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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Mary Foltz
Interviewee
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Ricardo Almodovar
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-25.xml
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5.4 January 10, 2022 Ricardo Almodovar, January 10, 2022 LGBT-25 1:22:12 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Ricardo Almodovar Mary Foltz video/mp4 Almodovar, Ricardo_2-10-22_1080HD.mp4 1.0:|19(9)|54(5)|71(7)|90(2)|115(4)|136(3)|155(17)|182(2)|203(5)|224(16)|249(4)|274(3)|297(6)|314(11)|333(8)|350(10)|369(9)|390(2)|407(5)|420(14)|443(5)|466(3)|487(12)|508(7)|529(2)|548(8)|569(8)|588(3)|611(5)|628(3)|645(10)|666(10)|687(14)|708(9)|731(10)|748(4)|765(12)|784(4)|803(11)|828(7)|851(11)|874(6)|897(2)|918(11)|941(4)|960(3)|985(11)|1008(14)|1031(4)|1052(10)|1073(12)|1098(11)|1123(6)|1142(3)|1159(13)|1180(15)|1201(7)|1222(12)|1243(11)|1264(15)|1283(11)|1306(6)|1327(4)|1350(2)|1367(6)|1386(5)|1405(11)|1426(8)|1445(6)|1468(9)|1487(11)|1510(15)|1531(3)|1554(4)|1575(9)|1600(6)|1623(3)|1642(9)|1667(5)|1690(9)|1697(10) 0 https://youtu.be/KgBfv3rMj90 YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions 
 ; MARY FOLTZ: I am going to hit record. My name is Mary Foltz, and I’m here with Ricardo Almodovar about his life and experience in LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley and beyond. This interview is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding currently from ACLS, and we are meeting today at Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College on February 10, 2022. So Ricardo, thank you so much for being here with me today.
 ; 
 ; RICARDO ALMODOVAR: Thanks for having me. 0 120 Early Childhood / Family Life MF: Great. Okay, we’ve got the business out of the way, so I’m going to start our interview with this question. Will you tell me a little bit about your childhood?
 ; 
 ; RA: Yeah, sure. So I come from a relatively big family, with a Puerto Rican background. My parents moved to Lancaster in the mid-80s. I was born and raised in Lancaster, and I have four brothers. So my mom was in charge of taking care of the household and, at the time, four rambunctious boys. And so I grew up in the city, and it was more of an urban POC working-class community. 0 408 Time at Millersville / Impact of Music
 ; RA: So after I graduated high school, I actually took two years off and started to work. Built some work experience, made some connections, but then after two years and the lack of upward social mobility and living paycheck to paycheck, I was like, “I need to go back to school. I need to do something with my life.” And so I started off at Harrisburg Area Community College, where I earned my associate degree in social science. I continued and transferred to Millersville University and earned my bachelor’s degree as a dual major in international studies and Spanish language. 0 657 Working with Make the Road PA RA: So after college, after graduating from Millersville University in 2016, I moved to the Lehigh Valley. I obtained my first job fresh out of college, and I worked for Make the Road Pennsylvania. I was able to start their base with our director and several other folks, and we finally opened an office in the Lehigh Valley, in August of 2017, I believe. But we were sharing offices with SCIU prior to that, which is one of our strongest partners. SCIU is Service Employees International Union. Healthcare PA. 0 938 Other Activism RA: And I’ve learned throughout the years that systemic oppression requires systemic change, and we want to organize and mobilize community members to talk to their legislators to push for policies that will benefit us all, particularly around immigration. Particularly around, you know, environmental justice. And, you know, events, for instance -- and that’s evidence that some of the events that we’ve organized -- I remember, and I’ve been arrested a few times, I remember the first time I got arrested was right after the 2020 elections, right before Trump was inaugurated, we wanted to push Tom Wolf to close down Berks Detention Center, which incarcerates families, including children -- immigrant families, including children, and in Leesport, our neighboring county, in Berks, right, and so we took over the intersection, literally in front of the Capitol Building in Harrisburg. 0 1511 Creation of Amor y Rabìa RA: And so almost everyone we talked to were on board, and so within an hour, hour and a half, we were able to collect contact information for about 80 people with a team of about nine or ten of us, simply just having conversations with folks at a gay bar. (laughs) And so then as the organizer, I followed up with every single one of them using our Google forms, which is an important tool that we use, and we collected their phone number, and I was able to -- and their email, and I was able to make phone calls and texts and sent out emails and inviting them to our very first committee in 2018 I believe it was. And so at our first committee, we didn’t even have the name of it, for Make the Road, or the name of the -- we didn’t have an official title for the committee itself under Make the Road. 0 1917 Working with CASA Pennsylvania RA: So in 2019 I came across an opportunity to work for CASA Pennsylvania, and both CASA Pennsylvania and Make the Road Pennsylvania are partner organizations, and they do a lot of social justice work and Latinx immigrant and Spanish-speaking communities in Allentown, Reading, Philadelphia -- or, rather, make the Road is in Allentown, Reading, and Philadelphia, whereas CASA Pennsylvania is based in Harrisburg, Lancaster, York, Lebanon, and Chester Counties. Another thing that CASA does in addition to community organizing and social justice work, because they provide services like green card renewals, DACA renewals, civic engagement work, and even tax prep. 0 2161 Democratic National Committee Fellowship / Organizing for the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center RA: And so after community organizing for years and years, through Make the Road Pennsylvania and CASA Pennsylvania, I felt I needed a break. And so I took a few months to just breathe, to recoup, and I decided -- or, rather, an opportunity came up to continue my organizing work digitally, and so the Democratic National Committee was recruiting digital organizing fellows for about a five- or six-month fellowship program. I was like, you know what, that seems interesting. I don’t have to be there permanently, and who knows who I might be able to meet, and so I was able to spread the word regarding government and politics through the Democratic Party and working with the state Democratic Party and the county and the city of Lancaster, and meeting some of the political operatives in Lancaster and throughout the state. 0 2731 Campus Vote Project RA: And I started up, or I completed my contract with PBPC in July of 2021, and so at this point, what, six, seven months ago, and I started my new role as the Pennsylvania state coordinator for the Campus Vote Project in August. And if you’re unfamiliar with the Campus Vote Project, it was created in 2012, actually we’re celebrating our ten-year anniversary literally last week. And it’s under the Fair Elections Center. And the Fair Elections Center is a national network of legal experts focused on litigation, voting reform, and advocacy. 0 3148 Nonprofit Work RA: So my background is community organizing, civic engagement, and public policy work. So by day, as I mentioned, I am the Pennsylvania state coordinator for the Campus Vote Project, and we work to remove barriers to voting on campuses in Pennsylvania and across the country. And at night, I serve on a number of nonprofit boards. 
 ; 0 3520 LGBTQIA Activism MF: You talked a lot about all of the organizing work you’ve done. Organizing around immigration policy. Organizing in Allentown and Lancaster for LGBTQ+ communities. All the boards that you’re on. I’m wondering about a kind of personal history question, which is, when did you want to become active on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community? Did that start in college, did it start in high school? When did you decide that was something that you wanted to do, was organizing? 0 3758 Political Motivations MF: Do you have a sense of why you’ve been so interested in political organizing, both for LGBTQ communities, but also organizing for greater access to voting, to strengthen our democracy, to get people to participate in democracy, to be aware of immigration policy that’s impacting our communities? Do you know where that drive comes from? Were politics a big thing in your family? Were politics just something that you thought, this is where I want to put my energy for social change? 0 4048 Cultural Motivations/Passions MF: You’ve talked a lot about politics and your organizing work in both Lancaster and Allentown. I think people that listen to our oral history project in the future might be interested also about the culture. 
 ; 0 4366 Connection to Religion MF: You just mentioned two topics I wanted to follow up on. You know, healing and faith communities, and conversations with our families about who we are and our authentic selves. Have you personally had challenges within a faith community, or personally you had stories about coming out to family members that you wanted to share today? 0 4718 Closing Remarks MF: We’re about towards the end of our time, but before we conclude, I just want to give you some space. Is there anything you wanted to share today that you didn’t get a chance to share? Anything that you think, oh, I wish I would have talked about this? 0 MovingImage Ricardo Almodovar describes his early life, activist work, the creation of Amor y Rabia, and his multitude of passions. MARY FOLTZ: I am going to hit record. My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Ricardo Almodovar about his life and experience in LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley and beyond. This interview is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding currently from ACLS, and we are meeting today at Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College on February 10, 2022. So Ricardo, thank you so much for being here with me today. RICARDO ALMODOVAR: Thanks for having me. MF: And I want to start by asking you, could you please state your full name and spell it for me? RA: Yeah. My name is Ricardo Almodovar, R-I-C-A-R-D-O A-L-M-O-D-O-V-A-R. MF: Thank you. And will you please share your birthdate? RA: Yeah. My birthday is November 15, 1989. MF: And before we started this interview, you signed a consent form, but I just want to review the consent questions. Do you consent to this interview today? RA: Yes. MF: Do you consent to having this interview transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable format? RA: Yes. MF: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats? That could be websites, articles, films, presentations? RA: Yes. MF: And do you understand that you will have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review the interview, to identify parts that you want to delete, or you could withdraw the full interview from the project. RA: Yes. MF: Great. Okay, we've got the business out of the way, so I'm going to start our interview with this question. Will you tell me a little bit about your childhood? RA: Yeah, sure. So I come from a relatively big family, with a Puerto Rican background. My parents moved to Lancaster in the mid-80s. I was born and raised in Lancaster, and I have four brothers. So my mom was in charge of taking care of the household and, at the time, four rambunctious boys. And so I grew up in the city, and it was more of an urban POC working-class community. I was always, you know, curious -- a curious child. And I first came into contact with, I guess, the outside world, or with people that think differently than me when I joined our concert band. And so I built a strong relationship with our director and learned to play not just one but several instruments, but I initially started out with the trombone. And so that's what kind of started my, I guess, engagement in community beyond just my academic life, and beyond what I had to deal with at home. So yeah, I joined the concert band in elementary school in fourth grade. I picked up the trombone and my director, or the band director, was confident that I would, you know, be a great performer, so she signed me up to play my first solo ever, and I did. And that really impacted my life in a way that I never thought would. And so it made me want to dig deeper into the music field and, granted, I'm no musician. I still perform to this day, interestingly enough, and I'll talk about that a little later. But it's what opened me up to meet more people, gain different perspectives in life, and open my eyes to a whole different world. Music, if you think about it, is almost like a whole other language, and being able to exercise that part of my brain and that part of my mind and making these connections helped me further on in my life. So I come from very humble beginnings. My parents moved, like I said, to Puerto Rico in the mid-80s, and we bounced around from apartment to house and back again. My very first year of life, actually lived in a shelter, and I'm a product of the social services and public school system in Lancaster. Who knows where I would be or where my family would be were those services not provided or that support system not present. And so I always keep that in the back of my mind when I'm doing this work or when I'm doing any work, really, in general. And I share that because you never know what's going to happen in your life, and despite some hardship, that there are ways to move forward in your life. And so I went to multiple middle schools, multiple elementary schools, in my early life, and that's how I was able to make connections and meet people, and I still have some of those connections to this day. And I come from a very close-knit family as well. We still have strong relationships, not just with my siblings, not just with my brothers, but also with our greater extended family -- aunts, uncles, my dad has 14 siblings, my mom has four. So my family, most of them live in Lancaster. Some of them live on the island, but we have family members from all over the U.S. But after graduation, or rather, continuing my studies in the school district of Lancaster, I felt like I needed to do something with my life. I knew college was calling me, but I didn't know how that would look like. So after I graduated high school, I actually took two years off and started to work. Built some work experience, made some connections, but then after two years and the lack of upward social mobility and living paycheck to paycheck, I was like, "I need to go back to school. I need to do something with my life." And so I started off at Harrisburg Area Community College, where I earned my associate degree in social science. I continued and transferred to Millersville University and earned my bachelor's degree as a dual major in international studies and Spanish language. But throughout my college career, I joined so many organizations, from the environmental science club, the student government organization, CALOR which is our Latinx student group on campus. But all of that, I guess, originated from my involvement even in, you know, elementary school, middle school, and high school, being part of so many music groups. Anything band-related, you name it, I did it, I'm a band geek. A proud band geek. I played in the concert band, jazz band, wind ensemble, pit orchestra, county band. But I think what impacted me the most, or what I enjoyed the most, is our marching band. And so I enjoy marching down parades. I enjoy halftime shows during football games. And sadly, you know, marching band in college was too much of a commitment for me at the time, working two, sometimes three jobs just to support myself. I decided I wanted to continue my music ambition, and so instead of joining Millersville's marching band, I joined the New York City's Lesbian and Gay Big Apple Corps Marching Band. And we performed for gay pride parades all over the east coast, and I made so many connections with folks, not just in New York City, but the general area. We performed for Capital Pride in D.C., Providence Pride in Rhode Island, which is the only one at night. We have neon lights and glow lights and all of the things. It's so much fun. But I think, you know, music has played a huge part in my life, and in my career, and I'm glad that I'm still able to continue that, even, you know, despite my busy schedule. Pride month, as you all know, is June, right? [laughs] So June is a very busy month for me. So I could dedicate maybe half of May and all of June to perform for all of these different gay events through the gay band, and then every now and then maybe go to a football game at Millersville University. But I'm a huge music supporter. The arts are so important to student life and professional and personal development, and it's played a huge part in my life. So music has helped open so many doors for me, and helped me develop the many skills and abilities I have to connect with people. And so that's how I got involved with so many student groups, and why I wanted to meet so many people and build relationships, not just with all of the different student groups on the different campuses that I'm involved with, but with also, you know, professors and administrators. I always tell folks, "You never know who you're going to rub elbows with, right, you never know who's going to be your next coworker, your next supervisor, your next boss, even," so I always try to be nice, I always try to be kind, and I always try to at least build some type of relationship and keep in touch with folks, even though we may not be in, you know, a direct -- even though I might not be in their direct vicinity. So after college, after graduating from Millersville University in 2016, I moved to the Lehigh Valley. I obtained my first job fresh out of college, and I worked for Make the Road Pennsylvania. I was able to start their base with our director and several other folks, and we finally opened an office in the Lehigh Valley, in August of 2017, I believe. But we were sharing offices with SCIU prior to that, which is one of our strongest partners. SCIU is Service Employees International Union. Healthcare PA. I've learned fairly quickly that we can't do this work in isolation, and that we rely on partnerships and on relationships. And as I emphasized earlier, we need to make sure we build those relationships because you never know what help or support you may need down the road. And so some of these folks at SCIU have actually met throughout my college career. With the different events that we've helped organize and the different conferences and summits that I was able to participate, and so at Make the Road, that first year we were doing a ton of civic engagement work. We led weekly action committee meetings where we not just provided civic education opportunities, we would share an article or a video on what's going on in this country, particularly in Latinx and immigrant communities, but we were able to open up a discussion to talk about how people feel about what's going on in this country, and then close off by how we can take action. And during that meeting, we'd also share a meal. We'd also sing songs, and it's very community-focused. And we wanted to build community through food, through music, and through community organizing. And we were successful in doing so in the Lehigh Valley and in Allentown, being the third-largest city in the state. There's so much potential in this area, and we saw it, and we saw potential in our people. And we were confident that we would be able to do big things in Allentown and beyond. And so like I said, in 2017, we opened up our office in what people would call, "The Hood," where a large number of folks are POC, or people of color. We were very intentional about where we wanted to base our headquarters here in Allentown, and so we were on Eighth Street, right outside of the downtown area, and that's where we not just met for these meetings but we also were able to onboard several canvassers during different campaigns. And so I'm proud to say that, in 2018, during the midterm elections, we had a Make the Road action, the largest canvassing operation of the year, and we knocked on over 200,000 doors and we were able to sway the votes significantly. Granted, our candidate didn't win, but we were able to build relationships with folks, not just in Allentown, but in the general Lehigh Valley and make those connections beyond that campaign. And let folks know that we have the power to change the political landscape in Pennsylvania, and it just takes time. It takes effort. And we may not always win everything, but if we don't try, then we've already lost. And our work basically is us extending that invitation to folks to join in their own movement, to join in their own liberation. And how we did that is through community organizing, through door knocking, through canvassing, through text banking, and generally building relationships with folks. If people don't trust you, it's so hard to bring them on board, it's so hard to get them involved. And it makes it that much harder to implement campaigns or to push for certain policies that benefit all of us. And I've learned throughout the years that systemic oppression requires systemic change, and we want to organize and mobilize community members to talk to their legislators to push for policies that will benefit us all, particularly around immigration. Particularly around, you know, environmental justice. And, you know, events, for instance -- and that's evidence that some of the events that we've organized -- I remember, and I've been arrested a few times, I remember the first time I got arrested was right after the 2020 elections, right before Trump was inaugurated, we wanted to push Tom Wolf to close down Berks Detention Center, which incarcerates families, including children -- immigrant families, including children, and in Leesport, our neighboring county, in Berks, right, and so we took over the intersection, literally in front of the Capitol Building in Harrisburg. And so we had a number of us that represented the different families incarcerated in Berks Detention Center. And we locked arms and they chained us, and we had a sit down, and we demanded that Wolf close down the detention center. And we were successful in that we pushed the administration to revoke their license, the Berks Detention Center license, but during the appeal process, they were still able to function, sadly. And so I remember it was a cold winter, because it was in December, literally right after the November elections, and despite the cold, we had folks that were passionate about creating change and supporting immigrants, undocumented or not, to the point where, you know, we decided to put our lives and our safety on the line, and so that was the first time I -- what is the term? That was the first time I engaged in an act of civil disobedience. And then the second time was for DACA. So the day after the Trump Administration rescinded DACA, a number of us decided that, you know, we need to disrupt business as usual, because 200,000 lives were disrupted because of -- because we don't have those protections for DACA. The folks that are unfamiliar with DACA, it's the Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals that protects undocumented youth from deportation, and it allows young folks to work, to drive, and go to school in this country without that fear, and gives folks that piece of mind. And so after it was rescinded, those 200,000 folks were now at risk. And so we went to several Congressional offices and we occupied them. We said, "Y'all are representing us and we want immigrants to be protected." And so after hours of, you know, pleading to the administrators, to their staff, and requesting a meeting with, at the time, a Congressperson -- his name escapes me. We decided to just occupy, and so there were four of us in the Lehigh Valley, and there were actions throughout the state, and we just sang songs. And songs were like, you know -- oh. "We shall not/We shall not be moved," and then we just kept singing that over and over again. And then, "El pueblo/unido/jamás será vencido," or in English, "The people/United/Will never be divided," or some people would say, "Defeated," but that's another conversation. And so after occupying the Congressional office, you know, the police came in and took us away in handcuffs. But despite that, I feel making the -- or spreading the word in regards to DACA, after it being rescinded and getting folks involved and it being livestreamed and, you know, I would continue putting my life on the line if it meant that folks would be protected, if it meant that we could make this world a better place. And so those are just a few examples of some of the actions that we organized through Make the Road and through some of the work that we've been doing over the last few years, but it seems like there are constant attacks, not just against the LGBT community or the immigrant community, but just, you know, the working class communities. Folks in general, you know, they were stripping away healthcare from millions of people, and one of my first actions even before my first arrest in Harrisburg was a 24-hour occupation of Pat Toomey's office, because 24 million people were at risk of losing their healthcare back then, and that's why we were there for 24 hours, to represent each of those folks. And so spreading the word on these issues, you know, we had to come up with different tactics, whether it's an occupation, right, a Congressional occupation or a sit-in or a march or a rally or a protest. You know, these aren't just things we think of out of the blue, it's caused by, you know -- or, rather, it's a strategic escalation on how we can create that change, you know. Sometimes we'll start off with a petition or we'll start off with, you know a meeting with a legislator. But then it goes up and up until, at some point, they need to hear what we have to say, not just in terms of, like, immigration, but in terms of like policy and legislation. And so after a year of organizing with Make the Road Pennsylvania, I was able to we realized that, you know, there are other communities that are being attacked. And that first year, during Trump's administration, it seemed like they were targeting LGBTQ+ folks across the country. They took down the LGBT content from the White House website. They tried to ban trans folks from serving in the military. They tried to take away protections from LGBTQ+ folks in the workplace. Almost every month there was something, and so after having the conversation with our director at the time and several other folks who were like, "Maybe we should open up and start a LGBT committee," and so we went to work. And so some of our colleagues and allies and accomplices, we met and we were like, "How can we get the queer community together?" And so we had to meet people where they were, right? And so we were like, "Well, where are they?" Allentown is a huge city, right? Where can we meet the most amount of queer folks, who are LGBTQ+ people. I