPLE WOULD MAKE FUN OF YOU —

Siobhan Meow: It’s derision — but it’s cathartic derision. It’s show biz. So it’s a way to deal with the very real derision.

IT’S CATHARTIC; IT’S SHOW BIZ — TELL US ABOUT THAT.

Siobhan Meow: Yeah, yeah — you’re talking about derision. Yeah — the real derision that I would get, like getting biased against, is in like, say, the museum — where I tried to have a job as a busperson; where there was a lot of discrimination against me back then. On the Stern show, it would be like a catharsis. It would be like a Greek drama. I come out as a scapegoat. Everybody gives me shit and everything. I talk back. It gets it out. It gets it up into the airwaves. It gets it into the consciousness. It’s doing something productive, instead of just saying, “Imagine me in some town going through this and getting shit on every day and having no outlet for it.”

AND YOU MENTIONED SHOW BIZ — THERE’S AN ELEMENT OF SHOW BIZ TO IT?

Siobhan Meow: Yeah, it’s part of taking something that’s ugly and making art out of it.

MAKING IT BEAUTIFUL?

Siobhan Meow: I wouldn’t call it beautiful. I would call it what it was: kind of a weird catharsis comedy.

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO ASK THIS — DID EVERYTHING CONTINUE TO BE ALRIGHT IN YOUR SEX LIFE, OR WAS THERE A POINT WHERE PROBLEMS AROSE BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU HAD DONE?

Siobhan Meow: I don’t know. What do you mean?

DID EVERYTHING WORK FINE THEREAFTER?

Siobhan Meow: Of course.

AND YOU LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER, RIGHT?

Siobhan Meow: I’m living like everyone else lives — whether that’s happily ever after or not is yet to be determined.

HAVE YOU FOUND LOVE?

Siobhan Meow: Yeah.

IN YOUR CURRENT INCARNATION?

Siobhan Meow: Oh hell yeah.

DO YOU GET THE ATTENTION OF BOTH MEN AND WOMEN?

Siobhan Meow: Uh-huh.

DO YOU LIKE THEM BOTH?

Siobhan Meow: Yep. If they’re there and they’re pleasant with me, and we’re together, and it’s not like some sort of one-sided weird trip that one person’s having on the other — it’s got to be pure, unconditional love. I got that in spades.

AND IT TOOK TRANSFORMING YOURSELF TO GET IT, DIDN’T IT?

Siobhan Meow: You know, to be honest, I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, really — but the self-actualization I had to go through, physically — that did.

LET’S TALK ABOUT THE FUTURE. YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT BEING TRANS-SPECIES. TELL US ABOUT THAT.

Siobhan Meow: I can see five-hundred years from now, when they have the medical technology, that there will be people who want to acquire animal characteristics, physically — such as being covered in fur, having a long tail, having real canine teeth, having your actual face cut out into a snout, having big ears like a cat — people will be able to do that then. Right now they have the technology to implant a womb in me.

WHERE WOULD THAT WOMB COME FROM?

Siobhan Meow: They can grow one from my own cells.

SO THEY WON’T NEED GIRLS — BORN FEMALES — ANYMORE, WILL THEY?

Siobhan Meow: No, they’ll be able to — in any case, whether you’re gender dysphoric or hermaphroditic, male or female, they’ll be able to make you whatever you want to be.

AND WHAT WILL YOU BE, A CAT?

Siobhan Meow: I would be a six-foot tall cat.

YOU’RE WELL-KNOWN FOR YOUR CAT RESCUES. COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR LIFE AMONG THE CATS?

Siobhan Meow: Yeah, I started rescuing them in ’94 when I was being a musician and learning how to play bass.

WHERE’D YOU RESCUE THEM FROM?

Siobhan Meow: I wanted to get a couple cats of my own. I contacted a rescue group — and then once I contacted them, I’d get calls from them about very special cats in dire need of help. So, it was a gradual progression into taking in more and more cats — because I couldn’t bear for them to be killed and for bad things to happen to them, because I had always had an affinity towards cats my entire life, as long as I can remember. I even wanted to be a cat when I was a child. So, there’s something about my ability to communicate with that particular species that I’m able to develop relationships with them — and because of that, I have such a deep empathy for them, and I’m able to communicate with them and understand what’s going on with them. When I see a suffering cat, I get as upset as if it was my own child. So that’s how I started getting into rescue — and I even got a job at the vet so that I could learn everything about caring for them.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT DOGS?

Siobhan Meow: I had a dog when I was a kid but I really wanted a cat. I think the thing about cats is that they’re so beautiful and Androgynous to begin with. See, they don’t have really pronounced gender characteristics, and so that’s why people — I think the human brain — see, I don’t even consider myself human anymore, because humans behave in ways that I’ve found so incredibly bad that I can’t be a part of it — but anyway, cats are more Androgynous and they’re more lithe, and that’s what humans wanted their females to be like. In some cultures they actually killed women. They killed female children if they didn’t meet a certain standard.

YES THEY DID. OKAY — WAS THERE ANYTHING ELSE WE NEEDED TO COVER?

Siobhan Meow: Well, the whole gender thing is a bunch of shit. Don’t fall for it, you know? Just be who you are and whatever you are. Just make sure when you’re interacting with other people, you don’t objectify them. Try to grow some empathy.

ISN’T THAT HARD TO DO FOR PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN A WORLD OF SEXUAL SIGNALS AND FERTILITY CUES?

Siobhan Meow: I think that world is ending. I think that the height of it was in the Fifties. That’s when you had the real Transvestite thing going — because of the extremes in clothing. It was just so sick and twisted that women were binding themselves in these bizarre outfits that some Gay guy designed — destroying their feet; binding their feet in these fucking high heels. It destroys their toes.

DO YOU WEAR HEELS NOW?

Siobhan Meow: I’m six feet tall — why do I need to wear heels?

GOOD QUESTION. WELL, THANKS FOR TALKING TO US —

Siobhan Meow: Okay — you’re welcome. ~

Gizelle Joslyn Messina

Makeup Artist

Photo: Ouano Photography

MANUEL OTTO VASQUEZ: WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Gizelle Joslyn Messina.

AND WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: From Sacramento, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo —

WHEN DID YOU MOVE DOWN TO L.A.?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: I moved down to L.A. about six years ago.

WHAT BROUGHT YOU DOWN?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Well, I met a boy online, and the relationship seemed promising. At that time I was a guy, and my name was Carlin, and I worked for MAC at their San Francisco Pro store — and I was that person who was always looking for love. So, I found someone that I thought was going to be an amazing partner, and I gave up friends, a home, a rad job location and stability to relocate my entire life, to move in with this guy down here in Los Angeles. That’s the relationship I’m in now.

DID YOU REGRET MOVING DOWN HERE?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: No, I’m actually extremely thankful, because a lot of different things took place in my life that brought me to the space that I’m in now — and I think if I wouldn’t have come here, I would have continued down the path of being the people-pleaser that I’ve always been. That’s why I stayed the opposite gender for so long — because of the way that the people around me responded to him. It was a very scary jump, because I was afraid that I would lose people — and the reality is that I did lose people — but the perk was, I gained myself.

WELL SAID.

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Thank you.

WHEN DID YOU FEEL THE NEED TO TRANSITION?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: I’ve always been a child that walked to the beat of their own drum. At the age of thirteen, my father put me out of his and his wife’s house, because I journaled about my dance teacher — that I was completely infatuated with him. I guess at the age of thirteen you’re probably not supposed to be writing about how you want to have sex with two men at the same time — but on the other hand, that’s a time when hormones are raging. I was in a spot where I was really curious. I finally found someone that I was genuinely attracted to, instead of putting up the facade that I was a boy so I was supposed to be attracted to a girl — so, let me hold my girlfriend’s hand as I walk her down the hall in junior high. But I found someone that I was really attracted to. It was this alternative lifestyle. What happened one day was that my father was being nosey and he went into my room and read my journal, and my journal was very descriptive, and that Saturday when I came home from ballet practice, all my clothes were packed — and I was on summer schedule, so we were getting ready for recital — and he said, “Carlin, your stuff’s in the car. We’re going to have a very long talk. You’re going to your mom’s. I was like, “Okay, let’s go.” We lived in San Luis Obispo; my mom lived in Sacramento. I really didn’t have a very strong relationship with my mom. She did the best, with what she had, to be the best mother that she could be, although she never really was a fit mother — we’re all victims of victims. Anyhow, on the way to go to my mom’s house he basically told me that I needed to get my lifestyle together, that I was on the path to damnation, and that I was going to go to hell.

WAS HE REALLY RELIGIOUS?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Still is. We don’t have a relationship at all because of it.

SO YOU DON’T TALK?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Well, there’s always been a tug-of-war between me and him. Part of the reason why it took me so long to officially transition — I was always trying to please everyone, just because I was never fully programmed how to love. You know, I came from a broken home and I came from an abused family, and all of us have our own stories, and how we deal with the pain — but all I wanted sometimes was just to be held and told, “I love you,” and have it come from a genuine place, and me able to give it back and know that it wasn’t just happening in that moment and then forgotten about the next. So, when my father was telling me all this stuff, I was completely freaked out — I was about to go live with a woman that I didn’t know. So we get there — he basically calls my mom, and she’s like, “Carlin’s where?” And he’s like, “Carlin’s at your door.” She’s like, “Why is Carlin here?” He’s like, “Carlin’s going to live with you. I can’t deal with him anymore.” So my mom was like, “Awesome.” Her husband was in prison at the time, and she was a hairdresser, and she was a little bit of a drug user. So I went from suburbia to the projects in Sacramento and it was like — [snaps fingers]. “Don’t even think about it. Adjust.” All of a sudden — I had been around all White people, now I’m around all Black people. I had to get ’hood real fast — or get my ass whooped. So, I adapted — but my mom still noticed something about me, and one day before school started, she said, “I want you to know you’re in a safe haven. Whatever you’re feeling, your dad’s not here to judge you. Your dad’s not here to tell you you can or cannot. If you’re feeling it — as long as you don’t put yourself in harm’s way — do it.” So that’s when, at thirteen, I really just started sitting and reflecting on what I felt inside. I always felt this really strong feminine energy. When I was around my father, if my wrist would go too soft, he would literally slap it — and I would have to butch up and be a man. Be a tough guy. So, my mom was like, “You’re soft — you’re soft; just go with it.” The next thing you know, when mom would go away to work — my mom was a hairdresser, so she had wigs. I’d put the wigs on. I’d put the makeup on, and I would just enjoy. I would wear panties — and then one day my mom came home and she was like, “Oh! Is this what we’re doing when mom’s away?” I was like, “I’m sorry — I wasn’t supposed to —” and she’s like, “No, that’s okay.” She goes, “Your lipliner’s too dark; your hair’s too big,” and she’s like, “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go in the bathroom.”

THAT’S AWESOME.

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: So my mom helped me reconfigure my makeup. In that moment I was kinda like, “I like makeup. Makeup’s fun,” and my mom was totally cool with it, and school started and she was like, “You can — but you’re probably going to cause yourself more havoc than necessary.” So I switched back to being a boy. I went to junior high, got a girlfriend, I got to eighth grade and I was in Sacramento, living downtown — and I was trying to be the boy but still, my cousin, who was also Transgender — female to male — kept saying, “You’re a bitch and you just need to accept it.” I was like, “No I’m not. I’m bisexual. I like girls —” and she was like, “The only reason you like girls is because you like their clothes. You’re the girl. I’m the boy.” And I was like, “Whatever.” So one day me and my girlfriend were having a hard time, and I went home and I was like, “Mom, I don’t get women” and she’s like, “Maybe you’re Gay.” I was like, “Maybe I’m not. I don’t even like Gay guys” and she was like, “Maybe you’re a girl.” In that moment — I’d never thought about that. There were times when weird thoughts would go through my head, where I would rub in-between my junk and back there and be like, “Maybe they secretly stitched me up and didn’t tell me. There’s something that’s just not adding up in my head. Like, why do I have this feeling inside?” So my mom was like, “Honey, you’re clearly dealing with something. Maybe you need to tap into it. Just go with it.” So I went to school the next day and there was a change. I shaved off my eyebrows and I drew them on. I was wearing dark lipstick. I gelled my hair back and I had a tight pink shirt. I went literally from pretty boy thug to this queen, overnight. And I came to school and everybody was like — like, dead silence, and then everyone was just staring at me. My mom was, “How was your first day of school?” I was like, “Everyone stared at me but I felt good.” She’s like, “Good! Do you want to go makeup shopping?” and I was like, “Okay.” So we went and got some Cover Girl and Maybelline. The downfall is, she really didn’t know how to be a mother. She knew how to be a good friend — but I really needed her to step up to the plate and like console me, put me in my place, get all my ducks in a row so I didn’t go down the path I went down. She wasn’t available for me for that — but, to be cool, put on makeup, wear my wigs, wear this skirt. face your fears, work it out, she was totally fine. So, I teetered back and forth with the gender thing between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. I did pageants. A lot of my girlfriends that were Transgendered were older than me, and they were all prostitutes. So I would skip school, sleep all day, go out at night, hang out with the girls on the boulevard. I started picking up drug habits. I didn’t really want to prostitute — the whole money exchange thing was weird, but the picking-up-the-guys part was fun. While the girls were out hustling, making their coin to pay for their room and drugs, I was like, “Oh, you want a blow job? Okay! You think I’m a girl?” The next thing you know, I’m just sucking the guy’s penis for the fuck of it. Then I started feeling like, “This is way too much.”

DID YOU EVER WORK AS A PROSTITUTE?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: No. I was on the boulevard. I was with the girls — but I never put a value to me. I just enjoyed the men recognizing me as a girl and just that whole excitement of, “Hey, what’s up girl?” Yeah — and so I went with that. But then what happened — because I’m very analytical and I’m very sensitive — is that I started comparing the Transgender lifestyle to that. So, if I was going to make the decision to do this full-stream, I then was going to have to commit to this lifestyle. I was going to have to be a prostitute and I was going to have to live a street life. I was going to be completely discommunicated from my friends and family — and it just seemed like a very negative path to go down. So I was battling with that. I was dealing with that demon — and then I ended up on Jerry Springer when I was fifteen. I called like a billion times just to get on the show because I was a fifteen-year-old in a dress — and I got on the show and I was so scared. There was another girl on the show, and she was like, “Honey, as soon as I get the coin, I’m cutting it off,” and I was like, “She’s so strong. I wish I could be her.” When they came to me, they were like, “Are you a boy or are you a girl?” and I was like, “Oh, no, no, no — God made me this way.” I was really concerned about how people would perceive me, and dealing with everyone’s opinion about me — so I was like, “No, no, I’m a boy.” Then at eighteen it was like, clearly I was going back and forth dealing with this — and I was just really reckless and nuts. And then, at eighteen, outside of a Gay bar in Sacramento, I met this guy, and I was out of get-ups, as they call it, and he was like, “Oh, you’re pretty; you’re a pretty boy,” and I was like, “Thank you.” He’s like, “Let me get your number,” so we exchanged numbers. A week later we’re dating and I told him, “You know, sometimes I go down this way —” He’s like, “That’s cool — but I like you better as a boy” — and that was my reality. Every time the Transgender thing came up, it was, “Yeah, you make a pretty girl — but you’re such a handsome guy. Why do you want to do that?” So there was like this whole battle of, “If I do this, maybe I’m just doing it for myself — but I’m surrounded by all these people who support me as Carlin. Do I want to lose this support system because my family lifestyle was so disconnected and I never really had that sense of stability?” I was enjoying people going, “Oh, you’re so beautiful; you’re such a handsome guy. You’re so funny.” When my husband said that, then I said, “Okay, I’ll just get rid of all the girl stuff. I’ll try to be the best man I can be.”

Photo: Ouano Photography

YOU GUYS GOT MARRIED?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Yeah — at nineteen I got married, and he said, “I don’t want a girl, I want a guy.” So it was like, get rid of it all and make this commitment to him and to yourself. So, everything was gone.

WERE YOU TAKING HORMONES THEN?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: I did for a month, and then I freaked myself out, and then I stopped. I became a gym rat. I became like the token Gay boy, and I had girls everywhere that were in love with me. I was one of the best makeup artists in Sacramento. I had quite a following. Part boy — party boy. But the reality of that situation was, there was always a void. There was a huge void, and I could never really pinpoint it — or I never chose to look deep enough into the void to see what it was. Then me and my husband broke up after four years. It was an abusive relationship. He was that type of guy. We’d get drunk and he’d fight me and he’d kick my ass. In the morning he’d wake me up and say, “I’m so sorry. I love you. I didn’t mean to. Let’s go get you a car.” I’d be like, “Oh, okay. He really loves me.” It was total Battered Wife Syndrome, so I got out of it. Then I met another boyfriend, and that’s when I was rock-hard. I can show you pictures — it’s kind of crazy, the difference. I had rock-hard abs. I was really buff, super tan, cool rocker hair — and we were together for three years. Then we split up, and I went to San Francisco to get away from him — and he moved to San Francisco and chased me down. I worked at the MAC Pro store there. I was living a really fun, artsy life — but the common thread with me throughout this situation was that I always surrounded myself with Trans. I was always around them. People are like, “You’re going to be a Tranny one day,” and I was like, “No I’m not. I’m the boy.” They like the boy around. I would just sit there and watch them get ready. I would go with them to go shopping. I would get off from work, go home, take a nap, wake up — and I’d always end up back on the boulevard. I lived in the Tenderloin in San Francisco, and I’d hang out on the Boulevard with all the girls outside of Diva’s.

IT’S PRETTY FUN AROUND THERE.

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Yeah, one of my favorite things that the girls used to do was, they all carried cameras in their purses. When the police would come, we would be standing out there talking and socializing — and it would literally end up a party. All the girls would be drinking — and during this time I also got sober.

WHAT KIND OF DRUGS WERE YOU DOING?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: I did Crank. I dabbled with Crack. I tried Crystal. I tried Ecstasy, Marijuana, Acid.

WOW.

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: No Heroin. In Sacramento, literally a week after I left, four of my girlfriends got hooked on it, and crashed and burned. Two of them are gone, one of them is now clean and sober, but she’s no longer the same person.

WHAT WERE YOU SAYING ABOUT THE GIRLS WITH THE CAMERAS?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Oh, so with the cameras — like, the police would come while we were out on the boulevard, and what we would do was, we had a code word for the pigs — and then the next thing you know, one girl would be like, “Photo shoot!” Then we’d start posing and acting like we were taking pictures outside of the clubs, and the cops would be like, “Well, they’re not soliciting. We can’t stop them because clearly they were having a photo shoot.” It looked like we were having an amazing night outside of Diva’s. It was really fun. So anyways, I went into the life of online dating, and I found all the different sites to meet guys, and I kinda became a little bit of a ho. I became a bit of a sex addict. I replaced drugs with sex, and I was meeting them left and right. Then I met one guy in Los Angeles and we had an amazing connection. He’s a celebrity hairdresser, a celebrity makeup artist, and he was telling me his whole story and I was like, “Wow.” Then he came up and visited me, and he would stay for like a week on end, and we’d spend all this time together, and he was like, “I need you to come to L.A. I need you to be with me. You’re exactly what I’m looking for. You’re a beautiful man. You’re just beautiful. I need you in my house just to look at you,” and I was like, “Okay.” So I moved to L.A. and I was working at the Beverly Center MAC store, and everything was good there. Me and him lasted nine months, and then he put me out. I ended up going from Beverley Hills to Normandy and Hollywood. So again, it was just like this culture shock. There’s never a happy medium. There’s extremes — like Beverly Hills and Little Armenia. It had cockroaches and rats, and I was so depressed — and then the next thing you know, I started smoking cigarettes again, and then I started smoking Weed again, and I started pill-popping again. So, Ray and I broke up. I was living over here in Little Armenia and working at Beverly Center, doing my part and being a good manager, and then I became crazy obsessed with my body. I was realizing that people were so into this beautiful-man syndrome, and I was really trying to fit this L.A. lifestyle, and I did my best, and it got to a certain point where I would only talk at a certain octave. If I felt I was walking too feminine, I would freak out. I had this really butch stance, and there was nothing feminine about me. At that point, it was so over-thought that people today tell me, “You were so synthetic. You were so fake that we didn’t even want to be around you.” Anyway, I had a hard time making friends because they were like, “You’re trying too hard, kid.” So the next thing, I get promoted to the Century City store. I was a manager there. So I now moved into my own one-bedroom apartment in Inglewood. It was in a cute little complex. I had my own house. I had my own car. Everything was amazing, and one day I came home from work — a great day at work — I sat on the edge of my bed and I started crying, and it wasn’t like a little cry or like tears of wonder — it was more like, “Something’s wrong. You’re doing everything wrong, but on paper everything’s right.” Like, “I finally got my life together. I’m doing well for myself — but what’s missing?” And I’ll tell you something: In the room that I was sitting in — which was my bedroom, and I was in my apartment by myself — I heard this voice, and she said, “Fuck it. Put a dress on.” I literally went down and I looked around my room. I was like, “That’s really weird.” I had this really tall mirror, so I went and stood in front of it and I looked myself in the eyes — and I didn’t see a guy anymore; I saw this really beautiful girl, and my tears stopped — and then I heard her say, “Fuck it. Put a dress on.” I was like, “This is really weird; I don’t understand this.” Something was pulling me in the bathroom, so I went to the bathroom and I shaved my face. I tweezed my brows and I put on a little makeup. I had a short little Rihanna haircut. I just looked in the mirror and I felt so comfortable, so at ease. So the next thing you know I was like, “Fuck it. Put a dress on.” And that’s when I came up with the concept that I’m going to lose many but gain myself. I put on little Daisy Dukes. I was parading around the house. I probably looked like a crazy queen, but I was just like, “Fuck this —” I couldn’t wait to tell the world. So I put a few videos on my Facebook saying that there was some change about to happen. I went and talked to all my close Black Gay society friends, and they’re like, “Honey, I’m going to hook you up with the right people. If this is really what you want to do, I’m going to hook you up to the right people.” One of my friends took me to breakfast with two other Trannies, and they go, “Is she transitioning?” and my friend goes, “What do you mean? Him?” And they go, “That’s a her!” They’re like, “Sweetheart, take down my phone number. I need to hook you up with somebody.” I call her and she got me my hormones. She hooked me up with BAART. She told me about the lifestyle.

WHAT IS BAART?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: BAART is a transitional Methadone and hormone therapy clinic for girls transitioning off the street.

THAT’S HERE IN L.A.?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Uh-huh. It’s on Beverly and Alvarado. I went there for my evaluation, and a month later I got my first shot — and they monitored me. For a year I went to BAART, and after that I just paid it.

HOW IS IT PAID FOR?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: It’s paid for by your tax dollars, because I said I didn’t have a job — because I didn’t want to pay for my hormones. But now I pay for them — but I get them off the street. I wasn’t getting results fast enough. They give you the bare minimum. Long story short, I committed to it — and it’s been an interesting ride. During the whole stunt of me trying to be this man, I was trying my hardest to mend the relationship with my father. I thought the more masculine I would be, the more he’d love me — but the reality was, he was religious, and Christians don’t agree with Homosexual, Bisexual, Transgender — so, when he put up at face value that he loved me, in his heart and in his head his religion doesn’t support me. So, that was another reason I was just like, “Fuck it. This is my life and I’m going to live for me” — and I did. I lost about ninety-five percent of everyone in my life, from Sacramento to San Francisco.

THAT’S A LOT OF PEOPLE.

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: A lot of people didn’t understand. They’re like, “But you’re such a guy —” My best friend here in Los Angeles — she was a high-profile lady, and she used to let me borrow her car. She took her car away. She said that I was no longer allowed to be her child’s godparent. She said that I had problems — lots of psychological issues. I had huge hands. “How are you going to pay for all these surgeries? You’ll never look like a woman. There’s nothing feminine about you.” It was really hard, because in the very beginning — I was surrounding myself with the Black Transgender women of Los Angeles. A majority of them are streetwalkers. So, I’m back in that circle all over again, and I’m the employed girl — but they were so supportive. They never made me feel weird. I would go out on the boulevard and smoke a tree —

RIGHT OUT HERE?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Santa Monica and Highland. Hang out with them, and they would tell me where to go to get my bodywork. Where to go to get my breasts done at. Finally — when this year ends and my tax return comes, I’m finally going to be able to get my breasts — and now things are starting to fall into alignment. I started a YouTube page where I just talk about day-to-day challenges — because everyone thinks I have a glamorous life. But I work at a mall — so, I’m around the public so much that I get called all sorts of names. I get treated weird. I get singled out.

STILL?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Yeah. At the grocery store. Even when I’m out with my boyfriend. You have to have a thick skin to do this. If you’re not what they call “passable,” what they deem is, you’re fishy, fishy, fishy — and no one can tell —

YEAH.

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Just because you’re living a lifestyle that a majority of people don’t agree with, you’re deemed as a freak — so you have to deal with that when you step out of the door. This may be how you feel — but someone somewhere has a difference of opinion.

DID YOU GET YOUR TATTOOS BEFORE OR AFTER YOUR TRANSITION?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: All of them were when I was Carlin. My neck tattoo was after I broke up with Ray, who I moved to Los Angeles for. I found a common thread within myself — that I kept putting men before me, because I wanted to be loved so severely. One of my girlfriends used to watch Dirty Dancing with me all the time, and she used to say, “Sweetheart, you have to remember that nobody puts Baby in the corner — and you’re Baby, and you’re so special, and I hope one day you’ll see that.” She’s no longer my friend but that saying stayed with me. I literally woke up out of bed one morning and I was like, “I’m putting it on my neck. I need to see this every day to remind myself how important I am — every day.” I went on a whole self-love binge. I got “1-4-2” on the inside of my wrist, which stands for “I love me” — the number represents the number of letters in the words. That was to tell myself that self-love was extremely important. I got the “80-20” because I’m such a lover that I love to give as much as I can to someone — but I always need to keep a portion for myself and a backup plan.

ARE YOU GONNA PLAN TO GET ANY SURGERIES?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: In a world where I have endless money, I’m going to have facial feminization and I’m going to have my voice redone. I’m going to have a breast augmentation for D-cups — a little lipo on my stomach — I’ll probably get some silicone therapy, and then sexual reassignment surgery. But that’s like eighty thousand dollars, though —

YOU GOTTA FIND A RICH MAN.

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: Seriously! That’s why a lot of my girlfriends are Barbie Dolls — because they’re escorts. That’s why they look the way they do.

HOW HAS YOUR SEX LIFE CHANGED?

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: It’s actually gotten better. When I was a Gay boy, it was really weird, because in order for me to have sex with the kind of men I like to have sex with, I had to look a certain way. I’ll admit it: I’m a size queen. I like really masculine men that are big and hung and they’re just going to annihilate my vagina. But in the Gay world, in order to pull that kind of man, you have to look like that kind of man. So it was a little more challenging, because even though I can fit this facade, once the intercourse started they could see this girl come out. So it was always that battle. However, now it’s a lot easier. I thought it was going to be challenging, but it’s a lot easier. I mean, there’s Tranny chasers everywhere. It’s like once a guy clicks and looks at you, and his homeboy will say, “That’s a dude,” homeboy will be like, “That’s a girl — he walks like a duck, talks like a duck, acts like a duck. Must be a duck — and guess what? I can fuck ducks.” And you’re like, “Yes you can!”

I THINK WE’VE COVERED A LOT.

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: We did. I’ve been telling this story now for two years —

I THINK THAT’S PRETTY GOOD. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Gizelle Joslyn Messina: You’re welcome. I’m glad to be a part of it. ~

Pina Newman

Fashion Model

Photo: Danilo Ursini

FRED H. BERGER: WHAT’S IT LIKE TO BE A FASHION MODEL IN TORONTO, CANADA?

Pina Newman: The work that I have been doing is very, very fun and the atmosphere behind it has been very easy-going. So it’s been an adventure — and definitely eye-opening about the fashion industry. Overall it’s been a very positive experience.

WHAT ORIGINALLY SPARKED YOUR INTEREST IN FASHION?

Pina Newman: I grew up watching shows like Fashion Television and In Fashion and watching the fashion shows in Europe. I can’t say exactly when it was, but it always captivated me and made me want to be a part of it. And then I used to watch the Victoria’s Secret fashion shows — and I always wanted to be a Victoria’s Secret model.

WHICH MODELS DO YOU LOOK UP TO AND FEEL INSPIRED BY, AND WHY?

Pina Newman: The person I look to as an icon currently is Andrej Pejic. For years now I can’t stop looking at Andrej. And I love the androgynous value, and I love that Andrej found success in both fields in terms of men and women, and being able to successfully model in both of those regions.

RIGHT, BUT YOU WOULDN’T ASPIRE TO THAT — YOU’D JUST WANT TO MODEL AS A WOMAN?