mean, we have the Pride event that happens once a year, but then we also have the gay bar. We have Stonewall right up the street from where the office was. And so we organized a group of about ten of us to go to Stonewall, and we created a Google form to keep track of folks, and so we simply went around, at the gay bar, before it was like drunk o'clock, before folks started to get really inebriated, and went out of our way to talk to people, and we simply asked, "Hey, how do you feel about the trans ban in the military?" And then we would have a conversation, and then we would follow up with, "How would you feel about having a LGBT committee or an LGBT group to fight against hate in Allentown and the Lehigh Valley?" And so almost everyone we talked to were on board, and so within an hour, hour and a half, we were able to collect contact information for about 80 people with a team of about nine or ten of us, simply just having conversations with folks at a gay bar. [laughs] And so then as the organizer, I followed up with every single one of them using our Google forms, which is an important tool that we use, and we collected their phone number, and I was able to -- and their email, and I was able to make phone calls and texts and sent out emails and inviting them to our very first committee in 2018 I believe it was. And so at our first committee, we didn't even have the name of it, for Make the Road, or the name of the -- we didn't have an official title for the committee itself under Make the Road. So at that first committee is when we decided, let's think of a few terms. Let's think of a few titles, and so Amor y Rabia came up and people liked it. We voted on it and we were like, sure, that works. Amor Y Rabia in Spanish means, "Love and hate," and that's exactly what we felt like expressed the meaning of the committee, because in the LGBTQ+ committee, we have a ton of love for each other and ourselves and our communities, but there's also -- I'm sorry. Not love and hate. Rabia means, "Anger." So a lot of us are angry because the system is against us, and a lot of us suffer so much because of homophobia, transphobia, and overall hate in this country. And so Amor Y Rabia came about, and we met regularly, Saturday afternoons at our organizing center here in Allentown, and that's where we were able to bring some of those components from our action committee, like civic education and even food and music and we were able to organize different events. And we wanted it to be also community-focused and to also share and express our cultures, and the diversity of our membership. And so we organized different events from open mic nights. We hosted drag shows. We've hosted even a rainbow Zumba night where we just danced the night away and worked out some of the stress that we had to deal with on a regular basis. And then, you know, those were ways to, you know, alleviate stress, just to come together and organize those events, and also develop community leadership. You know, as the community organizer, I didn't feel that I should be the main face or the spotlight for these events, so we were very intentional on building other folks up and giving them an opportunity to, you know, be the MC for the event, or to perform at this event. Or to create a flier or to spread the word, and to really pass on the lessons that we learned as an organization to regular community members, and, you know, I've always learned, we want to organize ourselves out of a job, right? We want other folks to become organizers and provide those tools and resources so they can rise up as well. And so some of those folks are still active to this day and are still working with Make the Road Pennsylvania. Some of them have moved on. Some of them are continuing their education, and some of those folks I still stay in touch with. But at the core of it is to, you know, organize and mobilize LGBTQ+ folks of color in Allentown and the Lehigh Valley, and to combat homophobia, bigotry, and overall hate. And we did that by, you know, simply existing and organizing and mobilizing, and when there was an attack against our community, whether it's the trans ban in the military or other issues, we were able to stand up and organize events. For instance, we had one of the largest LGBTQ+ rallies or marches in Allentown's history right after the Trump trans ban, and we met up at our organizing center here in Allentown, and we were able to recruit speakers to talk about the importance of the LGBTQ+ folks or the LGBTQ+ community. And, you know, raise awareness on queer justice and queer history and we can't sit idly by when they're trying to -- when certain folks are trying to erase us out of existence. When they don't want us to, you know, serve in the military, and if they don't want us to, you know, survive, you know, I learned throughout my organizing career, it seems like there are certain folks that don't want certain communities, particularly marginalized communities, to exist or, you know, they want to enslave us, or they want us gone. You know, so Make the Road gave us that space, that safe and brave space, to have those conversations, to learn and to grow, but to also bring in other folks to participate in their own liberation and their own movement. And so after being at Make the Road for a number of years, and passing the torch onto the next community organizer, and he's still there to this day, Armando Jimenez, and I decided, or rather, an opportunity came up to do this work in my hometown. There's no place like home, like Dorothy says, right? So in 2019 I came across an opportunity to work for CASA Pennsylvania, and both CASA Pennsylvania and Make the Road Pennsylvania are partner organizations, and they do a lot of social justice work and Latinx immigrant and Spanish-speaking communities in Allentown, Reading, Philadelphia -- or, rather, make the Road is in Allentown, Reading, and Philadelphia, whereas CASA Pennsylvania is based in Harrisburg, Lancaster, York, Lebanon, and Chester Counties. Another thing that CASA does in addition to community organizing and social justice work, because they provide services like green card renewals, DACA renewals, civic engagement work, and even tax prep. So working with CASA and some of the AmeriCorps VISTAs that provided those services helped with organizing community members in Lancaster. And with having strong roots in the Red Rose City, I was able to start the base, and not only was I able to open up the office in Allentown for Make the Road years prior, but I was also able to help open up the office for CASA Pennsylvania in Lancaster in 2019 my first year working for them. And so very similar to Make the Road, we organized regular meetings. We had, you know, popular education opportunities, where we would share resources or articles or videos on what's going on in government or in politics. And we were also able to coordinate efforts with some of our other partner organizations, including Make the Road, and we were able to mobilize for different events and for different reasons. And so what's great about community organizing or what's great about partnerships is you can make things much larger, right? And so in some of those events, like, you know, Shut Down Berks or fighting against the trans ban in the military, you know, we were able to communicate with each other. And so oftentimes, if there was an event that impacted folks in the Lehigh Valley or folks that were affected -- particularly around what Make the Road was doing or like what CASA was doing, and if we needed to go to Harrisburg, for instance, to lobby, or if there was a statewide action, we would coordinate efforts. But then if there were any national or federal-level public policy work that we wanted to engage in, then we would also coordinate efforts and we would take buses to go to Washington, D.C., for instance. And as I mentioned, you know, in order to do this work, we have to have strong people-focused relationships, and so with CASA and Make the Road being part of the Center of Popular Democracy, which is a national network that focuses on social justice work and providing those resources and those connections, you know, has helped with pushing for immigration reform, has helped with mobilizing folks and registering voters and getting them out to the polls and providing translation for voter guides or for ballots or many other items that were necessary for non-English speakers. And so after community organizing for years and years, through Make the Road Pennsylvania and CASA Pennsylvania, I felt I needed a break. And so I took a few months to just breathe, to recoup, and I decided -- or, rather, an opportunity came up to continue my organizing work digitally, and so the Democratic National Committee was recruiting digital organizing fellows for about a five- or six-month fellowship program. I was like, you know what, that seems interesting. I don't have to be there permanently, and who knows who I might be able to meet, and so I was able to spread the word regarding government and politics through the Democratic Party and working with the state Democratic Party and the county and the city of Lancaster, and meeting some of the political operatives in Lancaster and throughout the state. And mind you, most of the work that I've been doing is nonpartisan, but if you really dig deep into this country and in our lives, everything about us is political. From the schools we go to the roads we drive on, to the homes we live in, to the type of education we receive, everything about our lives is political. And as a, I would say, political operative myself working with the DNC, I'm also a strong critic of the Democratic Party. It just so happens that one party decides to, you know -- or, rather, let me rephrase that. It just so happens that certain political parties support certain things over others. It's only -- how would I word it? Not to sound political or anything. [laughs] There's a fine line, right? At the end of the day, you know, we want to fight for full justice, you know? I always look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? And, you know, how can we -- or, rather, people shouldn't just survive, you know, the lowest rung, right? Food, clothing, housing, you know, if all of those things were guaranteed to us, how much folks could do in their lives? We want folks to not just survive but we want folks to thrive. And I always think about that when I'm doing this work, and so after my short fellowship with the Democratic National Committee, I came across an opportunity to work for the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center as an organizing associate. And so they offered me a six-month contract, and after working for them for six months, they extended it to a full year. And during my year at PBPC, I worked specifically under the We the People Pennsylvania campaign, which was created in 2018 to make state government work for all of us. And through We the People Pennsylvania, it's essentially -- or, rather, We the People Pennsylvania is essentially three initiatives. Number one, it's a coalition of state legislators. Number two, it's a coalition of nonprofit, nonpartisan partners. And number three, it's an actual campaign. So it's a roadmap for Pennsylvania to move forward for fair housing, fair funding for education, clean air, clean water, and all of those folks, the legislators and the community organizations and community members alike, helped draft that roadmap or helped draft that campaign. And through our statewide coalition, and some of those partners were my former employees, including Make the Road and CASA Pennsylvania, I'm still able to continue our working relationship with them. But, you know, also work through other initiatives, which include language access in Pennsylvania. And so I was able to meet with several issue-based advocacy groups, like the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, and some of their partners, and we worked to develop a language access plan at the state level. And I continue some of that language access work to this day. And so our hope, through the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, is to organize a campaign launch or a budget summit in multiple languages. And we were successful in bringing all of our partners together, and one of our largest events, where we had 500 folks in a Zoom room, I believe, right before Tom Wolf's budget proposal, to talk about, what is it that we want the administration to invest in? We want Tom Wolf's -- or we want our state government to invest in our roads, in our schools, in clean air and clean water. And through the We the People Pennsylvania campaign, working with legislators in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, in the House and in the Senate, and through the roadmap we were able to coordinate all those efforts and get hundreds of people rallied together to talk about public policy, to talk about the state budget, and how we can all take action to make this world a better place. And I'm proud to say that we were able to successfully meet regularly with all of these folks and create change. One of the things that stands out in my work through the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center and working with my direct supervisor at the time, was Kadida Kenner, and she's the director of campaigns for the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, and she is the chair for Why Courts Matter Pennsylvania, and talking about the judiciary and the state courts, right? If we learned anything over the last couple years, it's that courts matter. And, for instance, when the last administration tried to contest the election results, where did they go? With Commonwealth Courts of Pennsylvania. We focus so much energy and time on the legislative and executive branches of our government. What about our three co-equal arm, right? What about the judiciary? There are many more MDJs -- magisterial district judges -- in Pennsylvania than there are state legislators. There are 253 Members in the House and the State Senate, whereas in the lowest court, the magisterial district judge, courts -- the lower courts, there are well over 450 judges, not to mention we have the Court of Common Pleas, we have the appellate courts, and so working with Kadida Kenner, my former supervisor, working with Why Courts Matter Pennsylvania, which is a campaign of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy center, in addition to We the People Pennsylvania, and then separately. But indirectly, working with the 99 Percent, which is also part of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy -- which is more a federal issue-based advocacy. And Jeff Garris, who runs that campaign and focuses on the American Rescue Plan funding and how we want to use those billions of dollars for things that we need the most. Sadly, you know, there are certain legislators that want to use that funding for a rainy day, and they want to pay back debt that our state government has incurred. But I don't know what other time it's raining more than a global pandemic. And so through the 99 Percent and through the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, we're able to work at the federal level and at the state level to make sure that those billions of dollars, through the American Rescue plan, is able to be used adequately for our communities. And so after completing my year contract with the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center and working with We the People Pennsylvania and all of our partners, I applied for a position to be the Pennsylvania state coordinator for the campus vote project. And I got it. And I started up, or I completed my contract with PBPC in July of 2021, and so at this point, what, six, seven months ago, and I started my new role as the Pennsylvania state coordinator for the Campus Vote Project in August. And if you're unfamiliar with the Campus Vote Project, it was created in 2012, actually we're celebrating our ten-year anniversary literally last week. And it's under the Fair Elections Center. And the Fair Elections Center is a national network of legal experts focused on litigation, voting reform, and advocacy. And so I always jokingly tell folks, a lot of my colleagues, a lot of the lawyers that we work with at the Fair Election Center are sitting behind their desks just itching to sue somebody, because democracy is always under attack, and sadly, voter suppression is a real thing in this country. And so we're working diligently to remove barriers to voting, and through the Campus Vote Project we're able to do that work on campuses in Pennsylvania and across the country. So we work in 41 states, 280 campuses, with 3.4 million students enrolled in those institutions. That's a huge electorate that we're trying to take advantage of -- or that we're trying to get involved and creating change takes a village. And so we want students, we want administrators, we want faculty, to talk about democracy work, to talk about the elections, to talk about what's on the ballot, and that's exactly what we do at the Campus Vote Project. And I basically run three initiatives through CVP. Number one is our democracy fellowship, which is similar to an internship. I supervise 30 college students in Pennsylvania doing just that. And they work about ten hours a week learning about the system, learning and informing and teaching their peers, their faculty and staff, what's on the ballot and general democracy work. And so we have 30 in Pennsylvania and hundreds of democracy fellows and graduates throughout the country. And there are ten -- there are currently ten of me, well, ten state coordinators across the country, so here in Pennsylvania it's myself, and then Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and in the south we have Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, and Arizona. And so we meet with all of our state coordinators on a weekly basis to discuss best practices. To just, you know, vent sometimes, and some of my colleagues are experts in their field. Some of them have master's or even doctoral degrees, and I hope some of that rubs off on me. [laughs] And the second initiative that I'm particularly involved with at the Campus Vote Project as the Pennsylvania state coordinator is our voter-friendly campus program. And this is a national designation that campuses declare to remove barriers to voting. And so campuses have to submit a statement of interest. They have to develop an action plan or a campus plan. And it also allows us to work directly with those campuses. And this is also in partnership with NASPA, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. And we're able to work more closely with these campuses through the VFC process. And campuses have to provide elections materials regardless, through the Higher Education Act. At the Campus Vote Project, we're able to provide resources, training, and best practices from across the country. And that's why we're on campuses. And the third initiative that I'm involved with is our Pennsylvania Youth Voting Summit, which is the largest in the Commonwealth, where we not only bring college students together but also high school students involved in our democracy. We bring in prominent speakers from the Commonwealth. Last semester, we had it in October, and we had our Secretary of State, [Veronica] Degraffenreid share on what our state government is doing. She talked about her story, and the importance of the youth vote. And so we have a very strong relationship with the Department of State, and in fact, we organized that Pennsylvania Youth Voting Summit with them in conjunction with Pennsylvania Youth Vote. We also work with the Andrew Goodman Foundation. We also work with All In Campus Democracy Challenge. And several other nonpartisan groups that focus in organizing youth. And so that's a basic snapshot on some of the work that I've been doing at the Campus Vote Project and the Fair Elections Center. And through my life and through my career, I want to bring some of those connections and hopefully inspire some of my students to do some of this work and continue not just their education but also to, you know, I always tell folks, Why are you in school? You're there to learn, to grow, but also to build relationships, to network. And I always emphasize -- and I can't say it enough to my students. You never know who's going to be your next coworker or your next supervisor, so use these opportunities to meet people that are doing this work. And so not only do we have our statewide cohort of 30 democracy fellows, and we meet regularly, but we also have a number of professional development opportunities at the national level. We have a national research and curriculum manager that works diligently to bring the most up-to-date materials on redistricting, on community organizing, on voter registration, and so we have discussion blocks where folks can meet democracy fellows from across the country. So we have so many opportunities for folks to meet here in Pennsylvania, but then we also want to open up the doors for folks to meet folks from all over the country. So that's really what stands us out at the Campus Vote Project, and I'm so excited to continue this work and use my background and my experience to essentially inspire young folks to do the same. So my background is community organizing, civic engagement, and public policy work. So by day, as I mentioned, I am the Pennsylvania state coordinator for the Campus Vote Project, and we work to remove barriers to voting on campuses in Pennsylvania and across the country. And at night, I serve on a number of nonprofit boards. I've been part of the Lancaster LGBTQ+ Coalition for about two years now, and so we work with DEI initiatives -- diversity, equity, and inclusion -- trainings and workshops, and so we've facilitated a number of discussions for different businesses and organizations in Lancaster County. One particular is with Two Dudes Painting Company. So imagine a room full of about 50 or 70 middle-aged, mostly straight white men talking about rainbows, butterflies, and glitter. So we broke down what LGBTQ+ means. And the importance of being respectful and mindful for LGBTQ+ folks, especially as clients, or especially since they're going to be potentially working with us. And the other board that I'm involved with is Lancaster Pride. So Lancaster Pride is a little different from the coalition, although we do regularly partner. Lancaster Pride's focus is more of an event planning organization. So we organize our annual Lancaster Pride festival, and our most recent one, for the first time ever, was our Lancaster Pride Fall Fest in October. And we had strict COVID restrictions. Sadly, we had to turn a few folks away. But despite all of that, we had well over 3,000 people join us in a one-day long gay festival. We took over the Clipper Magazine Stadium. We had about 140 vendors join in, business, nonprofit partners, to share the work that they're doing. Through tabling, and we had drag shows on site. And it was just a great day to just be authentic, to be open, and to just be in the community. And so in Lancaster, we have two LGBTQ+ nonprofits at Lancaster Pride, and then the Lancaster LGBTQ+ Coalition. And I just so happened to be on both of their boards, and my goal is to bring them a little closer together, to build relationships, and to make sure that, you know, we know what each other is doing. So we're not stepping on each other's toes. Another board that I'm involved with is the Keystone Business Alliance, which is central Pennsylvania's LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce. And so they support businesses, not just in Lancaster but also in Harrisburg and Lebanon and York. Even as far as Gettysburg. And it's membership-based, and we organize monthly mixers, where we get a bunch of the queer businesses together, and we provide support. It seems like I'm on a lot of boards, but we only meet once a month on different days, so that's why I say during the day I do my office hours, 9 to 5, right, and then in the evening I'm able to jump in on these board meetings. And then the other gay thing I do, and I do a lot of gay things, but I'm proud to say that I was an appointed commissioner for the Governor's Advisory Commission on LGBTQ+ affairs. This commission we don't meet monthly. We rather meet four times a year. And we are the direct line to the governor's office on anything LGBTQ+ related. So we work with the administration at the state level on public policy, on event planning, and general LGBTQ+ issues. So our commission is made up of about 45-ish people, lawyers, executive directors, nonprofit professionals, therapists, educators, and we meet to discuss, to talk, to vent, and to move the needle for LGBTQ+ liberation in Pennsylvania. We're the first and only of its kind in the country to do this work directly with the administration. So if you're unfamiliar, you know, or, rather, as you may know, the governor's administration has several commissions. We have a women's commission. An Africa-American commission. A Latino commission. And then as I mentioned, this is the first and only of its kind in the country we have an LGBTQ+ commission under the Governor's office. And so working with all of these LGBTQ+ organizations and learning what is going on, I'm able to, you know, build all these different relationships and also gain perspectives in life that I otherwise wouldn't have seen or noticed, and, you know, attending these events like Lancaster Pride, going to some of these mixers, meeting with the commission, really inspired me to do more. And I would say has helped me become who I am today, you know. I've always wanted to do something in the queer community. I don't know if I necessarily want to run my own nonprofit or business, but I can at least learn what is going on in Lancaster and throughout the state. MF: You talked a lot about all of the organizing work you've done. Organizing around immigration policy. Organizing in Allentown and Lancaster for LGBTQ+ communities. All the boards that you're on. I'm wondering about a kind of personal history question, which is, when did you want to become active on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community? Did that start in college, did it start in high school? When did you decide that was something that you wanted to do, was organizing? RA: And that's a good question. So I actually came out at the tender age of 16, but only to two of my very close friends. And then it wasn't until 18 that I really started to really come out to my family and more friends. And when I started to embrace my homosexuality. And I didn't know exactly back then how it would manifest itself in terms of like, you know, my career, community organizing, or trying to make this world a better place. But it wasn't until college that I -- or, rather, my first year in college, I realized we didn't have a queer space. But I found out that we used to, and that's when I decided to take action for the first time in my life and in my career to bring the queer community together. And so I got all of the basic requirements to re-found the allies group at Harrisburg Area Community College back in -- when was it? 2010 at this point. And I facilitated our meetings and I eventually became their president. And so we were able to host, you know, fundraisers and drag shows