Pina Newman: Personally I wouldn’t want to do both domains — no.

YOU FIRST CAME TO MY ATTENTION WHEN I SAW YOUR PHOTOS IN DANILO URSINI’S PORTFOLIO ON THE ITALIAN VOGUE WEBSITE. TELL ME HOW YOU GOT THAT MODELING GIG.

Pina Newman: To be one-hundred percent honest, I had no idea it would even go to that level. That’s one of the shoots I had done with Danilo. I had met him on Halloween; I was working at a wine store. I believe it’s his wife — she came up to me and said, “This is his card; he really wants to do some photographs with you.” I hadn’t really done much modeling at that point and so I was a little bit skeptical, but we set up a time to meet and we just started shooting together. The chemistry was there; he knew exactly how to look at my face and find a picture — and I knew exactly how to look at him and give him an image worth taking a picture of. It was completely unintentional, but the way we kind of just meshed together made something really spectacular.

SO THEN HE PUT SOME OF THE PHOTOS IN HIS ITALIAN VOGUE ONLINE PORTFOLIO?

Pina Newman: Yes, that’s right.

WHAT OTHER MODELING WORK HAVE YOU DONE?

Pina Newman: The majority of the work that I’ve done I’ve been sought after for or asked to be a part of. But I have done some shows for Fashion Arts Toronto. It’s a fashion show for local designers and community vendors.

AS A TRANSGENDER MODEL, DO YOU THINK THE FASHION INDUSTRY IS DOING ENOUGH TO BE MORE TRANSGENDER- AND TRANSSEXUAL-INCLUSIVE?

Pina Newman: I believe that the industry is very inclusive of all bodies. I think there are certain people who still need to learn the difference between what an androgynous model is and what a Transgender and a Transsexual model is. There is a difference. There are people who are able to model in both genders or to model in a way that’s unisex. And then there are models who are Transgender — and that’s something completely different. Transgender is when someone doesn’t necessarily conform to the gender that they’ve been given. And a Transsexual is someone who has had surgery to change their biological sex, which is geared toward their actual body parts. So the difference is that a Transsexual has had their anatomical biology changed, whereas the Transgender hasn’t necessarily had that surgery, but they don’t succumb to the gender which they were dictated with at birth.

SO YOU WOULD CLASSIFY AS TRANSGENDER?

Pina Newman: Yes, I’m Transgender.

HAVE YOU APPROACHED ANY MODELING AGENCIES OR GOTTEN ANY OFFERS YET?

Pina Newman: Recently I’ve been working with a modeling agency in Toronto. It’s a smaller agency, and they tend to work with more of a diverse group of models, or models that wouldn’t necessarily be found at a larger agency.

WHY WOULDN’T THEY BE FOUND AT LARGER AGENCIES?

Pina Newman: These would be models that don’t fit into their narrow parameters.

WHICH YOU DON’T FIT INTO — SO IS THAT WHY YOU’RE WITH THIS AGENCY?

Pina Newman: Personally, though, I don’t necessarily want — I’m not concerned with being signed as a model with any large agency. I like being able to do the work that interests me. I usually don’t work unless someone contacts me personally — that’s more the work that I’m looking to do. And then I can feel a lot more comfortable myself knowing that this is something that we both want to work towards together, versus going to a casting and wondering if this is a job I might get, or if it’s a job that I’m able to fulfill. Whereas if I’m contacted, or I find something that I want to be a part of, and we connect, then we can agree more on a personal level — a less rigid, less strictly-business level.

WHY DO YOU WANT TO BE KNOWN AS A TRANSGENDER MODEL, AS OPPOSED TO SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO KEEP IT SECRET OR SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T WANT TO HIGHLIGHT THAT ASPECT OF THEMSELVES?

Pina Newman: I guess being Transgender isn’t my only characteristic, but at the same time I’ve realized that this is something that has made me who I am today. It’s a part of me that I’m not ashamed of, a part of me that I can share with the world and help to educate the world. There’s still a negative stigma regarding people who identify as Trans, be they Transgender or Transsexual, and I’m confident in who I am and I feel confident in explaining myself — and so that’s why I’m not afraid to be known as Transgender. Because I feel it’s something that is only going to continue to be more and more prominent in today’s society, and I think there should be the education there so that other people don’t necessarily feel ignorant with regard to Trans issues.

WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE FASHION DESIGNERS SEEM TO FAVOR VERY TALL AND SKINNY FEMALE MODELS WITH RELATIVELY FLAT CHESTS, NARROW HIPS AND BROAD SHOULDERS?

Pina Newman: Umm — I guess — they can be considered walking clothes hangers, but to be honest I don’t know why that is the preferred shape of fashion designers. I think that it’s something that’s unobtainable, and by having that aspect they see it as more revered — well, maybe not revered, but special.

RIGHT, YEAH — BECAUSE A LOT OF PEOPLE REFER TO THOSE TYPES OF MODELS, WHICH IS PRETTY MUCH THE STANDARD, AS FREAKS OF NATURE — SO WHY ARE YOU SELLING CLOTHES TO FREAKS OF NATURE IF THEY’RE SUCH A RARITY?

Pina Newman: And to be honest, that type of body frame — that very thin frame with little muscle and tiny bone structure — is not ideal for the human body to function. You know, osteoporosis is a huge problem for women in general, and if you have a smaller bone structure to begin with, you’re much more likely to encounter bone issues as you age. So, in fact, that ideal body image is not at all ideal for the human body.

WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU FIT THAT DESCRIPTION?

Pina Newman: No.

HOW DO YOU DIFFER FROM THAT DESCRIPTION?

Pina Newman: I don’t feel that my bones are as tiny; I don’t feel that my frame is as — how should I say — frail looking. I have my own personal biases as well, but I always feel that my shoulders are too wide and that my bone structure is too big. But these are all things that I just have to get over about my body.

WELL, YOU MAY NOT BE AS FRAIL AS MOST OF THESE MODELS, BUT YOU ARE SIX-FOOT-ONE AND QUITE THIN, AND YOUR SHOULDERS ARE NOT OVERLY BROAD BUT BROAD ENOUGH TO BE THE CLOTHES HANGER THAT YOU SAID DESIGNERS ARE LOOKING FOR. SO I KIND OF SEE SOMETHING OF THAT IMAGE IN YOU —

Pina Newman: I guess we all see ourselves differently than others see us. I guess when I look at myself I don’t necessarily see things that way, but if other people see it that way then that’s how they see it, right?

YEAH, [LAUGHS] SURE — SELF-PERCEPTION IS VERY DIFFERENT.

Pina Newman: Yes, [snickers] self-perception is very different.

HOW WOULD YOU GO ABOUT OVERCOMING OR RESPONDING TO THE CRITICISM THAT SOME PEOPLE DIRECT AT TRANS MODELS?

Pina Newman: I’m aware that there are people out there who don’t necessarily agree or approve, and they’re allowed to have their opinion — but at the same time I would defend my work and my right to work.

THE REASON I BRING IT UP IS I’VE NOTICED THAT EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE AN ARTICLE IS POSTED CRITICIZING ANDREJ, WHO REALLY IS JUST ANDROGYNOUS, FOR MODELING WOMEN’S CLOTHES. ONE FEMALE FASHION JOURNALIST DESCRIBED HIM AS “THE GREATEST INSULT TO WOMEN,” AND THIS QUOTE WAS REPEATED IN SEVERAL PLACES. SO, DO YOU SEE WHAT HE DOES — OR WHAT YOU DO — AS BEING POSSIBLY OFFENSIVE OR INSULTING TO WOMEN?

Pina Newman: Well, that’s the thing — I don’t personally see it as offensive to women. I identify as a woman, and so for me to advocate the rights of Trans women is just further empowering women — and how can that be offensive? And the face that Andrej is putting out, and the work that Andrej does — I don’t see it as offensive because it’s still portraying femininity in a classy way; it’s not demoralizing or pornographic. It’s artistic, and I don’t see that as offensive. That’s just how I would defend Andrej’s work should I ever encounter someone saying that.

SO YOU THINK IT’S ALMOST LIKE A COMPLIMENT TO WOMEN TO TRY TO PROMOTE A FEMININE AND GLAMOROUS AND GRACEFUL IMAGE?

Pina Newman: Umm — I think it’s — I’m trying to be careful here, but I don’t think every women needs to portray femininity or softness and should be glamorous. I don’t think it’s offensive to women for someone like Andrej, who is an androgynous model, to portray those aspects. It’s hard to — I’ve never ever been asked that question before, actually, so I’m struggling with the answer a little bit —

IT’S A COMPLICATED QUESTION. I JUST WANTED TO GET YOUR REACTION TO THAT AND YOUR RESPONSE IF YOU WERE IN THE SAME POSITION AS ANDREJ AND SOMEONE SAID THAT ABOUT YOU. YOU HAVE WHAT APPEARS TO BE A NATURALLY ANDROGYNOUS BODY TYPE, BUT WHAT, IF ANY, GENDER REASSIGNMENT PROCEDURES OR THERAPIES HAVE YOU UNDERGONE TO TRANSITION TO FEMALE?

Pina Newman: I’ve been on hormone replacement therapy. I started my testosterone blockers last July; I found that they really didn’t do anything, so then I added in estrogen as well last October. So, I’ve always had a very thin body — and that alone is androgynous. The hormone replacement therapy has really softened my body — it reduced muscle mass and increased female fatty tissue on my body — not feminine fat, but the percentage of composition has changed. And I like what it’s done to my body — it’s made it less boney.

LESS BONEY — WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

Photo: Kevin Neales

Pina Newman: I mean the sharp edges have become more rounded, because of the fatty tissue that women have which overlays the bones.

OH, I SEE — SO, IT MAKES YOUR FIGURE LESS ANGULAR AND MORE CURVY.

Pina Newman: Yes.

AND WHAT ABOUT FAT DISTRIBUTION — I MEAN, HAS IT GONE TO PLACES YOU ORDINARILY DIDN’T HAVE IT?

Pina Newman: Yes, I’ve definitely noticed a shift. It took a long time to really start to notice it, and I’m sure I’m still going to notice changes. Like, I haven’t even been on estrogen for a full year yet, so there are still changes to come. But overall I’m very happy with what has changed, and I’m feeling more comfortable in my body than I ever have before.

SO, YOU STARTED HORMONE THERAPY ALMOST A YEAR AGO. HOW OLD WERE YOU?

Pina Newman: I was twenty-three.

I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT YOU STARTED LONG BEFORE THAT, JUDGING FROM THE VERY FEMININE SOUND OF YOUR VOICE.

Pina Newman: [laughs] I guess I had a feminine voice to begin with. I did a few voice therapy sessions, but I didn’t find they helped much. I had great success recording myself reading my textbooks aloud, and trying to change the mannerisms I didn’t like.

ARE THERE ANY OTHER GENDER REASSIGNMENT PROCEDURES YOU WOULD CONSIDER, OR ARE YOU HAPPY WITH JUST WHAT YOU’RE DOING?

Pina Newman: Well, I’ve definitely thought about breast augmentation. That will be decided by my financial situation. With regards to my genitals, I have a plan — and as of recently I’ve been talking less and less about what kind of surgery I’ll have, and I think that’s a good thing because they’re my privates and that’s the thing — they’re private. So, I’ve been discussing it a lot less and with fewer people. And I think that’s actually a big issue with the majority of people, and with Trans people. For example, I work in a hair salon part-time, and clients will often ask if I’ve had my bottom surgery, and yes it’s fascinating to hear about and learn about, but at the same time you’re asking me about my privates that are between my legs. I’m not sitting there asking you about what your nipples look like or what your labia lips look like, or I’m not asking you the size of your penis. Those are all personal questions that are not necessarily the best thing to talk about in public.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE COMPLIMENTS THAT YOU GET CONCERNING YOUR LOOK, AND HOW DOES IT DIFFER WITH REGARD TO THE GENDER OF THE PERSON WHO IS PAYING YOU THE COMPLIMENT?

Pina Newman: The attention I get is different. A lot of women will comment, “I love your cheekbones; I wish I had your eye-lashes; your lips look great!” Those sorts of things. They’ll focus more on one aspect, whereas guys won’t necessarily focus on one aspect, they’ll focus on the overall look — “Wow, you’re so beautiful! Wow, you’re so sexy! Wow, you’re stunning!” It’s a different kind of attention. I hope I don’t sound conceited or egotistical, but I do get those types of compliments a lot.

I’M NOT AT ALL SURPRISED, WHICH LEADS ME TO THE NEXT QUESTION — WHAT’S IT LIKE WHEN STRAIGHT GUYS HIT ON YOU?

Pina Newman: You know, a lot of Straight men have no idea that I’m Transgender. Generally speaking, it’s something I’ll bring up because I don’t want to continue flirting with someone who isn’t going to be okay with me being Transgender. I definitely experience a lot of different reactions when I tell them that I’m Transgender — a lot of the time their immediate response is, “Oh well, I’m not Gay,” and I’ll look at them and tell them, “Of course you’re not Gay; you’re a male and you’re hitting on me, and I’m a female, so you’re not by any means Gay, and neither am I.” So, I think that’s still a really hard concept, that Trans women are still women. But generally speaking, I used to be scared of Straight men hitting on me because I wouldn’t know how they would react, or I would be worried that they would react in a negative way which could put me into a potentially harmful situation. But now I’ve become very confident in myself as a person that I’m able to handle whatever it is that they say, and try my best to help educate them should they ever turn the situation into a negative situation.

OKAY, THAT’S A GOOD WAY OF HANDLING IT. SO, WERE YOU A WILD CHILD OR THE STUDIOUS TYPE GROWING UP?

Pina Newman: [laughs] I was always really lucky because I would always be able to go to class, not take notes and just kind of absorb the information. And I partied really hard when I was a teenager. [giggles]

SO YOU LEARNED THROUGH OSMOSIS AND YOU WERE A PARTY ANIMAL.

Pina Newman: I was definitely a party animal in high school.

OKAY, GOOD FOR YOU.

Pina Newman: [giggles]

AT WHAT POINT DID YOU REALIZE YOU WERE TRANSGENDER, AND WHEN DID YOU START MANIFESTING A FEMALE GENDER IDENTITY?

Pina Newman: Well, it’s something that from a very young age I knew — at two, three and four I was obsessed with the Little Mermaid, identified with the Little Mermaid, and I knew that when I was playing I was playing the role of a girl. I was always meant to play the female characters, because I was a female, and when I was four my mom tried to scare me and said some boys love being a girl so much they actually cut off their penis. And so she thought that would actually scare me, but I got overly thrilled with the idea, and so when I was four I tried to cut off my own penis. [laughs]

OHHH NOOO —

Pina Newman: Yes, so then she started taking me to psychotherapy, because my mom’s a doctor and she’s educated and so she wanted to get a second opinion and figure out what would be best for me to help raise me. And I have no idea what happened at this psychotherapist’s office — it’s all a repressed memory — and I saw him for four years and I don’t remember anything that happened with him. But then I know that he encouraged my parents to enroll me in sports and push the boy things and push me away from being a girl. And they believed him, and I don’t harbor any anger towards them for that because they sought help and that’s what the help was telling them. So my life went on in that way, and then for sure when I was sixteen I knew, and I did not feel okay with those feelings that I was having. And I think that’s why I partied so hard in high school — because I needed to drown out those feelings. So, I partied so hard I felt nothing.

HMM —

Pina Newman: I identified as a Gay male when I was fifteen, sixteen — I told my parents that I liked boys, and I’d always been with men in relationships, and it never felt right to say to people that I was Gay, that I was a Gay male — it never felt right. And so I just pushed all my feelings aside, and it felt like I was playing a supporting role in someone else’s movie. But I wasn’t actually living my life — I was just playing a role. That’s the best way I can describe it.

RIGHT, SO IT DIDN’T FEEL NATURAL —

Pina Newman: At no point did it ever feel natural. It always felt like I was putting on this giant façade. And when I moved to Toronto — I grew up in Winnipeg which is a much smaller city — seeing the amount of diversity here was really comforting. And to hear about other Trans people, or even people who just wanted to be androgynous or not fit into the gender binary, or seeing the multiculturalism that was different from Winnipeg and seeing all sorts of different fashion and ways of dressing — it really opened my eyes to the possibility that it wasn’t something I had to drown out any more. It was something I could really just bring into my life.

WELL, GOOD THING YOU GOT OUT OF WINNIPEG.

Pina Newman: It was definitely a good thing.

I’VE READ IN A COUPLE OF YOUR ONLINE INTERVIEWS THAT YOU’RE A NURSING STUDENT.

Pina Newman: Yes.

WHERE DO YOU GO TO SCHOOL?

Pina Newman: I go to Ryerson University.

AND WHAT AREA OF MEDICINE ARE YOU STUDYING?

Pina Newman: I’m doing a Bachelor of Science in nursing, and my goal is a four-year degree program. So I’ll be an RN — Registered Nurse — at the end of the program in 2016. And then I hope to work with cancer patients. I want to specialize in oncology.

I SUPPOSE YOU’RE INTERESTED IN THIS BECAUSE YOUR MOTHER’S A DOCTOR?

Pina Newman: I actually was not interested because my mom was a doctor. It was something that I was really interested in for a few years, and so I just decided two years ago that it was something that I really wanted to pursue.

BESIDES A MODELING AND NURSING CAREER, WHAT ELSE ARE YOU AIMING FOR IN LIFE?

Pina Newman: I guess having started the nursing program, and realizing how much of an advocate a nurse is for their clients, I really want to be an advocate for my community. I really feel that Trans people need a voice in the world, and I feel that I’m confident enough that I can put my opinions and my voice out there, and that I can advocate for change. I can help — I don’t know how many people, but I can definitely try to help people learn more about what Trans is, and to not be scared of it. And I want to work with cancer patients in the future; I want to feel like I’m an actual part of society. I don’t want to feel the way I did when I was in high school; I don’t want to feel like I’m an actor in my life anymore — I want to feel like I’m in the world for a reason. I’ve never personally been happier in my entire life, and that’s a great feeling. So I want to be able to put those good feelings to use.

AND WHAT WOULD YOU SAY YOUR TOP PRIORITY IS?

Pina Newman: As much as I enjoy modeling and being an advocate for Trans issues, my primary goal is to finish school and become a nurse. I love being in front of the camera, and it’s important to represent my community — but these really are secondary compared to the wonderful satisfaction I get knowing that I’m increasing my knowledge by attending university and that one day I will be able to use my knowledge to better the lives of others. That is without a doubt the most fulfilling aspect of my life.

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL SENTIMENT, AND A PERFECT NOTE ON WHICH TO CLOSE THE INTERVIEW. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, PINA.

Pina Newman: Thank you.

Our Lady J

Pianist, Singer & Songwriter

Photo courtesy Our Lady J

MANUEL OTTO VASQUEZ: HERE’S OUR LADY J – HI. WHERE DID YOU GROW UP?

Our Lady J: I grew up in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. That’s the biggest town around, which is like sixteen-thousand people in the middle of southern Pennsylvania. So it’s an Amish town — I actually grew up outside of Chambersburg. My town is not on the map because it only had two-hundred people. It’s called Edenville, Pennsylvania.

DID YOU GROW UP AMISH?

Our Lady J: No. My ancestors are Mennonites. Do you know the difference between Amish and Mennonite?

NO.

Our Lady J: The Mennonites started first. They developed this idea of self-sufficiency and plain-ness, where nothing was sparkly. Nothing could shine, and they couldn’t rely on technology. The Amish thought that the Mennonites were a little too liberal, so the Amish broke off from the Mennonites and became even stricter. So my ancestors — like my cousins and my relatives who are still Mennonite — they can drive cars, but the cars have to be all black and the aluminum has to be spray-painted black or navy blue. They can use more technologies than the Amish people can —

WOW.

Our Lady J: That’s kind of crazy.

AND YOUR PARENTS?

Our Lady J: My parents are Christian, reborn — Assembly Of God is the name of the church I grew up in, which is Sarah Palin’s church and Dolly Parton’s church. So I think you win some and you lose some —

YOU’RE FRIENDS WITH DOLLY, RIGHT?

Our Lady J: Yeah, I know her.

DID YOU KNOW HER FROM THE CHURCH?

Our Lady J: No I didn’t, actually — I knew her from — I started performing this concert in New York called The Gospel Of Dolly, which is a once-a-year thing. She heard about this concert through a friend of a friend, and then she got a hold of my CD and got a hold of a bootleg version of the concert of me singing her songs. And then she asked to meet me. It was nuts. I got a text message from a good friend of mine; it’s like, “Hey, I’m here with Dolly, she wants to meet you — are you around?” I was like, “Uhhh, yeah —” So I met her, and she was just the sweetest thing ever. All she wanted to do was to thank me for singing her songs. She came click-clocking around the corner with her heels and her beads and she just goes, “Are you Lady J? I just love listening to you sing.” She talked with me about music for what seemed like forever, thank goodness. It’s kind of magic, right? It shows how graceful and how confident and secure she is as an artist — that she would just reach out to little old me and say thank you —

ARE YOU STILL CHRISTIAN?

Our Lady J: No. Well, I guess I’m Christian in the same way that I’m like Buddhist or like Satanic. You know, I really love religions and cults, as long as they don’t try to conform everyone to their ideas — which is usually what happens. That’s why I don’t belong to any of them — but I do take a little bit from everything.

AND YOUR GOSPEL SONGS ARE CALLED GOSPEL FOR THE GODLESS, RIGHT?

Our Lady J: Yeah. I have these Gospel songs that I wrote — because I used to, back in my crazy days, get really high and listen to Gospel Music.

YEAH — THAT SOUNDS AMAZING.

Our Lady J: It was really good. I don’t like getting high anymore, but I still love Gospel Music — and so, I just couldn’t find anything that didn’t make me cringe when I heard them talking about male-identified gods and human embodiments of gods or Christ or whatever. It really wasn’t so much about love as it was about “please save me, God.” So I took the sound of the music and I formed a Gospel Choir in New York and I started writing these songs which were Gospel For The Godless, which were uplifting and transcendent and are all about redemption — but they don’t have to do with any god.

WHAT KIND OF DRUGS WOULD YOU DO?

Our Lady J: Oh, you know — back when I was a kid I did a lot of drugs. Just a bit of everything. Never too much of one thing, though — thank goodness — but I liked to experiment. I’ll tell you about the last drug I did — it was years ago. I took Ecstasy and a little bit of MDMA along with it in a field in Ireland.

WOW!

Our Lady J: I was performing at this festival called The Electric Picnic Festival, and George Clinton was performing, and all these amazing artists, and I went and I saw Grace Jones. Somebody handed me a pill while I was waiting to see Grace Jones, and I was like, “Why not?” — and I’m really glad that I did. It was a really wonderful experience — and she came down, and I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t, but she came down and kind of inspired me to do it — what I’m doing today.

THAT’S GREAT.

Our Lady J: She was very spirited religiously.

SHE WAS?

Our Lady J: Yeah. I think I’ll raise my kids really religiously — I just won’t believe it myself because it just seems that children who are raised really religiously become punks — and I want Punk children. You know?

COOL.

Our Lady J: Elvis was raised as Assembly of God — same tradition.

SO THERE’S SOMETHING THERE —

Our Lady J: I think that there’s power in rebellion, and I think that we all channel the rebel in us — and we do have something concrete to rebel against because of the structure of suppression that was put on us — and once you break free of those restraints, there’s really a lot of good energy. So I think rebellion and friction and transcendence are all something people who are raised religiously but don’t agree with the religion — I think that’s all something we work with. It could be a kind of magic — you know, kind of witchcraft — because it is such a friction and it’s something you rely on to take you somewhere else.

TALKING ABOUT WITCHCRAFT, DO YOU DO SPELLS AND STUFF?

Our Lady J: I do. I try not to do too many spells — but sometimes I’m so unintentional about the spells, like they just happen if I get really mad about something. Actually, Dolly was a spell. I didn’t know that meeting Dolly — I did a very specific magic spell. It was a little bit of Chaos Magic mixed in with Blood Magic and all these things — I wanted something to happen, something specific to happen and it was — do you know what Chaos Magic is?

YEAH.

Our Lady J: It’s all about symbols, and letters — you make them into symbols and you stare at the symbols and you think of the symbol. If someone’s in a fight walking down the street — that’s energy. So, you take that energy and you think of that symbol — or, while you’re making love you can think of that as Sex Magic. I had done the spell a few years ago — and in a weird way, without getting into too many details, I look back on how I met Dolly and the steps that it took to meet Dolly, and it was part of the spell —

WOW.

Our Lady J: So, it wasn’t an intentional outcome — which is why I try not to do too many spells — because I have a lot of mischief around me — and sometimes, if you have a lot of mischief floating around, your spells can get you into trouble.

Photo courtesy Our Lady J

WHEN DID YOU LEARN HOW TO SING?

Our Lady J: I learned how to sing because I was writing songs. First and foremost, I am a pianist. I’ve been playing the piano my whole life, and I had legit training, and I still do a lot of Classical work. Right now I’m working with the Los Angeles Ballet, and back in New York I worked with Mark Morris Dance Group and the American Ballet Theater and all these great Classical Dance companies, as a pianist both performing and doing rehearsals. So, in church I learned how to play Gospel Music. I sung in church occasionally — but I was way too shy and I hated my voice because I always sounded so girlie, and then puberty happened and I sounded like a boy — and I just hated the way my voice sounded. It was so gender-identified. So much gender wrapped up in the voice — so, it wasn’t until I was music-directing a few of these people — these Broadway stars — and I started getting them to sing my songs when I was in New York — I started writing songs for them, and I just got so jealous of these people singing my songs that I wanted to sing them myself. So I found a voice teacher — well, first I did a few concerts and then realized that I had no idea how to sing. So I found a voice teacher and took a few lessons. I still take a few lessons every once in awhile, so I do consider myself to be a pianist who sings rather than a singer who plays.

COOL. HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU FIRST REALIZED YOU WERE A GIRL?

Our Lady J: I still don’t think I’m a girl — I’m a woman. I went from like being a boy to being a woman — like, I never was a girl and I never was a man, but mostly I am things that are in-between. Like, there’s such a power with identifying as a gender. Gender is something we use as a species. Whether it’s to categorize or to build cliques or to build tribes, or whether it is to gain sexual power — so, gender is very powerful, and I feel like I’m in more of an in-between — but because that isn’t a categorical gender, and I do have fun with gender — like, I don’t think gender’s a bad thing. I think it’s really exciting and fun. I identify as a woman, gender-wise. Does that make any sense?

YEAH, IT DOES.

Our Lady J: Because my spirit is free. Once you live life as a boy, you’re told that you’re a boy — and then you become a woman. Part of you does think, before you become a woman, that you’ll one-hundred percent be a woman — but honestly, nothing can erase your memory of what it was like to be a boy in the world. So, you can’t erase those experiences; you can’t erase those lessons — part of you will always be male. Even though my body is physically female. My body has transformed. I think that’s a great thing, like there’s a lot of wisdom in there to know what it’s like to be both genders — both a man and a woman — and to move around in the world with that knowledge. I think Trans people are some of the wisest, although were going through a bit of a hard time historically —

WHY DO YOU SAY SO?

Our Lady J: Pagans used to practice Trans-ness. They would castrate themselves in order to be a third gender — and there are all sorts of herbal supplements you can take, hormonally, that will help you as well. So, it was happening — and I think it was Moses in the Bible who was the first person to be like, “Thou shall not happen —” It was all about procreation — and Trans people don’t procreate. Suddenly our spiritual paths told us that procreation was the most important thing around, rather than enlightenment. So Trans people were of no use, and there is a decree in the Old Testament that said we should be killed. You know, people who change genders. They were called “eunuchs” in the Old Testament. That can also refer to Intersex people — basically it’s other-gendered people. The one good thing that Christ did say in the New Testament was to let eunuchs be themselves, whether they were born that way or whether they made themselves that way.

WOW!

Our Lady J: I do like Jesus for being pro-Trans. But I mean, historically it’s taken a lot of time for those wounds to heal — and the stigmas that go against people who change genders — I think right now what we’re dealing with most, though, is a Feminist issue. I think people think it’s really a bad thing to be a woman — and if you’re a man and you become a woman, that’s an even worse thing. So I think that a lot of the violence that goes out against Trans women — it’s mostly an anti-femme, anti-woman leaning. Most of the people don’t know the history of Trans from thousands of years ago. It doesn’t ring subconsciously with us all.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN TAKING HORMONES?

Our Lady J: About five years — five, six years maybe. I don’t know. Time is different when you’re on estrogen. Testosterone is such a lateral thing, and estrogen really is not. Linear, linear thinking, yeah. Testosterone is linear and estrogen isn’t. It’s like floating in space. I’ve lost track of time. Maybe five or six years. I have to look on my calendar.

DO YOU THINK IT’S CHANGED YOU MENTALLY?