and coordinate efforts with the main campus in Harrisburg, and so that's when I began my, I suppose, organizing experience. And then that's where I met my -- in college I met my mentor, Adanjesús Marín, who eventually became my supervisor, who was the former state director for Make the Road Pennsylvania. So he really took me under his wing and he was part of the Human Relations Commission in Lancaster, and so I met him my first year in college, and he taught me more about queer history than anyone has in my life. And so I continued my educational career, and then we grew apart and then after college he was looking for an organizer, and he hired me on the spot, basically. Not that we grew apart, but life happens, right? And so, in college, I was involved with our allies group, and as I mentioned, our environmental science club. Some government association. And then continued that when I transferred to Millersville University, and I helped out with their GSA. And then I continued, you know, being involved with the gay band, the Lesbian and Gay Big Apple Corps Marching Band in New York City, and I started performing with them since 2014, and I've performed with them every single year since, other than these last two years with COVID. And so -- gosh. Wow. Looking back, I've been doing a lot of LGBTQ+ work way back since 2010, and it's 2022. MF: Do you have a sense of why you've been so interested in political organizing, both for LGBTQ communities, but also organizing for greater access to voting, to strengthen our democracy, to get people to participate in democracy, to be aware of immigration policy that's impacting our communities? Do you know where that drive comes from? Were politics a big thing in your family? Were politics just something that you thought, this is where I want to put my energy for social change? RA: That's a good question. My family has nothing to do with politics. Nothing to do even with music. I just, you know, things kind of, you know, I guess the puzzle kind of came together for me in my life, and as a curious young child, I, you know, took initiative. And in addition to that, you know, with my parents struggling to make ends meet, I didn't want to be a further burden in their lives, having to take care of our large family. So any excuse I had to, you know, be out of the house, I took, which is why I was so involved with band, and we had frequent concerts or after-school practice, and at some point I did do some sports, simply because my older brothers did. But it was never my passion. I always enjoyed music much more than football or wrestling or track or anything. Although I did enjoy it, but it was too much of a commitment for me to join in all of the things, so I had to choose one or the other, and I chose music. I chose concert band and marching band and all of the other music groups, and so that spark, I guess, was created over the years of being -- of having to hide myself for so long, and learning the harsh reality that a lot of folks go through this in Lancaster and Allentown and Pennsylvania in situations much worse than mine, and, you know, I always wanted folks to be their authentic selves, right, to live fully and, you know, I am lucky enough to -- rather, because of the support system I have beyond my family with some of my colleagues and my friends, I was fortunate enough to continue my studies, fortunate enough to be heavily involved in student groups, and meeting all of these folks, and it inspired me to learn more about government and politics and voting rights issues. And it allowed me to not just learn about it but also to share it out with folks, and I'm able to facilitate discussions around our political structure in Pennsylvania, and talk about the judiciary, and talk about all the different facets of our government, and organize lobbying efforts, even. Introduce folks to their legislators. Create opportunities to build bridges. And as I mentioned earlier, systemic oppression requires systemic change, and we need policies. We need laws. We need ordinances that protect all of us, and that we shouldn't just need to survive. We shouldn't hide. But we also want community members to thrive and move beyond their current circumstances. And so through politics, through government, and civic engagement, I'm able to express myself in a way that I feel will help others take action, since there's so much at stake, especially right now in Pennsylvania. 2022 is going to be a wild year with the U.S. Senate race and the gubernatorial race. We want to make sure that whoever takes those seats, for instance, in addition to the other elected positions, that they keep LGBTQ+ folks in mind, and they bring us to the forefront, because when we all rise, or when LGBTQ+ people rise, we all rise. MF: You've talked a lot about politics and your organizing work in both Lancaster and Allentown. I think people that listen to our oral history project in the future might be interested also about the culture. For Latinx community and LGBTQ communities and their overlapping communities, could you talk a little bit about the larger kind of cultural spaces of Allentown or Lancaster where you are refueled in community spaces when you're done working? Maybe you never are done working, because you are amazing. But where you do find joy and community and fun in either Allentown or Lancaster where you're living now? RA: I'm an extrovert, so I am recharged when I'm around people. I'm at my best when I'm with, you know, particularly in queer spaces, you know? I enjoy going to drag shows. I enjoy going to queer events. And I want to just be myself -- I don't want to feel like I'm hiding myself, so as an extrovert, COVID really hit me. Not too hard, thankfully, you know. Because I was still continuing my community organizing work, just in a different way. Just through Zoom and behind the camera, right? And so my passion comes from, you know, sharing the beauty of humanity with others and letting them know that, you know, you might have gone through hardship, but it's not always going to be that way. And you can still, you know, make great connections with people, and you can still experience life to the fullest, but, you know, it's okay to not be okay right now, but just don't let it consume you, and we'll be here when you're ready. MF: Do you have favorite bars in Allentown and Lancaster? Favorite community spaces that are like, okay, I have a night off, this is where I'm going? I think people ten years from now will wonder, "Where did people go in 2022? Where were the hot spots?" RA: I don't know if I could say like I have a favorite, because anywhere you go, as long as you surround yourself in good company, would be a great space. [laughs] Interestingly enough, I was a much bigger drinker in my earlier 20s, more so than now in my early 30s, so although I do enjoy going to bars, a lot of the bars are no longer open. I used to frequent Stonewall. I lived walking distance from there when I lived in the Lehigh Valley. Tally-Ho in Lancaster closed down, which is the only gay bar out there. And so we're losing our queer spaces. But, you know, with being part of the Lancaster LGBTQ+ coalition, Lancaster Pride, the Keystone Business Alliance, I have all these different opportunities, all these different events to be in those queer spaces, so I don't necessarily need to go to a gay bar or a club to meet my, you know, needs or whatever, that I'm able to also be part of those events, and yeah, I don't have a favorite -- all that to say I don't have a favorite. And it's not just, like, the nightlife either, you know? I, you know, with some of the organizations I'm involved with, we want to make some of these events kid-friendly or make them sober, and for some of our more seasoned folks, you want to organize -- or some or our elders, we want to organize jazz events or jazz nights. And even with the faith community, organize an interfaith service or something like that. There's a lot of healing that needs to be done between the faith and the LGBTQ+ community, and we need to have those conversations. You know, we should have had these not just with the faith and LGBTQ+ community, but when it comes to being out, being authentic, and when it comes to social problems, we should have had a lot of these conversations like yesterday. The good thing is the next best time to do it is now. And so I hope that I inspire others to do that, to speak with their relatives, you know? During Thanksgiving dinner, have that conversation, or, you know, bring your partner to meet your family. And just, you know, participate in the fullness that is humanity. MF: You just mentioned two topics I wanted to follow up on. You know, healing and faith communities, and conversations with our families about who we are and our authentic selves. Have you personally had challenges within a faith community, or personally you had stories about coming out to family members that you wanted to share today? RA: I'm very lucky that I didn't have to go through much hardship coming out. I had some resistance from family members. My mom thought it was a phase that I would get over. But here I am, well over a decade later, I'm still hella gay. Some of my other relatives thought it was a phase, but I'm still hella gay. And so I didn't have too much trouble. I think the biggest issue I had is, you know, with the Church itself. I was raised Catholic, and so I've gone to -- or, rather, I've seen several people, and I've tried to ignore folks that have organized anti-gay rallies or marches, and the church I used to go to as a kid, or that I was raised in, ended up having an anti-gay protest in front of their church. Literally right before COVID, interestingly enough, and it just was disgusting for me to find out that the church that I was raised in, that I was baptized in, I had my first communion in is -- and I've known they were strongly anti-gay, but for them to be so clearly anti-gay and outspoken is just, you know, ridiculous to me. And so I actually, you know, called them out and, you know, they took down all the posts on social media, for instance, and they haven't done anything like that since. I think it was mostly new leadership. Their previous priest moved away, or something happened. But that doesn't justify what they did. [laughs] And that's not just in the Catholic Church, sadly. It's common in several churches across the country. And I've been working diligently to build relationships with pastors. In fact, a lot of my close friends are gay Black pastors that went to seminary. In Lancaster, we had the Lancaster Theological Seminary. And a lot of them, a lot of my friends are recent grads or have preached in local churches, and I've been learning a lot in regards to the faith community and some of the work that they're doing to combat homophobia, transphobia, and bigotry in the church. And I realize it, and they also realize, there's so much healing to do, but that takes time. And in fact, one of the things that I'm working to build in Lancaster is an advisory board for Lancaster Pride, and so we realized that not everyone can be a board member and meet every single month, but what this advisory board, they would meet four times a year to help Lancaster Pride in its mission, vision, and values, and one of those seats is one of faith. In addition to business economics, in addition to government relations, and so my official title for Lancaster Pride is their community liaison. To build relationships with other organizations and to bring people in to Lancaster Pride. And so with all of the connections that I've developed over the years, you know, and working with this advisory board, so this will be the first time we've ever had an advisory board for Lancaster Pride. We're working to continue our relationship, but also to more institutionalize some of these changes using some of our partners or with some of our partners and to spread the word that, you know, queer people exist in Lancaster and we're not going anywhere. And that there are different ways that people can do that, and working with the faith community and working with the LGBTQ+ community is one way that we can make this world a better place. MF: Have you found an inclusive religious community for yourself, or have you found a way to -- I guess just found inclusive community that can support your spiritual self, your full self? RA: So I would consider myself more spiritual than religious. [laughs] Sadly, religion really hasn't been my friend, or in some ways maybe, in other ways not so much. But, you know, I've attended several services for MCC denominations and for UCC, and they tend to be, you know, more inclusive and affirming. But those are really, you know, unless I'm going to like a baptism or a wedding where otherwise I wouldn't have a choice, I would much rather prefer an MCC or a UCC church. And we have so many, and I've been to the one in Lehigh Valley. Is Pastor Beth still here? MF: Yes, yes. RA: And there are a number in Lancaster as well. MF: We're about towards the end of our time, but before we conclude, I just want to give you some space. Is there anything you wanted to share today that you didn't get a chance to share? Anything that you think, oh, I wish I would have talked about this? RA: So if you're here listening to my story, yes, I'm hella involved. I strongly encourage you to be involved as well. But please don't compare yourself to others. Don't feel like you haven't done enough. I've had so many people say, "Wow, you're doing all of this, what am I doing with my life?" But it's okay. It's okay to take your time. It's okay to learn, to grow, and to be in your own space. I am just fortunate to have done this for well over a decade, and that I'm able to build strong relationships that I still keep to this day. And I really hope that some of my work inspires you to do the same. You know, whether you're ready or not, you know, we'll be here when you are. So, you know, thank you for listening and for, you know, being part of this story, and this process, and I hope that we can continue telling our stories and educating future generations on what we have been doing, not just here in the Lehigh Valley but beyond. MF: Thank you so much, Ricardo. I am inspired just sitting here with you. You are amazing. I'm a fan of yours and I'm grateful for all that you do. Thanks for being here today. RA: Oh, thank you. You're too kind. Thank you. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:20:13
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Ricardo Almodovar, January 10, 2022
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Ricardo Almodovar describes his early life, activist work, the creation of Amor y Rabia, and his multitude of passions.
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LGBT-25
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2022-01-10
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Mary Foltz
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Sandra Fluck
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5.4 February 20, 2022 Sandy Fluck, February 20, 2022 LGBT-28 01:32:32 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Sandra Fluck Mary Foltz video/mp4 FluckSandy_20220220_video_TRIMMED.mp4 1.0:|33(8)|68(14)|89(2)|108(14)|127(3)|146(11)|163(16)|178(5)|197(8)|220(7)|237(5)|256(15)|279(3)|300(9)|319(3)|338(8)|353(2)|372(6)|397(5)|418(9)|439(12)|458(6)|477(3)|500(13)|517(9)|542(4)|561(4)|580(5)|599(3)|618(13)|637(7)|658(13)|677(8)|700(14)|717(13)|732(15)|747(11)|768(11)|789(6)|812(3)|831(3)|852(11)|875(8)|896(14)|917(7)|950(6)|967(16)|990(8)|1011(14)|1032(9)|1051(3)|1074(12)|1093(12)|1116(13)|1135(12)|1152(16)|1173(5)|1192(13)|1217(10)|1236(11)|1255(5)|1274(7)|1293(14)|1312(3)|1329(5)|1346(11)|1365(13)|1382(16)|1401(2)|1422(6)|1441(4)|1460(6)|1481(14)|1504(8)|1529(3)|1548(11)|1571(6)|1588(9)|1609(10)|1628(15)|1649(6)|1672(19)|1695(13)|1714(8)|1737(4)|1758(7)|1783(5)|1806(13)|1827(14)|1848(4)|1871(15)|1892(9)|1913(5) 0 https://youtu.be/8a2WpKsPVOQ YouTube video English 1 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz and I’m here with Sandy Fluck to talk about her life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley. We are meeting at Sandy and Bev’s home, here in Delaware, just a little outside of Rehoboth Beach. And the date is February 20th, 2022. We have funding this year from ACLS, which I should have said earlier. And I’m going to start with just a few quick questions before we jump into the interview and the first one is, would you be willing to state your full name and spell it for me?
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 ; SANDY FLUCK: Sure. My real name is Sandra, so Sandra Fluck, F-L-U-C-K. 
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 ; MF: And would you share your birthday?
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 ; SF: My birthday is January 30th, 1947. 0 110 Early Childhood / Experiences in Primary & ; Secondary School MF: And since we’re doing this arc of your life history, I’ll start with this question. Will you tell me a little bit about your childhood?
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 ; SF: Okay. All right. I grew up in the Lehigh Valley. I was born in Bethlehem, in St. Luke’s Hospital Fountain Hill. And I spent most of my life there, but as a child -- it was a nice life. My friends refer to my family as the Leave it to Beaver kind of family. My dad worked at Bethlehem Steel, and practically every man I knew worked at Bethlehem Steel. My mother was a mother. Both my parents had gone to college. My mother went to Moravian, my father went to Lehigh. My mother graduated from St. Luke’s Nursing School, but once she had kids she became a stay-at-home mom like most of my friends at that time. I had a nice childhood. I had an older brother and an older sister. We were pretty close. But what I remember mostly about my childhood, aside from a real sense of a loving family, was, as a girl, I didn’t have the privileges that boys had. And I think that’s kind of an important piece of who I became. 0 582 Finding Her Passion SF: But my junior year, in my methods class, I had a phenomenal professor and she just turned me on to teaching. And I can remember sitting in that class and looking at her sitting behind her desk and thinking, “I’m going to do what you’re doing one day.” And that was the first time, other than wanting to be an engineer, that I found something that, “Okay, this’ll work for me.” So, I finished school and I became an elementary teacher for, I guess, 17 years. I’d loved teaching, but it wasn’t challenging. And I like to be challenged. So, I taught for three years and then I quit. And a group of us formed of a little group in Long Island, New York, and we bought old houses and fixed them up and resold them, and I did that for a year, and made enough money that I took a year off. 
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 ; And during that year, I became very introspective, and I studied, and I thought. It was a really neat year for me. Then, I came back home to Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley and I went back to teaching. And then I taught for another 15 years. And then, I went to Moravian College. And that’s when I really found that I was doing what I wanted to do. Up until that point, I asked for a transfer in schools or grade levels or whatever every three years because I was bored. And I thought, “Well, I’ll go to Moravian and I’ll stay there maybe three or four years and then I’ll go to a big university so I can do some research,” those were things I was interested in. 0 787 Time in Higher Education MF: I’m curious. You talked about going to the undergraduate degree in education. Can you describe for me how you went from that undergraduate degree, where you got your doctorate degree, what that doctoral program was like?
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 ; SF: Sure. I went to East Stroudsburg, I guess was it a university or just a college then? It was just a college when I went. Went to East Stroudsburg, and as I said, I started as a Phys. Ed. major and changed over to elementary. And then, I was teaching in a school in New Jersey, in a district. And as a teacher, you really have to get your master’s degree, so I just went back to ESU for my master’s degree and I just continued in elementary ed because, I hate to say this, but it was easy. So, I just did it. And a couple years into teaching, I went to summer school. 
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 ; One of the other pieces of my life is, there were times in my life where I was very church oriented. And I was a Christian Scientist for quite a few years and a couple of summers I went to summer school at the Christian Science school called Principia. And what I found when I went to Principia the first summer, I got reconnected with that desire to be a college professor that I had when I was a junior in college. And I came home that summer thinking, “All right, you’ve got to get into a doctoral program and get going.” So, I did. 0 1124 Teaching Philosophy MF: Did you have a teaching philosophy when you got to Moravian that you really wanted to impart to your students?
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 ; SF: I did. My belief is -- and I always told my students this -- I’m not here to make you one of me. One of me is enough. You need to be you. We need to find out what your talents are, what your gifts are, and how can we bring those to the classroom? That’s what I loved about being at Moravian, because I knew my kids. They knew me, they knew they could come into my office anytime they wanted to. They had me on speed dial. They could call me 24/7. They could come to the house. We could have dinner together. It was very important to me that, that we be a family. 
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 ; My students, I knew them as freshmen, but I had many of them as advisees beginning their sophomore year, for sure. And in the early days at Moravian, I taught sophomore classes, too. So, I had them as sophomores, as juniors, and seniors, so I really knew them. Later on, when I became chair of the department, I had to give up some teaching. I taught the children’s literature class ; I gave that up as sophomores. But I had them then, as juniors. And as juniors, I taught the math methods class, but we also had this, what we called junior block. And I just knew my kids inside and out. 0 1388 Moravian’s Education Program & ; its Evolution MF: I’ll ask one more question since we’re sort of in this work life arc, but I’m curious how Moravian’s education program evolved over the time that you were there. You first started out in your post-doctorate right away, but then, you were able to see the whole development of that program through the new building. So, how did it evolve?
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 ; SF: Education has always, from day one, been important at Moravian. And when I went there, education, and I guess, business, were probably the biggest programs, and they may be now, I’m not sure. So, it was a big program when we started. There were three full-time faculty members in the education department when I started. And there was, of course, no graduate program then. But it was a wonderful program to begin with. So, I came into something that was already beautiful. And I felt very at home. 
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 ; There were two gentlemen teaching in the program at the time. And there was a woman, and she’s the one who left, and I took her place. And they just welcomed me with open arms. I couldn’t have been happier with the two guys. And we grew, we got larger. In the beginning there were maybe 20 elementary ed kids. And that grew overtime to 40, 50 elementary kids. So, I am sure I had some impact on that, but I think it was, we all had impact on that. I was out in the schools with student teaching supervision, and you get to know all the principals in Bethlehem, and you get to know the teachers, and you get to know, whether it’s at elementary, middle school, or high school. And so, a lot of kids are encouraged to come back to Moravian. 0 1697 Navigating Being LGBT in Higher Education & ; Personal Life MF: You mentioned diversity within the program and that leads me to think about something that’s adjacent to work. I’m wondering what it was like for LGBTQ people in the field of education at that time. Would you be willing to talk about that?
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 ; SF: Sure. Okay, so for me, personally, I didn’t become an out lesbian until, I guess, really until I was with Bev. And teachers who were gay or lesbian, they couldn’t be out. They just couldn’t be. At least not in Pennsylvania, not in the Lehigh Valley. I don’t know if they would have been fired or not. But it just would have been too hard for them. So, any of the LGBTQ faculty that I knew, I don’t think I knew any in the public schools who were out about their orientation. There might have been some, but I didn’t know them. Now when I came to Moravian, Bev and I had just become partners the year before. And Bev is just always very vocal about who she is. [laughs] I tend to be a little more private. Not anymore, but I was a little more reserved in those days. 0 2215 Connecting/Relationship with Bev MF: You started to talk about Bev now a little bit. Should we talk about how you met? And then, we can work our way up to ACCO, a bit. How did the two of you meet?
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 ; SF: Sure. Ok so, I come from a very musical family. My brother and sister both musicians and I grew up singing all the time. I was always in the church choirs, and glee club, and those things. But as I finished all my schoolwork, I finished my doctoral program, I finished my business degree, I finished all these things and I thought, “Well, now what am I going to do?” And I said, “Maybe it’s time to do something for yourself, something outside of education.” So, I said, “Well, I always wanted to take voice lessons.” Okay. So, I asked our soloist in church. I said, “I want to take voice lessons. Who should I take from?” And she said, “Well, Beverly Belnome is the best in the Valley.” That was Bev’s name at the time, Beverly Belnome. And I said, “Okay.” So, I called Beverly Belnome and I got an appointment with her. 
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 ; This is a long time ago and I can see it like it was yesterday. I went to her house because she taught out of her home. She opened the door and I immediately fell in love with her. I mean, she just took my breath away, you know? So, went in, we had our first lesson. And now, she’s kind of -- I don’t know if she told you any of this or not, but she’s a hands-on kind of person, touchy-feely. Even though she wasn’t raised Italian, she was very Italian. And she had to get to know me and whatnot. And we talked about how you breathe right. She took my hand and put it on her chest, like right here so I could feel her breathing. And of course, I’m like, I’m out in la-la land somewhere, I can’t even focus on breathing, I’ve got my hand on this woman’s chest and I’m absolutely madly in love with her already. So, that’s how we met. 0 2733 Establishing A Chorus Celebrating Women (ACCO) MF: Okay, we’re back. And we’re just going to begin to talk about ACCO. And so, I’ll just say, tell me a little bit about ACCO.