Our Lady J: Oh definitely. Most definitely. Everything about your body changes — from your brain to your skin to your blood to your hair. The only thing that doesn’t change when you’re transitioning from male to female is your bone structure — hence my perfect cheekbones.

THEY ARE NICE, YEAH.

Our Lady J: Thanks, sweetheart. Yeah, everything else changes and also you go through a lot of changes socially — and so, with that knowledge, that does influence your mind — It could be a bit of a dark place, actually, to know that everyone treats you basically by your body-type. Everybody.

ARE YOU EVER GOING TO HAVE KIDS?

Our Lady J: I would like to take care of kids as they grow up, yeah. There is the science where I could have kids if I wanted to have kids. It would take a lot of planning, a lot of money and a lot of doctors — and it’s just not worth the effort, when you look at kids who need to be adopted. So, I would like to adopt sometime. I do think having a partner helps — and I do have a partner, but we’re just lovebirds right now and not even looking at having kids yet. But yeah, if that happens, that could be something I’d like to do.

WHERE DID YOU GET THE NAME “OUR LADY JAY”?

Our Lady J: I was reading Our Lady Of The Flowers by Jean Genet — and it was at a turning point in my life where I was thinking about transitioning; not sure, maybe thinking about being more feminine, not sure — and the book is all about hustlers and thieves and anarchists in 1940s France — and they had the word “anarchy,” and I just really identified — and it was so sick and twisted. He wrote it in prison as a pornographic poem. Like, it’s just a four-hundred page pornographic poem, and he wrote it to keep himself company. There’s a bit of a plot, and there are really strong characters — but then in the middle of it you’ll be like, “Wow, he was horny today, when he wrote that —” So that’s where the name came from —

YOU WORKED WITH LADY GAGA, RIGHT?

Our Lady J: Yeah, back when she was in school. As a pianist, I worked at a lot of universities in New York — and that year I was working as Music Director and pianist for NYU, and this little girl Stephanie was there, and she was the sweetest thing ever, actually — and I’m quite happy and proud of the progress she’s made from Stephanie to Gaga.

OKAY. ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT YOURSELF THAT NO ONE KNOWS?

Our Lady J: That no one knows? Oh I doubt it. I have a big mouth. I had a TB test taken last week — and it was negative. I’m so paranoid — I love the idea of, like, being an android — and I love medication and I love plastic body parts and fake things. So I take a lot of medication, and I call them my “beauty treatments” — but I get my pneumonia vaccine, I get my flu vaccine. With transitioning, everything has to be monitored really closely. So I just get it all done while I’m in there. ~

Romie Romak

Musician, Artist, Hair & Makeup

Photo courtesy Romie Romak

MANUEL VASQUEZ: SO, WHAT’S YOUR NAME?

Romie Romak: Romie — Romie Romak. People call me different things — but most people call me Romie.

AND WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?

Romie Romak: Well, let’s see — I do a lot of different things. I’m a musician, artist — and I also am a hair stylist and a makeup artist, which helps me with my own transformation.

HOW MANY BANDS HAVE YOU BEEN IN?

Romie Romak: Oh gosh, a bunch. The longest one, I mean the most notable one that someone would know my work by, would be RoMak & The Space Pirates — but since reinventing myself, another big change for me has also been a musical one. So, now I have a band that I just call Romak. I guess it’s my name, too — but it’s also about the way I like to isolate that part of the character that I was, and have a band named after it. But, it’s ironic because I’m still different than I was before. So it’s like an odd non-homage to myself.

HOW IS THIS BAND DIFFERENT FROM ROMAK & THE SPACE PIRATES?

Romie Romak: Well, RoMak & The Space Pirates was like a Retro Futurist Electro Punk Dance Pop sorta thing, and what I do now is not really anything you can dance to. It borrows a lot from Sixties Pop and this sort of modern, experimental, Alternative Pop format. It’s less hard-hitting, and we use electronics less. It’s more a traditional kind of Retro band where we have drums and keys and like one guitar, and bass, and we don’t use backing tracks — which is really weird for me.

I BET IT IS.

Romie Romak: Yeah. Space Pirates was more like electronic, I guess.

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR INFLUENCES?

Romie Romak: Gosh, there’s so many. There’s so many people I felt like I’ve had some sort of weird parallel with — but it’s also gone in phases. Of course I like Kate Bush. I was really into — and still am, even though I got into it after it was over — a lot of the Nineties Girl Pop music, like a lot of the Riot Grrrl stuff, because I would identify myself as someone who was kind of like, you know, sort of tough in my own way. I feel tougher now in my new life than I did before. I think that confidence makes me feel more like the character — you know, the tough girl in the band. I like fancy and whimsical, like Kate Bush — but I also like people who are just really in your face, like Bikini Kill, Slater-Kinney, Julie Ruin. Those are bands I got into that kinda inspired me a lot. But then I like a lot of Retro Pop stuff. So anyway, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, my influences — there’s so many people. There’s so many movies. I don’t know who I take after the most with my personality and my look; I don’t know, maybe I’m a cross between Leela from Futurama and Judy Funnie. I don’t know. That’s just kinda like throwing it out there. I’m not sure. It’s complex, I guess. Maybe not Judy Funnie — but it’s a funny joke to compare myself to Judy Funnie.

WHEN DID YOU FEEL THE NEED TO TRANSITION?

Romie Romak: You know what? I was always really experimental with my look and I went through a lot of stages. I was really experimental with makeup and clothes, and I was always trying to cross things, and I was always trying to look as unappealing as possible. My look before, when I was a boy, was to look kind of like a character in The Partridge Family who was edited out of the show later because they looked too crazy. I wore a lot of polyester, and then I had this fried, bleached hair, and then I would wear this neon eyeshadow. I think I wore more makeup then than I do now. Over time I just got more and more refined in myself and in my look — at the risk of sounding like I’m so sophisticated now. I think I just got more feminine. I eased into it so that a lot of people who knew me and were around me didn’t even notice it until it was so obvious. You know, everything happened gradually. I just made my look more and more feminine over the course of a year, until I was pretty much just like a girl all the time.

HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU FIRST FELT LIKE — YOU KNOW — ???

Romie Romak: I guess I had felt uncomfortable being dressed as a male before — but even so, sometimes I feel like I’m nothing and I don’t want to be anything. But still, I guess if I had to choose, I’d choose female. I guess that’s what I’ve chosen. But I suppose it was two or three years ago when I decided to get to a point where I felt more comfortable being in a dress, and using feminine pronouns, and I wanted other people to do it — and some people did it automatically, but then people who’ve known me longer were like — It’s kind of interesting for people, because they have to feel like it’s the right time for them to switch, but they want to be polite. So it’s kind of awkward. And then a lot of me feels like, “I don’t know, maybe one day I’ll just kind of change back, and maybe when I’m older I’ll look like Stephen King or something, or George Harrison, or like Morgan Freeman or something. I see myself as being more and more like Fran Drescher as time goes on, really, potentially —

I COULD SEE THAT.

Romie Romak: She’s a big influence for me, too.

ACTUALLY, YOU KIND OF LOOK LIKE HER.

Romie Romak: Yeah, I do. I always wished I were from the East Coast and I wish I had an East Coast accent. I guess I’m a self-hating Californian.

YOU’RE VERY FUNNY —

Romie Romak: Yeah — it happened gradually, and it was only a couple of years ago. I guess I was like twenty-two, twenty-three — you don’t have to put my age in this book, but you can if you want. I’m twenty-four now and I’m still young — but I’m so vain. Oh my gosh, I have people who think I’m nineteen forever — even though I don’t act like I’m nineteen.

WHAT DID YOUR PARENTS THINK ABOUT THIS?

Romie Romak: It’s a sad story really, because it was more difficult for my mom. I was really close to my mom and when I was in cosmetology school, she and I were living together — and her health was on the decline because of her alcoholism. Our relationship was really strained because she was at a bad point with her mood swings and her addiction. We were also under really tough times. So, our relationship was really strained, and we fought a lot, and her health was declining and I had to take her to the hospital a couple of times. Her body was just quitting on her. She was continuing to drink, I guess secretly. I don’t want to speak ill of my mother. I miss her a lot. I realize only now how great she really was — but it was harder for her, and that was sad because she passed away before she and I could make a lot of the amends we needed to make. She never really accepted it, or something — but I don’t know. Maybe she would have if circumstances had been different. There’s a lot that I wish would have been different. It was a big thing for me because around the time that I was just starting to go out and be different, that was the time of her decline. It’s a common thing — when parents are sick, people want to escape. People want to escape from their reality — and then after they pass away, they feel really guilty. I went through this big thing. I felt like it was my fault. I should have been there more, but really it was the kind of situation where she wasn’t ready to accept the help that she needed. I think that she wanted to try and hide from me and my brother, too — but that was easier because he was far away — and maybe I shouldn’t get into such personal family things, but she sort of hid how much on the decline she was. Long story short, I guess you could say I never, unfortunately, got to the point with my mom where she and I loved each other very much — and I still love her, of course, but it’s one of those things where we never got to be at a point where it was ever really addressed and talked about. We were kind of distant with each other, and there was a lot of tension and a lot of weirdness, and there were a lot more pertinent issues. I was living with her and we were losing our apartment. Her health was declining and everything was just going to hell. So it never got to be really addressed. So that’s the whole story. You don’t have to print the whole thing — but maybe you could sorta say what I summed up. I’m always weird, especially as I get to be more of a public figure! I don’t know how much I want to bring my family into things, because I want to protect them — but I still feel like I need to tell my story. So, it’s always such a precarious situation —

DID YOU HAVE ANY FRIENDS WHO DIDN’T ACCEPT YOU?

Romie Romak: Not really. I felt like everyone I hung out with was pretty liberal. I wasn’t hanging out with anyone who was really, like, conservative or socially conservative — except for maybe the guys I was dating, who were secretly wanting to see me while their crying, nursing or pregnant wives took care of their kids or something. Whatever — I don’t know. I guess the only guys I like are douche bags. So, I guess the only people who would not have accepted it would have been people I would not have wanted to date anyway. No, I wasn’t with anyone who was like, “I disapprove” — because they would have disapproved of the former me, too. Maybe more so. So I was like, “Whatever —”

DO YOU TAKE HORMONES?

Romie Romak: No. I’m completely natural. I don’t do anything. This is my hair. I just wake up and get ready.

COOL. COULD YOU TELL US SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU?

Romie Romak: Gosh, something that people don’t know about me — I think that people may think that I’m a lot more superficial than I really am. I think that people think I’m a lot more ridiculous — and maybe I’m obsessed with myself and how I see the world. I’m really into my work and what I do, and I’m really into making what I want to have happen in my life — I think it’s really sad that so many people who are Trans feel like they have to make up for so much lost time. It happens with Gay people, too, where they want to step out into the world and be like, “Bam! I’m here!” Which is all cool — but it’s kind of one of those things where it can get to a point where it becomes distasteful. Everyone does that in the very beginning. It’s kind of like when Rappers go from being poor to really making it, and they look ridiculous because they spend their money like water on stupid things. I think that a lot of Trans people do that, too — and I’m not judging; I think I did that a bit myself, too, and maybe I still do — but it’s one of those things where people who feel like they’ve been oppressed, or feel like they’ve been shut out, speak really, really loud when they feel like they come into their own. Sometimes it’s very poignant and smart and makes a lot of sense, and it’s something that needs to be done — and sometimes it’s kind of a trainwreck, but it still needs to be done. So I just hope that everyone who’s different and coming into their own maintains their safety, because it’s a weird world out there, and so many M-to-Fs end up in a situation where they’re only putting themselves around people who are wanting to use and abuse and exploit them — which is sad, too — but anyway, blah blah blah, You already have so many crazy self-esteem issues — it’s easier for you to end up in toxic relationships.

YOU WERE TELLING ME HOW NOW YOU’RE MUCH MORE OBSESSED WITH YOURSELF —

Romie Romak: Yeah — it makes you a bit more obsessed with yourself. I was already kind of obsessed with myself. I’m not going to say that I’m not — but because you are so neurotic, you think you’re going to go start living your way; you’re going to feel more comfortable, and everything’s going to be easier — but at the same time there’s this whole other stigma that everyone who is Trans has. At least, that’s the way that I feel. I don’t know if everyone — I can’t speak for other people — but part of me feels like, “You know, whatever. I am what I am. I don’t care if I pass. I don’t care if people know. I’m not ashamed of it.” But then another part of me is like, “I really hope I pass” or “Oh my god, do I look like a man today?” You end up in this weird cycle where it just makes you feel really self-aware, and more obsessed with yourself. More obsessed with your appearance. It makes something like getting Botox or spending too much money on wrinkle creams justifiable. You know? Or like going out and buying a bunch of shoes because, “Well, I have to — you know? To be a woman — don’t women have tons of shoes?” It allows you to be more irresponsible with your appearance.

WOULD YOU EVER CONSIDER ANY SURGERIES?

Romie Romak: You know what? I’m not sure. That’s kind of a big decision. I haven’t really gone into it. Honestly, the only thing I would really want to do at this point — other than vanity surgery like getting my lips done — would be to get electrolysis, because dealing with hair is a pain.

WOW —

Romie Romak: Yeah. There are so many things that Trans people are obsessed about, like hairlines — because women have lower hairlines. So, I’m always thinking, “Is my hairline not feminine enough? Should I have it lowered?” You know?

YOURS IS PRETTY FINE.

Romie Romak: It could be worse — but, you become obsessed with weird things. You know? Or, “Is my wrist bone too big?” You get more weird about things that most people don’t think about. But anyway, yeah. So, yeah, I guess that’s like one thing. I’m probably talking about more the weird unspoken things that no one wants to talk about. You know what I mean? I guess I’m talking about the weirder side of it. The more awkward side of it, I guess — whatever. I don’t know but anyway, yeah, I guess that’s my story.

EXCELLENT. WELL, THANK YOU!

Romie Romak: Thank you too. ~

Nomi Ruiz

Singer & Songwriter

Photo courtesy Nomi Ruiz

GEORGE PETROS: HERE’S NOMI RUIZ. NOMI, IS YOUR MUSIC CONSIDERED HOUSE MUSIC?

Nomi Ruiz: Yeah. Have you heard the album?

IS WHITE HORSE ONE OF THE SONGS ON IT?

Nomi Ruiz: Yes. The singles we’re releasing are like House mixed with some R&B elements — and then the full record is more eclectic. It goes from Dance to R&B — a lot of Soul and some Psychedelia, too.

THAT COVERS A LOT OF TERRITORY.

Nomi Ruiz: Yeah.

WHAT WERE YOU LISTENING TO WHEN YOU WERE A KID?

Nomi Ruiz: I listened to a lot of Hip Hop and R&B and a lot of Freestyle. I grew up in Brooklyn, in Sunset Park. A lot of the environment I was around, that kind of music was kind of fed to me in the neighborhood and on the radio and stuff. I love Pop music, too.

WHEN YOU SAY FREESTYLE, YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT STUFF LIKE TKA AND SAPPHIRE AND LISA LISA —

Nomi Ruiz: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

YEAH, I LOVE THAT STUFF.

Nomi Ruiz: Yeah, it’s so fun.

SO THAT WAS THE SOUND OF SUNSET PARK, WAS IT?

Nomi Ruiz: Yep. A lot of R&B. My mom listened to a lot of Willie Nelson and Lionel Ritchie. That really honest music —

WHEN DID YOU SPLIT FROM SUNSET PARK?

Nomi Ruiz: I roamed around a lot. People called me a kind of a gypsy. I roamed around a lot. When I was fifteen or sixteen, I moved to the Bronx — which was kind of forbidden. Everyone in Brooklyn was afraid to go to the Bronx. And I lived in Queens, and Manhattan —

WHAT WERE YOU LISTENING TO AT THAT POINT?

Nomi Ruiz: When I started moving around, I got more into Dance Music because I started getting into nightlife. I was listening to a lot of House Music — Latin House, Tribal House — stuff like that was influencing me —

WHEN DID YOU START SINGING?

Nomi Ruiz: I’ve been singing since I was a baby. My mom told me that she would drag me around and tell people, “She sings! She sings!” She used to sing to me when I was going to bed — she would cradle me and sing. I started kinda mimicking her. I’ve been singing since I was a baby. I’ve been working in the studio and writing songs since I was eleven or twelve. I haven’t stopped.

HOUSE MUSIC’S JOB IS TO GET PEOPLE UP AND MOVING —

Nomi Ruiz: Yep. You gotta make sure you got the rhythm. The rhythm section is really important to me. When the bass line comes in, that’s important too — we learned that playing live. That’s the only time that we see how people react to the music. We were playing a lot of live shows during the making of this record. So, we could see that it moved people. We could work on the songs live, and then bring that element to the recording.

TELL US THE NAME OF THIS ALBUM, PLEASE —

Nomi Ruiz: See The Light on Peace Frog Records.

WHAT DO YOU LISTEN TO WHEN YOU’RE NOT IN THE DANCE MODE?

Nomi Ruiz: I like Fleetwood Mac. I listen to a lot of Stevie Nicks. I listen to a lot of Soul Music like Nina Simone and Donnie Hathaway. Lauren Hill is one of my favorites. I’ve listened to Sade since I was young.

ANYWAY, BACK TO THE BRONX — WHAT WAS IT LIKE WHEN YOU WERE SIXTEEN?

Nomi Ruiz: It was a nice place to be by myself. It’s hard to discover yourself where you grew up and where you know everyone. I had my own space, so I could write.

WHAT KIND OF A KID WERE YOU? HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN THOSE DAYS?

Nomi Ruiz: I was always really popular. I was the class clown. I was a focal point — I really stood out. I was crazy and kinda Punk. I was kind of a Punk but not listening to Punk music. I was Punk in that I would do things that no one else was doing, fashion-wise. Usually people who are like that have a hard time. I was lucky because I made good friends. I always thought of myself as part of an important group of people. When I was young, I was really reclusive, too. I’d go home and lock myself in my room and fantasize and sing and dance.

WHEN YOU LOCKED YOURSELF IN YOUR ROOM, DID YOU DRESS UP?

Nomi Ruiz: I would take fabric and wrap it around myself. I like movement. I like things that can hang off my body that can move. I would grab curtains and twirl around to see the movement —

WHAT WAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE KIDS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD?

Nomi Ruiz: I definitely stood out, and it was obvious that I was different. I drew people closer to me that way, and some people I pushed further away. People started to see that I was really working hard on my music when I started getting some success. Even though I was young, it started happening fast. There was always respect. I think the fear was inside of me. It didn’t come from outside. It was a kinda scary neighborhood. It was real machismo, and there were gangs everywhere. As I grew older, I felt protected by them because I think they really respected me — that I was being who I was. It was really unexpected. I thought it would be harder. There’s always a trauma when dealing with being an outcast. I felt that support. People could see that I was a good person. They knew me in a way that they didn’t know other people. It was really sweet to see people you don’t expect to support you kinda get behind you. I was lucky, even though walking to the train was kinda scary. You have to learn how to gain control of the things that you can’t control. You can’t control what people say to you in the street or if people treat you certain ways. Learning that at an early age really helped me get by.

THAT WISDOM COULD SERVE WELL FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE —

Nomi Ruiz: The first time I went to a Trans group meeting, I was really hesitant to go — but I had a boyfriend at the time who had a friend that worked there. It’s an important thing to just kinda go there —

WHEN DID YOU FIRST GO THERE?

Nomi Ruiz: That was maybe — I may have been nineteen. It was a great mix of these Trans women — there were like these older ones — I mean, before I went I was hesitant because I was like, “What can I learn from this?” You know? I didn’t know what would come of that. It’s really changed me.

I SEE. SO YOU WERE NINETEEN AND YOU WENT TO A MEETING FOR A TRANSSEXUAL SUPPORT GROUP —

Nomi Ruiz: Yes, that’s exactly what it was.

SO WHAT WAS THAT LIKE, WALKING IN THERE AND SEEING THESE FOLKS? WAS IT SOMETHING THAT YOU WERE FAMILIAR WITH, OR WAS IT NEW?

Nomi Ruiz: It was very new for me because I don’t really surround myself with a community of Trans women. I surround myself with people who just treat me like a normal woman. It’s nice to come together with people who have unique experiences — because no one else has such a specific experience. I think it’s important to know that you’re not alone. People learn from each other. It’s important to have some sort of connection to that.

SO THERE YOU WERE, A NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY —

Nomi Ruiz: I was transitioning by then. I was a girl by then.

YOU GOT AN EARLY START —

Nomi Ruiz: Yes, yes, yes.

HOW EARLY?

Nomi Ruiz: When I moved to the Bronx. I had just turned sixteen. That was specifically why I moved — to have freedom to start living the way I wanted to, and not have to deal with people I’d known the whole time. I’d lived at my mother’s and I was going that way, and I felt like the pressure was on her watching me go through that in front of all these people that we’ve known for years —

HOW DID YOUR MOM TAKE IT?

Nomi Ruiz: I’m very lucky. She’s been very supportive the whole time. When I talk to her about it, she tells me how heavy it was for her and how she was very nervous for me — she’s very protective of me. We were very close. Now she’s admitting all this fear she had inside her. Sometimes she was a little embarrassed — but she never said that to me. She always allowed me to do whatever I wanted. She kept it all inside. It was probably tough for her. She really, really, really supported me. It was just so obvious since I was a child, that once I went through with the transition, my family was kinda like, “Finally. It’s about time. We’ve all been waiting for this.”

SO YOU STARTED TAKING HORMONES —

Nomi Ruiz: Uh-huh. I was fifteen, sixteen.

WHAT WERE YOU LIKE BEFORE THE HORMONES?

Nomi Ruiz: I was very feminine, very gentle. Everybody thought I was super-feminine. No one could deny it — even at school, the tough guys would always treat me like a girl. People knew right away.

TELL US ABOUT THE CHANGES THE HORMONES CAUSED —

Nomi Ruiz: It kind of eased my mind and my body, and I felt more relaxed. I became more introverted, and everything was more focused in my head, as opposed to physical things or reacting to things quickly — it’s almost like I became more adult. It was like this patience came over me — but also this sadness. I became really emotional and even more introverted. I wanted to be alone and think. I didn’t overreact as much as I had before. It definitely changed the way I felt about myself.

DO YOU HAVE BROTHERS AND SISTERS?

Nomi Ruiz: Yes, an older brother — he’s ten years older than me. He’s very supportive of me. He gives me so much love. He’s so proud of me. He’s always showing me off to his friends. I feel very blessed.

DOES HE COME TO YOUR SHOWS?

Nomi Ruiz: Yeah, he comes to my shows. He comes and he cries. He’s very emotional.

THAT’S SO SWEET —

Photo courtesy Nomi Ruiz

Nomi Ruiz: He is very sweet. I’m very lucky. I believe that that’s important. It’s kind of a problem in our community — it all starts with your household. That support system helps you build a healthy life. When you don’t have it, you have all this stuff on top of what you’re dealing with within yourself — stuff that all human beings deal with. Your upbringing, the unraveling that we all go through — so it’s another layer of stuff you have to deal with. There’s stuff within my family I had to deal with — but that, thank god, wasn’t really an issue. To this day there’s so much love there — I think all Trans people need that; it’s very important.

AND NOT EVERYBODY GETS THE LOVE THAT THEY NEED.

Nomi Ruiz: No they do not. I think there should be more focus on families that are dealing with that, because it starts there — and that can really create a lot of change. Nowadays I think it’s really happening; I’m seeing it a lot more — even on TV, programming is speaking more to the parents instead of just focusing on the Trans person and treating them like they’re this curiosity. They’re getting into the upbringing, so that we see the importance of love.

SCIENTIFIC ADVANCEMENTS HAVE ALLOWED SOME PEOPLE TO TAKE THIS EVOLUTIONARY STEP — WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN DOING A HUNDRED YEARS AGO? YOU WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO —

Nomi Ruiz: I think people were doing it — but in very different ways. It was another form of expression, another form of femininity that existed and that was, in a way — I think — more accepted. In the Native American culture, Trans people were called Third Spirits, and they were put on a higher platform. You were blessed to have a Trans person in your life because they were very nurturing and caring. As time went by, things got more materialistic in the world, and less spiritual. There’s been more oppression. There’s more devices to oppress people. Now, there’s a second coming of evolution that’s more spiritual.

WERE YOU DATING ANYONE WHEN YOU BEGAN YOUR TRANSITION?

Nomi Ruiz: I started dating someone when I was eighteen. It was my first real love. I used to try to teach myself, “You’ll never fall in love. You’ll never live this life that everyone else is striving for. Prepare yourself and focus on your work. You’ll never be in love. You’ll never get married. You’ll never have those experiences.” I built myself up that way, and then I was shocked when I met this man who felt the same for me that I felt for him. I was so used to feeling one way in my life, and this opened my mind. I have a hard time believing it when a man says he has feelings for me. I always think there’s something else going on. But you can’t avoid true emotions. Everyone is open to everyone. It’s something I learned from him. I was with him for five years.

HOW OLD WAS HE?

Nomi Ruiz: He was much older — thirty-two, and I was eighteen. We were together five years, and after him I met another man who was very sweet, and we were together for four years. I’ve had very good men in my life. We’re still friends — they’re like family.

I GUESS YOU HAVE TO BE ON GUARD AGAINST PEOPLE WHO HAVE DISINGENUOUS MOTIVES FOR WANTING TO GO OUT WITH YOU.

Nomi Ruiz: Yeah — I moved back to Brooklyn and I was this beautiful full-on hyper-femme woman. All eyes were on me at that point. There was all sorts of opportunities to meet men who really lived a hard life and who had these ulterior motives — they were itchy for the aesthetic. So I got into that darkness for awhile, really hard. I got addicted to seeing myself through another person’s eyes. I would get involved in these passionate relationships that were full of lust but not real true love. I was trying to label that as love, and that’s something I learned: As a feminine being you have to protect yourself more than anyone else. You’re really open to destruction. People see you as this insecure thing. You gotta really protect yourself.

I SEE. YOU’RE PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE BECAUSE PEOPLE KNOW YOUR BUSINESS —

Nomi Ruiz: People fetishize me.

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE THE OBJECT OF A FETISH?

Nomi Ruiz: I was addicted to their addiction. It’s almost like physical lust, like that serious affair — there’s something more long-lasting about that. It’s almost like you’re both escaping through each other in this secret other world for yourselves. One day I had to put it into its place and realize, “This isn’t love.” Now I think I have that. I’m with one of those men. I know what it is, and it kind of keeps away the mystique of it — the passion. As I grew older, I realized what true emotion is. It can become something more. And now that it became all real to me, it’s good to be there with somebody that you love and respect, and who is there for you for your spirit and not just for the fetish. There’s people who take from you and never give, you know?

PSYCHIC VAMPIRISM?

Nomi Ruiz: Yeah, that’s totally what it is. I think Transsexuals are the most evolved beings on Earth. I really believe that, because we are forced to open our eyes to the world immediately. So when I’m with a man, they’re kind of attracted to that. They’re curious and they want to learn from you. They just want to consume you. I started realizing, as these men would come into my life — all they would do is take and learn all this stuff and leave me heartless. I’ve learned to tell the differences between those types of relationships.

GIRLS MUST LIKE YOU AS WELL. YOU MUST GET HIT ON BY THEM —

Nomi Ruiz: Yeah. I’ve had some crazy experiences with that. People who get emotionally attached and don’t see that — I get very close to people. I kind of like give my all to the friendship, and I’ve had people misconstrue that love for a different type of love. Sometimes I get twisted. It happens a lot with women. I never realized the alternative motive. It becomes this ugly thing that I didn’t even anticipate —

SO GALS GET PRETTY ATTACHED TO YOU —

Nomi Ruiz: Yeah, it’s just an open field.

REGARDING YOUR TRANSITION, WHAT DID THE DOCTOR SAY WHEN YOU FIRST WENT AND SAW HIM OR HER?

Nomi Ruiz: I started hanging out with some girl who knew, and kind of mothered me, and schooled me about the life and medicine — it’s a thing you have to teach yourself. At that time — now there’s many more studies. But even today there’s not a specific measurement. Some doctors just go day-by-day to see what specifically works for people. You learn from your surrounding community. So, I talked to a lot of girls, saw their results, and then I went myself to who I thought — you know, you meet a doctor and you feel — I’ve always only worked with people who I feel, or my intuition tells me, are good. Somebody says, “Oh, this is a great doctor!” and you go, and there’s like this cold feeling. It has to be right, because this stuff is an art form. When you’re transitioning you have to find someone who has an eye for beauty.

YOU’RE USING YOURSELF AS A CANVAS TO CREATE A NEW BEING.