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 ; SF: Okay. ACCO came about -- I can’t remember dates, I’m not really good at that. Bev and I, it was in the early ’90s. Bev and I went to Michigan Womyn’s Festival with our friends, Ann and Sharon at that time, and I had a great time. Bev didn’t have a great time, but I had a great time. But on the way back, I don’t know if it was Ann or Sharon, Bev will remember. One of them said, “Bev, you really ought to start a women’s chorus.” So, she hadn’t really thought about it. And she decided she would. So, she did a lot of research. Bev did a lot of research and found -- with her classical background, she knows a lot about women composers who have not been acknowledged in the classical field. 
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 ; In fact, most people think, “Oh, it’s classical music, a man had to write it.” So, her passion was in the classical field and not knowing anything about Holly Near and that whole group of women writers. So, she forms ACCO, did a lot of fundraising things, like Ann and Sharon had a gathering at the house and we had a fundraiser there, and other people did that. And Bev auditioned. I don’t even know how we got the word out. We worked through the Y in Allentown, the YWCA in Allentown. And in the beginning, we rehearsed there. But the group just formed, and it was women. I don’t think any men ever asked if they could join the group because it definitely had women in the title. But we were both lesbian and straight women, so it didn’t matter your sexual orientation as long as you were a woman and you were interested in singing women’s music. 0 3095 Impacts of ACCO
 ; SF: So, with the grant money, we were able to do the workshops and bring in people and do good programming, because again, it was more about celebrating women in music. And one of the other things that, that Bev, and all of us really, had an interest in was also diversity. And so, she came up with the idea to work with Ysaye Barnwell, who they had become friends by now, Bev and Ysaye, and they had a program where they, we went to Northeast Middle School and the children there wrote poems or stories, and Ysaye chose a few and put them to music, and then ACCO went and we performed with the chorus and we did a spring programming with them. And the music teacher, we chose Northeast because Bev had a connection with the music teacher there and knew her, through Moravian, actually. Denise had gone to Moravian. 
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 ; So, we did special things like that. We did Martin Luther King Celebration Day at Muhlenberg College every year, we came and sang a program there. We did Take Back the Night kinds of things. So, we did a lot of important things. I think back in the ’90s, more of that was happening, sometimes, than now. I mean, now there are other movements. But there was a lot going on and a lot of music going on in those days. And people didn’t know anything about the music we were singing. So, it was exciting. 0 3453 Relationship Between ACCO and the Steel Chorus of Bethlehem / Connection to Steelworkers MF: What was the relationship between ACCO and the Steel chorus? You mentioned that earlier. 
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 ; SF: They didn’t have a relationship except for Bev. [laughs] I don’t know how much you talked about this with Bev, but when the Steel was closing, what’s the name of the theater? 
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 ; MF: I think Touchstone. 
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 ; SF: Touchstone, thank you. Touchstone Theatre was writing a play called “Steelbound.” And Bev got involved in the music of that. And that was all through grant work. So, Bev and Ysaye, again, Ysaye Barnwell, did the music for that. And then Bev got a chorus together and we sang. And that was phenomenal. And there were people who told their stories, and we performed. It was a mixture of storytelling and singing those stories. All the music for that was from personal stories of Steelworkers and Steel families. I don’t know if she gave you a CD of that, or not. 
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 ; MF: Did that have special significance for you, as a child of a Steel family? 0 3661 Family / Views on Relationship MF: I’m curious about, because we’ve come back around almost full circle to discussion of the Steel, which makes me think about your family. Earlier you talked about Bev’s mom moving in with the two of you. Could you talk a little bit about your family, their responses to your relationship with Bev? 
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 ; SF: Sure. So, by the time Bev and I came together, my father had already passed on, so he never knew Bev. And I’m sorry about that. My mother and I were very close. And when Bev and I came together, the hard part for Mom was, up until then, I was Mom’s partner. So, in some ways, Mom felt like Bev was taking her place and pushing her out a little bit. But I told Mom, we were in New York, we had taken Mom to see a show. And we were walking down, I don’t know, Fifth Avenue or somewhere in New York, and I told Mom, I said, “Bev and I are more than friends.” I forgot exactly what I said. And I said, “We’re going to be living together, and she’s my partner,” and Mom said, “Okay.” That was it. “Okay.” So, Mom became part of our life. 0 3902 Evolution of Faith MF: This sort of connects back to earlier we had talked about your faith, being a part of a Christian Science faith tradition. How did your faith evolve over your life story? 
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 ; SF: I was raised in the Lutheran Church, actually Bev and I both were. And I always, we always went to church and everything, but it was more about music, going to sing. And then, actually, I was in college, and it was my sophomore year in college when I met -- I’ve only really had one other relationship than Beverly, and that was with someone from college. And her family, actually, she was Christian Scientist. And so, I was introduced to Christian Science through her and her mother. And I remember going to the Christian Science Church and talking with people and I just, I liked it. I liked how I felt. I liked the philosophy of it. And I liked that it was about love. 0 4257 Ties to LGBT Organizations / Community in the Lehigh Valley MF: Well, we talked a little bit about ACCO, we’ve talked about faith tradition. Were there other, were there LGBTQ organizations? I know ACCO, it was straight women, it was more about women, as an organization.
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 ; SF: Yeah, just women.
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 ; MF: But were there other LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley that mattered to you during the time period that you were active in ACCO?
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 ; SF: Well, I’m sorry to say this, but no. [laughs] Honestly, I don’t even know what was available. We didn’t have–– for me, I guess for both of us, we were so busy working, that you’d come home, you don’t have time to do anything else. I think, honestly, Liz and Trish did more when they came to the Lehigh Valley to promote diversity of any kind. And we never even had any lesbian friends until we -- well, we had one couple that we were friends with. We met a lot of people through Liz and Trish and through that organization, through what they were building. But outside of them, no. No, really. And we certainly supported them. But no, I’m sorry. 
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 ; MF: I know that ACCO sang at Pride, I think. 0 4589 Validating Relationship with Bev / Marriage Equality MF: Tell me a little bit about, you got married later on, but you did a commitment ceremony. Tell me a little bit about that.
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 ; SF: Oh, we did. Actually, it was Liz and Trish who said, “Vermont just opened up civil union. We’re going to go out, we’re going to get a civil union.” I forget what year it was. We have the certificate hanging downstairs. And they said, “Why don’t you come with us? This other couple is going with us.” So, the six of us went up in their van, and we got married. Or, we got the civil union. We have pictures and I think we may even have a video of it, I’m not sure. It didn’t mean anything in Pennsylvania, but it meant we did something, so it was the beginning. So, we had that. It was nice. 
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 ; The officiant was a woman, and she was really sweet. And Bev and I, I wrote something to say to Beverly, and she sang something to me, and neither one of us knew what the other was going to do, and at the end, the gal is practically crying while Bev’s singing and whatnot. And we had already had wedding rings. We gave each other these on our seventh anniversary, so we didn’t do wedding rings, but we each, without knowing, bought each other a bracelet. She bought me a diamond bracelet, and I bought her an emerald bracelet, because we’re going to the green state of Vermont, so my whole thing was about green and emeralds and stuff. 0 4929 Life in Rehoboth Beach MF: We’re kind of getting into your retirement, so maybe I’ll ask one last question. Tell me about retirement down here in Rehoboth. What made you move down here? What is your life like?
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 ; SF: Well, let’s see. Bev and I, we both love the beach. And we both grew up going to the Jersey Shore, Long Beach Island. And so, in our first years together, we still were going to Long Beach Island because that’s what we always did. And that got more busy and more crowded and more, there was nobody there like us. So, we’re living in the Lehigh Valley, there’s nobody there but us except when we have a party, and 50 million women show up at our house. And then, we’d go on vacation and again, there’s nobody there like us. 
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 ; So, friends of ours -- actually, it was Ann again, I mentioned Ann and Sharon earlier. Ann had been coming down here. And she said, “Why don’t you check out Rehoboth sometime?” So, we came down and did Bev tell you this story? All right, I’ll tell it. I wasn’t going to tell it, but I will. We came down here, we were staying at a bed-and-breakfast, a gay-owned, a lesbian-owned bed and breakfast, Wendy’s. And Bev had gotten a really bad case of poison ivy and she was miserable. She was just miserable. She was scratching and itching and just moaning and groaning. 0 5497 Closing Remarks MF: Thank you so much. We’re right at the at the end of the interview but before we conclude, is there anything that you thought, “Oh, I kind of wanted to talk about that today,” and we missed it? Is there anything you want to add at the end?
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 ; SF: You know, I don’t think so. I think, no, I’m okay. I don’t like talking about me so much. [laughs].
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 ; MF: Well, I appreciate the fact that you did talk about you. Thank you so much. 0 MovingImage Sandy Fluck recalls her childhood in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, work in higher education, connection to A Chorus Celebrating Women (ACCO), and relationship with her partner of over 30 years. INTERVIEW WITH SANDY FLUCK FEBRUARY 20, 2022 MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz and I'm here with Sandy Fluck to talk about her life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley. We are meeting at Sandy and Bev's home, here in Delaware, just a little outside of Rehoboth Beach. And the date is February 20th, 2022. We have funding this year from ACLS, which I should have said earlier. And I'm going to start with just a few quick questions before we jump into the interview and the first one is, would you be willing to state your full name and spell it for me? SANDY FLUCK: Sure. My real name is Sandra, so Sandra Fluck, F-L-U-C-K. MF: And would you share your birthday? SF: My birthday is January 30th, 1947. MF: Thank you very much. And then, before we started this interview, we reviewed a consent form and I just want to go back through three questions about consent. Do you consent to this interview today? SF: Absolutely. MF: And do you consent to this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made available publicly online? SF: Yes. MF: And do you consent to this interview being accessible to researchers and to archive staff for educational purposes? We might use it in articles or in short clips about the archive. Would you consent to that? SF: Yes. MF: Okay. And the final consent question is, you are aware after we sign this consent form that you'd have 30 days once I send you the transcription to decide if you want to pull the interview, or if you want to redact something from the interview, or if you're okay with it to move forward in the archives? SF: Yes. MF: Fabulous. So, I want to start just by saying thank you so much for being here with me today. SF: You're welcome. Thank you. MF: And since we're doing this arc of your life history, I'll start with this question. Will you tell me a little bit about your childhood? SF: Okay. All right. I grew up in the Lehigh Valley. I was born in Bethlehem, in St. Luke's Hospital Fountain Hill. And I spent most of my life there, but as a child -- it was a nice life. My friends refer to my family as the Leave it to Beaver kind of family. My dad worked at Bethlehem Steel, and practically every man I knew worked at Bethlehem Steel. My mother was a mother. Both my parents had gone to college. My mother went to Moravian, my father went to Lehigh. My mother graduated from St. Luke's Nursing School, but once she had kids she became a stay-at-home mom like most of my friends at that time. I had a nice childhood. I had an older brother and an older sister. We were pretty close. But what I remember mostly about my childhood, aside from a real sense of a loving family, was, as a girl, I didn't have the privileges that boys had. And I think that's kind of an important piece of who I became. I wanted to play the sports that the boys did and being a little girl in the early '50s, we didn't have softball, they still don't have football, we didn't have any of those things. What we had was swimming, which I excelled in those areas, but I wanted to play baseball and stuff. And I can remember my brother being on a Little League team and I was always there. I always wanted to play Little League, and of course, I couldn't because I was a girl. And finally, the coach said, "Well, you can be the bat girl," and I got to sit in the dugout which was phenomenal. And then the next year, his little boy wanted to be the bat boy, so I got kicked out. So, there was always that sense that girls didn't quite get what boys did. And I felt that in school a lot, too. I was more interested in subjects that were more geared to the boys. I was the math and science geeky girl and that was more boy related. I wasn't interested in reading and writing as much, as were more feminine dominant. And my dad was an engineer so I grew up with math. I grew up with Daddy giving me problems to solve at the kitchen table kind of stuff. And I went through Bethlehem Public Schools. My whole career, I always felt like I was never really encouraged. And this, this may not sound exactly right because it's my childhood memory. I think it was 1957, I want to say, Sputnik went off. And it was like, the next day, we were all given a math test. Now I know it didn't happen that quickly, but I think I was in seventh grade, I was at Nitschmann, it was Junior High, then, and we were all, across the city of Bethlehem, given a math test. And they took the top kids, whoever did it as well as we did, and we were accelerated. So, I became part of that accelerated math project in Bethlehem. And by the time I was a junior at Liberty, I had calculus, I had three years of algebra, I had plain geometry, analytic geometry, and something they called advanced placement mathematics. And they virtually ran out of math courses my senior year. The thing that I want to say there was that as a junior in those math classes, it was almost all senior boys in those math classes. I was one of, by then, maybe two, maybe three girls left in that accelerated group. I was a straight-A student in math. My teacher never once called on me to answer a question, never once called on me to go to the board and put a problem on the board, because I was a girl. Who cared? My counselors never encouraged me to pursue mathematics. I wanted desperately to be an engineer. I wasn't encouraged to pursue that. So, that was, I'd say, the downside of my childhood. My parents encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do. But as I got older, those memories stayed with me and they've always helped me look at my students differently, not as boys or girls, but as people with likes and desires and needs. So, I think that formulated me quite a bit. Other than that, I was a happy kid. I excelled and I did well and I played sports. And my sports more became personal sports. I was a diver. I was a gymnast, because I really wanted to play football but I could only do that out in the street with the guys. I'm rambling now, aren't I? When it came time to decide where to go to college, I really didn't even want to go to school because I never felt like I got enough out of school. I was in advanced classes in almost everything. I was in advanced German classes and we already talked about the math and science. My senior year I had an extra time slot and I wanted to take an extra language. I wanted to take Russian and they said, "No you can't. You can't do that. You can't take extra languages because you're in the math and science track." I thought, "Why can't I do that?" So, those things put me back. So, my senior year, I pretty much spent in the gym. They needed somebody to teach swimming, so I taught a swimming class. I pretty much wasted my senior year, I think, at Liberty. But anyway, I was very much, as I said, involved in sports. So, when it came time to decide where to go to college, I just went to school because my parents said I had to go, not because I wanted to. And so, I went to play sports, so I became a Phys. Ed. major. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I had several injuries, and I guess my sophomore year was pretty brutal, and I had to change my major, I just couldn't do it anymore. So, I had some good friends who were elementary ed majors, and I thought, "Oh, I'll just become one of those, I don't really care." But my junior year, in my methods class, I had a phenomenal professor and she just turned me on to teaching. And I can remember sitting in that class and looking at her sitting behind her desk and thinking, "I'm going to do what you're doing one day." And that was the first time, other than wanting to be an engineer, that I found something that, "Okay, this'll work for me." So, I finished school and I became an elementary teacher for, I guess, 17 years. I'd loved teaching, but it wasn't challenging. And I like to be challenged. So, I taught for three years and then I quit. And a group of us formed of a little group in Long Island, New York, and we bought old houses and fixed them up and resold them, and I did that for a year, and made enough money that I took a year off. And during that year, I became very introspective, and I studied, and I thought. It was a really neat year for me. Then, I came back home to Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley and I went back to teaching. And then I taught for another 15 years. And then, I went to Moravian College. And that's when I really found that I was doing what I wanted to do. Up until that point, I asked for a transfer in schools or grade levels or whatever every three years because I was bored. And I thought, "Well, I'll go to Moravian and I'll stay there maybe three or four years and then I'll go to a big university so I can do some research," those were things I was interested in. I never got bored. I loved my students. And it makes me cry. I found that part of my background coming in, I think, helped me be a better teacher. And I think my students loved me as much as I loved them. So, I spent 25 years at Moravian and my doctorate degree is in math education. So, that was my specialty and that's what I came there with. But I taught all kinds of things and about half of my time there I was also chair of the education department, so that's when I really also found that there was no way I could be bored because running a department, doing all of the state requirements for certification, and teaching, and we also had a graduate program. So, I got to work in the schools with teachers. All of that became very important to me so I didn't get bored. So, that's kind of my evolution of childhood into adulthood. What else do you want me to talk about? MF: I'm curious. You talked about going to the undergraduate degree in education. Can you describe for me how you went from that undergraduate degree, where you got your doctorate degree, what that doctoral program was like? SF: Sure. I went to East Stroudsburg, I guess was it a university or just a college then? It was just a college when I went. Went to East Stroudsburg, and as I said, I started as a Phys. Ed. major and changed over to elementary. And then, I was teaching in a school in New Jersey, in a district. And as a teacher, you really have to get your master's degree, so I just went back to ESU for my master's degree and I just continued in elementary ed because, I hate to say this, but it was easy. So, I just did it. And a couple years into teaching, I went to summer school. One of the other pieces of my life is, there were times in my life where I was very church oriented. And I was a Christian Scientist for quite a few years and a couple of summers I went to summer school at the Christian Science school called Principia. And what I found when I went to Principia the first summer, I got reconnected with that desire to be a college professor that I had when I was a junior in college. And I came home that summer thinking, "All right, you've got to get into a doctoral program and get going." So, I did. So, I thought, "What do I really want to do my doctorate in?" So, I started out at Lehigh because it was convenient and, I don't know if I should say this or not, but I didn't like their program [laughs]. I didn't even finish the semester. I went to, like, two classes and I thought, "This is not going to challenge me. I'm out of here." So, I left. And I really knew that math was my love, so I looked around for not math, but math education because I loved teaching math. And I found Temple was the place to go for me. At that time there were some of the best math educators at Temple University than in the whole country. I got to work with some really phenomenal people. So, I went to Temple, and I taught the entire time that I was also doing my doctorate. My major professor, her name was Ann Wilderman. She was well-known throughout the United States. We became friends, actually, and she had several bouts of cancer prior to meeting her, and then, my final year in the program she got very sick, and I actually taught her graduate courses for her. We had a nice relationship and she taught me a lot but that was the sad piece of it. But anyway, so I finished my degree at Temple and then I did some adjunct work at Moravian and then a job opened up at Moravian. They asked me to apply, and I applied, and got the job, and left public ed. So, it wasn't too long after I actually had my doctorate degree that I went to Moravian, again, not really knowing where that path would go because I just assumed -- when I was at Temple, that was in the very beginning stages of computers, believe it or not. My dissertation was actually done on a typewriter. But it was the beginning of the TRS-80s and stuff like that. So, I was involved in the beginning stages of technology, and I liked it. So, after I finished my doctorate degree, I felt like, "Well, now what can I learn?" So, then, I went to business school, and I got a degree in computer programming because I had to do something. And we learned RPG and all these crazy languages that nobody knows anything about anymore. But it was fun. But what I found there was, I was staying up all night long writing programs, and having to get up and go teach. I thought, "Well, this isn't going to work. It's not a balanced life. I have to give it up." So, I didn't go that route. I needed balance in my life. So, that's how I got to Moravian. And there was something I wanted to tell you there, I just forgot what it was. I can't remember. It'll come back. MF: Did you have a teaching philosophy when you got to Moravian that you really wanted to impart to your students? SF: I did. My belief is -- and I always told my students this -- I'm not here to make you one of me. One of me is enough. You need to be you. We need to find out what your talents are, what your gifts are, and how can we bring those to the classroom? That's what I loved about being at Moravian, because I knew my kids. They knew me, they knew they could come into my office anytime they wanted to. They had me on speed dial. They could call me 24/7. They could come to the house. We could have dinner together. It was very important to me that, that we be a family. My students, I knew them as freshmen, but I had many of them as advisees beginning their sophomore year, for sure. And in the early days at Moravian, I taught sophomore classes, too. So, I had them as sophomores, as juniors, and seniors, so I really knew them. Later on, when I became chair of the department, I had to give up some teaching. I taught the children's literature class ; I gave that up as sophomores. But I had them then, as juniors. And as juniors, I taught the math methods class, but we also had this, what we called junior block. And I just knew my kids inside and out. I knew all about their backgrounds, their boyfriends, their girlfriends, their whatever they were doing. After several years at Moravian, we built the new academic building--- which isn't new anymore--- but part of that was the education department got half of the third floor. And it was incredible. So, we had this beautiful space. We had a big room, opening, where our offices were around it, but the students had this big table. They could work. They were there, sometimes, all weekend long working on projects, or they'd be there all night long working on stuff during exams. And so, I was there with them. I always believed that teaching really is an art. And you can learn a lot about teaching, a lot about pedagogy. But if you don't have the fire within you to be a teacher, then go away. Because you can't just learn. You have to have the learning, but you have to have the artistic talent for it. And my kids worked hard, and they knew they were going to work hard. I would tell them the first day of class, "Teaching isn't a nine-to-five job. Especially elementary teaching, because elementary teaching is where you don't have a lot of free periods, and you take all your work home with you. So, you're not done." And so, they needed to know that if it's a lot of hard work. And I think I saw my kids build their strengths. We did a lot of work together to do that. I still hear from some of them. And I got to know them personally. I got to know some of their very tragic stories. And that's when you realize, as a teacher, you're a counselor, you're a mother or a father, you're everything they want you to be, and they need you to be. And whether it's at the college level, or second grade, it doesn't really matter. They're children. So, my college kids were my children. MF: I'll ask one more question since we're sort of in this work life arc, but I'm curious how Moravian's education program evolved over the time that you were there. You first started out in your post-doctorate right away, but then, you were able to see the whole development of that program through the new building. So, how did it evolve? SF: Education has always, from day one, been important at Moravian. And when I went there, education, and I guess, business, were probably the biggest programs, and they may be now, I'm not sure. So, it was a big program when we started. There were three full-time faculty members in the education department when I started. And there was, of course, no graduate program then. But it was a wonderful program to begin with. So, I came into something that was already beautiful. And I felt very at home. There were two gentlemen teaching in the program at the time. And there was a woman, and she's the one who left, and I took her place. And they just welcomed me with open arms. I couldn't have been happier with the two guys. And we grew, we got larger. In the beginning there were maybe 20 elementary ed kids. And that grew overtime to 40, 50 elementary kids. So, I am sure I had some impact on that, but I think it was, we all had impact on that. I was out in the schools with student teaching supervision, and you get to know all the principals in Bethlehem, and you get to know the teachers, and you get to know, whether it's at elementary, middle school, or high school. And so, a lot of kids are encouraged to come back to Moravian. We had a lot of local kids from the Lehigh Valley. The one thing that, and I think it's still an issue at Moravian, maybe not as much, but it's not a diverse population. I can count on less than one hand how many non-white students I had during my 25 years there in elementary ed. So, that was something that I always was wishing that we had more diversity and I tried to encourage -- I went to Easton because they had a bigger diverse population at that time than Allentown then, really Allentown and Bethlehem. They had a population I could reach better. And I tried to work with their administration, and they told me point-blank, "Not going to happen," because our, they told me that their kids of color, they would get scholarships to virtually anywhere they wanted to go. And that was the time then. And Moravian didn't have that kind of money. And being a division three school, you weren't going to get athletic scholarships. So, that was the only issue I had at Moravian. But you work with what you have. So, we grew. And as we grew, we became instead of three people we became four people. And then we decided to have a graduate program. And that was, that was great. One of the things I got to do in the graduate program was kind of teach outside of the program. And I was fortunate that I could go into a school district, Bethlehem, Parkland, Allentown, Easton, each of those districts, that I designed courses just for them, always around math education. I did a series of courses in Easton, for example, on just teaching better and going into the classrooms and videotaping and watching our videos, and, "How do you do this better?" kind of thing. It was all around math education. So, that was really nice in the graduate program. We eventually grew, and when we came into the new building, I think we were maybe seven faculty members, I'm not sure. So, we grew. And we were all part of that growth. And I think just being out in the schools, and all of us were out in the schools a lot, and just being out there with your name and your face and who you are. And our students were phenomenal. So, it worked. We grew. MF: You mentioned diversity within the program and that leads me to think about something that's adjacent to work. I'm wondering what it was like for LGBTQ people in the field of education at that time. Would you be willing to talk about that? SF: Sure. Okay, so for me, personally, I didn't become an out lesbian until, I guess, really until I was with Bev. And teachers who were gay or lesbian, they couldn't be out. They just couldn't be. At least not in Pennsylvania, not in the Lehigh Valley. I don't know if they would have been fired or not. But it just would have been too hard for them. So, any of the LGBTQ faculty that I knew, I don't think I knew any in the public schools who were out about their orientation. There might have been some, but I didn't know them. Now when I came to Moravian, Bev and I had just become partners the year before. And Bev is just always very vocal about who she is. [laughs] I tend to be a little more private. Not anymore, but I was a little more reserved in those days. So, I was an out lesbian at that point. So, that was 1989 or '90, I think, when I came to Moravian. And at that time, nobody had an issue with it at Moravian. There was never an issue that I knew of. The issues were more about me being a woman instead of a man. I can remember being hired and the same year that, that guys got hired that I got hired, they got more money than I did. I don't know what it's like now. But, that's a whole different aspect. Nobody ever questioned me about being a lesbian. My students knew right away. I never had any complaints from students or parents or anything, at least not that I knew of. We didn't have spousal benefits at that time but that came through work, through Liz, as the center now, through Liz and some work in the Consortium of Lehigh Valley Colleges. That came later on, so Bev had benefits then, through Moravian. But as far as the kids, times were very sheltered then. It's still very sheltered in the Lehigh Valley. And I know I used to tell my students, because Facebook was coming about in those days, I'd say, "You can't have a Facebook page. You can't do it because anything that's out there, a principal's going to look at when he's thinking about interviewing you, or she's thinking about interviewing you. So, anything you put on there is going to go against you." So, yeah. We had to be very careful about those things. MF: Did you also have to be careful in college? How did students navigate that? Or was that not as... SF: No, it was a problem. When I was at East Stroudsburg, and I graduated from there in 1968. So, I was there '64 to '68. I didn't know I was a lesbian then until my sophomore year in college. That's when I had my first encounter. But I can remember as a freshman, I think, as a freshman, there was obviously -- I mean, this is a school in those days where girls went to play sports and there were a lot of lesbians, but nobody talked about it. But I do recall kids getting in trouble for it and being hauled into the dean's office or whatever. And I do remember having, having the counselor, our hall counselor, our dorm counselor, I forget which, having a meeting with my whole floor because there had been complaints about two of the girls who were doing what they shouldn't be doing. Nobody ever even used the words. So, yeah, it was an issue. And yet, it certainly was prevalent. But it was an issue. You couldn't be out and about with it. So, anyway. MF: You talked about college life, and you just mentioned briefly that Bev was able to get benefits through Moravian. Could you just describe what that was like, pre-marriage equality, to be thinking about partner benefits? How did that work at Moravian before they allowed partner benefits and after? Can you just describe that? SF: Well, before they had it there was no benefit. Well, that's not true. There was no insurance benefits kind of thing. But she was allowed to take classes if she wanted to, to take classes for free, which she never took advantage of, by the way. And what else would there have been? I think that was it. And I don't remember when it actually -- see, Bev never had a "full-time" job where she had benefits. She was always adjunct faculty and teaching private voice lessons. And so, her insurance always had to be private. On the other hand, at Moravian as a full-time faculty member, I had all those benefits. When that finally came, it still wasn't as good as a "married couple." She could come into my policy, but I paid a lot for it, whereas had we been a husband and wife, that would have just been a benefit. So, it was a help because she got insurance. But we still paid for it. And I don't know when that changed, to be honest with you. It's kind of interesting, because we tend to not worry about those things. We just go along and we're a happily together couple. But even little things, like when we bought our house in Danielsville, and that was, I don't know, '92, maybe, our realtor told us, "Don't let them know you're lesbians." So, I had to, the house was bought in my name. She was just my friend. And the next day, after we bought it, the next day we had to redo it and put it in both our names, and we had to pay for that. Because the realtor told us, "They might not sell to you if they know you're lesbians. And there's nothing I can do about that." So, that was something I didn't expect because I just didn't ever think like that. Who cares? But people care. MF: You started to talk about Bev now a little bit. Should we talk about how you met? And then, we can work our way up to ACCO, a bit. How did the two of you meet? SF: Sure. Ok so, I come from a very musical family. My brother and sister both musicians and I grew up singing all the time. I was always in the church choirs, and glee club, and those things. But as I finished all my schoolwork, I finished my doctoral program, I finished my business degree, I finished all these things and I thought, "Well, now what am I going to do?" And I said, "Maybe it's time to do something for yourself, something outside of education." So, I said, "Well, I always wanted to take voice lessons." Okay. So, I asked our soloist in church. I said, "I want to take voice lessons. Who should I take from?" And she said, "Well, Beverly Belnome is the best in the Valley." That was Bev's name at the time, Beverly Belnome. And I said, "Okay." So, I called Beverly Belnome and I got an appointment with her. This is a long time ago and I can see it like it was yesterday. I went to her house because she taught out of her home. She opened the door and I immediately fell in love with her. I mean, she just took my breath away, you know? So, went in, we had our first lesson. And now, she's kind of -- I don't know if she told you any of this or not, but she's a hands-on kind of person, touchy-feely. Even though she wasn't raised Italian, she was very Italian. And she had to get to know me and whatnot. And we talked about how you breathe right. She took my hand and put it on her chest, like right here so I could feel her breathing. And of course, I'm like, I'm out in la-la land somewhere, I can't even focus on breathing, I've got my hand on this woman's chest and I'm absolutely madly in love with her already. So, that's how we met. Now, she was living with a man at the time. And so, I mean I knew there was no way that she and I were ever going to be a couple. And the other side to that is, I was very big in church at that time, and you really couldn't be a lesbian and be in a Christian Science Church at that time. So, I never really thought -- and I was like best friends with a gay man, and we did everything together. We went to concerts and theater and everything, so my life was okay. I wasn't expecting to have romance. So, Bev and I became friends. And we were friends for almost 10 years. And we did a lot together. We would always go to the beach for a day trip or so. We always ended my school year celebrating by going down to Illick's Mill and buying a pack of cigarettes and smoking down at the water, which then we gave up for the year. We always celebrated the first snowstorm by walking across the bridge to the South Side to go to Grotto for pizza, which I don't think is there anymore. So, we did little things like that. And over time, later on in her life, I don't know, maybe eight years or so into our friendship, over that time, I moved her many times. I think you know this story. She'd go, she'd leave John, and she'd get an apartment, and then, she'd go back to John, and then they got married, and then she moved out. So, she moved all these times. And every time she was moving, I moved her. She didn't have a lot, but she did have a piano. And that was a lot to move. So, the last time I moved her, I said to her, "The next time you move, you're going to move in with me." And that was true. So, she finally decided to leave John, her husband, and then she went to work at Valley Youth House, and she hooked up with a woman there for the first time in her life, and she found she really enjoyed being with women. And then, she told me about it, and I was mad because I wanted her to be with me. And so, then, for a while, we had this kind of awkward relationship because she was still seeing this other woman. And now she knows that in my past, that I've been with women and she, I think, is getting the sense that I really want to be with her because I keep telling her I want to be with her. So, one night we were, we were -- oh, what the heck was the name of that diner? I don't know if it's still there anymore, it's on Union Boulevard. There's a diner. We had gone to the movies. We saw Dead Poets Society, carpe diem being the message, right? So, we went out to get something to eat after the movie and we're sitting in the diner across from one another at a booth, and we both said, "We're really not hungry. What are we doing here?" So, we left. And I was driving. And as we went around the curve on Union Boulevard, she said to me, "Do you want to come home with me?" Or, "Do you want to spend the night with me?" I forget. She'll remember the words. And I said, "Do you mean it?" And she said, "Yes." And that was the end. That was the beginning of the end. So that was, what year was that? I don't remember, '89? Anyway, somewhere around there. And that was it. We never looked back. We had a couple of sticky moments in the beginning, but she said, we both agreed to, we'll give it a year and if we're together in a year, then we'll move in together. And about seven or eight months into that year -- and this is Bev, this is Bev to the max. She does this kind of stuff all the time -- she said to me, "Oh, I gave notice to Dan on the apartment, so I can move in tomorrow." And my back immediately went into spasm, and I couldn't move. Because I'm more of a planned person. "You said a year. I still have two months to get ready for you to move into my house." I just had a little half a double, me, and my cats. Anyway, she moved in. So, we went from this little house, two-bedroom house, myself and my two cats, she moves in with her dog, my cats hate the dog, so we get that. And shortly after that another dog moved in with us, now we're in this little house, two cats, two dogs. And pretty soon, her mother moved in with us. [laughs] So, it was quite a beginning. But it worked. That first year was a really rough year with lots going on with her mom. And then, we got the bigger house and stuff. But anyway, yeah. It's been a great 30, what are we at, 33 years? Yeah, 33 years. And it's just been a wonderful journey together. Really great. So, it was all about the music. And when we were friends during that time between my voice lesson and becoming partners, I went to every concert she ever did. And I have always, and still to this day, I mean, she starts to sing, and my heart just melts. She has the kind of voice that I love, and she's the person that I love. So, it's been a great trip. So, that takes us to ACCO, maybe. Should we do ACCO a little bit? [break in audio] SF: Anticipated, is this okay? MF: This is so wonderful, yeah. We'll go in different directions. We've done a wonderful career arc. We've done your relationship arc ; we can talk a little bit... [break in audio] MF: Okay, we're back. And we're just going to begin to talk about ACCO. And so, I'll just say, tell me a little bit about ACCO. SF: Okay. ACCO came about -- I can't remember dates, I'm not really good at that. Bev and I, it was in the early '90s. Bev and I went to Michigan Womyn's Festival with our friends, Ann and Sharon at that time, and I had a great time. Bev didn't have a great time, but I had a great time. But on the way back, I don't know if it was Ann or Sharon, Bev will remember. One of them said, "Bev, you really ought to start a women's chorus." So, she hadn't really thought about it. And she decided she would. So, she did a lot of research. Bev did a lot of research and found -- with her classical background, she knows a lot about women composers who have not been acknowledged in the classical field. In fact, most people think, "Oh, it's classical music, a man had to write it." So, her passion was in the classical field and not knowing anything about Holly Near and that whole group of women writers. So, she forms ACCO, did a lot of fundraising things, like Ann and Sharon had a gathering at the house and we had a fundraiser there, and other people did that. And Bev auditioned. I don't even know how we got the word out. We worked through the Y in Allentown, the YWCA in Allentown. And in the beginning, we rehearsed there. But the group just formed, and it was women. I don't think any men ever asked if they could join the group because it definitely had women in the title. But we were both lesbian and straight women, so it didn't matter your sexual orientation as long as you were a woman and you were interested in singing women's music. I want to say -- and I'm not sure if this is true or not -- 100 percent of what we did was written by women. And that was the focus, bringing women's music to the Valley, to people, anybody who would listen. Bev's focus was definitely in the classical arena. And in the beginning, we did a lot of really hard stuff, probably harder than we should have been doing. [laughs] But it was fun. And then as we grew, and there was more influence from the women in the group, and the group got larger, other composers would come in, more of the folky kind of stuff. But we sang in all kinds of languages, probably seven different languages. And we did all kinds of music. We rehearsed once a week. So, it was a lot of work. And as we grew, the library of music grew, and one of our members, Charlene, became the music librarian so I didn't have to schlep it all the time. We did workshops together. Bev brought in some famous people. We worked with Ysaye Barnwell from Sweet Honey in the Rock. We worked with -- I forgot who all we worked with. But we actually became very close, as a women's community, because we did sessions together, even counseling together if you will. We had weekend retreats maybe once a year, and you get close when you spend time together with the women. I can't say that, that we became friends outside of ACCO too much, but we were close, and we could count on one another, especially within your own group. I was a second alto and there aren't a lot of second altos in the world. So, sometimes there are only two of us. At the most, we had four. And we were always very close, and we were very sincere and very dedicated because altos are like that. Sopranos give you a lot of trouble, always. So, ACCO took a lot of work. And I've always been the kind, I've always been there to support Bev in her work. I came from the math-science background. If I wanted something at school and we couldn't afford it at Moravian, I wrote a grant and I got it. And you could do that in math. You could get a grant for almost everything. The Arts, it's a little different ballgame. You don't get paid a lot in the Arts. You don't get anything done unless you get a grant to do it. But you have to get help doing that. So, we had a board for ACCO because we had to eventually get our 501c3 or whatever it's called. And one of the gals was a good grant writer, Marilyn Roberts. Maybe someday you'll get to talk to Marilyn. She's in the Lehigh Valley and she was at Muhlenberg in the theater program. And Marilyn did a lot of grant writing for us, so that was great. We got funding from Lehigh Valley Council of the Arts, and Pennsylvania Council of the Arts. And people like, I'm trying to think, Linny Fowler gave us money but I'm not sure if that was just for the Steel Choir or if it was for ACCO, too. That might have just been the Steel Choir. So, with the grant money, we were able to do the workshops and bring in people and do good programming, because again, it was more about celebrating women in music. And one of the other things that, that Bev, and all of us really, had an interest in was also diversity. And so, she came up with the idea to work with Ysaye Barnwell, who they had become friends by now, Bev and Ysaye, and they had a program where they, we went to Northeast Middle School and the children there wrote poems or stories, and Ysaye chose a few and put them to music, and then ACCO went and we performed with the chorus and we did a spring programming with them. And the music teacher, we chose Northeast because Bev had a connection with the music teacher there and knew her, through Moravian, actually. Denise had gone to Moravian. So, we did special things like that. We did Martin Luther King Celebration Day at Muhlenberg College every year, we came and sang a program there. We did Take Back the Night kinds of things. So, we did a lot of important things. I think back in the '90s, more of that was happening, sometimes, than now. I mean, now there are other movements. But there was a lot going on and a lot of music going on in those days. And people didn't know anything about the music we were singing. So, it was exciting. As a musician it was great for me, as a choral singer, because the only opportunity you get to sing chorally is if you are in a church choir, or if you're in a community choir. I wasn't involved in church and a church choir, so I, this was great for me because I really missed singing. Singing had always been a big part of my life. My family sang at the drop of a hat. We didn't do anything without singing. So, it was important to me. And I loved it. I loved learning. We learned a lot. Bev introduced us to a lot of techniques. And the music was great. It was wonderful. MF: You described the personal impact of ACCO, the cohesion of the group. Could you talk a little bit about the community impact of ACCO? I mean, you're singing at MLK Day at Muhlenberg, you're singing at Take Back the Night marches. Did you get a sense of the import of ACCO in the larger Lehigh Valley? SF: Yeah, that's a hard question. You never know how much impact something has on a community. I think, we did a winter solstice concert every year and I think people looked forward to that. I really think they did because we had a good crowd for that, always. Did it accomplish what we hoped it would? I doubt it. Because our country, our culture, doesn't celebrate the Arts like other cultures do. And I think that is probably the biggest loss in our society, or one of the biggest losses. So, people would come and, yeah, they would enjoy it and what did they take away? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, there were women who joined the choir, of course, because they heard us at a concert and they'd go, "Oh, I want to do that." So, that had an impact. It became a place for some people to come and sing. Did it change lives? Did it change the community? Did it impact the community? I think maybe at the time it was a big piece of the community. It's gone now. So, what impact did it have? There is no chorus. There's no Lehigh Valley Women's Chorus anymore, that I know of. So, I don't know. MF: Just as you described, I think listening to Bev, listening to you, that personal impact, that ability to go to variety of different places, including places of education, to put students' music, their writing to music, it had an impact. SF: It had an impact, and I'm sure, especially the students that wrote something and it was put to music, that impacted their life forever. So, yes, I think in that. But if you walk down the streets of Allentown today and said, "Hey, did you ever hear of ACCO?" They're going to say, "No." So, not in the big picture, but individuals that it touched, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, yeah. And it still touches my heart. I can go to one of our first concerts, one of our winter solstice concerts that we did at the Community College, at NACC, and I can remember walking down the aisle and singing. I can remember pretty much everything that happened. And it takes me back there. So, for us who were part of it, absolutely, it had an impact. Absolutely. MF: What was the relationship between ACCO and the Steel chorus? You mentioned that earlier. SF: They didn't have a relationship except for Bev. [laughs] I don't know how much you talked about this with Bev, but when the Steel was closing, what's the name of the theater? MF: I think Touchstone. SF: Touchstone, thank you. Touchstone Theatre was writing a play called "Steelbound." And Bev got involved in the music of that. And that was all through grant work. So, Bev and Ysaye, again, Ysaye Barnwell, did the music for that. And then Bev got a chorus together and we sang. And that was phenomenal. And there were people who told their stories, and we performed. It was a mixture of storytelling and singing those stories. All the music for that was from personal stories of Steelworkers and Steel families. I don't know if she gave you a CD of that, or not. MF: Did that have special significance for you, as a child of a Steel family? SF: It did. I grew up, as I mentioned earlier, everybody I knew worked at the Steel. So, I still can't imagine the Steel not being there. But yeah, it had very significant impact for me. And what was really interesting for me is I grew up in a white-collar family. So, my family didn't come home dirty from working in the Steel. But the stories that were written were all by the blue-collar workers. And I had no idea what those guys went through. I had no idea because my daddy always had a suit and tie job at the Steel. And I mean, those stories were heartbreaking. Heartbreaking, what those guys went through. Now I know my dad saw those stories because he was in the mill, even though he was supervising. But my dad didn't talk about what happened, ever. So, hearing the stories was really heartbreaking in a lot of ways, for me. But so much happened. And as one of the songs goes, "Something happened in the mill," and Bev and I often will say, "Boy, something just happened in the mill." It's just amazing. But that was a whole other world down there. I mean, hospital, everything. My father didn't have to go to a doctor, or St. Luke's hospital for anything. Everything was done right there in the mill. I don't think people have any idea how big that was. It was huge. But yeah, I was really taken by the Steel Choir. I can still, you can probably hear it in my voice. It was very impactful. MF: I'm curious about, because we've come back around almost full circle to discussion of the Steel, which makes me think about your family. Earlier you talked about Bev's mom moving in with the two of you. Could you talk a little bit about your family, their responses to your relationship with Bev? SF: Sure. So, by the time Bev and I came together, my father had already passed on, so he never knew Bev. And I'm sorry about that. My mother and I were very close. And when Bev and I came together, the hard part for Mom was, up until then, I was Mom's partner. So, in some ways, Mom felt like Bev was taking her place and pushing her out a little bit. But I told Mom, we were in New York, we had taken Mom to see a show. And we were walking down, I don't know, Fifth Avenue or somewhere in New York, and I told Mom, I said, "Bev and I are more than friends." I forgot exactly what I said. And I said, "We're going to be living together, and she's my partner," and Mom said, "Okay." That was it. "Okay." So, Mom became part of our life. My brother was fine. My brother, he could care less. My sister is a born-again, right-wing Christian. I don't know how else to put it, except like that. So, she wasn't happy about it at all. So, how that worked out, my sister has two daughters. At that time, my brother had one son. And they're all similar in age, the three nieces and nephews. So, my first niece, my sister's daughter, got married and Bev was not invited to the wedding, okay. So, then my nephew got married, and of course Bev was invited to the wedding because that's my brother's child. And the family, we all sat together, my sister and her husband and everybody, and we had a wonderful time. And I thought, "Oh, this is great. We're okay." So, now the next niece gets married. Bev's not invited again. So, I went, and I said to my sister and her family, I said, "This is the last time I'm coming to an event without Beverly. So, if she's not included, I'm not either." So, the next big event that happened was they had a big celebration for my sister's fiftieth birthday. Bev was not invited. I didn't go. That was it. I was done. So, I'm not quite sure how it happened, but over time, my sister always had Christmas gathering for everybody and I didn't go for a couple of years, and then, one year, we both got invited and we went. And so, then it was okay. I mean, they never approved of us as a couple, but we were allowed to be there together. But there was about maybe a three or four-year period where there was nothing. But that was about it. And my, as I say, my brother's side of the family, they're fine. They could care less. My sister and my nieces, none of them approve but they're all okay. They just know who we are. MF: This sort of connects back to earlier we had talked about your faith, being a part of a Christian Science faith tradition. How did your faith evolve over your life story? SF: I was raised in the Lutheran Church, actually Bev and I both were. And I always, we always went to church and everything, but it was more about music, going to sing. And then, actually, I was in college, and it was my sophomore year in college when I met -- I've only really had one other relationship than Beverly, and that was with someone from college. And her family, actually, she was Christian Scientist. And so, I was introduced to Christian Science through her and her mother. And I remember going to the Christian Science Church and talking with people and I just, I liked it. I liked how I felt. I liked the philosophy of it. And I liked that it was about love. And I remember going to my minister in the Lutheran church, because I was a member, I had to leave the Lutheran church in order to become a member of the Christian Science church. And I had to talk with my minister about that. And I remember telling him, he asked me, "Why?" And I said, "Well, all the years in the Lutheran church, I never once felt like God loved me." I said, "But in the Christian Science church, I feel that." So, that's really what it was about for me. And I told you earlier that I spent a year off studying. That year was studying Christian Science, too, and the Bible, actually. I had read the Bible many times but not studied it. So, that year, I spent really going deeper into my own soul, I guess, and studying Christian Science, and studying the Bible. And then, I was pretty active in the Christian Science church in Bethlehem for years. I was a reader, and I was treasurer for many, many years. And when Bev and I became a couple, I realized I couldn't be totally true to my commitment to Christian Science. And so, I left the church. But I think, and I'm not positive about this because I think if I really wanted to go back I could, even as an open, gay person, I think I could go back now because I think they've changed. But the rules were so strict. When I became a member way back when, you had to vow that you don't smoke, you don't drink, you couldn't even do coffee, you couldn't have caffeine. It was very strict guidelines. And no out of marriage sexual encounters of any kind, so it was more, it was very confined. And when you study, and people that are in Christian Science, they say, "I'm a student of Christian Science," because you're always studying and it's this huge piece of who you are. People will say things like, "I say my prayers before I go to bed," and I would think, "But I'm praying all day long. How can you just take five minutes before you go to bed and say a prayer?" You have to be in a prayerful state all the time. And that's what Christian Science is about. It's always holding the positive thought. Something happens, you're always trying to negate that bad thing and know the truth about it. So, it's like a, it becomes 100 percent of who you are. And when I met Beverly and we became a couple, really, I knew that I couldn't give 100 percent of who I was to that church anymore. And I chose a different path. So, it didn't change me. I mean, I still have a deep spiritual sense and so does Bev. We might think a little bit differently about things, but it certainly, it gives me peace in my life. MF: Did you join a different church tradition after you--? SF: No. We both grew up in, as I said, the Lutheran church. And Bev sang in churches forever, and synagogues. And we've gone to churches. For me, I don't want to make a commitment to anything else. And I know if I join something, I am committed to it and I have to work for it. And I have enough to do. But we haven't found a church that we'd want to be part of, right now. We both miss the music of church, though. And we're trying to find that, but we haven't found it. MF: Well, we talked a little bit about ACCO, we've talked about faith tradition. Were there other, were there LGBTQ organizations? I know ACCO, it was straight women, it was more about women, as an organization. SF: Yeah, just women. MF: But were there other LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley that mattered to you during the time period that you were active in ACCO? SF: Well, I'm sorry to say this, but no. [laughs] Honestly, I don't even know what was available. We didn't have---- for me, I guess for both of us, we were so busy working, that you'd come home, you don't have time to do anything else. I think, honestly, Liz and Trish did more when they came to the Lehigh Valley to promote diversity of any kind. And we never even had any lesbian friends until we -- well, we had one couple that we were friends with. We met a lot of people through Liz and Trish and through that organization, through what they were building. But outside of them, no. No, really. And we certainly supported them. But no, I'm sorry. MF: I know that ACCO sang at Pride, I think. SF: Yeah, we did. We sang at Pride. But Mayfair wasn't then a music fest. But yeah, Pride was the only thing that really came about in the Lehigh Valley. MF: Because it was smaller. You'd have two bars, maybe two organizations. SF: Yeah. And Bev and I aren't big drinkers, or I don't drink at all, so we didn't go out a lot. We did like to dance, but there really wasn't -- that's why being here is so much different. Yeah. And most places, even bars, like the Stonewall was probably the biggest place. And that was so men-dominated that you didn't feel comfortable really doing that. So, we had a lot of parties at the house, though. This is kind of cute. When we lived in Danielsville, it was a party house. And um, there might have been parties where we had 50, 75 women. And we didn't even know where these women came from, but they were all lesbians. They were all within driving distance of Danielsville. We had a volleyball net out in front ; we had a swimming pool in the backyard. It was crazy. And we were away one time, and one of our girlfriends was staying at the house, and must have had a party or two because we've had other parties where people would come and we didn't know them and we'd say, "Well, how'd you get invited?" "Oh, we were here before." "What do you mean, you were here before?" "Oh, you know, when -- I don't want to mention any names, I don't want to get anybody in trouble." So, it was a party house. And we would have potlucks, women potlucks. And there were a lot of women in the Lehigh Valley that had no place to go. There was just no place to go. So, there was a period of a couple of years where we had a lot of gatherings, and a lot of just having fun together. Yeah, I had forgotten about that. Because there wasn't, there was no place to go. MF: Tell me more about the Danielsville years. Because you moved from your condo out to that area. SF: Yeah, we moved. I had a little half a double in Bethlehem that Bev and I lived in. And then, we moved out to Danielsville because we just needed more space. So, it was nice. It was an acre, and gardens and everything that we built, and we did a lot of work out there. But why did we move? We just didn't have enough room, I guess. Yeah. It was fun trying to find a place because I would say, "Well, I only want to be 20 minutes from work. I don't want to have to drive that far," and we would push that, and push that, and push that. It was about a half an hour, maybe 25 to 30 minutes. But it was a beautiful ride, and I could decompress on the way home. And it was a real redneck neighborhood. In fact, there was a house down the street from us that had a big, white cross in the yard. Everybody knew we were a couple, and everybody was okay with us, but nobody ever talked about it. But we were friends with the people next to us and across the street kind of thing. But yeah, it wasn't a gay-friendly neighborhood [laughs]. But we did okay. I don't know what else to say about that. MF: Tell me a little bit about, you got married later on, but you did a commitment ceremony. Tell me a little bit about that. SF: Oh, we did. Actually, it was Liz and Trish who said, "Vermont just opened up civil union. We're going to go out, we're going to get a civil union." I forget what year it was. We have the certificate hanging downstairs. And they said, "Why don't you come with us? This other couple is going with us." So, the six of us went up in their van, and we got married. Or, we got the civil union. We have pictures and I think we may even have a video of it, I'm not sure. It didn't mean anything in Pennsylvania, but it meant we did something, so it was the beginning. So, we had that. It was nice. The officiant was a woman, and she was really sweet. And Bev and I, I wrote something to say to Beverly, and she sang something to me, and neither one of us knew what the other was going to do, and at the end, the gal is practically crying while Bev's singing and whatnot. And we had already had wedding rings. We gave each other these on our seventh anniversary, so we didn't do wedding rings, but we each, without knowing, bought each other a bracelet. She bought me a diamond bracelet, and I bought her an emerald bracelet, because we're going to the green state of Vermont, so my whole thing was about green and emeralds and stuff. So, we exchanged bracelets. It was nice. We went up the night before, and our friend, I think Laura was with us. She did some other work for us. And we had a nice night together, and we got married, and came home. Well, civil unioned, I guess, and came home. But it was, I don't know how long after that that states started to open up more, but Vermont was the first, at least on the East that we could get to, we could drive there. I don't know if California was opened up by then or not. I don't know. But again, it was Liz and Trish who said, "Come on, we've got to do this." "Okay." They were a big influence that way. MF: And was it important to you when marriage equality was passed? SF: You know, it was important because, only because to me equality is important across the board. It didn't make me feel any different to have a paper that said, "I'm married." I mean nothing was going to change how I felt about Beverly. Financially, it was not helpful for us to be legally married. In some ways it was a financial detriment to us. But we did it because we think it's the right thing to do. I think I've always questioned, "Why can't you do something? If you want to do it, why can't you do it? I'm not hurting anybody. I'm not injuring anybody or killing anybody. Why can't I marry Beverly? What's the big deal?" So, in that respect it was important to us to be married. And again, we got married here in Delaware because we were told that anything we had somewhere else wouldn't matter in Delaware. You had to do it here. So, when that came, again, it was Liz and Trish, I have to blame my whole life on them. They told Beverly-- I was traveling a lot. After I retired from Moravian, I did a lot of consulting, and I was traveling a lot and Liz, I guess, told Bev a story about a couple who weren't married and one of them was in an accident or something and was in the hospital and the partner couldn't go see her because they weren't married, and the family stepped in. So, they said, "You two really need to get married," so I came home Thursday, and I was leaving on Monday, and Bev said to me, "We're getting married this weekend." "Oh, okay," I said. So, we go to the courthouse to get our papers on Friday, we go to the beach on Saturday, we get married, I leave again on Monday. So, it was no big deal. But we're married, we're legal, and we file our taxes together [laughs]. And she doesn't have to do anything, I do it all [laughs]. "Hey, I need that report, give it to me." "Okay." MF: It's great to live with someone who does math. SF: The accountant does it, I just sent it off. But anyway, those things are important only from a -- for me personally, it's again, about, "Why can't I do that if I want to do that?" It goes back to that little girl who wanted to play baseball, but I couldn't because I was a girl. "What do you mean I can't marry Beverly? I love her, she loves me. Why can't I marry her?" So, it's more about that. MF: We're kind of getting into your retirement, so maybe I'll ask one last question. Tell me about retirement down here in Rehoboth. What made you move down here? What is your life like? SF: Well, let's see. Bev and I, we both love the beach. And we both grew up going to the Jersey Shore, Long Beach Island. And so, in our first years together, we still were going to Long Beach Island because that's what we always did. And that got more busy and more crowded and more, there was nobody there like us. So, we're living in the Lehigh Valley, there's nobody there but us except when we have a party, and 50 million women show up at our house. And then, we'd go on vacation and again, there's nobody there like us. So, friends of ours -- actually, it was Ann again, I mentioned Ann and Sharon earlier. Ann had been coming down here. And she said, "Why don't you check out Rehoboth sometime?" So, we came down and did Bev tell you this story? All right, I'll tell it. I wasn't going to tell it, but I will. We came down here, we were staying at a bed-and-breakfast, a gay-owned, a lesbian-owned bed and breakfast, Wendy's. And Bev had gotten a really bad case of poison ivy and she was miserable. She was just miserable. She was scratching and itching and just moaning and groaning. So, she's in the room, drugged out and everything. Everybody else is out playing cards in the lobby area and having fun. I came back to the bedroom, and I said, "Don't you want to come out and have some fun? All you do is scratch and itch." Well, not smart. She got really mad at me. And so, she told me to get lost. So, that night, I guess about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning she got up and she said, "I'm going to the hospital. I can't stand it any longer." I said, "Well, I'll take you." No, no, no, no, no, no, she was still mad at me. She said, "I'm going by myself." So, she did. She took herself over to Beebe, came back. I'm sitting out on the porch on a rocking chair with everybody, feeling absolutely horrible. And so, she comes back and goes back to her room, and I go back and I go, "Honey I am really, really sorry. I was so insensitive." I said, "What can I do to make this up to you?" And she said, "Buy me a beach house." And I said, "Okay." So, [laughs] that's how we got to Rehoboth. I'm not sure if it was that time or the next time we came down, we went and we looked at -- oh, I know. So, we asked the owner of the place where we were saying, we asked Wendy, "Wendy, where should we look? What are some nice condo things that we should be looking at?" And she gave us the name of two different sections that we should look at, so we did. We looked at these two different sections. First of all, I'm not wealthy, Bev's not wealthy. We don't have a lot of money. I don't know how we ever thought in this lifetime we were going to buy a little beach house. So, we figured we can start with a condo, we'll figure it out somehow. Anyway, we drove around these two areas, and we drove around this one area, I forgot the name of it, behind Big Fish. It'll come to me. Anyway. We're driving around. And there were two women out, and we said, "Could we see your place?" "Come on in," they showed us their place. And it was really nice. So, we kind of got a sense of the end units, they were up and down, and they were roomy and nice, and we liked that. So, we got a realtor, and we said, "We're interested in getting one of those end units, sometime." "Oh, they never go on the market. There's only six of them in this whole place. They never go on the market." Okay. So, that was the summer. I think it was September, because school was just starting, and we get a call from the realtor, "One of these units is coming up." I took off from school, we went down, we bought it. And I don't know how we ever bought it. I don't know how we ever got a mortgage, but we did. And that was the beginning. And then, we had it for, I think, nine years, eight or nine years, and we would rent it because we really couldn't afford it. And so, most of the summer we rented it. And I rented it just through Moravian. I would put out an email and friends at Moravian would be renting it for a week here and a week there, and then we'd come down off season and stay weekends and stuff and get used to the area. And every time we would come down here for a weekend, Bev would be looking in the paper at the real estate. And I'd say, "Honey, stop looking in the paper. We can't afford anything else. We have a house, we have this. Come on." And she kept looking, she kept looking. And so, I don't know, a bunch of years into this now, and she's really looking seriously now. And I said, "You know, we can't buy something unless we sell this condo." And she said, "Okay." And now, she's getting really serious because this is like our ninth year, our eighth or ninth year. Now, we're looking at houses. And we had a realtor, she took us to a couple of places, we didn't like anything. Houses, not in development, just houses. We didn't like anything. And then, we saw one house that we kind of liked. And then, I picked up blueprints, and I saw a blueprint of a bathroom that I liked. I said, "I want to see a house that has this bathroom in it." She said, "I'll have to take you out to Independence," which is here, where we are. And we came out here, and we liked it. We liked it here. The clubhouse had an indoor swimming pool. We liked all that. "Okay, we like it here." Now, at this point, we had this realtor, who also had our condo, and that was up for sale now. And we said to her, "We can't do anything until that condo sells." We came out from looking at this place, the realtor got a message, "Your condo just sold." So, we made enough profit in nine years on that condo to begin this house. And that's how we did it. And we came here because of the women's community. Everywhere we went in Rehoboth, there were women like us. Everywhere. And we just don't have that and didn't have that in the Lehigh Valley. So, we knew we both loved the beach, but it was the women that brought us here. The women really did it. So, that the song that says, "There's something about the women," there's something about the women. Because yeah, that's what brings you here. The community of women is phenomenal. We have met, I can't tell you, how many wonderful women here. Everybody retires here, pretty much for the same thing. They want to be with the women. And if you have a problem there will be women lined up at the door to help you. Some of our friends are single and if they have like surgery or something, there's just, right away, a chart is formed and meals are coming every day, you've got a job to do, you're doing the laundry, you're taking the dog out, you're doing whatever. It's just, that's how it is. It's a huge women's support group here. And at our age, that was perfect. So, Bev was turning 70, I was still working at Moravian full-time, and she said to me, "I'm going to be 70. I'm leaving. I'm moving to the beach." Because our house was done by then and we weren't living in it, but it was here. And so, she said, "Are you going to retire and come with me?" I said, "Well, I guess I have to." So, I did. I didn't want to retire. I loved my job. But I did because I loved Beverly more. So, we came. But then I started to consult, and so, I was still busy. And I was out there all the time until COVID hit, and then I was home. So, COVID really made me retire. So, a year after COVID, my company asked me to come back and I said, "No," because I'd been home, now, for a year. I was used to it. So, that's kind of that. It's a great place to be. MF: Thank you so much. We're right at the at the end of the interview but before we conclude, is there anything that you thought, "Oh, I kind of wanted to talk about that today," and we missed it? Is there anything you want to add at the end? SF: You know, I don't think so. I think, no, I'm okay. I don't like talking about me so much. [laughs]. MF: Well, I appreciate the fact that you did talk about you. Thank you so much. SF: I'm sure Bev's going to say, "Well, did you tell them this? Did you tell them that? Did you tell them this?" MF: Well, you know, hey, we can always come back out again. We don't mind coming down to the beach. SF: You are always welcome at our beach. Always welcome. MF: Well, thank you so much. SF: You're welcome. Thanks for having us. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Sandy Fluck, February 20, 2022
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Sandy Fluck recalls her childhood in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, work in higher education, connection to A Chorus Celebrating Women (ACCO), and relationship with her partner of over 30 years.