Nomi Ruiz: Yeah. I haven’t really had much work done. I want to see how I naturally progress. I started at a young age; I was always very feminine. I wanted to see myself as myself, with a natural element of hormones in me. I love that. I have the same face. I have the same body. It’s just like pushed in a different way. It’s almost as if I went through puberty or something. Some girls get surgery to compensate for insecurity. And then they start realizing that they’ve detached their physical body from — even though it’s powerful to transition and be the woman that’s inside of you. Suddenly you become this woman who’s not even the woman inside you —

TELL US MORE ABOUT THE HORMONES —

Nomi Ruiz: Hormones are very powerful medicine that really changes who you are, and it really puts you — it attaches you to the feminine being inside you. It unravels your psyche, your body — it’s a beautiful thing. It’s like this thing that makes you feel that you’re on the right path. Every day you move forward. You grow more towards the woman who is inside you. It’s like your body naturally attaches itself to the image you have in your head and you have in your heart. I believe in manifesting what’s in your head — what’s in your mind. If you keep it there, it comes forth with whatever you put in your body. If you keep control of your transition, you feel free.

I SEE. COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT THE CHANGES YOU WENT THROUGH AS A RESULT OF THE SURGERY?

Nomi Ruiz: It’s really powerful. It’s frightening at first. It’s very painful. You feel really empowered. You literally feel free. The insecurities that you felt are off your back. That thing that was holding you back — you’re running free in the streets. You feel so much more powerful, and it allows you to finally put it in the past: “Now I can focus on the things in my life that I really love” — and for me, that’s music. Now I can go on stage and perform and feel like I’m projecting myself to the world. I want to be seen the way that was meant for me always to be seen.

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE FOR THE EMPOWERMENT TO KICK IN?

Nomi Ruiz: It took weeks, months — I was lucky because that was when my family was there for me the most. My mother was really there —

HOW ABOUT THE BOYFRIEND?

Nomi Ruiz: Yep. He was definitely there for me, always. It’s times like those that you realize who your friends are — who’s really there in your life. When anything happens in your life that’s extreme, everyone’s masks come off and you see who’s really there for you. It was a big thing for me to see all this love. It’s great. Afterwards, you feel like you’re closer to everyone. You’re more yourself, and everyone else around you becomes more themselves as well.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE THE FIRST TIME YOU MADE LOVE IN YOUR NEW ROLE?

Nomi Ruiz: Amazing. It’s more powerful. There’s not this insecurity. It’s just like — on the street, when you’re with someone, you see where your insecurities are, and they try to comfort you. You know, “I’m okay with who you are.” It was also powerful to find me, instead of having people trying to comfort me. Even though that’s really sweet — but I think it’s more powerful to say it to yourself and comfort yourself. I finally feel happy with who I am.

HOW DID YOUR BOYFRIEND LIKE IT THE FIRST TIME?

Nomi Ruiz: I think he really loved it. He was so happy to see me, and it’s like our relationship kinda went to a level that was just like — we were both free, you know? When you’re with someone, you feel their burdens as well. I believe in freedom. He was so happy to see me. So happy — he really loved me.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE THE FIRST TIME YOU STEPPED OUT AFTER YOUR OPERATION?

Nomi Ruiz: It was a really great feeling. When you’re doing your makeup, you’re like, “Wow — I’ve done it! I’m living my life.” People react to that. You’re happy and you feel beautiful and you look beautiful. Everyone notices, you know?

I DO.

Nomi Ruiz: It’s great. When I go up on stage, the insecurities just fall off of me. Your performance becomes more powerful, and people feel it more.

SO HOW DO YOU LIKE THE NEW YOU?

Nomi Ruiz: I think all Transsexuals are an example of what the whole world has the ability to do. I think that’s a big part of why we’re so oppressed — people don’t want to deal with that aspect. They don’t want to see that we have the power to change and to be whatever we want to be in the world. It’s almost like they’re afraid of it because they’ve lived their whole life and they’ve built this thing — since a lot of people are not really happy. Trans women exhibit this sense of evolution that everyone is going through, whether it’s with your body, or your family, or your career — we all have the power to do whatever we want, to be whoever we want. And so, when people say you were brave — we’re all brave, you know? We all have the power to be as we want, and if I can be an example to open people’s eyes and change their lives, I’m very happy to go away with that, you know?

THIS WAS PROBABLY NOT AN INEXPENSIVE PROCESS, RIGHT?

Nomi Ruiz: Yeah. There’s definitely some money you have to have. I actually used a lot of my college money — I got a lot of scholarships in high school; it was great to use that money, because I worked for it. I was very proud of those achievements. I was a very good student. I went to Fashion Industry High School and F.I.T. [Fashion Institute of Technology] for college. I did very well. That money that I got — I bought a computer and I saved money to have surgery. It just felt even more empowering. I knew a lot of girls who were kind of like suffering, working as escorts. That made them very unhappy. They couldn’t go through with the things they wanted, or whatever — I always promised myself, “I want to work for everything that I achieve.” There are a lot of underground-culture women who are selling themselves to find themselves. I think that automatically, that’s the first thing people talk to you about: “Oh, are you working?” Especially at the time — but I feel like things are really different now, from when I was transitioning. Back then, for some girls it was almost like second nature, and I was kinda shocked. A part of me was thinking about these heavy things. I had to stay true to myself. It’s not what I want. Some girls can do it — that’s what they’re drawn to. I can’t; I don’t want to. I just want to do things my way. And it really worked out for me.

A LOT OF GIRLS MUST HAVE BOYFRIENDS WHO PAY FOR THE OPERATIONS —

Nomi Ruiz: Even if I met a man who — it’s always been very hard for me to receive gifts from men. I wish I was better at that. [laughs] I would have more jewelry, probably. My mother always taught me that — I’ve worked my ass off since I was fourteen. I moved out at fifteen.

AT F.I.T., WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE SUBJECT?

Nomi Ruiz: Design — basically, design and sculpting and sewing and draping. I like to design garments. I was always in contests. I would always win — that was pretty cool.

DO YOU MAKE THE CLOTHES YOU WEAR ON STAGE?

Nomi Ruiz: Some of them I design with my friend Ava, who I met in high school. We’re best friends. She has a fashion line now. We design it, and have someone make it for us.

DO YOU WANT TO MENTION HER NAME AND HER LINE?

Nomi Ruiz: Her name’s Ava Sanjurjo, and the line’s called RICA. She has a swimwear line that I was the spokesmodel for. She does amazing things; she’s really great.

WHAT BECAME OF YOUR BAND HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR?

Nomi Ruiz: I only committed to that for a year. I was only there as a vocalist. I wanted to really focus on my songwriting. I finally found some musicians, and we all connected very well. I got to produce and work on my songwriting —

AND YOUR NEW BAND IS JESSICA-6?

Nomi Ruiz: Yep. Someone said it was like electronic R&B and Soul. I like that term. It goes from R&B to Dance to Soul to some Psychedelia. Like, we’re really free with each other.

DO YOU GET HIGH? ANY PARTYING YOU WANT TO TELL US ABOUT?

Nomi Ruiz: I shouldn’t talk about that — I might get into trouble. I’ll just say, I have fun whenever I want.

OKAY. SO, WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

Nomi Ruiz: A lot of music, a lot of reaching out to my fans. I’m building a really loyal fanbase right now. It feels really good. I’m reaching more people with music and telling my story, and songwriting and stuff —

HOW ABOUT THE HUMAN RACE IN GENERAL? WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THE REST OF US?

Nomi Ruiz: I think a lot of evolution is really happening now — and it’s going to happen more and more. I’m very excited for the future, I think. Everyone’s opening their minds. We’re all feeling more free. We’re on a good path.

WELL ALRIGHT — THANK YOU, NOMI.

Nomi Ruiz: Thank you. ~

Annie Sprinkle

Has a hands-on fetish for Trans guys

Photo: Joegh Bullock

GEORGE PETROS: HERE WE ARE, SPEAKING TO ANNIE SPRINKLE. ANNIE, WHAT’S YOUR STORY?

Annie Sprinkle: I’ve been a big cheerleader of Transgendered people and causes, and a part of the Transgender community, and I had Transgendered partners. I was a porn star in New York for twenty years, and a prostitute, and then I transitioned into a performance artist and got a Ph.D. in human sexuality.

WHERE IS THAT FROM?

Annie Sprinkle: Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco.

IMPRESSIVE.

Annie Sprinkle: And I’ve been a sex educator as well. You could say I’ve been exploring the sacred and profane for thirty-eight years — exploring human sexuality for thirty-eight years in all its glorious and inglorious forms.

AND WHAT CONCLUSION DO YOU DRAW ABOUT IT? ARE WE GOING TO SURVIVE AS A SPECIES?

Annie Sprinkle: Not if we keep destroying the Earth. Whether there’ll be air to breathe and water to drink is another question — but as far as sex goes, I would say that it’s a topic as big as life itself.

YES IT IS.

Annie Sprinkle: And the more you learn, the more you realize there’s more to learn in terms of Transgenderism. I think it’s very much evolving and changing — and I’ve been around Transgendered people for decades. So, the words change, the politics change, the styles change. I do a lot of college gigs, and I meet so many Trans people everywhere — there’s so many more. Everything changes — and I still think we have a long way to go.

YOU DO NOT IDENTIFY YOURSELF AS A TRANSGENDERED INDIVIDUAL —

Annie Sprinkle: No. I’m a lover of Transgendered people. A lover — that’s my niche. I’m a lover. A supporter and lover — although my partner is not Transgendered; she’s eco-sexual.

OKAY —

Annie Sprinkle: Anyway, there was an F-to-M support group in New York, and there was one in San Francisco The New York group met at my apartment, so I knew a lot of Transgendered people. A film I was in and co-produced, Linda/Les & Annie: The First Female-to-Male Transsexual Love Story, was the first female-to-male Transgender porn. I used to hang out in Times Square; I worked at Show World. I’d go shop at Lee Brewster’s Mardi Gras Boutique, which was a Trans boutique. And then there was Show Palace, Tango Palace — a lot of Transgender people entered the sex industry because it was one of the only jobs they could get. And the Meat Packing District — there were a lot of Transgender prostitutes there.

YES THERE WERE.

Annie Sprinkle: I was going to talk about this idea of eroticizing Transgendered people. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing —

OR AN UNAVOIDABLE THING.

Annie Sprinkle: Yeah — and making Transgendered people into sex gods and goddesses.

THAT SOUNDS WONDERFUL. BUT FIRST, BACK TO THE BASICS: YOU WORKED AS A PROSTITUTE AND A PORN STAR, AND YOU’VE PROBABLY DONE A BIT OF EVERYTHING IN THAT REGARD.

Annie Sprinkle: I was born in 1954. I moved to New York when I was eighteen, in ’73, and worked in sex work — mainstream — for twenty years, and then transitioned more into art and experimental and post-porn, and then became a sexologist.

HOW DID YOU BECOME A PROSTITUTE?

Annie Sprinkle: I was just being a young Hippie. I didn’t have a bad upbringing; I had a good upbringing. I really had the sensibility of an artist, and it was a Hippie time — so it’s free-love time — and I sort of lucked into it, but then quickly got into porn. I sold popcorn at the theater where Deep Throat was playing, and I met Gerard Damiano, the director of Deep Throat. So, I became his mistress, came to New York, and worked in massage parlors. I got into porn. I wanted to make films and I liked sex, so it went together very nicely.

DID YOU HAVE SPECIALTIES WHEN YOU WERE WORKING?

Annie Sprinkle: Well, I think I did it all, sort of. I was up for kink and fetish and body fluids and enthusiasm and humor —

WERE YOU GETTING HIGH?

Annie Sprinkle: I was never a drug addict or an alcoholic, but I tried all the drugs and I had some drinks.

I SEE.

Annie Sprinkle: I tried all the drugs. Absolutely, yeah. I was a chocolate-chip cookie addict.

WHAT WAS THE FIRST PORN MOVIE YOU MADE?

Annie Sprinkle: I started out with one-day wonders — feature films shot in a day or two. Then I did a few six- and seven-day shoots. This is right after Deep Throat and The Devil In Miss Jones — you could say it was the Golden Age of porn. I was a starlet for quite awhile, but then in ’82 I made a film called Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle — a big seller — and that’s when I kinda became a star. I also worked at a lot of sex magazines as a writer and photographer. I remember when the first Transgender centerfold came out in a Heterosexual men’s magazine that was on newsstands — it was Jill Monroe.

WHICH MAGAZINE WAS THAT?

Annie Sprinkle: I think it was Cheri. She died of a drug overdose. She also did some porn movies, which I was in — one was called Centerfold Fever. And another was called Consenting Adults, which was shot at my apartment. Les Barany, your friend and my friend, helped with just about everything. He was a very big part of this story. He taught me photography, in the beginning. He showed me how to process black-and-white film.

HE’S A MENTOR TO MANY PEOPLE.

Annie Sprinkle: Yeah. So, Consenting Adults was shot at my apartment. Jill Monroe was in that film, and Marc Stevens. He was a porn star. He was bisexual. Well, he was really pretty Gay — but he was Straight for pay. He married Jill Monroe in a big kind of performance wedding. It wasn’t a legal wedding but it was just so shocking — here was this public Transsexual person getting married, and that was kind of radical at that time. Anyway, I did a film for Kim Christie called Orgy At Poysinberry Bar — I was making porn with Transsexuals who were taking female hormones and sometimes it was a little tricky to get it up — I remember one scene, it was a little tricky because she was into guys but she had to fuck me. She wasn’t into women really but, you know, it was an orgy. There were some guys there, and so they helped her get it up — and then she kind of fucked me. A male-to-female Transsexual! Back then they were called She-males. Now that’s considered a derogatory term — and inaccurate — but at the time, it was a bridge that helped Heterosexual men be a little bit more open to this, because “She-male” implied that it was a she — a half-woman, half-man kinda thing —

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE FACT THAT MANY OF THE TERMS WE GREW UP WITH ARE BEING RETIRED?

Annie Sprinkle: Well, there’s the sex-negative perspective and the sex-positive perspective. I have a very sex-positive perspective. When I did the film Linda/Les & Annie —

YOU USED THE TERM “HERMAPHRODITE” IN THERE —

Annie Sprinkle: Yeah, I used the word “Hermaphrodite” because he had a penis and a vagina. Now that would be politically incorrect — because he had transitioned to male — but I think these were kinda like bridges or ways of introducing these topics to popular culture. I think that porn had a big effect. I think a lot of people would say, “Oh, porn was bad for Transsexuals —” If you look up famous Transsexuals on Wikipedia, there’s a lot of prostitutes and porn stars. That was the work you could get if you were transitioning. You couldn’t always get a straight job — because you didn’t fit in.

RIGHT.

Annie Sprinkle: I think when you’re given the gift of being really sexy — and in my opinion a lot of Transgendered people are erotically gifted and extremely sexy and desirable — if you’ve been given that gift, sometimes it involves sad things. A lot of prostitutes were really fucked-up on drugs and alcohol because they didn’t fit in and they were miserable and unhappy. They didn’t really want to be doing sex work; they wanted to be straight. They wanted to be normal. You could see this über-sexiness as a bad thing; I see it as a gift. I believe that some people have a calling to be sex workers — but with the drugs and alcohol, they can be doing things they really didn’t want to. They didn’t have a lot of choices in the Seventies and Eighties.

TRUE.

Annie Sprinkle: Prostitution probably paid for more sex-change surgeries than any other business.

VERY LIKELY.

Annie Sprinkle: I think it’s had a huge impact. Now — today — there’s more choices, but you still have a lot of Transgender people trying to raise money for their surgeries and their enhancements and their plastic surgery and their genital surgery and their breast surgery. It’s no secret that Transgender porn was enormously popular, and I think it helped normalize — this is radical stuff to say — but I think it helped the Civil Rights movement. You know, this whole thing of interracial marriage — the more people saw Black people fucking White people, the more it helped normalize it. I think that’s the case with Transgender porn. I can just see the hackles go up on some academics —

WELL, THAT’S OKAY. ACADEMICS AREN’T ALWAYS RIGHT.

Annie Sprinkle: Today, the youngsters — they’re very different from the Seventies, Eighties, Nineties. They’re very different. Experience — they’re just so much more out and happy with themselves, and have more options, and they are sex-positive. When Linda/Les & Annie came out, it was a hardcore porn film and Les Nichols was paranoid schizophrenic for real. He had some emotional stuff — very sexy, very, very smart — but he had a paranoia problem. I tried to make him look as normal as possible. I saw Les as really sexy, and I interacted with his female genitals. You know, his vagina and his clitoris — but also, he had a surgically-made penis. Somebody wrote in this F-to-M newsletter or something, kinda panning the movie, saying, “We have to put our best foot forward — and this is not our best foot.” I think it’s a really sweet, loving, darling movie — but at that time, the F-to-Ms were trying to be normal. I was trying to say that Les was perfect the way he was. I’m trying to say that he’s sexy — you know? I had always adored them, and I found Transgendered people extraordinarily sexy. It’s a question of objectifying. There’s a way to objectify people — erotically, sexually — that makes them feel good, and there’s a way that it can be done that makes people feel horrible. I think I was very nice and respectful about it. It was really from the heart as well as the clit. A lot of people see Transgender porn, and the sex worker in general, as a bad thing. Well, I think it helps to normalize and to show the uniqueness and the specialness and the magic and the beauty of Transgendered people. Linda/Les & Annie — I can’t tell you how many F-to-Ms have come up to me thanking me for that film. It wasn’t a big seller, but it played a lot of film festivals. It played a lot of college campuses, so a lot of young people saw it. That really helped me understand who I was. So, it had both the controversy and the appreciation.

THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO WORRY ABOUT THIS STUFF —

Annie Sprinkle: Yeah. So, anyways the F-to-Ms that met at my apartment — the group wasn’t just for F-to-Ms; it was for F-to-Ms and the people who loved them. They would come with their partners and do a support group — and it was like a hanging-out, a social. It was really fun. I was always flirting with them, and a lot them that came were in the closet. Their girlfriends didn’t even know. They came alone. They were terrified to tell their girlfriends. A few were Gay, and they’d start talking about things like menopause or hormones or driver’s licenses. It was agony — they were struggling so much in that group. There was so much pain, so much struggle, so much wanting to pass. I tried to support them and love them up and of course be flirty with some of them, and they liked that. Once, we had a big party at my place — it was called the Sprinkle Salon. Two of the guys got bottom surgery and I said, “Let’s have a party and celebrate!” So they both came, and their penises were just a total disaster mess — but they’re like, “Oh my god!” They were both so happy. These were like horrendous painful surgeries, and they still had tubes and bandages and all that. All these sex-positive and porn-star and sex-worker friends, and all these really positive women, came and adored them and loved them up and said, “Wow, it’s incredible!” They were trying to be supportive. So, it was a really special night.

YOU WERE INVOLVED WITH TRANSSEXUALITY BEFORE MOST PEOPLE HAD EVER HEARD OF IT —

Annie Sprinkle: Exactly. So, then I met Les Nichols there at the group. Some of them really were passing and living as men, but they didn’t have the bottom surgery or they didn’t have the male driver’s license. I mean, the pain and the struggling of the early days — But anyways, maybe we should move on to other topics.

YES.

Annie Sprinkle: Ultimately, I moved out of New York. I inched my way back to California. I went to Long Island — East Hampton, for awhile — then I went to Provincetown, and then I came to San Francisco — but I’m from L.A.; my family’s in L.A., or originally from there.

I LOVE L.A.

Annie Sprinkle: But we were talking about New York’s Meat Packing District — there were lots of tricks being turned in cars around there.

AND NOT EVERY CUSTOMER KNEW THEY WERE WITH A TRANSGENDERED PERSON.

Annie Sprinkle: I would say, no, not everybody — but most did. That’s where you went if you were looking for it. I think a lot of people knew. The prostitutes would stand out there half-naked in really hot outfits — very flamboyant — and then go between the trucks or in cars — and it’s just unimaginable now with all the fancy stores and restaurants and designers down there. Amazing. But yeah, it was very exciting, very mysterious — and I did go down there and take pictures a lot, because I was a prostitute and I was very interested in documenting prostitution.

WHAT TURNS YOU ON ABOUT TRANSGENDERED FOLKS? YOU WERE SAYING HOW SEXY AND HOW HOT THEY ARE —

Annie Sprinkle: Well, there’s a kind of a magical, special quality that’s unique. It’s not all male or all female; there’s an energy, a charisma — not that they’re all charismatic — but just that kind of flavor of a vibration of a beauty. I don’t know. I think it’s the Androgynous quality. It’s like what makes David Bowie sexy. I guess it kind of is the Androgyny, the shape shifting — it’s just that they’re magical. Bottom line is, I think Transgendered people are magical, but most of them don’t know it. They think there’s something wrong with them — and I think that’s not a good paradigm at all. There’s nothing wrong with them. They’re just perfect the way they are. I mean, if they want to change their bodies, fine — but it makes me really sad that they feel like they have to fit in as male or female.

SO YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE A MORE HERMAPHRODITIC ENTITY EMERGE FROM THIS —

Annie Sprinkle: Well, I would just like to see more options. I would like to see people love themselves. You know, just be able to love themselves and to be loved for who they are and who they want to be — and I think it’s a whole lot better than it was.

LET ME ASK YOU THIS ABOUT TRANSGENDERED AND TRANSSEXUAL FOLKS: HOW ARE THEY AS LOVERS?

Annie Sprinkle: You can’t really generalize. Everyone is so unique.

IS IT DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO ANSWER THIS BECAUSE YOU FEEL THERE WOULD BE SOME RECRIMINATION FROM THE TRANS STATUS QUO?

Annie Sprinkle: Absolutely. There’s all kinds of political correctness, some of which is understandable. Absolutely.

THAT SEEMS TO RESTRICT —

Annie Sprinkle: If I can just say this: Transgendered people are hot and erotically gifted. They have an eroticism that’s magical.

I THINK IT’S WONDERFUL THAT YOU SAY THAT.

Annie Sprinkle: Some people find that offensive.

BUT IT’S HIGHLY COMPLIMENTARY.

Annie Sprinkle: I think so, but you could say that I’m fetishizing them or, you know, thinking of them as sex objects — but personally I don’t think being a sex object is necessarily a bad thing at all.

IT’S WHAT PEOPLE ARE BORN TO BE. ISN’T THAT OUR JOB ON THIS PLANET?

Annie Sprinkle: Not everybody’s.

BUT THE PREPONDERANCE OF PEOPLE’S JOBS —

Annie Sprinkle: Obviously, some people are going to find Transgender people disgusting, sick and absolutely unappealing — to the point that they want to kill them.

YES THEY WILL. THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO FEEL THAT WAY.

Annie Sprinkle: Yeah, so that’s why I felt like, over all these decades, it was really important to make Transgendered people feel sexy — because a lot of them felt there was something wrong with them.

OKAY — YOU MAKE THE STATEMENT THAT YOU THINK TRANSSEXUAL PEOPLE ARE SEXY AND HOT. TELL ME, HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING, WHAT TYPE OF A PERSON WOULD SAY THAT YOU HAD DONE A DISSERVICE TO THAT COMMUNITY —

Annie Sprinkle: Well, they might say that I should see the whole person. I should say they’re wonderful and kind or something. I don’t know — I should say they’re smart.

THEY ARE VERY SMART PEOPLE. TOO SMART TO BE STUCK WITH WHATEVER HAND THEY GOT DEALT —

Annie Sprinkle: Maybe they got the best hand, but they just don’t know it.

HOW WOULD THESE OBJECTIONS TO YOUR IDEAS PERCOLATE TO YOUR ATTENTION? WOULD YOU GET CALLS, OR LETTERS, OR GET RAGGED ON BY BLOGGERS? BECAUSE IT’S UNFAIR TO YOU TO RESTRICT YOUR ABILITY TO SAY SOMEBODY’S SEXY —

Annie Sprinkle: And my intention is to build up, to support, to love — but I went to a lot of Transsexual pick-up bars where there were a lot of Transgender women working, and they’re treated badly. They’re totally objectified, and not treated as well. So, that’s sort of racism, classism, sexism — whatever.

THE SEXUAL WORLD ISN’T A DEMOCRACY —

Annie Sprinkle: Well, it’s a mirror of our society. That’s all. Pornography is a reflection of our society. For example, you have people who don’t mind male-to-females because they feel that it’s taking a step down. I don’t know if anyone’s said this, but in our society women becoming men, in general, is more offensive, more transgressive — because it’s taking a step up.

IN LINDA/LES & ANNIE, LES NICHOLS TALKS ABOUT HOW HE FELT LIKE HE GOT THIS NEW-FOUND RESPECT THAT HE DIDN’T GET BEFORE,—

Annie Sprinkle: That was an extremely controversial statement. Boy, we got some shit for that.

WHY?

Annie Sprinkle: He said he became a male for male privilege. I can’t tell you how many people said that was politically incorrect. You know? Not just that he feels that he was born in the wrong body, but that he wants male privilege or he wants some more power.

WELL, THERE’S A DOWNSIDE TO MALE PRIVILEGE. BELIEVE ME, IT’S NOT EASY BEING A GUY ALL THE TIME.

Annie Sprinkle: Yeah — I mean, I’m glad I’m a woman. I wouldn’t want to be one.

DO YOU STILL GET IT ON WITH TRANSSEXUALS?

Annie Sprinkle: My girlfriend can be very Androgynous. Especially when she’s doing construction. I have a Cis female partner —

but she’s very butch.

DO YOU FANTASIZE EVER THAT SHE’S A TRANSSEXUAL?

Annie Sprinkle: I definitely get very hot when she displays her masculine side. Absolutely. I think a lot of Lesbians — you know, it’s the whole butch femme thing — it’s a sort of Transgender — I mean, Lesbians are not Transsexual but they’re transgressing gender lines. I’ve been with men who are very feminine and women who are very masculine. I mean, this binary idea seems pretty ridiculous — totally ridiculous, to me. Even when someone says, “Welcome, ladies and gentleman” — I find that offensive.

WHAT SHOULD THEY SAY?

Annie Sprinkle: Well, what about differently-gendered people? I always try to say, “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between and beyond.” I try to be inclusive. In that sense I’m very politically correct. I want to include everybody.

THAT’S A NOBLE ASPIRATION.

Annie Sprinkle: When I do a workshop, I sometimes even put Trans first: “Trans, women and men.” Mix it up. Why are Trans always last? Let’s make them first. As a sex educator, I’ve had a lot of Trans people. I’ve made sure that I teach workshops that are Trans-friendly — and now I’m doing the eco-sex project with my partner, and it’s perfect for Trans. We’re switching the metaphor from Earth-as-mother to Earth-as-lover, and going from there. Is the Earth female or male? It’s all of that, but it’s Trans, it’s multi-gendered, it’s a “they.” So in that sense, I’m still having sex with Transgenders — it’s just that my lover’s the Earth, the sky, the sea. I’d like to see it as GLBTQIE, with the “E” for eco-sexual — and I think a lot of Transgendered people, as this movement grows, will really enjoy it.

IS TRANSSEXUALITY THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW TYPE OF HUMAN BEING ON THE EVOLUTIONARY SCALE?

Annie Sprinkle: Well, no — this has been around. It’s in all cultures —

YES — BUT IT’S ONLY BECAUSE OF THE MIRACLE OF MEDICAL SCIENCE THAT IT’S BEEN ABLE TO MOVE FORWARD IN THE LAST HALF CENTURY —

Annie Sprinkle: Well, I don’t know if it’s forward, necessarily. To me, really going forward means a lot more acceptance. But yeah, I think these young people are definitely a new breed, more self-accepting and with more options. There’s so many more options. That’s real movement forward: having more options. Just like in pornography: the more options, the more diversity, the more acceptance about all the different possibilities, the better.

OKAY.

Annie Sprinkle: Thank god, you know, we’re going beyond having to be male or female. It’s so boring.

THAT’LL MAKE A GREAT PULL-QUOTE: “BEYOND MALE OR FEMALE —”

Annie Sprinkle: Yeah.

I’M ONLY INCLUDING TRANSGENDERED-IDENTIFIED INDIVIDUALS IN THIS BOOK, BUT I REALIZED YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE THE EXCEPTION BECAUSE YOU HAVE HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE, LITERALLY. SO, YOU’RE AN HONORARY TRANSSEXUAL HERE.

Annie Sprinkle: Well, thank you. I’m very proud. I hope I make the cut. I’d like to think that I was one of the first female Tranny fetishists.

OKAY.

Annie Sprinkle: Oops! That’s bad. That’s like really politically incorrect — I get real shit for that.

THAT’S GOOD.

Annie Sprinkle: “The first female Tranny fetishist” — well, “Tranny” is a bad word. How about, “Transgender fetishist —”

FOR EVERY RAISED EYEBROW YOU GET, YOU’LL GET FIFTY HUGS. I WOULDN’T WORRY ABOUT IT. THERE’S A LOT OF VIGILANTES OUT THERE LOOKING FOR OTHERS TO SLIP UP. SOME COMMISSAR IS ALWAYS WAITING FOR YOU TO SAY THE WRONG THING —

Annie Sprinkle: So far, so good. ~

Les Nichols &

Annie Sprinkle

Porn Video Transcript

DVD Cover and video stills courtesy of Annie Sprinkle

Annie Sprinkle: Dear diary, I’ve been having a wonderful time ever since I met Les Nichols. In my wildest fantasies I never would have dreamt of meeting someone like him. He’s really different from the other guys.

LES NICHOLS: I WAS BORN LINDA HELEN NICHOLS IN MASSACHUSETTS. I WAS VERY FRUSTRATED AS A LITTLE GIRL BECAUSE I SAW BOYS GETTING EVERYTHING AND THE OLDER I GOT, THE MORE FRUSTRATED AND DISAPPOINTED I GOT — AND I NEVER KNEW IT WAS POSSIBLE TO MAKE A CHOICE. AND SO, THIS IS AMERICA AND I MADE THE CHOICE.

Annie Sprinkle: After twelve surgical operations, spending fifty-thousand dollars, weekly counseling sessions, lots of hormone shots and a new wardrobe, Linda became a man: Les Nichols.

LES NICHOLS: I FEEL MUCH MORE RESPECT AS A MALE. I GET WHAT I WANT. I GET THE BENEFIT OF A DOUBT — AND THE RESPECT I GET NOW, IT’S LIKE NIGHT AND DAY. I SEE THE DIFFERENCES LIKE NIGHT AND DAY, AND I’M MUCH HAPPIER.

Annie Sprinkle: Les’s new surgically-constructed penis was only two months old when we met, and he chose me to be the first to try it out with. He would be my first female-to-male Transsexual lover. For Les and I, it was love at first sight. We caught each other’s eyes at my friend Johnny Armstrong’s F-to-M Social. F-to-M stands for “female-to-male” Transsexuals and cross-dressers. For the last year, Johnny has been networking F-to-Ms through his newsletter Rites Of Passage. Occasionally he has get-togethers for F-to-Ms and the women who love them. Les is kind of a cross between Elvis Presley, a leather dyke on a bike, and a circus performer. His background was French and Greek, which according to him makes him a freak. He’s a triple Gemini — which means someone with many personalities. He has a fabulously sexy smile and the most beautiful funny-looking eyes I think I’ve ever seen — and I just couldn’t resist his boyish charm. In the two weeks we waited impatiently for Les’s penis to heal completely, we carried on a romance by phone and by mail. Les lives in Boston and I live in Manhattan. I asked him a million questions about his life and his sex change. He sent me photos of Linda. She’d been a very sexy, femme-y Lesbian woman with long brown hair, a pretty face, a curvy body with large breasts, and wore Frederick’s Of Hollywood-style clothes. Then she joined the Army at twenty-nine and became butch and cut off her hair to a crew cut, and started wearing men’s clothes and acting more masculine. Eventually Linda decided to start taking hormones and make the complete change. There were lots of reasons.

LES NICHOLS: AT EIGHTEEN, WHEN I HAD TO START DATING, I FELT THE PRESSURE TO BE VERY FEMININE — BUT I ALWAYS FELT I WAS IN DRAG. I WANTED A PHALLUS BECAUSE I HAD TO BE “A REAL BOY” OR “A REAL MAN” — BECAUSE STRAIGHT WOMEN WOULD COME ON TO ME AND I FELT IF I HAVE NOTHING DOWN THERE, IT WAS SORT OF FRAUD.

Annie Sprinkle: Perhaps the seed was planted when she was just a little girl and found herself attracted to other little girls. She thought she would have to be a boy to love and marry a girl.

LES NICHOLS: I WAS ABUSED AS A CHILD, SEXUALLY AND PHYSICALLY AND VERBALLY. I HAD NO IDENTITY LEFT, I WOULD SAY.

Annie Sprinkle: She’d been abused a lot as a child and thought she might be safer if she were a guy — and she saw men getting much more respect than women, and wanted what she saw as the male privilege.

LES NICHOLS: THE BEST PART OF BEING A MAN IS MALE PRIVILEGE. I’M FAVORED BY EVERYONE. I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE IT. THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW ME AND I’M JUST FAVORED. I GET ALL THE RESPECT IN THE WORLD — AS IF I WAS JUST BORN TO ASK.

Annie Sprinkle: She was attracted to Heterosexual women more than Lesbians, and thought that with a penis she could better satisfy her lovers. She was very highly sexual and always looking for sex with lots of partners — a behavior more acceptable for men.

LES NICHOLS: I SEE MYSELF AS A VERY SEXUAL MALE, VERY VIRILE — AND SOMETIMES I SCARE WOMEN OR I COME ON TOO STRONG.

Annie Sprinkle: Linda just imagined being a man would solve a lot of emotional problems and improve her life in general.

Video still courtesy of Annie Sprinkle

LES NICHOLS: I FEEL AS THOUGH I HAD TO BECOME A MAN — AND NOW THAT I’VE DONE IT, IT HAS HELPED ME AND I’M SURE THAT IT HELPED HUMANITY. IT’S THE MOST RADICAL FORM OF THERAPY BUT IT’S STILL COMPLETE REHABILITATION — AND SURGERY WAS THE FINAL RESORT.

Annie Sprinkle: Les drove down from boston and finally arrived at my door. After just five minutes we were kissing and hugging on the bed. Why wait? I couldn’t decide if I was kissing a man or kissing a woman or both at the same time — a new twist on the ménage a trios. Les undressed me, complimenting me on my figure, my softness, my perfume and my smooth white skin. He sure knew what a girl liked to hear — after all, he had been one. I took off Les’s shirt. He had large sexy nipples, the kind made for feeding babies. Below the nipples were the scars where the breasts had been removed. I pulled off his pants and thought about how most of his life he had worn silky, lacey panties, and now he wore men’s briefs which I then took down — and there it was, his brand new cock with a shiny red bow tied around it, presented to me as his precious gift. It was a large, fleshy penis — large considering it was all patchwork. The head looked very realistic, except there were little hairs growing out of the tip of it, which I found a total turn-on. The shaft was quite scarred. It bent to the left and was natural in color and shape and very, very unique. He was considering another operation to get bigger testicles, and asked my opinion on the matter. His balls were tight-looking yet very realistic. I liked them just the way they were — and I told him so.

LES NICHOLS: I HAD SEVERAL DOCTORS: DR. GOLDWYN DID MY CHEST. DR. BIBER DID MY CHEST AND ALSO DID THE PHALLUS.

Annie Sprinkle: It is not yet possible to create a fully-functioning penis. However, doctors can make passable male genitals. There are three types of genital reconstruction. The simplest operation is the genitoplasty, when doctors change the vagina, freeing the clitoris which is enlarged by hormones so it can protrude. The end result is a very tiny penis that can usually be urinated through. The good thing about genitoplasty is that there is virtually no scarring and the tiny phallus is very sensitive. The surgical creation of a full-sized penis is called phalloplasty. These operations are still in the experimental stages. Often there are complications. It’s painful and very expensive. Therefore, most F-To-Ms don’t get the phalloplasty. Only about thirty to fifty are done each year in the U.S. There are two methods: the forearm flap and the abdominal tube. With the forearm flap, skin, fat, veins and nerves are taken from the arm and are attached with delicate microsurgery. The new phallus is sensitive and natural looking but somewhat scarred. It does not get erect, and a urinary hookup is dangerously imperfect. Les chose the abdominal tube method for his phalloplasty, which is a simpler operation. It can be made erect but it cannot urinate. The phallus is formed from the flesh of the lower abdomen, which is cut and turned inside out to form a hollow tube. The skin grafts are wrapped around the outside. The base of the tube is at the pubic hairline and the tip is attached just below the navel. Because it’s attached at both ends, blood can flow through the length of it and it’s left to heal this way for approximately six weeks. This stage is called the suitcase handle. Later the tip is severed from the abdomen and allowed to fall into a natural position, and a penis head is formed. Les also had two round saline sac implants inserted into his mons to make testicles. Previously he’d had a hysterectomy and liposuction on his hips and buttocks to make his female shape more manly. It was there under his balls, when I ventured down, that I discovered a lovely treasure — a succulent, large, red clitoris with a huge purple head and a very moist pink pussy. What more could a Bisexual girl like me want? I scooped his penis into my mouth and gave it a passionate wet suck. Then I kissed my way down to his pussy and then sucked that clit the way I’ve never sucked a man’s clit before — and indeed I never had. It was wild and strange. I lit some candles and incense and ritualized the initiation with an invocation of the goddess, a blessing of the new penis and of Les for being such a brave pioneer. Never before in history has humankind been able to change people’s gender so completely. I felt honored to be one of the first women to try a human-made penis, and I prayed that Les’s first fuck would be joyful and healing. We prepared the penis for penetration. In order to make Les erect, he must slide a hard plastic rod into the center of his hollow penis. It was instant erection. He felt free from having to get it up and keep it up. Even though I didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant, because Les doesn’t have sperm, we decided to use condoms for safe sex and to prevent any infections in case Les wasn’t totally healed up. When I informed Les that I was having the last day of my period, he just said, “no problem.” What man could be more understanding and unintimidated by a little blood than a man who used to menstruate? I squatted over him, took a deep breath and lowered myself onto the newborn phallus. It felt fantastic. It really worked — but after just a few strokes we had to stop. The plastic rod had pushed its way up the hollow center of his tube of flesh and out the head of his cock and through the condom. We had to go into the kitchen and cut an inch off the rod. Thank goodness I owned a small sharp saw. The phalluses are supposed to come with a custom-made teflon insert, but Les apparently didn’t get one. So, in spite of all the modern technology that went into making Les’s dick, we still had to work out a few basics. Suddenly I was overcome with emotion and my laughter turned to crying. I was so touched by Les’s optimism and good humor and his lack of expectations — I was touched by how wonderfully freaky he was and how he really lives his dream. I just started to cry thinking about how much physical and emotional pain he must have suffered to change his gender. I cried for all people who don’t love their body just the way it is; for all Transsexuals who have suffered, many who have resorted to suicide; for all sexual persuasions who are made outcasts from society — and I really mourned for Linda Nichols, who I know I would have liked very much — and now she was virtually dead and gone. Les told me not to cry. “Look at all the adventures I’ve had,” he said, “and the places I’ve been. It’s been a wonderful odyssey. After all, I might not have met you.” Les seemed quite happy with his new sex toy. He said watching the pleasure on my face made the pain of all twelve surgeries worthwhile. The penis had surface sensations, he said. He could feel it when I squeezed my vaginal muscles tightly around it — but most of his sensitivity was still in his clitoris, and I made sure to stimulate it while he was inside me. He tried to think of a better system than using the rod. Les got the bright idea to try to use his thumb, and squeezed it into the shaft. I couldn’t contain my laughter when I looked down and saw how funny his cock looked with his thumb inside it. Or, how funny his thumb looked with a cock around it. He joked, “well, it looks like I’m back to Lesbian sex again,” implying that he was using his fingers for fucking. Oh, it felt just divine — and I was on the brink of orgasm when Les screamed out in pain. I thought I ruined his new fifty-thousand dollar cock. I dismounted, and he screamed in agony as he removed his thumb from his cock. “Shit, you almost broke my thumb!” When we saw that all was well, we laughed hysterically. Les told me I was the best fuck he’d ever had and I knew it was true — I was the only fuck he’d ever had. I loved being with him and I loved being with a Hermaphrodite. I wondered if I would become addicted now, and no longer be satisfied with regular men and regular women. I imagined a new community emerging of men with cunts who could become a new political force. Of women taking over the world — but as men. Would men now be able to become pregnant? I imagined how Les would look nine-months pregnant. I envisioned a new awareness of transgender, of looking beyond a person’s gender to the spirit where society would no longer mold us into being plain old Heterosexual. Having sex with Les was a constant mindfuck. His skin was soft and smooth like a woman’s — yet he had hair on his chest. His hands were small and delicate with a woman’s touch — yet he wore men’s rings. His eyes and lips were so sensual, framed by his stubbly beard. Sometimes he would drop hints to let me know he was still a woman deep down. He said that when he goes out into the world as a man, it’s like being a spy. Sometimes I became the more aggressive dominant lover. I reached for my favorite dildo, made of quartz crystal, and I slipped it inside him. The hormones made his pussy extra wet and gave it a strong musky odor which I really liked. Hormones, I learned, also greatly increase the sex drive. Perhaps this is why many F-to-Ms are often notorious womanizers. His vagina was tight. He’d never had intercourse with a man, so technically he was still a virgin. Les had an orgasm by stimulating his clitoris. It was far out to see a man flick his clit. Unlike other men, he was of course capable of multiple orgasms. He told me about his life as Linda, the Lesbian separatist, when she hated men and avoided them at all cost. I found it a little hard to figure out why someone who hated men so much would want to become one. Les thought it made perfect sense — a classic case of the oppressed becoming the oppressor, and then by forced integration he can get along better with men.

LES NICHOLS: I’M NO LONGER A LESBIAN SEPARATIST. I’M NO LONGER RADICAL, AND I FEEL REHABILITATED. I ALSO LIKE MEN A LOT MORE. I COULD NEVER STAND MEN FOR SOME REASON. NOW I LIKE MEN. IT’S LIKE, “HEY, DON’T BE PREJUDICED OR DON’T HURT THIS GUY’S FEELINGS — BECAUSE THAT COULD BE ME. THAT COULD BE ME.” I PREFER STRAIGHT WOMEN, AND I LOVE TO BE WITH GAY WOMEN — BUT THEY HATE MY GUTS. THEY HATE MY GUTS JUST LIKE I USED TO FEEL. I WAS SO SEPARATIST THAT I COULDN’T EVEN SIT IN THE SAME ROOM WITH A MALE. I JUST SAW NO USE FOR MEN, AND I CAN UNDERSTAND HOW GAY WOMEN FEEL THAT WAY — BUT I HAD NO IDEA THEY FELT AS PREJUDICED AS I DID TO THE POINT WHERE I’M JUST TOTALLY CUT OUT FROM THEIR LIFE. THEY WON’T EVEN TALK TO ME ANYMORE. IT’S LIKE I’M A TRAITOR. I WOULD USE MY MALE PRIVILEGE TO HELP WOMEN. I DO FEEL LIKE A SPY, AND I STILL FEEL AS THOUGH I’M ON THE WOMAN’S SIDE. MY SENTIMENTS ARE STILL WITH WOMEN. I TRY TO BE MACHO — WHICH I CAN BE VERY EASY. IT’S LIKE BEING IN A GORILLA SUIT — YOU HAVE TO ACT LIKE A GORILLA. I HAVE TO ACT LIKE THIS, BUT I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING EVERY SECOND. I HAVE THE CONSCIOUSNESS, THE SENTIMENTS OF A WOMAN — OF ALL WOMEN.

Annie Sprinkle: I have great respect for Les. I see him as a unique avant-garde artist whose medium is his body, whose subject matter is sex — and his message, as it is tattooed across his chest, is “Freedom.” ~

Juliette Stray

Porn Star

Photo: Nick Melillo

STANTON LAVEY: THIS IS STANTON LAVEY HERE WITH JULIETTE STRAY, AND THIS INTERVIEW IS FOR GEORGE PETROS’ UPCOMING BOOK THE NEW TRANSSEXUALS. JULIETTE, WOULD YOU LIKE TO INTRODUCE YOURSELF?

Juliette Stray: I feel like you kind of stole my thunder.

WELL, WE’RE GOING TO START ON THE COUNT OF THREE.

Juliette Stray: Hi, this is Juliette Stray. I’m here with Stanton LaVey. He’s interviewing me for a book. It has a working title, so I’m not going to presumptuously assume I know what the title’s going to be. That would be uncouth — and I’m well-mannered.

YOU’RE A POLITE LITTLE GIRL, AREN’T YOU?

Juliette Stray: I’m exceptionally polite.

ALRIGHT, SO YOUR NAME IS JULIETTE STRAY. HOW LONG HAS THAT BEEN YOUR NAME?

Juliette Stray: I’ve been using that for my name for about a year-and-a-half — but at this point, that’s all that anybody knows me as.

DID YOU INVENT IT FOR PROFESSIONAL REASONS?

Juliette Stray: I did. I used to really be into masochism.

PROFESSIONALLY OR PERSONALLY, OR BOTH?

Juliette Stray: Mostly personally, to some degree professionally — but I named myself after the Marquis de Sade character, and I know that most people are obsessed with the other one — but she was a prude. I find that that didn’t really work very well. I wanted to be the one that was like the filthy, precocious harlot who was rewarded for her harlotry.

SO THAT NAME IS A CHARACTER FROM THE MARQUIS DE SADE?

Juliette Stray: Uh-huh. The name of the book is Juliette. That’s like my Juliette, not the Romeo-and-Juliette version. It’s the counterpart book. The book was written in twos. The other one being — oh fuck me, I’ll have to look it up because I’m retarded. I was going to pretend that I knew it off the top of my head —

THAT’S OKAY. LIKE I SAID, GEORGE WILL SMOOTH OUT ANYTHING THAT MAKES US SOUND CONFUSED —

Juliette Stray: Justine. Ha! I knew that. So yeah, everybody’s all like, “Yeah, Justine —” but it was written as parables. Justine is the smart girl who lives nicely and does everything like a nice, sweet girl should — but she just gets downtrodden and beaten and raped, and terrible things happen to her. Juliette’s like, ”Yeah — I want to be downtrodden, beaten and raped!” and everything goes well for her. I’m like, “I’ll be the Juliette.” And Justine is a cooler name or whatever, but the girl kinda sucked —

SO THEY’RE TWO EXTREME PERSONALITY OPPOSITES?

Juliette Stray: Yeah, but he was not a very good writer.

WELL, HE WAS WRITING FROM A PRISON CELL, RIGHT?

Juliette Stray: Yeah, yeah.

HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN A LITTLE STRESSED OUT. HE WAS WRITING WITH A QUILL IN HIS OWN BLOOD.

Juliette Stray: I think that was just the movie.

I WASN’T ACTUALLY THERE.

Juliette Stray: That’s okay. I think he used poop.

MAYBE THAT WAS SORT OF LIKE INSPIRATION TO GG ALLIN. MAYBE GG WAS MORE DIRECTLY INSPIRED BY THE MARQUIS DE SADE THEN WE EVER WILL KNOW. ALRIGHT — DO YOU MIND ME ASKING HOW OLD YOU ARE?

Juliette Stray: I am twenty-eight.

ALRIGHT — AND HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU REALIZED YOU WERE DIFFERENT?

Juliette Stray: Umm — I felt like kind of weird but not generally sure what the weird was —

FROM YOUR EARLIEST MEMORIES ON?

Juliette Stray: Not really. The first time I noticed stuff was amiss —most Transsexuals are said to know it early on, but there’s really not that much difference between boys and girls early on. Like, I’m sure like when you were three you weren’t aware of your genitals —

SEXUALITY DEVELOPS OVER TIME, YEAH.

Juliette Stray: Gender develops over time, too. People are raised differently, and secondary sexual characteristics develop and stuff like that. Like when you were in fuckin’ second grade, there’s no difference. Especially — I went to a private school, a Montessori school, up until middle school. My classes were like thirteen, fourteen kids at the most —

WAS IT CO-ED?

Juliette Stray: Yeah. So, see — there’s no difference, and then around fourth grade, fifth grade, boys started playing with boys and girls started playing with girls — and something tells me it’s just wrong. I was born in ’83, so I started using the Internet and looking stuff up. I don’t know how I did it, but I found out about Transsexuals on the Internet and discovered how like this is —

WHEN YOU WERE HOW OLD?

Juliette Stray: About ten. I discovered this is not a unique experience to me — like, other people have it as well. So I kind of knew what was wrong from then on.

SO YOU HAD YOUR MISSION CUT OUT FOR YOU.

Juliette Stray: Yeah. Which was great in some fascinating, fucked-up way.

WELL, EVERYBODY GETS TO WHERE THEY’RE GOING IN A DIFFERENT WAY.

Juliette Stray: Well, I’m super-happy, it turns out —

THAT’S GOOD. THAT’S ONE QUESTION THAT I DON’T HAVE TO ASK LATER. YOU SEEM REALLY HAPPY —

Juliette Stray: I’m really happy.

YOU’RE A TOTAL KNOCKOUT AND YOU’RE COOL. SO, HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU FOUND YOURSELF BEING ATTRACTED TO BOYS — OR DID YOU IDENTIFY WITH GIRLS FIRST, THEN FIND YOURSELF ATTRACTED TO BOYS LATER — OR WHAT?

Juliette Stray: Well, it’s really two different answers for the same question.

APPROPRIATELY.

Juliette Stray: Umm. Ah, this is complex. I grew up on the Internet. I was very technologically proficient from an extremely early age — although from a family point of view, I grew up in the early days of, like, AOL. Do you remember that?

YEAH.

Juliette Stray: Which was not very well-policed, actually, as it was in its later incarnations. See, here’s the thing: There’s a couple of factors at play. One, is that you’re socialized and raised by your peers, not just your parents. You figure out your cues to what’s appropriate and what you’re supposed to do from other kids your age, and so you’re kind of a conglomeration of all the other kids you hang out and grew up with over the years. Two, is that I was extremely, extremely literate — and I think the tests put me at a college level when I was still in elementary school, in terms of reading and speaking good.

AND THAT PUT YOU AT A HIGHER LEVEL OF SOPHISTICATION COMPARED TO THE OTHER KIDS —

Juliette Stray: Yes and no. That was tongue in cheek — “speaking good.” You didn’t smile about it so I thought that maybe it went over your head.

NO, IT DIDN’T. I KNOW ABOUT SPEAKING GOOD.

Juliette Stray: So anyway, the point is whether or not that made me smarter — it made me think I was smarter, and that’s really what’s important here because when I was on the Internet — and you can be anyone you want on the Internet, especially early on because nobody had pictures of the users on the Internet, like barely — if there were, they were like hand-scanned, probably black-and-white and uploaded. So that was not an impediment to people believing you are who you are —

EGO BEING THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND THINGS LIKE THAT —

Juliette Stray: So, I’m on the Internet, right? I can speak very well. Initially people would assume that I was older, because I come across as older due to word choice and speech mannerisms and things like that. And then I’d tell people, “Oh, I’m actually eleven.” Then you get treated like a child — and I was like, “I don’t want to be treated like a child. I’m very smart, I should be treated like an adult.” Probably not true — but I felt like it, and I could come across as one because I could talk.

DID YOU START PRESENTING YOURSELF AS OLDER THAN YOU WERE?

Juliette Stray: Well, here’s how this works: One, I was Trans, so I presented as female because that was how I wanted to be treated.

IS THIS IN HIGH SCHOOL?

Juliette Stray: No — this is like when I’m eleven.

WOW.

Juliette Stray: I’m a tween. I presented as female because that was nice. It felt good. It makes me really happy. B, I wanted to be treated like an adult — and you start being an adult at eighteen, and the logic I came to was, “Well, I’ll say I’m eighteen because that’s believable — “

IT WOULD BE TOO MUCH OF A STRETCH —

Juliette Stray: It’s probably not what the average person thinks when they’re talking to a stranger on the Internet. I’m an eighteen-year-old girl — how convenient, really. But I thought that was completely fine — and you know what I said earlier about being raised by your peers? That’s where your socialization and shit comes from? Well, okay, I wasn’t raised by my peers from school because A, there was twelve of them and B, I was hanging out with the wrong gender group and taking cues from them. The cues I took were from the other eighteen-year-old girls on the Internet — and I have to say I don’t think a lot of eighteen-year-old girls on the Internet are eighteen-year-old girls. I think that’s forty-year-old dudes like kinda creepin’ out their eighteen-year-old girl fantasies. I was like, “Oh, this is how your average adult female acts — like these sluts.”

YOU’RE BEING INFLUENCED BY A FORTY-YEAR-OLD MAN WHOSE ONLY WAY OF GETTING A RESPONSE ON THE INTERNET IS TO SAY THAT THEY’RE AN EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL.

Juliette Stray: A really horny eighteen-year-old girl.

YOU’RE LIKE, “OH MY GOD, ONLY A FORTY-YEAR-OLD MAN WITH HIS COCK IN HIS HAND WOULD WRITE THIS STUFF.”

Juliette Stray: Or me. I know a lot of girls like me these days who would be like, “Yeah, I had dick for breakfast and I love it and that fulfills me.” So I grew up kinda programmed to fit this standard sexual fantasy for men.

YOU WERE PROGRAMMING YOURSELF, TOO.

Juliette Stray: Yeah. I definitely chose to take this path. So, from a really early age I wanted to do porn. I looked at porn. Even at eleven it was not hard — it was harder, but it was not hard to get porn on the Internet. My peers would have sleepovers or whatever, and they’d have, like, “my uncle’s Playboys.”

YEAH.

Juliette Stray: You look at the uncle’s Playboys and there’s a girl kinda naked — and the things I was looking at were like girls taking it up the butt and someone jizzing on her face. And I’m like, “No, that’s better.” On the face was better. I want that. I want the cum on the face — and I talked to the other eighteen-year-old girls and they’re like, “Yeah, I love cum on the face.” Everybody — all girls like cum on the face. I’m like, “Oh, okay. Well this is probably the authority on eighteen-year-old girls, right? I better listen to her.” So these are the things that I grew up thinking were pretty fucking normal — and of course what do people want to do with eighteen-year-old girls on the Internet? They want to have sex with them.

YEAH.

Juliette Stray: So I did a lot of that at a very early age. I had phone sex, too. Yeah, I had a lot of early bouts with phone sex —

HOW YOUNG WERE YOU WHEN YOU ACTUALLY HOOKED UP WITH SOMEONE?

Juliette Stray: Eighteen. And the reason it was when I was eighteen was because I was in Georgia, and Georgia’s not like a very — well, I don’t want to dismiss Georgia; I don’t want to sound like a cunt-y California girl —

BUT YOU ARE.

Juliette Stray: I kinda am, but the point is —

IF YOU WEREN’T, YOU’D BE IN GEORGIA.

Juliette Stray: Yeah. That’s true, that’s true.

IS THAT WHERE YOU’RE FROM?

Juliette Stray: Yeah, Atlanta. Well, one of the suburbs therein — Marietta.

BUT ATLANTA’S GOT A PRETTY THRIVING GAY NIGHT SCENE AND SUBCULTURE GOING ON —

Juliette Stray: But not for a perverted, geeky eighteen-year-old who is a Tranny but doesn’t know how to express that because if they express that they’d probably get beaten up.

YEAH, TOO YOUNG TO ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT —

Juliette Stray: Uh-huh. So I wanted to fuck all these people — but I was like, “Well, if I get busted that’s going to be like A, statutory rape for the other person, and it’s going to be joint fucking shitfest because it’s going to be dude-on-dude — and I just don’t want to be a god-damn part of that.” So I waited.

DID YOUR PARENTS KNOW?

Juliette Stray: I knew when I was fifteen or sixteen that I was Trans.

DID IT COME AS A SURPRISE TO THEM?

Juliette Stray: Yeah. They’re like, “Are you sure you’re not Gay?” and I was like, “Yes — I’m pretty sure I am not Gay.”

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A RELIEF, IF YOU WERE JUST GAY —

Juliette Stray: Yeah, it would be a lot easier. I was like, “Come on!” You should have seen me — I was pretty feminine. I wasn’t flaming — but I had super-long hair and I didn’t like sports. I was a geek.

WERE YOU INTO CROSS-DRESSING?

Juliette Stray: I’m answering a question that you don’t remember asking — which is, am I into guys or girls when I was young. As I grew up wanting to do porn — which meant I grew up wanting to fuck dudes but I was never attracted to them. I was just like, “Okay, this is what I want to do —” but I wasn’t hot for guys. I was hot for girls. I had a girlfriend even for a year in high school. After I started hormones and I was on hormones for awhile, I became attracted to guys — and then I was only into guys for awhile, and then I became kind of a Lesbo, and now I’m Bisexual. I think I still prefer girls more, but cock is pretty cool. So I’d be hard-pressed to turn that down — and it usually comes attached to dudes — and if the dude is hot —

IS IT AN ON-AGAIN-OFF-AGAIN INTEREST IN MEN VERSUS WOMEN?

Juliette Stray: Maybe. I wouldn’t say I idolize women or anything like that. I just think it’s really hot when they get fucked. So I’d like to see that happen more —

DO YOU FANTASIZE ABOUT BEING THE ONE WHO’S DOING THE FUCKING AS WELL AS BEING THE GIRL GETTING FUCKED?

Juliette Stray: Lots of times I fantasize about getting fucked — and in my private life, I’m the one getting fucked by men or women. Like my regular lover at this time is female, and she most certainly is the fucker and I’m the fuckee. So —

HOW DOES THAT WORK?