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Foltz, Mary
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Mesics, Sandra (Sandy)
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5.4 October 11th, 2021 Sandy Mesics, October 11, 2021 LGBT-13 01:46:09 LVLGBT Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Mesics, Sandra (Sandy) Foltz, Mary video/mov MesicsSandy_20211011_video.mp4 1.0:|29(2)|58(11)|83(2)|100(11)|123(15)|144(2)|165(6)|186(5)|209(12)|234(15)|259(3)|280(4)|301(7)|322(6)|349(3)|370(4)|391(8)|418(10)|443(17)|468(7)|491(2)|514(5)|535(10)|556(16)|581(8)|604(2)|625(5)|650(7)|673(6)|692(15)|715(15)|740(7)|763(6)|786(2)|805(10)|826(5)|849(11)|872(3)|893(6)|916(2)|937(16)|964(4)|987(6)|1008(5)|1031(13)|1048(12)|1073(7)|1096(5)|1113(11)|1134(8)|1155(8)|1176(15)|1201(15)|1226(18)|1247(10)|1264(11)|1285(9)|1306(14)|1331(2)|1354(9)|1377(5)|1400(12)|1425(9)|1448(15)|1471(12)|1494(2)|1517(3)|1536(15)|1559(12)|1582(11)|1607(7)|1632(2)|1649(16)|1672(15)|1693(11)|1718(2)|1737(8)|1754(12)|1777(2)|1800(4)|1825(2)|1844(15)|1867(9)|1888(12)|1915(3)|1938(8)|1961(8)|1984(5)|2007(5)|2030(8)|2051(13)|2074(5)|2095(15)|2116(15)|2135(6)|2154(12)|2177(6)|2198(10)|2219(4)|2240(4)|2259(14)|2282(11)|2303(14)|2328(5)|2349(8)|2380(2)|2383(6) 0 https://youtu.be/tngiiTGigK8 YouTube video 0 Interview Introductions My name is Mary Foltz, and I’m here with Sandy Mesics to talk about her life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley and beyond, as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, and Sandy and I are meeting on October 11, 2021. 0 141 Early Family Life in Bethlehem, PA Well, I guess to sum things up, I’m a baby boomer. You know, as you know from my birthdate, I fall into that generation. I was born here in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, at St. Luke’s Hospital in 1952. My family at that time consisted of my mother, my father, and I have an older brother eight years older than myself. 0 347 Bethlehem Steel and the Evolution of the City but the Bethlehem Steel obviously was the main employer, and in some ways, it seemed like we were all connected to Bethlehem Steel, you know, either directly or indirectly. 0 622 Death of Father and Impact on Life My parents were always, well, to go into a little bit of detail, I did not have my father very long in my life. When I was 12 years old, we had a snowstorm, and it was a really bad January snowstorm, but we loved it because I didn’t have to go to school. 0 798 Childhood Gender Questioning SM: (laughs) Yeah. It’s going to be a short answer, because you know, being a Roman Catholic child growing up in a not major city in the 1950s and 1960s, I had no clue as to difference, biological differences between boys and girls. I mean, I knew what I looked like, I kind of looked like my brother. 0 928 Finding Trans Representation in Youth I think one of the earliest memories was finding a book by Christine Jorgensen you know, that talked about her change. And ironically, Christine Jorgensen, that news hit in 1952, the year I was born. 0 1230 College Experience Honestly, I really didn’t get a comprehensive picture of being trans until I went to college. And I went to Penn State, majored in Psychology, as it turned out, and Pattee Library had a wealth of journal articles and some books that were not available commonly to the public, and that’s where I really did my homework, so to speak. 0 1507 Gender Dysphoria in College My gender dysphoria was getting like you couldn’t believe, because there was no opportunity to slip off and dress the way I wanted to dress, or express myself the way I wanted to dress, which I had been doing since I was a little, little, kid. 0 1586 The Erickson Foundation There was an organization called the Erickson Foundation. And this was started by Reed Erickson, who was a transman, and he had come into some money because of his parents’ family business, and so he set up a foundation that was supposed to disseminate information for transsexuals in those days, and one of the services they provided was referral lists. 0 1646 Starting Hormones So, I wrote to them for referrals. And so, they wrote back and sent me a nice letter, and there were three referrals! Three physicians in Pennsylvania that might help me. 0 1744 Graduating and Moving to Philadelphia So, then I really had no future after college. You know, really, I always joke that having a bachelor’s degree in psychology kind of prepares you to ask people the important questions in life, and the important question being, “Would you like fries with that order?” And that’s exactly what my life was. 0 1910 Creating Image Magazine And that opportunity came when I started a magazine. And you know, talk about hubris. You know, my friend and I in Philadelphia decided that we wanted to start a magazine for trans folx. And, you know we knew a half a dozen trans folx by that time, but you know, I worked on the school newspaper, I was good at writing could do a rudimentary lay out, and so we established Image Magazine, and it was a quarterly, and it was a grassroots, I typed it at home, you know we sent it over to the printing place a couple blocks away, got it back, fold it, collate it, stapled, mailed it, and it started taking off a little bit, and so that’s sort of my entrance into the trans community and being an activist. 0 2067 LGBTQ+ Community at Penn State and HOPS Good question, thank you. Yeah, it, Penn State did have a gay bar in those days. It was called the My Oh My, and it was I think on College Avenue. However, I was not able to take advantage of that because I actually graduated from Penn State the day after my 21st birthday. 0 2224 LGBTQ+ Community in Philadelphia and Eromin So, transitioning over to Philadelphia was like “Ooh!” You know, all of a sudden you know I was meeting trans people in the streets! You know, striking up conversation, like we would see each other at Rittenhouse Square. And so, all of a sudden in Pennsylvania at that time in Philly, the group that I was most associated with was called Radical Queens. 0 2577 The United Transvestite Transexual Society and Working in Publishing And so, we all got our heads together, and Jack O’Brien, a cisgender male who was a former cartoonist, ran all these publications. And there were a slew of them, and some of them were pretty gross. 0 2858 The Importance of Erotic Imagery in LGBTQ+ Publications Could you talk a little bit about why erotic fiction, why erotic images really mattered in that time period? Why that was a focus, along with the self-help, along with the conferences, along with political discussion, I imagine. Why did that matter?
 ; 0 3109 Female Impersonator News It was called, and again, Female Impersonator News. And it was a tabloid publication, and a lot of, I should mention, a lot of what we did were personal ads, and you know, in those days, people trying to connect with each other, and you know, you got maybe a post office box and you placed an ad in a magazine like ours, you know maybe send a picture you described yourself, what you were looking for, and we would facilitate like forwarding mail, and that was a big part of what we did. 0 3263 The Impact of Trans Publications I think it was, I don’t know, just, I wasn’t prepared for the outpouring of letters that I got. You know, and so like we had, we always had letters to the editor that you know we would publish if we thought there was something helpful in there. 0 3626 Career Post-Image Magazine Yeah, so I parlayed what I learned about publication layout writing and everything and applied for a job at W.B. Saunders company in Philadelphia. And, W.B. Saunders was at that time, I think it still is, a large medical publishing company, and W.B. Saunders had one best seller in their whole career, and I think that was the Kinsey Report. 0 4144 Exploring Sexual Orientation Segueing into the other question, I always knew that I was attracted to women, even as a kid, and boy that was confusing. You know, so like I want to, you know I am a woman, I want to be a woman, but I love women, and you know, so that was really hard. 0 4341 Meeting and Dating Future Spouse My spouse and I met in 1985, in Miami. At that time, she was just graduating from the University of Miami’s master’s degree in Nurse Midwifery, and she at that time was exploring her own lesbianism. 0 4553 Navigating Lesbian Relationships as a Transwoman I had my first, what I would call serious relationship with a woman probably [01:16:00] in Philadelphia in 1978 or so, and we were together for four or five years, and so in that aspect, you know, one of the big discussions among trans people is entering a relationship, do I disclose my trans status? 0 4907 Moving Back to the Lehigh Valley Okay. So, that pretty much brings us up to the year 2000. And what is happening at that time is Sara is working in a clinic in Broward County, and is not real happy with her job situation. 0 5169 Relationship with Mother As I said, way in the background, even though my mom was born in the United State, she basically grew up in Hungary, and then moved back to the States. And she had basically the equivalent of a grade school education, I don’t think, she didn’t have high school. 0 5696 Evolution of the Leigh Valley cont. As I said, think the industries are, not to say industries, but the professions in like the learning institutions, the medical care brings a more professional kind of class of people. I’m sorry, I’m sounding elitist there, and I don’t mean that by any means, but it’s a place that’s culturally rich now, where it hadn’t been before. You know, we have world-class music. 0 5925 Hope for the Future and Closing Thoughts I think if anything, I am so hopeful for the future. When I see young non-binary kids not afraid to express their gender identity, not having to buy, you know, one or the other, you know, gender is everything in between, and that’s okay, it’s like wow! 0 MovingImage Sandy Mesics describes her childhood, growing up in Bethlehem, PA ; her reflections on Bethlehem Steel, including her father’s employment with the company and working-class steel communities ; and her experiences as young transwoman trying to find information in tabloids and books about other transgender people. She discusses her enrollment at Penn State as a physics and later a psychology major ; her anti-Vietnam war activism ; her gender dysphoria during college ; and her journey toward gender affirmation with support from the Erickson Foundation and a doctor in Philadelphia. 
 ; 
 ; Moving to Philadelphia after college because of the large LGBTQ community, Sandy started Image Magazine, worked with Transsexual Action Committee, the Radical Queens, and Eromin Center ; in addition, she built a relationship with publishers of Female impersonator Magazine and ultimately worked with publishers to produce articles and publications for transgender readers, beginning 1974-1975. Sandy then describes using her work in publishing to gain employment with W.B. Saunders, a graphic arts company, and as an html coder. Toward the end of the interview, Sandy describes living in Miami, training to be a nurse, becoming a nurse midwife, and meeting her wife. The interview concludes with Sandy’s discussion of moving back to Bethlehem to care for her mother and finding a job at St. Luke’s, training others in maternal-newborn nursing. Sandy Mesics Interview October 11, 2021 MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Sandy Mesics to talk about her life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley and beyond, as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, and Sandy and I are meeting on October 11, 2021. We're conducting this interview on Zoom, because there's still a pandemic going on, so we think this is the safest way to conduct interviews at this time. And I want to start by saying, Sandy! Thank you so much for being here with me today! SANDY MESICS:It's a pleasure, Mary. I'm glad to be participating in this project. I hope I have something worthwhile to share with you. MF: Well, I'm really looking forward to it. I want to start just by getting some basic information down. Would you be willing to state your full name, please, and spell it for us? SM: Sure. My full name is Sandra Mesics. M-E-S-I-C-S, although I prefer Sandy. MF: Thank you. And will you please share your birthdate? SM: Yes, March 23, 1952. MF: Thank you. And, I know I already shared with you a consent form, and you signed it, and then I signed it on my end, but I just want to review just a few items about consent. So, first, do you consent to this interview today? SM: I do. MF: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online? SM: Yes. MF: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats, including articles or on websites, presentations, or other formats that might come along? SM: Yes. MF: And do you understand that you'll have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript of this interview to identify parts you might want to delete, or you could withdraw the interview in its entirety if you wanted? SM: Yes, I do. MF: Great! Okay, thank you so much. So, we'll just go ahead and dive in. So, Sandy could you start by telling us a little bit about the early years of your life? SM: Well, I guess to sum things up, I'm a baby boomer. You know, as you know from my birthdate, I fall into that generation. I was born here in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, at St. Luke's Hospital in 1952. My family at that time consisted of my mother, my father, and I have an older brother eight years older than myself. So, I came along, and you know I guess the doctor in those days took a look at what was between my legs and assigned me as a male at birth. And I think it took a little while for me to realize that there was a real disconnect there, but you know, we can cover that in some detail. So, 1957, at that time we lived in Fountain Hill, my dad and mom basically, my dad was a Bethlehem Steel worker. He was a first generation American. Both grandparents on both sides of my family immigrated from Europe in the early 1900s to seek a better life. And so, my dad was the first generation born here in America, as well as my mother. My mother was born in Northhampton, but then immigrated back to Europe, and basically my mom grew up in Hungary, and didn't get back to the United States until I think the 1930s at that time, and then settled here. My mom at that time when I was born was a domestic servant. She worked for one of the vice presidents of Bethlehem Steel, and her job was to cook meals, do the shopping, and in those days, the steel executives had quite a staff of domestic workers, and my mom was one of them. My older brother I mentioned is eight years older than myself, he's still alive and living in Florida, and we do keep in touch occasionally, although we never really had a close relationship. Both parents were, I was raised a Roman Catholic, and in those days Bethlehem, particularly on the South Side had a lot of ethnic churches, a lot of Roman Catholic churches. And a lot of them are still standing, although they're pretty much defunct right now. And we were members of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church on Fifth Street, which was a Windish church, which Windish, it's hard to explain, but it's some kind of amalgam of Hungarian and Slovak backgrounds. All that European, Eastern European mix that used to get jumbled up every time they had a war over there. And so, that was the milieu in which I was born and raised. Subsequently, we moved to the North side of Bethlehem, where my mom and dad actually built the house I grew up in. So, as a little kid I remember carrying around hammers and drinking lemonade on the building site, and it was a family affair. So, I can tell you that Bethlehem in the early 1960s was a booming place, an industrial center. It's hard to conceive of it anymore, but the Bethlehem Steel obviously was the main employer, and in some ways, it seemed like we were all connected to Bethlehem Steel, you know, either directly or indirectly. The steel company pretty much ran 24/7, 365. It never shut down. And as I look back, I can still hear the sounds of the steel running at night. I can still see the glow on the horizon from the blast furnaces. It had this orange glow most of the time, smoke spewing into the air, and on a really humid day where the wind was out of the East, you got the wonderful aroma of the Coke Works outside of Hellertown, which was a sulfuric smell. So, you know, in many ways, Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley has really improved as far as a quality-of-life thing, even though we kind of miss the industry. I really don't miss the noise, the smoke, and the pollution. And you know, the steel provided a great living for a lot of steel workers like my dad, who had a high school education, and could go right to work in the steel, he had a trade, and there were good benefits thanks to the union, and they were able to raise kids, and they were able to keep a roof over our heads, and keep us clothed and fed, and actually my brother was the first one in our family to go to college. And you know, I followed along eight years later, and they were very proud of that achievement. So, I'm digressing. Put me back on track, Mary. MF: I don't think you're digressing at all. That description of what it was like to live in Bethlehem with the steel works was amazing, and you're really capturing both how central the steel was to the economy, how it benefited laborers, but then the environmental costs of having the steel works at the center. SM: Yeah, the Bethlehem Steel that, a lot of the folks that worked there that are still walking around, you know, they're blaming everybody else on the demise of Bethlehem Steel, and truly it was multi-factored. You know, the company failed to invest in newer technology to compete with Europe and Japan, but by the same token, the union kind of drove some deals that made it very hard for the steel to make money. So, I honestly think it was everybody's fault, and it was almost inevitable that the steel would have a demise, and I think that was the amazing thing. Because when I left the Lehigh Valley in 1969 to go to college, the steel was running full blast. When I moved back to the Lehigh Valley as an older adult, back in the year 2000, it was gone. And but yet the Lehigh Valley survived, and I think is thriving, because of other smaller businesses that have moved into the area. We've become an educational mecca, with all the colleges, and universities. Certainly, a healthcare mecca, which we didn't have back then, so I am thrilled at the course that the Lehigh Valley has taken, and it thrives. And a lot of us could not have imagined that happening, you know, if the steel had gone away. MF: So, the steel was central to your family, in terms of you know, keeping a roof over your head, as you shared. What was it like to be in a steel family as a young child? SM: (laughs) The steel was a close-knit community in some ways, you know. You know, my dad worked there, my uncle worked there, and other relatives. And for instance, when my dad was building our house, it wasn't unusual for him to get his buddies from the crew that he worked with to help put the roof on the house. And there was always a buddy that could fix your car, or replace your brakes, or there was always somebody, you know, so it was kind of, those guys had this like kind of a knit community. And they helped each other a lot, and they were always working on projects for each other. So, that was really kind of interesting, and I think we miss that to a certain extent these days. I don't think we have that sense of tight community. My parents were always, well, to go into a little bit of detail, I did not have my father very long in my life. When I was 12 years old, we had a snowstorm, and it was a really bad January snowstorm, but we loved it because I didn't have to go to school. And for whatever reason, my dad was either not working that day, or couldn't get into work or whatever, and so we had a nice day together, but then we went out to shovel snow, and my dad came in with chest pains, and you know, he a neighbor-- a neighbor, not an ambulance, a neighbor took him to the hospital, and he never came home. So, that was kind of a sudden shock to all of us that we had lost this you know, my father. And it took kind of a long time to get over that. So, when, just before my dad died and my brother started going to college, my mom started working for Just Born as a candy packer. And so, Just Born is still around, and thriving in the Lehigh Valley, and so my mom became a line worker at Just Born, and so my brother was away at college at that time. He was in his late teens/early twenties, and so we had living in my house myself, my mother, and my paternal grandmother, which was like a really interesting dynamic, but a lot of the day-to-day running of the house, maintenance of the house, mowing the lawns and everything, kind of fell to me because there was nobody else to do it. So, for myself personally, it was like almost growing up overnight. You know, you kind of like left this sheltered childhood thing and all of a sudden you had responsibilities. And then, you know, life was still okay but a little precarious. There wasn't always money to do things, but we made do, and we did very well. You know, it kind of pulled the rest of us tighter together. So many years ago, and I still sort of get emotional about talking about that. Nobody expects, you know, your dad to go out the door and never come back the door again, so. MF: Wow. Thank you for sharing that, that story. It sounds to me like you know, following your father's death, you really became a figure in the family that was expected to do maintenance, kind of labor around the house, and this led me to think a little bit about, or wonder about how your family understood gender when you were a child. Would you be willing to explore that a bit? SM: Yeah. It's going to be a short answer, because you know, being a Roman Catholic child growing up in a not major city in the 1950s and 1960s, I had no clue as to difference, biological differences between boys and girls. I mean, I knew what I looked like, I kind of looked like my brother. I didn't know what girls looked like, I didn't, you know, but I just knew that there, you know-- One of my earliest memories is thinking to myself, and I must have been about four years old, and seeing little girls around me and going "when do I get to join that team?" You know? I always assumed that there would come a time in my life, early on, where I would be able to be like picked for that team, like you were picked for a basketball team. You know, you'd stand in a line, and I want to be on the girls' team because that's where I belong, and it just never happened. And so, I had no clue as to like gender differences. My mom, you know, with basically less than a high school education wasn't able to talk to me about that. She didn't understand. And so, I was kind of lost, and I had to sort of figure things out by myself, and I knew that there was this major disconnect, and when I was about five years old, it dawned on me that I was never going to get that chance to choose, and I was never going to get the chance to choose and I was never going to develop in that direction, and what do I do now? And so like, the rest of the time into my teens that's what I was trying to figure out. It's like, am I stuck this way? Do I have to lead my life in this gender and be totally unhappy? Is there any way that you know after the fact that I can switch genders? Which at that time might as well have been talking about, you know, walking on Mars, because you know, there wasn't. There was no information. And then gradually, gradually I started to connect with things, and I think one of the earliest memories was finding a book by Christine Jorgensen you know, that talked about her change. And ironically, Christine Jorgensen, that news hit in 1952, the year I was born. And so, I have a wonderful story, talk about full circle, is I got to meet Christine and have a discussion with her when she was older in life and just told her how her story gave me life and hope. But anyway, I started finding out about that probably in my early teens, and then the little lightbulb went on and said, there are other people like myself. I'm not alone. But even that, you thought to yourself, well maybe there's a half a dozen people like myself, maybe, in the world. And so, that was how it kind of evolved. And then gradually in my high school years, there were these things called tabloids, and there were dozens of them. And so, their idea was like splashy news stories. Titillating kind of things, and they were all The National Examiner, the National Enquirer, the Insider. It was trash journalism at its best. And they kind of like hooked on to trans people very early on, and would splash these pictures on the front page about "Can you believe this is a man?" With a picture of a lovely woman on the cover. And my eyes kind of bugged out when I started seeing this stuff, and so every Sunday morning after church we would make a trip to the store, and we'd buy the Philadelphia Enquirer, and the Allentown Chronicle, whatever, and I would find these tabloids and kind of stash them in between the papers and kind of steal them. So here's an admission, you know, I hope they don't come after me, but I would be able to do that and then get them home and kind of take them out right away before anybody else could see them, and like pore over these newspapers and this stuff. And it was like a desperate attempt to kind of glean some information about you know, there are other people like me, how are they managing their lives? How do they do this? And so, you know it took a while, but then gradually I started putting the pieces together. And then in the late 1960s I ran across Harry Benjamin's book, The Transexual Phenomenon. And obviously that was a real game changer, and it was a game changer for the whole trans community. I mean, how many of us were saved by that book? Bring me back on track, Mary. (laughs) MF: You're on track. We're just going to go wherever you want to go. Can I ask, did you hear about Christine Jorgensen from the tabloids, or you said, "I found something about her." Where were you finding information beyond the tabloids? Was there a place in the Lehigh Valley, or? SM:Yeah, so I think the Christine Jorgensen book when I found it was already out in paperback, and I think I found it at a department store in probably one of the defunct department-- like Almart or one of the stores that no longer exists, and they would have like little things you could buy record albums, and you could buy books, and you know, dinnerware and stuff like that. And I spotted this on the shelf, and somehow at the age of 11 or 12 I had the courage, screwed up the courage, to take this book, with my hand shaking, and go to the counter and pay for it, which was like "Ehh! They're going to think I'm weird." So, I found that out. And then there were, in those days, there were newsstands all throughout Bethlehem, and my favorite one was on, I think it was on New Street, and it was Sherry's News Stand. And again, you could go in the front, and they had all the newspapers lined up, but in the back corner, they had Playboy, Penthouse, they had you know the "adult magazines" and I ran across a copy of Female Impersonator Magazine. And irony of irony, I would actually become the editor of that magazine in a few years. So, yes. I