Juliette Stray: Hot. Is that an answer?

YEAH.

Juliette Stray: Hot. Did you mean logistically? She’s got a really nice strap-on. It’s really big.

SHE’S YOUR GIRLFRIEND?

Juliette Stray: No, not at all. We kind of like recreationally go out on dates and stuff, for like food and things occasionally — go to events —

DO YOU WORK TOGETHER?

Juliette Stray: She’s industry — but I really want to stress that she’s not my girlfriend. She’s just like my most regular lover.

SO LET’S GET BACK TO YOUR CHILDHOOD. WERE YOU SLEEPING WITH GUYS IN HIGH SCHOOL, OR BEFORE THAT?

Juliette Stray: I had a lot of phone sex in my early teens. I remember being like that — maybe people on the bus could smell the Vaseline, because I didn’t understand that Vaseline doesn’t easily come off with water. I was with the understanding that a shower will get you clean from anything. How could something not come off in the shower? But things like oily Vaseline — Vaseline, it kinda lingers. I would shove vegetables up my ass. I would talk to men on the telephone. I would call collect. Later I started using a phone card and nothing showed — and I thought that was particularly clever. I’d also use the phone card to call people in Germany. That was fun.

IT WAS LIKE THE FOREPLAY TO THE FUTURE CAREER —

Juliette Stray: Yeah, right. The only sexual contact I had pre-eighteen — beside phone sex — was like touching parts with a girlfriend.

THAT’S IT?

Juliette Stray: That’s it.

DID YOU FUCK HER?

Juliette Stray: Yeah. We were both virgins. Yeah we lost our virginity to one another.

DO YOU STILL KNOW HER?

Juliette Stray: Uh-huh. Yeah. I see her in about ten days. I’m going to see her for a high-school reunion.

ARE YOU GOING TO FUCK HER FOR OLD TIMES SAKE?

Juliette Stray: No. I’ll tell you this: Every fucking Tranny chick — they all got picked on in high school pretty much. Every Tranny chick has the fantasy of going to the high school reunion and being super hot and banging everyone who wants to be with them. They all have that fantasy — and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t — but it’s not really a revenge thing as much as, like —

A LAST LAUGH?

Juliette Stray: It’s pretty hot. I would enjoy banging them. I’m a little more pragmatic. The dudes I’m attracted to now are the ones who were super shitty to me before. Like, I kinda liked the jock-y, preppy types. I don’t know — there’s just something about them. The little washboard abs and the kinda faded blonde light spiked hair —

RIGID HETEROSEXUAL.

Juliette Stray: Yeah, Rigid Heterosexual. Yeah. I mean they even drink, like, Bud Light. Which is fucking appalling — but I want to bang ‘em. And the girls that I’m attracted to, likewise, are the ones that paid absolutely no attention to me whatsoever in high school. I’m attracted to a lot of different kinds of women. Like a lot — a lot — and I really like extraordinarily superficial, pretty, blonde sorority-type girls.

BIMBO BITCH BARBIE TYPES?

Juliette Stray: No. I would never say that about a girl — you can’t put that in there because I want to fuck these girls later, and not ruin my chances — that will ruin them.

IT WON’T RUIN YOUR CHANCES — JUST BLAME IT ON ME. “THAT WAS THAT STANTON WHO SAID THAT, NOT ME —”

Juliette Stray: “Naughty Stanton — you called me a bimbo.” Look at me for fuck’s sake! I’ve made myself into this —

YEAH. LET’S TALK ABOUT THAT A LITTLE BIT.

Juliette Stray: Yeah, sure.

SO, WHO’S THE FIRST GUY THAT YOU FUCKED, AND WERE YOU A GIRL WHEN YOU FUCKED HIM?

Juliette Stray: No, I always wanted to be. I was pretty fucking femme-y. He was some redneck. I don’t know. I got like drool on the bed. I used the guest room — in my house. I still lived with my parents.

YOU USED THE GUEST ROOM?

Juliette Stray: Yeah, there was a guest room. I don’t know. I didn’t want him in my room. Yeah, and I didn’t want him in my rear — and he did anyways.

THAT KIND OF SHATTERS THE STRAIGHT ILLUSION —

Juliette Stray: That was the illusion for me, god damn it. At that time, I was super uncomfortable with my body. I did not want people touching me. I did not want him touching my cock.

YOU DIDN’T LOOK THE WAY YOU DO NOW?

Juliette Stray: No. I mean — as misogynistic as it is — it’s a pretty girly thing to suck dick. I’m sure I have Gay friends who will totally disagree with that — but you know what? I was an eighteen-year-old Tranny, which makes it a girly thing to suck dick.

YEAH, IT IS.

Juliette Stray: It was. That was a way of feeling like a normal girl. So I had some dude like lick my dick. It was kind of a downer.

WHEN DID YOU START CROSS-DRESSING?

Juliette Stray: I started experimenting with my mom’s clothes — but it wasn’t like a sexual thing.

WHEN DID YOU GO OUT IN PUBLIC?

Juliette Stray: When was the first time? My high school prom — senior year, I believe.

YOU WENT AS A GIRL.

Juliette Stray: Fuck yeah. I was a hot girl.

WHO WAS YOUR DATE?

Juliette Stray: A lot of us were in the theater club so none of us really had dates. We all kind of went together. Isn’t that pathetic? Drama students —

DRAMA DORKS.

Juliette Stray: Oh yeah. In retrospect — and I had this realization later — We were way cooler because we were the ones eating the Mushrooms in the bathroom, and there were like the hot tub orgies that happened — there was the British mom who would take our keys and make drinks for us and get us smashed. By then the bros were like, “I made out with a chick and I came in her mouth.” We were like fucking swapping partners and like eating Hallucinogens. We were way cooler.

ALL THE BIGGEST NERDS AND DORKS THAT WERE THE LONERS AND THE WEIRDOS AND THE OUTCASTS — THEY EVENTUALLY SHOW THEMSELVES TO BE THE COOLEST.

Juliette Stray: They always were the coolest kids. They all wanted to get gangbanged by the originally cool kids, though. I had this girlfriend for awhile, but she was going through a sexual reawakening. I was like, “Let’s fuck people from the clubs,” and she’s like, “We can’t fuck people from the clubs.” But I was like, “Only if they bring us hot bitches. They must offer us tribute.” To bring us a hot bitch is tribute —

THAT’S HOW WE ROLL.

Juliette Stray: It’s like what you did.

YEAH.

Juliette Stray: Yeah — and then we’ll bang them. We tried to, like, spread that around as a rumor, because we were both really hot — although I’m hotter now. It’s like, well, you pay the price of admission — and let’s have a good time. We did that for awhile.

HOW LONG AGO WAS THIS?

Juliette Stray: A couple of years —

ARE YOU STILL FRIENDS?

Juliette Stray: Yeah, we’re still friends. No one ever took us up on it, because we stopped seeing each other before it really came to fruition. It was the plan for awhile —

WAS SHE HOT?

Juliette Stray: Yeah. She’s hot.

HOW COME YOU GUYS DIDN’T PULL IT OFF?

Juliette Stray: Because she fell in love with somebody else.

OH. THAT’S AN INTERESTING WAY OF PUTTING IT — “FELL” — LIKE IT WAS AN ACCIDENT —

Juliette Stray: Yeah. Falling, like it’s a trip. Actually I don’t really do that. It’s pretty gross. A pretty big turn off. Love is fine — and love is pretty gross.

YOU’VE NEVER BEEN IN LOVE?

Juliette Stray: Oh, I’ve been in love — and it’s awesome, at the time —

IN THAT MOMENT.

Juliette Stray: But looking back on it objectively, it was a shitty hand that you were dealt — and I’m not interested. It’ll happen again and I’ll enjoy it — but it’s so fucking lame. I don’t begrudge anybody this love, but it’s crap at the time.

WHY DID YOU BRING UP YOUR FRIEND AND YOUR ADVENTURES TOGETHER? I THINK I ASKED YOU ABOUT THE FIRST TIME YOU GOT LAID AS A GIRL — I ASKED YOU WHEN YOU STARTED GOING OUT AS A GIRL, AND YOU SAID THE PROM —

Juliette Stray: I successfully cross-dressed a few times at school on special occasions like Valentine’s Day — but I didn’t look very good. Probably the first time I looked like a babe, everybody just thought I was a hot chick.

YOU WERE TOO CONVINCING —

Juliette Stray: Oh, I was such a hot babe —

EVERYBODY DIDN’T RECOGNIZE YOU?

Juliette Stray: The only people who knew were the people who were in on it.

THE DRAMA CLUB.

Juliette Stray: The Drama Club, and teachers who had made donations. If you’re a dude going to the prom, that costs a lot less fucking money than a girl going to the prom. What do you do with a tux? You rent it. What does a girl have to do with a dress? She has to fucking buy it. Let me tell you: You’re seventeen — a five-hundred-dollar dress is pretty expensive when you’re seventeen.

HOW DID YOU GET THAT?

Juliette Stray: I lied to my parents a lot about things I needed money for, and I stockpiled that. I stockpiled my allowance, took donations from classmates and teachers — some teachers put in like forty or fifty bucks. I suspect they kinda had an inkling —

SECRET RADICALS.

Juliette Stray: Oh yeah. There’s a lot of teachers that were secret radicals — especially in the Computer Science and Literature departments. I love my teachers.

YOU DIDN’T GET LAID AT PROM, THOUGH.

Juliette Stray: I don’t think anybody really got laid at the prom.

THE FIRST TIME I DID SPEED WAS PROM NIGHT.

Juliette Stray: The first was the best.

YEAH. SO, TELL ME A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT YOURSELF. LIKE, DO YOU HAVE BROTHERS AND SISTERS?

Juliette Stray: I’m an only child.

ARE YOUR PARENTS STILL ALIVE?

Juliette Stray: Parents are still alive, and are still married going on like thirty-some-odd, forty years —

DO THEY ACCEPT YOU?

Juliette Stray: Oh yeah. My parents are just totally fucking rad. They never gave me shit about it. They just didn’t understand initially — and you know what? Like, I cannot blame them for not understanding initially.

SO YOU WERE NEVER ABUSED AS A KID?

Juliette Stray: Nope. Never abused physically or sexually.

IS THIS A CASE OF, “DADDY NEVER MOLESTED ME; WASN’T I HOT ENOUGH?”

Juliette Stray: No — but I haven’t met anybody as awesome as I am.

SO — WHEN DID YOU START TRANSFORMING?

Juliette Stray: I started around eighteen or nineteen, while I was still going to college. I started my hormones at nineteen. I started to get feminized a little bit around then. I dropped out in my junior year of college because it started to get to be too much.

Photo: Nick Melillo

YOU MEAN TOO MUCH WITH YOUR TRANSITION?

Juliette Stray: Yeah. I was having a hard time not passing as male — and that would have not been good in Georgia, especially deep south rural Georgia — Vidalia onions come from down there, though, and they’re delicious —

WHAT ARE THOSE, LITTLE GOURMET ONIONS?

Juliette Stray: They’re like sweet.

SO IS COCA-COLA. THAT’S FROM GEORGIA —

Juliette Stray: That’s true — but I don’t drink soda. I don’t really drink stuff with bubbles in it unless it has Vodka to dilute it. I can’t handle the bubble by itself; it’s too strong. I need the Vodka to cut it.

SO WHAT ABOUT DRUGS?

Juliette Stray: I started doing drugs from being a Straight-edge —

WHEN YOU WERE A KID?

Juliette Stray: Yeah, because I grew up with the whole “drugs are for stupid people — dumb people do drugs.” I knew what was up.

PLUS THERE’S THE CRACKHEADS AND TWEAKERS AND SCUM IN GENERAL —

Juliette Stray: I was in the upper-middle class White-people suburbs. Definitely no tweakers and junkies. I went to a school that barely had Black kids in it. It was posh, the area — so, there was not like crazy crackheads wandering through the streets. Drugs are for dumb people. I didn’t drink because, you know, it’s bad for you. It tastes bad and it makes you act stupid. It tears up your liver — and I knew that later on in my life hormones would be processed through my liver, so I had to keep that in good working condition.

WOW.

Juliette Stray: I didn’t smoke because it was disgusting and it almost killed my mom and I’m allergic. Then one day I took Acid — that was my gateway drug.

WHAT A GATEWAY DRUG —

Juliette Stray: It was fucking awesome! It was pretty sweet. My step-brother — he’s not really my step-brother but we grew up together, and we’re still super-super close, so — we’re totally BFF, and he’s like, “You should take this LSD.” He told me about it, and I did a bunch of research and I said, “Okay.” He threw a party with all of our friends, and it was my junior year of high school and I took Acid, and I was the entertainment, and everybody else just watched me on Acid — and it was fucking hysterical. It was good. I have great stories about that night.

WAS A LOT REVEALED TO YOU ABOUT YOURSELF ON YOUR TRIP?

Juliette Stray: No, because it was a party atmosphere. It wasn’t too introspective. Yeah — usually it’s the introspective stuff that’s like in the solo trip. It was a party trip, so I thought things like, “I ate her dog.” You know — and other hilarious shit —

HOW DID YOU ENTERTAIN THEM?

Juliette Stray: Well, by thinking I ate her dog. That was pretty good. By just talking — calling people and leaving really interesting messages — you know, like: “In the equinox you can balance an egg.”

YEAH, I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.

Juliette Stray: Well, it balances perfectly — and only during the solstice.

I THINK THAT’S TRUE.

Juliette Stray: It’s like I called and left these rambling incoherent voice mails. Just shit like that. So drugs — we’re talking about the LSD. I did copious amounts of LSD. I did so much LSD in high school — it was before that guy got busted back in the late Nineties.

DO YOU THINK IT CHANGED YOU?

Juliette Stray: Oh yeah. Two hundred hits of Acid will fuck anybody up. Yeah, it changed me —

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE?

Juliette Stray: I think for the better — I think because I have some permanent brain damage from that — I think of it as a super power. But I don’t think people who haven’t done Acid would think of it as a super power. They would just think of it as terrifying brain damage. That’s just one example.

IT’S NOT BRAIN DAMAGE. SO, IT STARTED WITH LSD FOR YOU?

Juliette Stray: Yes.

OKAY, TELL US — DID YOU EVER BECOME A FULL-ON CRACK WHORE OR —

Juliette Stray: No.

OR A CRAZY DRUGGIE?

Juliette Stray: No, never.

ECSTASY RAVER, OR —

Juliette Stray: No. Here’s the thing: I was — and still am, less than I was — super-cautious about my drug usage. I would read tons of studies. I’d read write-ups and chemical analyses. I’d read all sorts of shit about whatever I was putting in my body. The only safe way was to really limit yourself — at the most, every other week — and preferably just once a month. I knew kids who just raved all the time — and fucking nobody’s home. The lights are on, but nobody’s home. I was like, “I’m not really interested.” Before, I was attracted to dumb girls — so I didn’t want that —

YOU COULDA HAD A FIELD DAY.

Juliette Stray: I know. So I never became like a super-raver. Also, I was allergic to smoke and really couldn’t go to any venues in Atlanta.

OKAY. PEOPLE PROBABLY ASSUME THE TRANSSEXUAL AND TRANSGENDERED LIFESTYLE IS RECKLESS —

Juliette Stray: A lot of them are reckless. Some of them just buy hormones off the street and start injecting themselves with it.

YOU SAID YOU WERE NINETEEN —

Juliette Stray: Nineteen. I went through the proper channels. I’m pretty bad about taking them because they’re pills, and it’s really hard to remember to take pills twice a day.

IS THAT SOMETHING THAT YOU GET PRESCRIBED?

Juliette Stray: Yeah. Hormones run about two-hundred dollars a month for the rest of my life, until I get my balls chopped off.

IS THAT THE PLAN?

Juliette Stray: Which would save me like thirty dollars —

A MONTH?

Juliette Stray: Yeah.

IS THAT THE PLAN, THOUGH?

Juliette Stray: Not right now. Eventually — because I want to grow up to be a trophy wife, and they have to have vaginas. So I’ll need to have one of those installed.

THAT IS THE ULTIMATE GOAL?

Juliette Stray: Oh yeah. I want to be a really hot trophy wife. Yeah, absolutely. I want to wear fur and lounge around in a pin-up apartment and drink Champagne and Mimosas and be really fucking unhealthily tan, you know — and just have spa days all the time.

SHOP A LOT —

Juliette Stray: Yeah, shop a lot. Have like a high-powered husband who just comes home and fucks me. Preferably he brings home younger girls, too, and makes me perform with them for his enjoyment. Oh god, preferably — but you know, I’ll just not settle for having the eighteen-year-old girls —

IF YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE —

Juliette Stray: I’ll shoulder that burden of not having to fuck teenagers. Legal teenagers.

YEAH. I’M FAMILIAR WITH THE DIFFERENCE.

Juliette Stray: Yeah, me too. Totally.

YEAH.

Juliette Stray: So — do you know why I’m such a babe? You know what I do instead of eat? I take tanning drugs.

TANNING DRUGS?

Juliette Stray: Yeah — because naturally I’m a redhead, and redheads don’t tan; they just burn.

I THOUGHT YOU USE SOME SORT OF BODY SPRAY —

Juliette Stray: It basically suppresses your appetite and it makes your body tan. Even if you were in the dark, you would tan. Even if you were in a cave — although it’s much more effective in the sun, so I hit tanning beds, too.

YOU’RE NOT SUPER DARK.

Juliette Stray: I will be.

WHEN DID YOU START DOING IT?

Juliette Stray: I really only started tanning very infrequently, like every other week, about a month-and-a-half ago.

NO, WHEN DID YOU START THE MEDS?

Juliette Stray: Well, I started doing the meds a couple of months ago, but I had to ramp myself up to about thirty-five milligrams before I could reasonably expect to see results. Maybe ten milligrams with somebody else — but my skin’s a type one, and I needed to have more in my system —

IT’S INTERESTING HOW YOU’RE INTO TRYING DIFFERENT COSMETIC DRUGS —

Juliette Stray: Well, there’s nothing more important than being prettier — how else are you going to get anyone to fuck you? Which is the most important thing — getting hot people to fuck you.

DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?

Juliette Stray: I don’t know. I mean really, I don’t know. I have no idea. I can’t tell the difference between role-play and reality — but I’ve gone so far down the path with fantasies that a majority of people would keep in their imagination — I can’t tell the difference between things that are hot and things that are pretending to be hot. I don’t know —

SO YOUR REALITY’S A ROLE-PLAY —

Juliette Stray: Right. Yeah. I’ll never really know.

MAYBE YOU WILL.

Juliette Stray: I doubt it. I don’t really care.

IS THAT THE POINT — THE JOURNEY, NOT SO MUCH THE DEFINITION?

Juliette Stray: Well, the transformative aspect actively turns me on. I have to sit with my hands in my lap when I get my lips done — I have to. Even if I’m tucked, I will get such a fucking hard-on from having someone inject my lips with filler — but, like, I can’t help it. It’s so god-damned hot to be turned into more of a sex doll —

THAT SOUNDS LIKE A TRUE FETISH.

Juliette Stray: It’s a fetish. It’s a fucking fetish.

SO HOW MANY PROCEDURES HAVE YOU HAD?

Juliette Stray: Not enough. Not even remotely enough. It’s fucking amateur hour over here. I’ve only — I’ve had my lips done a lot. I’ve had Botox. I’ve had the area between my eyes Botoxed. I’ve had my waist pulled in because I was straight, not curvy. I’ve had my tits done, of course — but I definitely need to have my tits done again, and I need to have my ass done, and I want to do my nose and I want to do more on my lips. I need to do more cosmetic, and I need more Botox — and that’s like a start.

OKAY. WHAT DID YOU DO PROFESSIONALLY, BEFORE —

Juliette Stray: I worked at Starbucks.

WHEN DID YOU MOVE TO SAN FRANCISCO?

Juliette Stray: 2005 maybe. I’ve been here about five years.

AND YOU WORKED AT A STARBUCKS —

Juliette Stray: No — first I worked at a shitty company that got shut down for being illegal. There’s these companies throughout the world and they’re called multi-media monitoring companies. Basically what they do is they pay for television that isn’t there and then they sell it back to people. So I really don’t understand how that’s legal —

PAY FOR TELEVISION THAT ISN’T THERE?

Juliette Stray: Yeah — because it isn’t theirs. Very shitty licensing deals. But I couldn’t work a nine-to-five — and now if I tried to work a nine-to-five, I’d just fuck everybody in the building, like no question. I wasn’t as hot then. I’m hot enough now —

AND CONFIDENT.

Juliette Stray: I didn’t used to wear full makeup every day. A girlfriend got me starting doing that — and now I can’t step out of the house without full makeup.

WHEN DID YOU GET YOUR BOOBS DONE?

Juliette Stray: Three-and-a-half, four years ago.

YOU SAVED UP FOR THEM?

Juliette Stray: Kinda. I mean, I had enough and I was like, “Why should I save some money for just-in-case money?” So I had my tits done at the same time as my waist, and I paid half and took the other half out as a loan. So that way I have fall-back money. Then I got myself fired from my nine-to-five job, and boy that made it hard to pay that loan — and then I worked at Starbucks and then the economy collapsed, and the loan got sold to like six different debt companies — and then they lied about how much it was. And then they took me to court for being deceitful — and then they just dropped it. So basically I got like half off.

NICE.

Juliette Stray: That’s pretty cool. I recommend it.

GOOD ADVICE.

Juliette Stray: Good advice for aspiring chicks who want fake tits: Don’t pay for them.

NICE. FINANCE THEM, BECAUSE EVENTUALLY THE ECONOMY WILL TURN IN YOUR FAVOR.

Juliette Stray: Yeah. You’re like eighteen, you want fake tits, you’re probably the kind of chick who’s going to go bankrupt anyway. You may as well just rack up the plastic surgery before you do that. You can do that once every decade.

YEAH.

Juliette Stray: If you’re a twenty-seven year old with a lot of hot surgery, you don’t need that money; other people have money. The bills will pay themselves. That’s what I’ve learned. If you’re pretty enough, everything just happens for you.

OH YEAH.

Juliette Stray: Nope — that sounds way fuckin’ shitty. Strike that.

NO, IT DOES NOT. IT’S HONEST.

Juliette Stray: Yeah, you can be honest but shitty. If you’re pretty enough, everything just opens for you. So you should really make being pretty a priority — because even if you’re mega-smart — and I understand objectively that this is like setting back the women’s movement and blah blah blah, but let’s be honest. Let’s say you’re mega-smart — like 170 IQ, which is barely humanly possible or like whatever, like super-confident, and you’re fucking ugly and you’re a woman — it’s fine if you’re fucking ugly and a dude. If you have a 130 IQ and you’re a babe, you will probably accomplish more.

YOU’LL SUCCEED.

Juliette Stray: Yeah, you’ll succeed. I want to see more girls with work done. How can I tell if I believe that, or if I’m only saying that because that’s what’s hot to believe? I know objectively that it’s true — but do I believe in it? I don’t know. You know? Like the biology teacher who objectively knows that there is no god but is like, “Well, I believe in God.”

YEAH.

Juliette Stray: Right?

I UNDERSTAND.

Juliette Stray: So I factually know what I’m saying is accurate — but do I really believe in it? I can’t tell. I can’t separate the fetish. So anytime anything related to fetish comes up, a little part in my brain just shuts down. I cannot for the fucking life of me figure it out, so I don’t know what I believe about certain things. I will never be able to know.

IT’S JUST THE CARNAL YOU.

Juliette Stray: Yeah, it’s just too hot. I can’t help it.

SO NOW THAT YOU’RE GETTING ALL HOT AND SEXY, TELL US YOUR MOST PERVERTED EXPERIENCES.

Juliette Stray: I have a lot of great stories, so you should give me like a ground rule.

A GROUND RULE?

Juliette Stray: Yeah. Like some bit of guidance. Be like, “Tell me a story about blank —”

WELL, LET’S KICK THINGS OFF BY TALKING ABOUT WHAT YOU DO PROFESSIONALLY NOW. HOW YOU GOT INTO THAT — WHY YOU’RE DOING IT — IS IT JUST FOR MONEY?

Juliette Stray: I’m a porn performer. I do not yet feel comfortable calling myself a Porn Star because I don’t think I have the fan base for it. Boy does it piss me off that you can make one shitty film and call yourself a Porn Star. I do really like S&M — and having it pay my bills is fucking awesome.

WELL, YEAH. DO WHAT YOU WANT —

Juliette Stray: Yeah. I find narcissism a really sexy trait.

WELL — AND THE FACT IS, I THINK ANYONE WHO’S INTELLIGENT ENOUGH CAN TELL THAT YOU’RE KINDA PUTTING ON A LITTLE BIT OF A SHOW —

Juliette Stray: I think so, but I don’t know. My whole personality —

I LIKE IT. IT’S ATTRACTIVE. I LIKE THE INVENTED NARCISSISTIC —

Juliette Stray: That’s the thing — those are genuinely my traits, and it fits the image that I want to portray — but because I’ve just adopted that image kind of like as a party trick my entire life —

IT’S PART OF THAT PROGRAM.

Juliette Stray: I try to explain this to people, and it’s kind of fascinating that you brought this up in this context before I did. I don’t know what of me is legit and what I am merely programmed to do, and I can no longer tell the difference.

WHAT YOU’RE MIRRORING OR WHAT YOU’RE REBELLING AGAINST.

Juliette Stray: Right. So I don’t know. Maybe I am a narcissist and maybe I’m just pretending to be a narcissist because that’s what I thought when I was twelve years old — that that’s what hot chicks are supposed to be. I love super-absorbed women. I think that’s really attractive. Considering I’m super nice; I’m really nice —

THAT’S WHAT I SAID EARLIER ABOUT HOW YOU PROJECT —

Juliette Stray: I don’t know.

YOUR REALITY’S A DREAM AND YOUR DREAM IS A —

Juliette Stray: Or if you want to get philosophical, then it would be like, “Well, if it’s you, isn’t it you anyways?”

SO YOU DO PORN BECAUSE—

stray: I do porn because I’m hot. Too fucking hot — and I like to fuck, and it’s a way for me to have sex with very skilled people who are tested and well-endowed, who fit my physical specifications. They will fuck me really god-damn hard, and I get paid, and other people get to watch. Hopefully I’ll inspire some other young girl to follow in my footsteps. That makes me sound like a pedophile. Hopefully I can inspire some other girl to follow in my footsteps — I just want to teach the girls that they should give in to everything that turns them on.

THE GIRLS SHOULD BE THE WAY THOSE FORTY-YEAR-OLD MEN DESCRIBE THEM TO BE IN CHAT ROOMS —

Juliette Stray: They should be more discerning because — I mean, if he’s hot, it’s okay for him to be a cocky asshole. They can be as cocky as they want because they’ve earned it by being super hot. So I think if you want to bang someone, you should bang them.

WHEN I MET YOU — WHEN I FIRST SAW YOU, IT WAS LIKE, “DECISION MADE.”

Juliette Stray: That’s what I thought about your wife.

THANK YOU. I’LL TAKE THAT AS A ROUNDABOUT COMPLIMENT.

Juliette Stray: You have a nice dick, though —

THANK YOU. THAT’S WHAT COUNTS.

Juliette Stray: It is.

I’VE GOT A FAMOUS NAME AND A BIG DICK. IT’S NICE.

Juliette Stray: That’s the thing — I bet the chicks who chase you for your name are nuts.

YES — AND THEN WHEN THEY HIT THE DICK THEY GET CRAZIER.

Juliette Stray: Oh I bet.

IT JUST MAKES THEM FUCKING CRAZIER.

Juliette Stray: Other chicks are like, “This is Satan’s cock —”?

THEY FLY FROM THE FARTHEST REACHES OF THE WORLD AND MOVE TO AMERICA AND MARRY PEOPLE TO GET CLOSER TO ME. THEY STALK ME. THEY FUCK FRIENDS OF MINE JUST TO GET CLOSER.

Juliette Stray: Is it still hilarious, or has it just become irritating?

OH, IT’S STILL HILARIOUS. IT’S FUNNY FOREVER.

Juliette Stray: Legal teenagers can always be funny. Legal teenagers —

TASTY.

Juliette Stray: Anyways, sexy stories —

ABOUT YOUR CURRENT CAREER: WERE YOU FEELING UNFULFILLED SEXUALLY BEFORE YOU STARTED DOING IT — OR THAT YOU NEEDED AN ADDITIONAL OR MORE EXTREME SEXUAL OUTLET TO FULFILL YOURSELF —

Juliette Stray: I had some ridiculous sex. I think humiliation is super important — for me to feel humiliated. It turns me on a lot.

ARE YOU INSATIABLE, SEXUALLY?

Juliette Stray: I’ve met chicks who are more insatiable than I am. I don’t think I would want to fuck every day — but I want to fuck so hard that I would be incapable of fucking every day. Like, I had a really good sexual partner and I couldn’t fuck for about a week. I couldn’t even talk for a couple of days. So it’s like fucking every day is not possible — not the way that I want to have sex. I do have average sex every day, but it’s kind of a pain in the ass. You have to get all gussied up, you have to take a shower afterwards. I would fuck every day if it wasn’t so much work.

IT’S LIKE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAVING AN AVERAGE DINNER EVERY NIGHT, OR NOT EATING ALL WEEK AND HAVING A FABULOUS FOUR-STAR DINNER ONCE A WEEK —

Juliette Stray: Well, if dinner’s the only meal, and you skip it for a week — you only eat four times a month. I think that would eventually take its toll —

NOW YOU’RE GETTING ALL TECHNICAL. I JUST MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN QUANTITY AND QUALITY.

Juliette Stray: I hate when people fuckin’ stress a metaphor. That bothers me. I don’t know why — that’s fucking irritating.

THEY TURN IT INTO A MATH EQUATION. SO, YOU’VE BEEN DOING THE PORN THING FOR AWHILE —

Juliette Stray: I’ve been doing the porn thing for about a year-and-a-half — and I love it. It’s an opportunity for me to fuck other people and —

HAVE YOU DONE A GANG BANG?

Juliette Stray: No — and I haven’t done a Bukkake.

IS THERE A REASON WHY?

Juliette Stray: Well, the reason I haven’t done a Bukkake is because it’s unrealistic.

BUT YOU DID IT AT THAT EVENT —

Juliette Stray: Yeah, the freelance Bukkake. I’ve done pro-bono Bukkake work. It was good for the people. But good luck finding fifty.

FIFTY TESTED STUDS?

Juliette Stray: The company will pay for testing. That’s fucking expensive — and you have to be able to get it up, and you have to show up, and they have to be okay with being on film with a Tranny.

AND BE OKAY WITH STANDING NEXT TO A BUNCH OF SWEATY DUDES.

Juliette Stray: No problem. They do that for normal chicks all the time. Finding them on film with a Tranny? Not fucking likely. Plus, the market is going to be smaller because it’s a niche.

I WOULD THINK THAT IT’S A GROWING NICHE.

Juliette Stray: Not as big as interracial porn, for instance, which is a niche.

DO YOU HAVE FANS?

Juliette Stray: Yeah. I have a fair number of fans — particularly for not having a website. I have a lot of fucking fans. Once I have my website, I’ll have a better gauge of my popularity. Then I’ll get paid to have sex with people I choose — which is fucking unfathomable.

WHAT’S THE MOST EXTREME PORN THAT YOU’VE SHOT?

Juliette Stray: My porn hasn’t been very extreme, although by the time this book comes out — I can pretend like it’s in the future. I think it’s that I’m choked until I’m unconscious and ass-fucked while I’m unconscious and then I’m going to keep getting choked unconscious over and over, and I’m probably going to puke on dick. That’s not going to go on DVD because that will get you arrested.

REALLY? WHY?

Juliette Stray: Obscenity. That will get you thrown in fuckin’ jail.

WHAT’S THE LINE OF OBSCENITY?

Juliette Stray: Someone got indicted for lactation.

SO IT’S A REALLY GRAY AREA —

Juliette Stray: It’s a poorly-defined line — but generally the industry just regards it as a bad fucking idea.

IT’S LIKE A BADGE OF SUCCESS IF YOU GO DOWN FOR OBSCENITY — YOU REACH A BENCHMARK IN YOUR CAREER. YOU’D GET WORLD-WIDE MEDIA EXPOSURE AND PUBLICITY —

Juliette Stray: Notoriety for awhile — but you’d be thrown in jail for a decade.

IF YOU ASK A SERIAL KILLER IF THE FAME IS WORTH THE PRICE, IN MANY INSTANCES THEY WOULD SAY, “YEAH.”

Juliette Stray: You don’t want any blood and penetration. You don’t want bondage and penetration. You make a DVD with girls getting tied up and getting fucked — you stand a good chance to go to jail.

THAT’S AMAZING.

Juliette Stray: If there’s no fucking, you’re not going to have a problem. But anyways the point is: If it’s just choking, it should be fine.

SO, DO YOU FANCY YOURSELF BECOMING A PORN STAR?

Juliette Stray: Oh yeah. I’m going to become the filthiest TS in porn. A lot of the other girls don’t want to make the really fucking filthy, raunchy content. I want to make raunchy content.

DESCRIBE RAUNCHY.

Juliette Stray: Rough, violent sex. Most of what I do — the makeup will be ruined off my face. Like the shit that you see in normal porn — there really isn’t an analog to that in TS contents. There’s just not. I really want to do that. Like, Cum Guzzler Throat Fuck 12 — there’s no Cum Guzzler Throat Fuck Trannies 12.

SO YOU’RE GOING TO DO THE TS ALTERNATIVE —

Juliette Stray: Yeah. The really filthy ones. I mean the really god-damn fucking filthy ones.

THAT’S HOW YOU’RE GOING TO TURN STRAIGHT GUYS CROOKED.

Juliette Stray: Straight dudes are like, “I’m not Gay for liking Trannies.” All your friends like Trannies. All of them. If I had a dollar for every dude who was like, “P.S. I’m secretly into Trannies,” I wouldn’t even need to work. I’m saying all of them — and you each think that you’re the only one in your group of friends. You’re the only one. That is every dude’s secret. All of them.

YEAH. I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU. I MEAN, I KNOW THAT TO BE TRUE — AND I DON’T THINK THAT THAT DETERMINES A MAN’S SEXUALITY. SO, DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO FIND YOUR PRINCE CHARMING?

Juliette Stray: I want a Princess Charming, and I want to be a kept woman. You know, like on the side.

SORT OF POLYGAMOUS — YOU AND A LITTLE GIRL AND AN OLD DIRTY MAN —

Juliette Stray: An older girl. My age or older. It’s going to be like a long-term thing.

SO, THE PLAN IS TO BECOME THE PORN STAR THAT YOU’RE MEANT TO BE, AND FIND YOUR DREAM SITUATION.

Juliette Stray: The world needs me. I’m going to make dirty god-damned porn and I’m going to make it with hot fucking bitches. A lot of Trannies don’t like working with girls — and I like working with girls.

THAT’S AWESOME. LET’S TALK ABOUT HOW YOU’RE RECEIVED SOCIALLY, AND THINGS THAT TICK YOU OFF — OR THINGS THAT TURN YOU ON — AND HOW PEOPLE REACT TO YOU —

Juliette Stray: I pass flawlessly right now — and I did when I was a redhead, too — a Goth redhead as well as a blonde Barbie. Both times I passed as female. Now I get treated about what you would expect — like a platinum-blonde party girl. I get the free drinks. I get the line jumping — all that. As a redhead I was treated way more stand-off-ishly. I would get really nice things at the Goth club —

YOU WERE ATTRACTING A DIFFERENT GROUP —

Juliette Stray: As a blonde party girl I get stuff at the Goth club, too. I get more. I get treated exceptionally well. Nobody is mean to me.

CAN YOU TELL WHEN SOMEBODY KNOWS YOUR SECRET?

Juliette Stray: Nobody knows. If they know it’s because they recognize me — or I’m sitting like this, with my legs spread and my panties showing.

AND EVEN THEN THEY DON’T KNOW. THEY SUSPECT BUT LIE TO THEMSELVES, PROBABLY —

Juliette Stray: The only way that they would know is if they know me from porn —and I can recognize that look. It’s that look like, “What? What? Is it Juliette Stray? Oh my god. I should say hi. No, I shouldn’t say hi — I’m in public. What will people think?” It’s like this nervous thing —

DO LESBIANS PICK UP ON YOU —

Juliette Stray: The Lesbians are a little sharper, I’ll give them that.

HAVE YOU FOOLED LESBIANS?

Juliette Stray: Accidentally. I try not to surprise anybody.

BUT DO YOU?

Juliette Stray: Only by accident. I never do it on purpose. People should know what they’re getting into sexually — getting into something sexually is like a really vulnerable thing for people, and I feel like they should enter into it knowing what’s up. Also, that’s how Trannies get killed. You hear about Trannies getting killed and left by the side of the street — that was a girl who surprised somebody. So, you don’t really do that. It’s not really a good idea.

UNLESS YOU’RE INTO LIVING DANGEROUSLY.

Juliette Stray: Unless you’re into being murdered.

WHICH SOME PEOPLE ARE.

Juliette Stray: They are? I think what usually happens is, chicks will be like, “Oh, he really likes me, and I’ll just wait until the last possible moment to tell him — or not tell him at all. Because he likes me so much, I’ll be fine —” But they’re not — and they get murdered.

HAVE YOU HAD ANY BAD EXPERIENCES?

Juliette Stray: Nope. Well, once there was this dude on a train. I was tired, and I’d already done my train blow jobs. I checked that off my checklist. Don’t travel by train — it’s bullshit.

THE NOVELTY WEARS OFF BEFORE THE TRIP GETS STARTED.

Juliette Stray: A plane ticket was as much as a train. From San Francisco to Portland, the train took twenty-two hours.

THE PLANE WOULD TAKE AN HOUR.

Juliette Stray: Yeah. So, no thank you. I will pass on that in the future.

SO, YOU ALREADY GOT YOUR BLOW JOBS OUT OF THE WAY —

Juliette Stray: I was like, “I’m never going to do this again, so if I want to fuck somebody on a train, I better do it now.” So I blew this guy. He gave me a bagel. That was pretty cool. It had sprouts, cream cheese and pumpernickel. It was very classy.

DID HE HOLD IT AND SAY, “NOT UNTIL —”

Juliette Stray: No, no, no. He gave it to me beforehand, so I washed it down with his jizz. Then later I was sitting around, and this man offered me a microwave Tostino’s pizza. He’s like, “You want some pizza?” and I’m like, “Okay,” and he’s like very sexy. So I go in the bathroom and I blow him for a bit and then he found out by groping me — and boy did he get angry.

YEAH?

Juliette Stray: Oh, he was mad. He grabbed my crotch, I guess to rub my cunt — except there wasn’t a cunt; there was a dick.

YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE, “WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FOR A MICROWAVE PIZZA?”

Juliette Stray: It was only a few slices.

A FEW SLICES OF A MICROWAVE PERSONAL PIZZA.

Juliette Stray: He was so mad — he yelled at me! And he still finished! He started to face-fuck me — he angrily face-fucked me. Then he pushed me back and said, “Stay, stay, stay —” and then he just left — and I was like, “Oh —” He would have murdered me if this hadn’t been on a train. After he came he was even angrier, because he felt dirty.

MEN DON’T KILL AT THAT MOMENT OF RAGE BECAUSE THEIR FIRE IS DOUSED WITH THE BLOW TO THEIR EGO OF, “WELL, THIS TURNED ME ON ENOUGH TO CLIMAX —”

Juliette Stray: You want to see someone get really murderous? You make them feel helpless — that’ll really make somebody kill. I think that’s even more dangerous —

IT’S NOT EVEN ABOUT THE SEX; IT’S NOT ABOUT GETTING OFF — IT’S JUST A PSYCHO TRIP —

Juliette Stray: That’s a dangerous idea.

YEAH.

Juliette Stray: I Tranny-surprised a couple of girls —

TRANNY-SURPRISED?

Juliette Stray: Yeah.

“SURPRISE, SURPRISE, TRANNY-SURPRISE — I FELT HIS DICK BETWEEN MY THIGHS —”

Juliette Stray: Nice.

HOW’D THEY REACT?

Juliette Stray: They were like, “What?” They were like, “That’s sexy?” I was like, “Sorry, thought you knew —”

SO WHAT’S THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING THAT YOU’VE EVER DONE? IT DOESN’T NECESSARILY HAVE TO BE SEXUAL —

Juliette Stray: Well, one time I broke up a marriage when I was fourteen.

ON THE INTERNET?

Juliette Stray: Yeah. [laughs]

INTENTIONALLY?

Juliette Stray: No. This guy was flirting with me and he was married. He would ask me dirty things. And he was like, “Do you have any toys?” and I was like, “No.” Because I was pretending to be sixteen at this point. I wasn’t pretending to be eighteen. He still flirted with me even though I was sixteen, and he said, “Do you have any toys?” I’m like, “I’m sixteen — where do you think I’m going to get toys? I’m too young for the sex shops.” He’s like, “Do you want some?” I was like, “Fuck yeah, I want some.” “What do you want?”

TRADE IN THAT CUCUMBER FOR SOMETHING REAL —

Juliette Stray: I wanted a giant cock of a dildo with nipple clamps and all this shit. He’s like, “Alright — I’ll send it to you.” He was like, “How can I send it to you?” I was like, “Here’s what you do —” So I gave him my address and I told him when I would be out of town with my parents for summer vacation. If you send it during this time, it’s in the suburbs so it’ll just be left by the door. Nobody will be there. So he sends me all these things, and I’m like, “Address it to the previous residents so I don’t get nailed. Even then — worst case scenario — it’s not linked to me.” But I would know that it was for me. So he addresses it and he fills it with all the sex toys — he includes dirty pictures of himself and a handwritten sex story starring me and him. So, all the sex toys, handwritten sex story about him and me, and dirty pictures of himself —

AND YOU KNEW HIS REAL IDENTITY?

Juliette Stray: No, not really. I mean, I had an idea. I knew that he was a married dude in his thirties or forties. He sends it late, so it arrives thirty fucking minutes after we arrive back from vacation. I answered the door and it’s the UPS dude — it’s the suburbs; they bring the package, ring the doorbell and then they go. It was supposed to happen before — he sent it too fucking late. I kind of like hide it off to the side, and my parents are like, “Who’s that?” I’m like, “Nobody.” I said I think it was like a ding-dong glitch, and they’re like, “Was there a package?” I’m like, “No, there’s no package.” They’re like, “Are you sure? Did you check by the door?” I’m like, “Yeah.” They’re like, “Well, let me look.” What am I supposed to fucking do, right? I sat there in transfixed horror. That was a good god-damned plan and he fucked it up. So my dad comes to the door and looks around, finds the package — which is kind of hidden off to the side — picks it up, looks at it and sees that it’s addressed to a previous resident, and then runs down to chase down the UPS man and says, “They don’t live here anymore.” So it gets returned to sender. So his wife gets it. That was fucking mad.

AND HIS WIFE PROBABLY THINKS HE’S HAVING AN AFFAIR —.

Juliette Stray: No — his wife knew who I was, because we were both part of the same little Internet community. Not only is he sending shit to another woman, but it’s a fucking sixteen-year-old. Nobody knew it was really a fourteen-year-old boy — but wow, that would have been awkward.

SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL WHO’S ACTUALLY A FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY —

Juliette Stray: That was pretty bad. That was like a bad thing that I did. In retrospect, though, it was pretty funny.

YEAH.

Juliette Stray: I thought it was a little funny at the time but I was sheepish about it.

YOUR EARLY CHILDHOOD — YOU SAID THAT YOU KNEW SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT FROM AN EARLY AGE, BUT YOU DIDN’T KNOW UNTIL YOU GOT ONLINE —

Juliette Stray: I just knew that I felt better with the girls than I did with the boys. It’s like, “What is this feeling? Why do I feel that way? Why do I want to hang with chicks? Like why do I feel this disparity between my body —”

DO YOU EVER LONG FOR, OR FANTASIZE ABOUT, BEING LIKE A TOTAL DUDE?

Juliette Stray: Nope. Not even remotely. I’d have to wear boring clothes — wearing like loafers and socks and Dickies shorts and like a black T-shirt — that’s like dude clothes in general. The only way you can be different is if you wear a popped-color Ed Hardy T-shirt. That’s your only other option. That’s it. Or I guess like a basketball jersey — so, that would be lame. I couldn’t wear cool clothes. Dudes don’t have any power. You have like physical power and financial power and people pretend like dudes have social power — but you really don’t. If there’s a pussy, the pussy has the power.

SO APART FROM PORN, HAVE YOU EVER FUCKED FOR MONEY?

Juliette Stray: I turned some tricks. I was a street whore for a little while.

BUT THE ROOT REASON WAS PERSONAL, NOT PROFESSIONAL —

Juliette Stray: I was a street whore because I thought it might be sexy. I was like, “Boy, what’s really low? A street whore. Maybe I could be a street whore. That would be hot —” It’s dirty, but I didn’t really feel anything. I love street whores in that respect —

YOU LEFT YOUR JOHNS FEELING USED AND DIRTY.

Juliette Stray: I didn’t feel anything. It felt cool. You get bored one night and you go, “I think I’ll walk the streets.” Put on some makeup, go outside, be back a couple of hours later with a couple hundred bucks.

HAVE YOU BEEN RAPED?

Juliette Stray: I realized this later — that I’ve been raped a lot, but I would never notice. It occurred to me that rape is when you’re like, “No! No! I don’t want to do this thing —” But I always wanted. There were times where I was like, “No, I don’t want you to do this; you may not do this thing —”

WAS THAT TO BE MEAN, OR BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T ACTUALLY WANT IT?

Juliette Stray: I didn’t want it. I’m like, “I don’t know who this dude is. I don’t want his dick in my butt —” and there it went.

DO YOU GET OFF ON HEAD-FUCKING PEOPLE?

Juliette Stray: No. I want to make them feel good. I don’t want to confuse anybody. I don’t want to fuck with anybody’s identity or sexuality. I just want to make them feel good and cum on my face.

WELL, THAT WOULD BE A GREAT MOTTO —

Juliette Stray: I want to make people feel good. That’s what I want to do with my life. I could do it as a nurse — I’d rather do it as a slut.

DO YOU HAVE ANY REGRETS?

Juliette Stray: I regret that I didn’t start hormones sooner.

REALLY?

Juliette Stray: I regret not being blonde earlier. I do regret it because blondes are better people.

YOU SOUND LIKE HITLER.

Juliette Stray: Not like that. Not like that! I’m Jewish! I don’t mean it in a scary Aryan way. I just means that blondes are the best.

IT’S OKAY TO WORSHIP THE ARYANS. ARE YOU ATTRACTED TO OTHER TRANSSEXUALS?

Juliette Stray: Some. Not many. Most aren’t to my standards. They’re not hot enough. Their Transsexual status has nothing to do with it. I’m attracted to babes — and a babe can be a Transsexual or she can be a genetic chick. Most Transsexuals are not babes, therefore I’m not attracted to most Transsexuals.

IS THERE A STEREOTYPICAL PERSONALITY THAT GOES WITH TRANSSEXUALS —

Juliette Stray: Yeah, I embody some stereotypical traits.

WHAT IS THE STEREOTYPE?

Juliette Stray: A lot of Transsexuals are fucking obsessed with plastic surgery to a high degree because it helps the way they look. I realize my obsession with plastic surgery will in the end make me less passable — and yet it’s so fucking hot to replace every iota of flesh and meat with perfect plastic and silicone, that how could I not do it? And I don’t think most Transsexuals do it because they find it sexy. I think I’m pretty unique in my fetish for plastic surgery. I mean, people want to do it to make themselves look better. I want to do it to make myself look faker. Fake is the hottest thing that a woman can be.

A PLASTIC DOLL.

Juliette Stray: Oh yeah. Fake, fake personality, fake body.

BUT YOUR PERSONALITY AND YOUR BODY — THEY’RE NOT FAKE.

Juliette Stray: They’re not fake enough. Fake tits. I have fake nails solely because — I have fake toenails. Most people only get the big toe, but even my little toe is acrylic. All of them are acrylic — and not because I have bad toes, but because I wanted them not to be real. I just want everything to be fake.

DO YOU ENJOY PAIN?

Juliette Stray: I used to. Not really, anymore.

WHEN AN ACRYLIC TOENAIL RIPS OFF?

Juliette Stray: That’s shitty. That’s super shitty. I’m not into pain. I don’t even like being slapped. I used to really be into pain. I’m covered in scars from S&M — but you know, it occurred to me at one point that instead of hurting, you could feel good. So maybe that would be better, to feel pleasure instead of pain. Pain isn’t as pleasurable as pleasure. Pleasure is pretty pleasurable, so I think I’ll just do that.

SOME PEOPLE CAN’T FIND PLEASURE AT ALL UNLESS IT’S IN PAIN.

Juliette Stray: Anorexia is a terrible disorder that’s not attractive and it ruins people —

THAT CAN BE SAID ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS —

Juliette Stray: But a girl is so mentally damaged that she’ll stop eating in order to make herself look pretty — even if it’s not pretty. It’s hot because that’s damage. Damage related to beauty is fucking hot. It’s like, I don’t care if breasts are big or small — but I do care if they’re real or fake. Well, I want mine to be much bigger. I still like real breasts. I do.

YOU LIKE FAKE BIG BREASTS, BUT YOU WOULDN’T LIKE THEM IF THEY WERE REAL?

Juliette Stray: No. I’d actually be turned off by it. I’m turned off by large real breasts. I would rather have small real breasts than large real breasts — Even a bad boob job is hot. One of the problems I have with my breast implants is that they’re too real-looking. Too natural. I don’t like it. I want them to look faker — yet another reason why I have to redo them. My surgeon was too good.

WELL, YOU ONLY PAID HALF PRICE —

Juliette Stray: Oh no, she got all the money. The loan company got none of the money.

ARE YOU FRIGHTENED OF ANYTHING?

Juliette Stray: Spiders.

WHY?

Juliette Stray: Arachnophobia. It’s irrational.

HAVE YOU BEEN IN JAIL?

Juliette Stray: No, I’ve never been to jail. Don’t really want to be, because Trannies don’t really get treated well in jail. A Tranny getting put in jail is like some bad-news-bear shit. It’s just not good. It’s really not good.

ARE YOU SENTIMENTAL?

Juliette Stray: I’m very sentimental with lovers, especially females. I’m super sentimental with female lovers. I don’t know —

GEORGE WANTS YOU TO TELL THE STORY OF THE POWER EXCHANGE FORTY-SEVEN INCIDENT —

Juliette Stray: I’d heard about this place where there was some sex stuff that goes on. I was bored one night and I was like, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I tried to double my sex partners in one night?” I definitely didn’t think I’d succeed because I had sex partners in the twenties and it was like: No way, no way. So I put on a slutty outfit and I went to the Power Exchange — this was before I had fake tits — and I go there, and the moment I walk in this guy’s like, “Hey, let me show you around.” I’m like, “Okay.” So he shows me around, and the first thing he shows me to was like this labyrinthine twist of corridors — and there was a glory-hole booth. He took me around to the side where I would have oral sex performed on me. I was like, “I want to be on the side where I can perform oral sex.” Before he gets to my pussy — which wasn’t there anyways — I just wander over to the other side. It’s not a standard booth, okay? You stand up and the hole’s at mouth level. The people on the other side are elevated on a platform. They’re also standing. So, both parties are standing and the hole’s still at face level. Anyone who walks by can look in and see you perfectly. So over the course of about six hours — and I counted the people because I was trying to double my sex partners — I blew forty-seven people. In the end they started trying to reach over, grabbing my head and just face-fucking me. I swallowed a bunch of the cum. Eventually I got an upset stomach.

HOW DID YOU KEEP COUNT?

Juliette Stray: In my head. I only had to remember one thing — a number. It’s not like it’s a big in-depth thought process.

SO YOU GOT IN THE BOX AND YOU WERE IN THE ZONE.

Juliette Stray: And the ghetto chicks would be like, “Oh my god, look at her. Did you see that? That’s disgusting.” I remember that — and that was hot. I know they didn’t say it for my benefit, but it was. They said it because they were genuinely disgusted.

THEY WERE JEALOUS.

Juliette Stray: No, they weren’t jealous, they were disgusted. It was so hot. I disgusted them. Then I started taking cum on the face and the hair and my body —

SIX HOURS?

Juliette Stray: Yeah — well, the club eventually closed at four in the morning. After I got all the cum on me, I remember stumbling out of the booth, and one of the guys who worked there just looked at me and said, “Oh my god! I never seen anything like this before!” He’s like, “Aren’t you worried?” I was like, “About what?” “Like, diseases.” “No. The rate of anything significant being transmitted orally is pretty insignificant.” I was cum drunk, too. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced a girl who’s cum drunk — where she’s just sucked so much dick that she’s intoxicated on it. It was so dark in there, and I couldn’t clean up very well. So I kind of used some of those cheap single-ply paper towels and just mopped up my face a little bit. I didn’t want to wipe because that would fuck up my makeup — even worse, I mean; it would be no good. I leave at about 4:30 in the morning and the bus comes around. I step onto the bus — and that’s the first time I saw myself in the light. I can see that my hair’s tangled and knotted and clumped. There were these giant streaks that I missed in the dark. It was still congealed on me because of the sheer volume, and I smelled because of the closed space on the bus. Everybody just scoots the fuck down. I sat down, and the bus was like dead silent, and the people were like staring —

HOW DID THEY KNOW WHAT YOU WERE COVERED IN?

Juliette Stray: It was clearly fucking cum. When I got home and saw myself in the mirror, I chortled fucking maniacally.

SO YOU DOUBLED YOUR SEX PARTNERS IN ONE NIGHT?

Juliette Stray: Oh, I doubled them.

YOU COULDN’T HAVE BROUGHT THEM ALL TO CLIMAX —

Juliette Stray: No, I’m counting the number of loads.

WOW.

Juliette Stray: I may have sucked more dicks — or less dicks if they were repeat customers. I don’t know. They all looked the same — like dicks in a hole.

SO IS THAT YOUR CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT?

Juliette Stray: That was a humiliation achievement. I was walking down the street with forty-seven loads of jizz on me, and then taking public transit. It was pretty humiliating.

THAT YOU DIDN’T GET A RIDE HOME?

Juliette Stray: They all left.

THERE’S PLENTY OF PUNCH LINES, IS ALL I’M SAYING. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE TO TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF?

Juliette Stray: I’m just obsessed with turning myself into a stereotypical blonde bimbo. It turns me on more than anything in the world and that’s all I want — I just want to be a plastic bimbo. I also like to be choked unconscious during sex — that should kill some brain cells. So eventually I’ll be completely stupid.

YOU ARE NOT DUMB.

Juliette Stray: I’m not dumb, I’m dumber. Oh no. I will always be an above-average intelligence. I’m dumber — and I think it’s a learned behavior, because people look at me and they expect less than when I was a thin, kinda-Dyke-y Goth. It just does more for me, and like explains things —

DO YOU MASTURBATE?

Juliette Stray: Yes.

DO YOU MASTURBATE MORE THAN BEFORE?

Juliette Stray: It depends on my sex drive. When I’m actively doing porn, I masturbate much less. I have to save my orgasms for film. When I’m out of porn, I masturbate several times a day because my sex drive has fucking skyrocketed. Maybe if you don’t have sex for a few months, then your desire for sex kinda tapers off, you know? Like you’re not as into it for awhile — and then when you have sex, it’s sex every day. So, when I’m shooting a lot, I masturbate tons and I want tons back.

DO YOU HAVE AN AGENT?

Juliette Stray: I’m signed with a company. There are no agents.

WHY IS THAT?

Juliette Stray: Market is too small to be even worth it — and everybody knows who the top TS girls are. There’s hundreds upon hundreds of genetic girls filming in the U.S. There’s maybe like twenty Trannies — maybe thirty at the most. When you film TS porn, you know who the girls are. There’s no new girl surprise just lurking —

DO YOU THINK THAT’S GOING TO CHANGE?

Juliette Stray: Not while I’m still hot. In the future — maybe twenty years — sure. While I’m still of a non-MILF age, no.

DO YOU VIEW YOURSELF AS UNIQUE OR UNUSUAL?

Juliette Stray: Everybody thinks they’re unique — but I have to say objectively that I’m pretty unusual. Like, I know a lot of girls who are into plastic surgery don’t emotionally fetishize it. I actively enjoy fakeness. I think it’s pretty hot. I know that’s fucking unusual.

ARE YOU GETTING MORE SURGERY?

Juliette Stray: No, I can’t afford it. If I could afford it, I would do a fucking lot more.

HOW MUCH MORE?

Juliette Stray: I want to do everything. Everything.

EVERYTHING?

Juliette Stray: Yeah.

SO WHAT’S YOUR PLAN FOR YOUR PACKAGE?

Juliette Stray: When I get bored a bit I’ll change it. Right now, I’m really comfortable with how I am — so I don’t really feel any pressing need to get a vagina. I’m not getting a vagina when I’m in porn — because you’re basically done with porn when you’re twenty-four, and I’m twenty-eight and it would be a second-hand vagina and everybody would know I’m a Tranny. So yeah, that’s like the end of my career, whether I like it or not.

SO YOU’RE SAVING THAT FOR—

Juliette Stray: I’m saving that for when I’m done with porn. I want to get a pussy. That would be cool — but I don’t have any problem with my dick. Plus, I just want a pussy so that I can fuck more people and wear sluttier clothes. I’d like a vagina, but there’s no pressing need. I wanted a pussy for other reasons before, but now I’m comfortable with my body to the extent where

I don’t feel that pressing urge. ~

Terre Thaemlitz

DJ & Producer

Photo courtesy of Terre Thaemlitz

GEORGE PETROS: I CAME TO KNOW YOU FROM YOUR WORK ON INSTINCT RECORDS. IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF AMBIENT MUSIC — VERY EXCITING TIMES. TELL US WHAT THAT MUSIC WAS, AND WHY, AND ALL THAT —

Terre Thaemlitz: My first album on Instinct, Tranquilizer, came out in ’94, the next one, Soil, in ’95. In 1993, there was New York’s first all-Ambient event called The Electric Lounge Machine. I’d DJ there. It was in the Meatpacking District, on 14th Street. That event, for me, was really special because it was an Ambient event that wasn’t strapped onto the Chill-Out room at a Techno party. Like at The Limelight and those events, I always felt they were really super-Straight, and the only women who were there were there with their boyfriends. It just wasn’t an interesting thing; none of that Techno stuff was interesting. ’93 was the breakpoint between Techno and House. You have this moment where they collided in New York. I think the epitome of all that was Moby’s Go EP. It’s the very first one. But then he came out with Go remixes and suddenly it was all very Limelight-style Techno.

I SEE —

Terre Thaemlitz: So that EP, for me, was the pinnacle of Deep House and Ambient — but not into this super-Techno sound. I really like that sort of stuff. The Electric Lounge Machine was the only place I’d ever DJed after being fired from Sally’s a few years before that.

SALLY’S WAS A TRANSGENDER CLUB, RIGHT?

Terre Thaemlitz: Yeah, it was basically like a Puerto Rican and African-American sex-worker type of club. It was on 43rd Street at The Carter Hotel. They had a big ballroom and some of the girls had rooms and they’d take their johns there and stuff like that. So, it was a lot of Straight clients — you know, Straight-identified guys — and a lot of working girls.

WHAT DID YOU SPIN THERE?

Terre Thaemlitz: I was playing Strictly Rhythm instrumental stuff, and early Emotive and Rhythm Beat and that sort of stuff. Basically instrumental, minor-label stuff mostly from New Jersey and the Lower East Side. This of course didn’t really go over so well. You know, people remember the scene and you see all these great documentaries with really great music. But it was really hard to find places where you could play a lot of instrumental House stuff. Everybody was into the wailing diva stuff. You had to mix that in a lot, which I didn’t like to do. That’s why I’d always get fired from places.

WHAT WERE YOU SPINNING AT THE ELECTRIC LOUNGE MACHINE?

Terre Thaemlitz: That was kinda an asexual party. It was really like a No Vibe thing. The best thing we could do at that party was to put people to sleep. So, whoever could put the most people to sleep during their DJ set was the best person that night. That was really kinda the big thing for me. You know, ’93-’95 — it was really about putting people to sleep. That was my goal.

LIVING UP TO THE NAME AMBIENT THERE —

Terre Thaemlitz: Yeah, yeah. You asked what it was about, and what it was about was trying to get away from spectacle-based music and, of course, as a scene it kind of backfired. It ended up with DJ Spooky as the superstar of the scene, or you had The Orb doing concerts with drummers and bassists. I mean, everything became about spectacle and identity and celebrity when, in fact, the thing that was interesting to me was the allure of doing something anti-spectacle and doing something that was very much about anonymity, and complicating the relationships between environmental and melodic sound. You know, trying to get away from the tyranny of music. It’s a conventional early-Brian Eno model of ambience filtered through Haruomi Hosono’s Globule manifesto. Eno’s concept was more Deep Modernist and based on a model of nausea and isolation, and then moving that into a dance-floor environment —

TELL US ABOUT HARUOMI HOSONO.

Terre Thaemlitz: He’s the founder of The Yellow Magic Orchestra. They were the classic Japanese Techno Pop band. They were really big in Japan but of course, filtered through the American Rock & Roll distribution system, they were totally bizarre and hard to find. He’s not at all Transgendered-identified but he would play with these images that were collages of his face with Fifties female movie stars and stuff. They were done in a way that was not about pleasing aesthetics — more a kind of chop-up model of Transgenderism, so I really liked it. I kinda modeled myself after him — his idea of producing in a lot of different genres, and each of these genres metaphorically relate to identity and so, the idea of producing in a lot of genres is a way of trying to critique, and step away from, the model of the singular-artist identity. Getting away from that, and reducing music to a series of procedures that have social functions, rather than this from-the-heart thing.

INTERESTING. REGARDING PUTTING PEOPLE TO SLEEP — WHAT WOULD YOU PLAY?

Terre Thaemlitz: The Ambient style at that time was really, really conventional and traditional in that it took Muzak and Jazz and sound-effects records and weird electronic records and Industrial Ambient and soundscapes and anything that was a relaxing quiet sound but not trying to be New Age-y or anything like that. It was like layering. We would have three or four turntables going at once. Repeating them over and over — and kinda creating loops on turntables.

INTERESTING —

Terre Thaemlitz: There were really a lot of men in the scene. There were very few women DJing. It was very much a boy kind of thing — but it wasn’t this hard Techno Straight scene. People were a little bit older.

HOW ABOUT THE TERM “ANDROGYNY” AS IT APPLIES TO THESE CLUB SCENES —

Terre Thaemlitz: Yeah, I think it was Androgynous, but in the way which Androgyny falls towards the male Heterosexual normative. It wasn’t a blatant Androgyny that then became something that sets gender and sexuality into question. It was more the kind of conventional neutrality under a Hetero-normative system. So, in terms of sexuality, there weren’t interesting things going on at the events themselves but I think that the idea of trying to get away from the object of music, and the melody, and getting towards more vague open models for sound, was a metaphor for more open models of identity — which included models for gender and sexuality.

WERE YOU A TRANSGENDERED PERSON BACK THEN?

Terre Thaemlitz: Yeah, but for me Transgendered doesn’t mean dressing in Drag all the time. I was identifying as Transgendered at that point. Before that I had identified as Queer in sexual terms. If I had to identify, I’d identify as Transgendered rather than male but yeah, back in the Nineties, by the time I was at Sally’s, I was identifying as Transgendered. The scene at Sally’s was dominated by Transsexuals. For a person like myself, who is not interested in surgery or hormone therapy, there was a lot of pressure to dress and look a certain style that I just couldn’t. So, I don’t think most of the people at Sally’s even knew that I was Transgendered-identified at that time. I was in the closet to the Transsexuals at Sally’s and while working my day job as a secretary, I was closeted in the more conventional way of putting on a suit and tie to look like a proper gentleman or whatever. So I had these dual closets and didn’t feel comfortable in any space, really. But for me that’s what I think Transgenderism is really about in the end — Transgenderism being the larger umbrella category, and Transsexuality is one segment of Transgenderism.

YOU’VE SAID THERE WAS PRESSURE FROM THE PEOPLE WHO UNDERWENT HORMONAL OR SURGICAL ALTERATIONS —

Terre Thaemlitz: Yeah — There’s a hierarchy within Transgendered communities and Transsexuals clearly reign at the top, and messy homemade Drag Queens ranking at the bottom. I was someone who could be more in the middle — my style of Drag was not trying to be spectacular at all. I was just trying to pass in a normal way, be kind of invisible. Back then, I was not being campy, not being glammy or whatever. That was also an extension of how I approached music. Putting people to sleep, rather than entertaining them and trying to get them energized. When I went out dressed as a woman, I was in my twenties and I was more able to pass, as long as I didn’t speak and people didn’t hear my voice, and I would basically go somewhere and lurk. Rather than trying to get attention, I’d try to be kind of quote-unquote normal.

INNOCUOUS, PERHAPS?

Terre Thaemlitz: Yeah, just going somewhere and getting a drink, standing in the corner even when I dressed in male clothing. I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t do drugs and that sort of stuff. So I didn’t have this social entry into the scene that other people did and I didn’t have the relaxants or whatever. So, I was always taking everything in a very sober and anti-transcendental way, from the Marxist perspective.

WERE YOU LOOKING FOR LOVERS OR WERE YOU JUST THERE TO HANG OUT?

Terre Thaemlitz: Kinda both, but not really. I never had pick-up skills or luck with dating or anything like that. I wasn’t into the whole cruise scene. I also have problems with male aggression in the Gay cruise scene. So it was kinda complicated in that sense. And then, of course, the way people fetishize you if you’re dressed in Drag — they suddenly think it’s all about some sort of kinky pleasure. For me, clothes — whether I’m dressed as a man or woman — are totally oppressive. They’re totally not fun at all. It’s not like I got dressed up and felt sexy and felt good. Not at all. The same way that when I dressed as a man — I feel that both of these gender patterns around clothing are equally oppressive and ascribe to the same systems of patriarchy. I don’t find liberation anywhere within that system.

I SEE.

Terre Thaemlitz: So of course, when people see you in a dress, they change the way they talk to you. “Oh, girl, you look fabulous,” and all this sort of stuff. It really becomes about their performance around the person in Drag, rather than their trying to connect in any serious way to someone who happens to be Transgender. I think that’s one thing that pushes people to try and look for resolution through physical therapy. You know, hormones and surgery and stuff. In a way, it’s like trying to take things to the next level so that you’re no longer treated as a fetishist freak or whatever. I can sympathize with that.

DID YOU EVER CONSIDER HORMONES?

Terre Thaemlitz: I did, but it’s never been something that I’ve had the finances to think about seriously. I’ve never even had the finances to do something like hair removal, you know? The processes and models of beauty are not really things that are meant to sustain one through a lifetime. So I was very concerned about, how can one possibly maintain the image they feel comfortable with throughout a life where our bodies are constantly changing? While at Sally’s I worked with some older first-wave Transsexuals in their sixties and seventies, so I also had that experience of seeing the effects of time on the Transsexual body. Of course, you also have to think about the effects of hormones on the body and the side effects and all this sort of stuff. For me, economics, aesthetics, technology and risks outweighed the physical discomfort of being as I am.

WHERE WAS THE TECHNOLOGY THEN, IN RELATION TO WHERE IT IS NOW?

Terre Thaemlitz: It seems that access is a lot better now in terms of people simply having more options on how to get hormones and treatment. Also, regarding surgery, the aesthetics around how the procedures are performed and also the quality and safety of the implants seems to be improving. A lot more attention is being given to F-to-M procedures than in the past, when everything was only M-to-F. You’ll find other people who will be much more able to talk to you about stuff in technical detail. Because it’s still not an option for me, both in terms of choice and economics.

GOTCHA.

Terre Thaemlitz: I don’t want to preoccupy myself with something that’s not gonna happen.

I SEE. IN THE PERFECT WORLD THAT YOU ENVISION, WHAT WOULD YOU BE IN RELATION TO WHAT YOU ARE NOW? WOULD YOU BE THE FEMALE VERSION OF YOURSELF?

Terre Thaemlitz: It’s less about what I would be, and more about who society would let me be. I think that the way in which patriarchies around the world — and I’m saying patriarchies with an “s” because there are very different types of patriarchy — the dominance of patriarchies around the world totally dominate everyone’s sexuality, gender relations and interactions on so many different levels that for me, it’s not really an issue about individual choice, about how does one person become something. For me, it’s more about the process of, how do we un-become? How do we distance ourselves from the patterns of domination that are indoctrinated into us from a very early age? Depending on what toys you’re given — and then if you actually choose to play with the toys that are appropriate for your gender or not, appropriate clothes, and people’s reactions to that — how you either change to conform to what people expect or you resist them, and why you resist them and do the opposite. And usually what you end up doing is the opposite, as opposed to something that’s more complex and interesting.

I THINK THIS IS THE LIMITATION TO MOST TRANSGENDERISM — IT’S KIND OF PREOCCUPIED WITH PATTERNS. ONE OF THE GREAT PROBLEMS WITH TRANSGENDERISM IS THAT IT SHOWS HOW WE AS PEOPLE LACK IN IMAGINATION.

Terre Thaemlitz: The patterns that have a tendency to dominate Transgendered communities still tend to be the conventional patterns that dominate society in general. It’s just a different relationship between the body and power. People tend to forget that Transgender people, as with Lesbians and Gays, have no more imagination than anyone else.

A MATRIARCHY REPLACING A PATRIARCHY, FOR EXAMPLE, WOULD SIMPLY POSE A SIMILAR SET OF RESTRICTIONS, I WOULD IMAGINE. SO, IS THERE AN ACCEPTABLE BLEND —

Terre Thaemlitz: We don’t live in a world where we can switch things. I don’t think we have enough experience with matriarchy to know what would happen. Of course, I’m not talking about inversions of power — especially ones that revolve around preserving a kind of binarism of male and female genders. Although most people tend to fall biologically closer to what we would identify as male or female, there are a lot of cases in-between, both physically and psychologically. We have a lot of pressure to push ourselves to either be Black or White, male or female — of course I’m also talking about traditionally male- and female-identified people, people who feel they are biologically male or female. I still think a lot of bodies fall into gray areas, you know? Then it becomes, how do you actually define a male body or a female body?

ONCE YOU DEFINE IT YOU CAN ALWAYS FIND SOMEONE MORE MASCULINE OR MORE FEMININE, MORE MALE AND MORE FEMALE. SO, ALL OF THESE GENDER THINGS FALL APART IN THE END.

Terre Thaemlitz: I’m not interested in hypothesizing a matriarchy or talking about, like, “Oh, wouldn’t that be liberating?” That’s why I’m not interested in answering directly your question about ideally what would happen. Ideals and dreams are so poisoned and polluted — I wish to escape the dominations. It makes no sense to talk about it because once contexts do change, then of course the dreams themselves change and no longer become desirable. So, for me, that sort of talk doesn’t amount to anything in a strategic way, in political terms. The yes-we-can attitude is totally pointless in the end because it’s diverting attention away from addressing — with urgency — what can no longer be tolerated today. Instead, it puts all that energy into, “What would we like to happen? Where do we want to see ourselves go?” It all enters into a fantasy that is polluted by the oppression of the moment. You lose sight of your own context when you start focusing on those ideals of where you want to see yourself going. I have that attitude where I prefer to not focus on ideas of physical transitioning — it’s hardship rooted in one’s oppression. If there are other ways for me to mediate my existence without having to undergo the life-long regimens those systems currently require — I think maybe it affords me other options. All my money isn’t going into treatment.

WHAT’S YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER TRANSGENDERED FOLKS?

Terre Thaemlitz: The Transsexual people that I’ve known mostly have been male-to-female. In the end, they always talk about how I should start taking hormones — and when I explain that I’m not interested in that they’d say, “Oh well, give yourself two years —” or “Wait five years” or whatever, you know? It’s like they can’t believe it, you know? In a way, it kind of makes you incomplete, from the Transsexual perspective, if you refuse treatment. It’s kind of like being sexually Queer, rather than Gay. You have the Gay men who will tell you you’re still in the closet because you’re fucking women and you have the women who are saying, “Oh look, you’re a fag. Get away from me!” People find it difficult to accept those who don’t conform to their own identity system, especially when you live under an identity system that requires so much energy and effort to become something. Then it becomes hard to imagine others who wouldn’t need to do the same.

I SEE.

Terre Thaemlitz: That’s why the Transsexual community often looks with a lot of suspicion at other types of Transgendered people. Of course, I can understand why they might resent the fetishism and campy S&M fetish image, and people just kind of joking around and being into costume play or something like that. I hate that, too. I guess a lot of the people that I’ve gotten along with the best have been Intersex people.

TELL US ABOUT THEM.

Terre Thaemlitz: Unlike Transsexuals, the Intersex people I’ve met don’t have expectations and hopes rooted in the medical industry. They’re much more skeptical of the industry, especially when you’re talking to people who have been mutilated at birth. Of course, that sets up a lot of skepticism towards the medical industry. I have to say, I lean on that side. I feel that the aesthetics of it — about how to develop the body as a Transsexual — are very much about helping people to conform to a particular model of Hetero-sexist beauty standards. For me, that’s a problem and I know it’s a problem for a lot of Transgendered people too, even for a lot of Transsexuals. I’ve never met a Transsexual person who truly believed they were becoming a man or becoming a woman except in terms of appearance and passability. It’s difficult to discuss these things without using generalizing language — I want to be clear that I’m not lumping all Transsexuals into one group.

BUT REGARDING INTERSEX INDIVIDUALS —

Terre Thaemlitz: Okay, I was talking about Intersex people, like being born with ambiguous or multiple genitals, and often having some sort of medical experience in their youth. Often very soon after birth, or at a young age, going through operations and usually being told they have cancer or something, when in fact the doctors are removing ovaries or undescended testicles or something like that. So, Intersex people of course have very complicated relationships with the medical industry and the ones that I met don’t trust the industry. Whereas most Transsexuals tend to look towards the medical industry as a place to find a resolution to a gender crisis. I’ve also met some people who stopped halfway.

INTERESTING.

Terre Thaemlitz: For example, I knew someone who was a man who just did the facial feminization procedure, because men tend to have a kind of more protruded eyebrow bone. So they kind of shave the skull over the eyes and then usually put in chin and cheek implants, or something to make the face look more feminine by conventional standards. Usually you’re taking hormones and maybe doing facial feminization, then maybe you do breasts and finally maybe you then do your genitals. So, it’s kinda like a step-by-step procedure. People who stop after the facial feminization look clearly Androgynous. The person I knew felt that the orientation of the medical industry pushes towards a very particular model of physical appearance, the destination of which she was not happy with — of course the medical procedures are about helping people conform to a quote-unquote normal life. The main reason she stopped was that she felt that the social systems around the body she was transitioning into still didn’t make her feel comfortable and didn’t resolve her initial discomfort with her body. She felt like, in a way, to un-become male or female was more helpful than to un-become one and become the other, in terms of appearance. I want to be very clear that when I’m talking about these things, I’m not trying to generalize the experiences of all Intersex people, of all Transsexuals, of all the different types of Transgendered people. I’m just talking based on the limited interactions and experiences that I, as a Transgendered-identified person, have had.

WELL, THAT’S JUST WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR HERE — YOUR PERSPECTIVE.

Terre Thaemlitz: Back to Intersexuality — I do think most people who had medical procedures performed on them in childhood and infancy would have preferred to have had the option of seeing what their bodies might have become otherwise.

ARE THEY ESSENTIALLY MUTILATED FROM THESE SURGERIES?

Terre Thaemlitz: In private ways. This is the kind of thing that would come out and interfere with developing interpersonal relationships. It doesn’t necessarily mean something that would be obvious to a person walking down the street —

BUT A LOVER OR A POTENTIAL LOVER WOULD KNOW RIGHT AWAY —

Terre Thaemlitz: If so, then it suddenly becomes very complicated. Because usually Intersex people are encouraged by their parents and by the medical industry and education systems to either play the role of a boy or a girl, right?

RIGHT.

Terre Thaemlitz: So, depending on whether they, as adults, decided to embrace or reject that conditioning — that would affect how they would interact with other people. I think within the Lesbian and Gay community there is a bit more openness about it. Especially within the Lesbian community, I think. There’s much more flexibility around concepts of sexuality in the Lesbian culture than there is in the Gay male culture, I find.

IS THAT SO?

Terre Thaemlitz: I think that playing on a kind of feminine ambiguity that also at times can be masculine tends to be where most of the Intersex people that I meet fall into. That had to do with where they felt more accepted in terms of the other people around them. Obviously if you’re Intersex, it’s a very rare situation and outside of support groups or things like that, it’s not very likely you’re going to run into other people with the same identity and even if they are Intersex, it can be a completely different condition. So, it creates a different type of solidarity.

HOW IS IT DIFFERENT?

Terre Thaemlitz: When you’re talking about identity politics and communities that revolve around gender identity, you’re usually talking about people rallying around a target body or a target series of actions et cetera. So, for example, within the Transsexual community, there are particular types of bodies that are determined by the limited number of procedures available. Even though procedures are more numerous today than they were before, still they’re very limited in terms of outcome — but people are moving more towards a body-commonality. It’s the same thing as people just coming together as members of a certain community — whatever. I mean together around a singularity. Women Power. Black Power. Gay Power. But within the Intersex community, many of them have different physical conditions — so even when you get many Intersex people together in one room, it’s a gathering that’s not rooted in a commonality of body or a kind of coming together. If there is any sort of connection, it’s around the inability to identify sameness. It’s a connection of experience around the body, and not a connection focusing on the body itself.

NOW, THIS IS A RARE GROUP THAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT HERE —

Terre Thaemlitz: Yeah. Some support groups are really organized against the medical industry, where others are actually facilitated through the medical industry.

Cover Photo: Bart Nagel

ON A DIFFERENT NOTE — TELL US ABOUT THAT COVER SHOT OF YOU ON THE WIRE.

Terre Thaemlitz: Well, what happened was, they finished the photo shoot and I was dressed up. We’d spent the day doing kind of campy pictures. I wasn’t really comfortable with it because, for me, the experience of being Transgendered and being Queer is very much about violence and bashing and closets and traumas and all this non-celebratory stuff. So, I was taking off my makeup and at a point when I looked kind of battered I came out and said, “Start taking my pictures now.” So he did some facial close-ups and then we did that one on the bed. He posed me like that. I thought it was too Rock & Roll for my taste, definitely. We also did one in which I was wrapped in plastic and dumped at the roadside ]as a corpse or something.

SOUNDS LIKE QUITE A SHOOT.

Terre Thaemlitz: We have these pressures — how to perform and how to be represented. It’s not like the photographer was trying to do something and I was so unwilling to cooperate. I’m trying to help them do their job and they’re trying to show me in the best light they can, from their perspective. There are always these kinds of pressures to perform in a certain way, around what the dominant model of Transgenderism is. What does it mean for a man to put on a woman’s clothes? — and that sort of thing. And basically, if you’re not Transsexual, that’s all you are, you’re either a man in woman’s clothes or a woman in man’s clothes.

BACK TO SQUARE ONE.

Terre Thaemlitz: I think people usually lean towards conventional models, where it becomes very much about parody. So, the typical behavior that one imagines for a Drag Queen, for example, is being campy, loud, outrageous and kind of flaming. If you think about the typical behavior of a woman who’s cross-dressing as a man, like a Drag King, then typically you’re going to imagine somebody who’s trying to be a little bit street butch and macho, aggressive, lowering their voice — So, we have these expectations of how people should perform before we even meet them, right? Whether you’re in Transgender communities or not, we have these sorts of images. I think it’s usually seen as a kind of parody of true gender, and that’s also part of the humor of it and part of the way for people to deal with it, too. If you can reduce everything to a bad joke, then you don’t actually have to worry about it becoming a serious critique of anything. So humor makes life easier for Transgendered people, as well as the people around them. Everybody laughing together, rather than some laughing at one. That also eases tension and minimizes risks of violence. If you’re playing the role as expected — there’s enough risk already, you know?

COULD YOU TELL OUR READERS ABOUT THAT RISK?

Terre Thaemlitz: They can find out for themselves just by going to a store and trying on clothes for the opposite gender. I really think that once a year, everybody should be required to cross-dress — and not as a Christopher Street parade-type of festival day, but I mean in ordinary life. They should have to go to work. They should have to go out and buy groceries. They should have to go to the bank. They should have to interact with people at restaurants. You know, do everything that they would normally do, but cross-dressed. I think that’s the only way to understand some of the challenges faced by Transgendered people. But a lot of the way people treat you differently happens before you even reach a Transgendered or Queer identity. I mean, people tend to be zeroed out and bashed in elementary school. For me that was certainly the case — being picked out and Gay-bashed and fag-bashed, being the girly boy and all this stuff at a time way before I had any sense of my own sexuality. That’s why my model of sexuality is so critical of both Heterosexuality and Gay and Lesbianism — because I really see them as part of the Heterosexual and Homosexual binarism, and not something natural. It’s a very constructed paradigm for me, and Gay Pride is not actually about a more open model of sexuality. Really, I think all sexuality boils down to people wanting to touch warm wet places. I don’t really think the body is so discriminating. But of course from a very early age we’re conditioned into certain things and we also have experiences with people of different genders that create biases and traumas in our ability to feel comfortable or uncomfortable around them. So all these things play into sexuality.

DO YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS AFFECT YOUR CHOICE OF LOVERS?

Terre Thaemlitz: Yeah, I think absolutely. Basically I’m someone who, if I have to identify my sexuality, I’ll identify as pansexually Queer — and that’s a kind of resistance to both Heterosexual and Homosexual identification systems. Certainly, having a youth spent with a lot of aggression and violence coming from boys and men affected my ability to trust and be intimate and close to men. So, my sexual-object choices tend to go towards the feminine, the Androgynous and women, you know? So then, because I have a cock, people say, “Oh, you’re Straight” — but that’s actually not Straight. If you go out with Heterosexual women and they find out that you’re Transgender-identified — or if you say you don’t identify as Heterosexual — then right there you’re instantly not Heterosexual anymore and open to rejection and bashing. Many women carry a trauma about “fucking Gay men,” or “finding out their boyfriend is Gay,” although you would think accomplishing the sex act itself would deconstruct those categories and betrayals. It absolutely does not — inexplicably, to me. For me, sexual identities really come out of life experience, and not orientation from birth. I don’t feel anything within me springing from a natural well. I feel like my experiences with being bashed and stuff have de-essentialized my sexuality and my gender at the same time those identities were being constructed. I felt that I was forced to become something before I’d reached an age where these were questions one would actually want to make decisions about. It was only violence that snapped me out of the trance, you could say. And that’s nothing to romanticize or turn one into a hero. It didn’t build character. It destroyed it, for sure — although it may appear otherwise.

HOW WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT IF THE WORLD STEPPED BACK AND SAID, “TERRE, WE’RE ANXIOUS FOR YOU TO DO YOUR THING — ”?

Terre Thaemlitz: I don’t think that’s a possibility, at all, in any context or time. So, for me then, the question is again, not about trying to think about what one might become. It makes no sense to ponder that. It’s more interesting and important and urgent to think about the disastrous things that happened in real life, that actually transform and affect how we are, rather than to fantasize. What we desire or are capable of envisioning is always rooted in our experience and how we filter and imagine the world around us, as it’s been absorbed both through cultural conditioning and subjective adaptation. Obviously my views and my approach towards things are very affected by Western analytical methods, also very affected by American ideals around models of democracy. Even if I am very critical of, and rejecting, a lot of those ideals. Even when we reject things, we’re operating in relation to them. So, the monk who isolates himself in a cave is still spending every day in reaction to what he left behind. I think this is also something that follows Transgendered and Transsexual people through our lives. It’s also why I try not to buy into — both literally, in terms of money, and ideologically — to buy into these systems to a degree that I have to have faith in them, that I have to have belief that they’re actually something that will help me. In the end, I prefer to have a critical perspective on everything, rather than to allow myself to be duped in any way. I’m duped anyway. It’s just about damage control. ~

About The Author

George Petros

Photo: Deanna M. Lehman

From ’84 through ’94 I put out EXIT Magazine. From ’90 through ’00 I edited and art-directed Seconds Magazine. From ’00 through ’05 I was a contributing editor of Juxtapoz and the senior editor of Propaganda. From ’08 to ’10 I was a contributing editor of ArtSync. My work appeared on DEVO album covers and in Thrasher, Paper, Screw, Apocalypse Culture 2 and Lollygag. I edited Steven Blush’s American Hardcore: A Tribal History on Feral House and Les Barany’s Carnivora: The Dark Art Of The Automobile on Barany Books. I compiled and produced Cleopatra Records’ Goth/Industrial comp Black Sunshine: The Tampa Underground & Beyond, and a collection of druggy Pop songs reinterpreted by Easy Listening and Jazz artists circa ’66 through ’71, Easy Listening Acid Trip, which can be heard on my website. And, you’ll find me credited with “album concept, ideas and inspiration” on Wendy Carlos’ Tales Of Heaven & Hell Featuring A Clockwork Black (ESD). My other books are: Exploding Hearts Exploding Stars (Norman Gosney Publications, 1992), The EXIT Collection (Tacit, 1998), .45 Dangerous Minds: The Most Intense Interviews from Seconds Magazine (with Steven Blush) (Creation, 2003), and Art That Kills: A Panoramic Portrait Of Aesthetic Terrorism 1984-2001 (Creation, 2006).

“George Petros’ drawings are spirit and express much to me.” — Charles Manson

Other books by George Petros

Exploding Hearts, Exploding Stars

The EXIT Collection

.45 Dangerous Minds:

The Most Intense Interviews from Seconds Magazine (with Steven Blush)

Art That Kills:

A Panoramic Portrait of Aesthetic Terrorism, 1984-2001