found that also when I was a teenager, and I don't know if I figured out a way to steal that, because I'm pretty sure he probably wouldn't have sold it to me if you know I wasn't old enough to read that kind of stuff. But so, there were newsstands, occasionally you'd find things in stores, grocery stores would have the tabloids. There was nothing in the library, believe me, I looked, in those days, and that was of no help at all. So, you kind of, it was a pre-internet age and there wasn't that flood of information. There was no information superhighway in those days, but you kind of gleaned what you could. Honestly, I really didn't get a comprehensive picture of being trans until I went to college. And I went to Penn State, majored in Psychology, as it turned out, and Pattee Library had a wealth of journal articles and some books that were not available commonly to the public, and that's where I really did my homework, so to speak. MF: Tell me a little bit about moving to Penn State. So, what made you choose Penn State, and what was your experience like in college? SM: Okay. Good question, thank you. I was a science nerd in high school, and you know, going back a little bit, so I went to a parochial Roman Catholic grade school grades one to eight, and then my mother, to her credit, thought that the education that I was getting there wasn't on par with what I could get in the public education, and so in ninth grade I went to Northeast Middle School, which at that time was Northeast Junior High School, and then Liberty High School which, I mean you know, the big public high school in Bethlehem. All during that time I had developed a passion and an interest in astronomy, which you know, carries through to this day. I was a member of the Lehigh Valley Amateur Astronomical Society as a kid, and I am a member today again. So, at any rate, I went to Penn State because, number one, we could afford it. Number two, we could afford it. Number three, we could afford it. I benefited, you can say benefit is the right word, I benefited from social security survivor benefits because my father was, had died at such an early age. So, between scholarships, state aid, and my own working during the summer times, I was basically able to graduate from college without a dollar of debt, which, you know, who can do that these days? Nobody can do that. So anyway, I went to Penn State basically because I was admitted there, and it was close by, relatively, and we could afford it. We could swing it as a family. So anyways, I started out as a physics major and so Penn State in those days was culture shock for me, coming from the Lehigh Valley. I mean, I was thrown in with I think the student body then was maybe 26,000, something like that. I was living in a dorm. Living independently, which I loved. And tossed into this milieu of learning, which was like awesome, but it was also, 1969 was also the time when we had lots of things happen. You know, you had Woodstock that summer, we had man walking on the moon, but more important we had Vietnam. And I was eligible for the draft. And so, the only reason I was able to stay out of Vietnam was if I could stay in college. Because there were student deferments at that time. The selective service at that time was very racist, and very classist. If you were a poor black kid from an inner city, you went to Vietnam. You were drafted. If you were white and could get yourself into some kind of college, you were deferred until college was over. So, you know, there was inherent racism built into that whole system, and classism. It was horrible. So, you know, I spent more time my first two years in college being an activist in anti-Vietnam War protests, campus protests. I worked with the Peace Coalition. I met people like Abbie Hoffman, you know, not Abbie Hoffman, but some of the Chicago Seven: Dave Dellinger, William Kuntsler, Rennie Davis, so I was in this very much mode of let's end the war in Vietnam. My studies kind of suffered as a result, and I didn't last as a physics major very long. I think I made it maybe two or three semesters, and then I changed my major to psychology. And you know, a lot of us go into psychology because we have our own demons to work on, and certainly that was true in my case. So, at Penn State for the first two years, I lived on campus. My gender dysphoria was getting like you couldn't believe, because there was no opportunity to slip off and dress the way I wanted to dress, or express myself the way I wanted to dress, which I had been doing since I was a little, little, kid. And all of a sudden in this men's dorm, you know, I was kind of lost. It was a really bad time. So, my third and fourth year I moved off campus into an apartment, where I had a little bit more personal freedom. And so, it was the first time I actually was able to go out in public as Sandy and just kind of blend into things, because it was a big enough community that I could kind of get lost there. So, I did, eventually I graduated from Penn State. I wrote most of my psychology papers in the day what we call "transvestism" and "transsexualism." We didn't have the term transgender yet, that came along a little bit later. And so, that was my experience at Penn State. My senior year at Penn State, which was in 1972 I believe, 72, 73, the dysphoria, my gender dysphoria got so bad that I finally sought out professional help. There was an organization called the Erickson Foundation. And this was started by Reed Erickson, who was a transman, and he had come into some money because of his parents' family business, and so he set up a foundation that was supposed to disseminate information for transsexuals in those days, and one of the services they provided was referral lists. And so, again, pre-internet days, where do I go to get help? He would, his group would compile lists of doctors that were doing some form of trans care in the day. The only place we really knew about, everybody kind of knew about what Johns Hopkins was doing. You know, with the first Gender Identity Clinic, and I think Stanford on the West Coast started up at the same time. But other than that, there really was not much information out there, and Johns Hopkins actually treated very few patients, you know in the long run. They, it was a small program. But again, I digress. So, I wrote to them for referrals. And so, they wrote back and sent me a nice letter, and there were three referrals! Three physicians in Pennsylvania that might help me. Two were in Pittsburgh, and one was in Philadelphia, and I lived more close to the Philadelphia side, so I drove from Penn State to Philadelphia, met the physician who was a Doctor of Osteopathy Family Physician. Had a little street corner practice in South Philly, in the Italian area, and he got into this whole thing because one of the kids in the neighborhood was trans, came to him and "I need help with hormones," and he started treating trans people. And it grew and grew and grew, and I think by the time I got to him, he probably had about 300 trans patients in Philly. So, he was the trans doctor in Philly. And so, he could not believe that I had driven I guess, what is it? 180 or 200 miles to see him for treatment. I was 20 years old. And he did a quick interview, we talked for about 45 minutes, and he started me on hormone treatments. And so, by the time I graduated from Penn State in 1973, I'd been on hormones for about six months, changes were starting to happen, and the minute those changes started to happen, this sense of calm kind of came over me that I can't describe. And so, the last few months of my college experience were awesome. And so, that was the story. So, then I really had no future after college. You know, really, I always joke that having a bachelor's degree in psychology kind of prepares you to ask people the important questions in life, and the important question being, "Would you like fries with that order?" And that's exactly what my life was. So, you know, the one good thing was by the time I graduated from college, they had ended the draft and Vietnam was winding down, so I dodged, literally dodged a bullet there, and so tossing a coin in the air, I moved to Philadelphia. It was a place where my doctor was, it was a place that was big enough that I could disappear and you know get the help I need, hopefully find a job that I needed, and transition in anonymity. Because this would have not flown in the Lehigh Valley at the time. Getting back to the Lehigh Valley, it was still kind of a, I don't know, provincial place. You know, growing up I didn't even know if there was a gay bar in the Lehigh Valley in the time I was here. I didn't know other gay people ; I certainly didn't know another trans person in the Lehigh Valley. It wasn't here. But in Philadelphia, you know, Stonewall there was a burgeoning gay community, it was getting very political, which was kind of cool, and so you know, there were resources for me there. So, even though it was kind of difficult, I only knew like one or two people that lived in Philly, but kind of got myself established, worked all kinds of odd jobs at first. My favorite one being at the time was, I made sandwiches in a gourmet deli in Downtown Philly, and I take pride in the fact that the place that I worked for, voted Best Hoagie in Philadelphia in 1973, which is no small accomplishment. And I got to make those hoagies every day. I mean it was, they did an amazing lunch business, and they actually put quality stuff in their sandwiches, but that was, again I digress, but you know, this is what you have to do to kind of like put food on the table and do your best. And in those days in Philly, I was sort of spending half my time in my male role, and half the time in my female role, trying to sort things out, and of course you know, if you're going to transition, you have to completely transition, so I was looking for a way to ditch the old identity and just be Sandy full time. And that opportunity came when I started a magazine. And you know, talk about hubris. You know, my friend and I in Philadelphia decided that we wanted to start a magazine for trans folx. And, you know we knew a half a dozen trans folx by that time, but you know, I worked on the school newspaper, I was good at writing could do a rudimentary lay out, and so we established Image Magazine, and it was a quarterly, and it was a grassroots, I typed it at home, you know we sent it over to the printing place a couple blocks away, got it back, fold it, collate it, stapled, mailed it, and it started taking off a little bit, and so that's sort of my entrance into the trans community and being an activist. So, we had articles from people all over the world, we published stuff that correspondence in England, and I got involved with the Transsexual Action Organization, which was, they were trying to establish chapters in major cities, they had started in Miami. Angela Douglas, who's a very controversial and fascinating person, if you ever get a chance to research this person, wow. She was obviously schizophrenic but managed to be a pretty ground-breaking trans activist. SO, for all the good and the bad, she accomplished something, but she was mean as a whoo! I probably shouldn't say that because, well, you know, Angela is gone and she's not likely to, but had I said this and if Angela was still alive, you could be sure she would find a way to kick my ass, so. Yeah. She was that way. She threatened everybody, so. And so, Mary I'm digressing again. Bring me back to home. MF: You're not digressing because this is all just fabulous. I have so many different questions that are popping around in my mind, and I'm wondering about this relationship between the community at Penn State, and then what you found in Philly, because you did say at Penn State that you were able, once you moved off campus, to really embrace Sandy, and so, was there a community there? What was the relationship between trans people and the gay community? And then, how did that small kind of State College area differ from what you found in Philly? SM: Good question, thank you. Yeah, it, Penn State did have a gay bar in those days. It was called the My Oh My, and it was I think on College Avenue. However, I was not able to take advantage of that because I actually graduated from Penn State the day after my 21st birthday. So, you know, I knew it was there, but I couldn't get in. And in those days, you know, given that it's a college town, they carded pretty universally, because they had a lot to lose. So, if you were under 21, you didn't get into a bar. So, I did not have that perspective, although I knew there were gay people around. I knew maybe about three or four gay and trans people at Penn State, but we were not a close-knit group in any means, and as a side story, when I was at Penn State, I worked for the Daily Collegian. I was a reporter for the daily student newspaper, and at that time they assigned me to cover the first homophile at Penn State. In those days they used the homophile terminology, and it was, homophiles of Penn State were HOPS. They were trying to get a charter from the administration at Penn State to organize, have meeting space, and be a recognized organization, and Penn State was having none of it. I know. And this was 1972, 1973, and I actually kept some of the articles I wrote about it. So, finally I think HOPS appealed to the Graduate Student Association, that was much more progressive, and they were able to do an end-around, but I think you can google that early history of Homophiles at Penn State and get a really clear picture of how hard it was. And you know, we're talking about, '72 is like three years past Stonewall, gay liberation was just starting to kind of get is wings, but again, Penn State you know, all said and done at that time, it was still a pretty conservative place. You know, you had a lot of agriculture majors, a lot of engineering majors, a lot of folks from the central parts of Pennsylvania, and so it was like this melting pot, but it was by no means a bastion of liberal thought. Although you had it, it wasn't pervasive. So, transitioning over to Philadelphia was like "Ooh!" You know, all of a sudden you know I was meeting trans people in the streets! You know, striking up conversation, like we would see each other at Rittenhouse Square. And so, all of a sudden in Pennsylvania at that time in Philly, the group that I was most associated with was called Radical Queens. And Radical Queens was really, really progressive. In fact, they were like into destroying the patriarchy and starting to view gender as non-binary before it was like cool to look at it that way, and so they were really kind of ahead of the curve. They did some, and I think Tommi Avicolli Mecca is still around. I think he lives in the Bay Area, but he was a driving force in that, and you know, I learned a lot from Tommi in the Radical Queens in Philly. We tried starting the first, it was called the Eromin Center in Philly, which was supposed to be like the first sit-in space, providing some level of services to the LBGT community. Eromin standing for Erotic Minority, E-R-O-M-I-N, and so that was kind of like the predecessor of the William Way Center, and the predecessor of the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia. It was the fledgling efforts that we had made in the 70s to do something for health and such. So, it wasn't until you know I was in a large urban environment that I was able to actually blossom a little bit, and you know, tap into resources, and create resources. So, that was the fun part. MF: When you get to Philly, are you part of Radical Queens first before you start the publication? Or is it, is this all kind of happening at the same time? SM: (laughs) Yeah, I honestly can't remember. To my 69-year-old mind, it all kind of happened at the same time, although you know, had you asked me 20 years ago, I might have said, "Well this happened first, and this happened second." But it basically was kind of all, the connections, the synapses were happening so quickly, and so it was a great time to be an activist. Now, again, you know, Philadelphia, we think of it in you know 21st Century terms as a very liberal city, but you have to remember, when I lived there, the Chief of Police was Frank Rizzo, who later became Mayor, and he was not LBGT friendly. I mean, in Philadelphia while they tolerated it, you had to be very careful, because every time for instance, every time he'd run for office or you know, something was coming down, they'd raid the gay bars. And you know, it was just, so it was dicey. And I tell people, when I tell this to younger people, they just can't, they can't put their minds around this, but when I lived in Philadelphia, every time I went out the front door as Sandy, I was breaking the law. There were impersonation laws still on the books, so that if some random cop pointed to me on the street and I couldn't produce ID that was in line with my presentation, I got taken in. And it did happen, it did happen. I came close a couple times, but fortunately I never ended up in jail, but you could be arrested for just expressing your true gender, and you know, I can't begin to like impress upon young people how dicey that was in the day, and what a head trip it, you know, it played with you, you know. You had to kind of like scope out every move you were going to make, where you were going to go, who you were going to be with, and just sort of you were always on guard. You were always, you know, it was not great. And again, groups were advocating to change that kind of law, and you know we were flaunting it in some cases, so you know, I think eventually you know, they saw that that was really stupid. We all carried, those of us that were on hormones, we all carried like these little carry letters from our doctors saying this is why we were dressing this way and everything, they had no legal bearing, but you know it was like a little, I don't know, gave you a little sense of false security I suppose. I kept mine for a long time, I think I might still have it somewhere. Yeah, yeah. So. Again, so in Philly all this was sort of happening at the same time, I was making connections, I was getting out, you know, you had things happening socially and, in the media, you know the Rocky Horror Picture Show, you had Pink Flamingos. The first trans person I ever met was Elizabeth Coffey from that movie. I don't know if any of you remember the famous scene-- yes, yes, I won't describe it here because this is probably a family audience but let us just say that Elizabeth was pre-operative at the time, and kind of showed it. And so, she was a delightful, delightful person, and we became pretty good friends in Philadelphia. She had moved there after the movie came out and wow, she was just absolutely gorgeous, and had her head screwed on straight, and just gave me sage advice, and you know, I can't thank her enough. So, my magazine sort of came to the attention of Female Impersonator Magazine, and they were like the big ones, and they were trying to organize something called The United Transvestite Transexual Society. UTTS. And so, we all got our heads together, and Jack O'Brien, a cisgender male who was a former cartoonist, ran all these publications. And there were a slew of them, and some of them were pretty gross. And so, he offered me at first the use of his facilities to type-set, do camera work, and actually make my publication look a little more professional, and I on the other hand would write for him and do some photography and go out into the field, and cover some events in the day, and so we sort of, that kind of melded into like, "Hey, why don't you come work for me full time, and we'll put out all these publications together?" And so, that happened in like the late 70s, 74, 75. It gave me the opportunity to be Sandy 24/7. Qualified for surgery, and all that, and so that was like really how I kind of came on to the national scene as an editor and publisher of trans material at the time. MF: Can you talk a little bit about, what were you covering in the early years of that publication? What were the big articles, you know, what were the topics that really mattered to you as an editor and writer, and other writers that you were publishing? SM: There was a lot of self-help stuff. And I have to say, our bias in those days was mostly trans-women. Was basically, the trans-men started to emerge, but frankly our focus in those early days was mostly trans-women. So, a lot of self-help. How to do make up. How to, you know, what are the best hair removal methods. We started publishing lists of providers that you know would help people. Erotic fiction. I always said that you know my real forte was writing erotic fiction that could be read with one hand. Yeah. And so, a lot of that. The events that we would cover were things like drag balls, you know, which precede our, what is it called now? Culture... Drag culture... Ballroom culture, that's it. We covered the early drag balls, and those were kind of interesting. We covered occasionally conferences. There were early conferences, you know like the one in Massachusetts with Ariadne Kane, and this emerging kind of you know, serious discussion about transitions. We covered that sort of thing. I was covering Mardi Gras. I covered the first Fantasia Fair in Cape Cod. So, there was a lot to cover, and what I couldn't cover, we got people to send us stuff from like what was going on in the West Coast, and so it was just like gathering steam, and we were getting everything out there, it was amazing. So, I was kept kind of busy and you know, some of the stuff that I shot was like R-rated, sex, I would call it that. You know, we had strict guidelines as to what we could photograph and what we couldn't. You know, nudity was absolutely okay, but you couldn't have anything going into anything else, so that was a red flag no no, so we kind of like worked within those confines. And looking back on it, honestly, I'm kind of like, I cringe a little bit, because the quality is pretty crude by today's standards, but it was eye-opening in the day, and it was kind of like earth-shattering. Oh! Things like movie reviews, you know, I mentioned a couple movies. We did that. There was Dog Day Afternoon came out, we reviewed that. We tried to get an interview with the woman Liz whose story it was based on. I think we did. Book reviews. You name it. We covered it if we could find out about it. MF: I think as you were talking about you know the import of erotic fiction, the import of images, and yeah, they're in the 70s, but who cares about the crudeness of the technology, it's like, these are really important things to be publishing, they're important images to capture. Could you talk a little bit about why erotic fiction, why erotic images really mattered in that time period? Why that was a focus, along with the self-help, along with the conferences, along with political discussion, I imagine. Why did that matter? SM: Yeah, it mattered because we produced, it was kind of like a two-pronged thing, okay? So, we produced the magazines and the books, but we didn't distribute most of them. For that we went to Star Distributors in New York. Star Distributors was run by Italian families. And so, they sort of controlled the high-end printing presses and then distribution to adult bookstores, and through their mail order sales. And so, while we would produce content, if they decided not to distribute it, you know, so in order for them to get it into the stores to sell, you had to have the erotic content. So, they didn't mind that we packed it with other information at the time, so that was okay, the editorial content. And we always kind of did a fine line there. We always included something, because, not to digress even further, but at that time the Supreme Court handed down a decision regarding what was pornography and what was not pornography, and for instance that's why we didn't show actual penetrative sex, or anything like that. But the caveat was that as long as it had quote-unquote "redeeming social value," it wasn't pornography. And so, my job in part, was to provide the content that was meaningful social content: self-help, articles you know, and so that's how we had this meld of material. Now that being said, we did put out some stuff that was like not erotic, and basically more self-help and stuff, but we distributed that ourselves through mail order, because we didn't have restrictions in those days, and so you know, that's kind of how we maneuvered that whole thing. It was all about, and again, in the days before the internet and the days before desktop publishing, whoever had the printing presses and the means to distribute, called the shots. MF: That makes sense. I was thinking about, so there were, sort of the printing presses dictated some of the content. I was thinking about when I first saw, as a young lesbian, the On Our Back publication, how important that was to me as a reader. I wasn't thinking about, you know, like how other LGBTQ publications might have used erotic content based on you know what the publisher was requiring. But from a reader's perspective, I feel like those publications were ground-breaking, in a way because you just didn't see it anywhere. Even for myself, in the 90s, that's when I came out, was in the 90s, you know I just had no representation of the kind of eroticism that I was envisioning in my own head, so there's something so powerful about those publications to me as a reader, and I cannot wait to look at them, Sandy. I can't wait to kind of go into the archives and see some of the publications you were involved with. SM: Yeah, our biggest breakthrough was we actually did a newspaper, and it came out on an infrequent basis, but actually more frequent than anything else we did. It was called, and again, Female Impersonator News. And it was a tabloid publication, and a lot of, I should mention, a lot of what we did were personal ads, and you know, in those days, people trying to connect with each other, and you know, you got maybe a post office box and you placed an ad in a magazine like ours, you know maybe send a picture you described yourself, what you were looking for, and we would facilitate like forwarding mail, and that was a big part of what we did. And you know, we made money from that because, you know, it wasn't a lot of money, but it was like this steady little trickle of income, and so almost every publication we ever did had a personal ad section in it. And again, you know, I think it was you know, of course people trying to find each other for sex, but it was also building of a community that you know, that's what we were doing. And by the way, On Our Backs is one of the finest lesbian publications. I used to hang out at the bookstore waiting for the next issue to come out. I read that, you know, that was like, "Whoo!" Yes. Enjoyed that tremendously. That was a ground-breaking lesbian publication. They were not afraid to show erotic content in (inaudible). MF: Mm-hmm, yeah. Definitely. Well, I wonder if-- I felt the same way about that publication. (inaudible) right now. I wonder if you could, just reflecting back now, on the import of your work in publishing, in various formats, and in various roles, what do you, when you look back, what do you think were the major contributions of those publications? SM: Hmm. MF: I mean, I have some idea, but I'm just interested in you thinking about how, why did they matter? And I want, if you feel too humble, because you are so humble, you know you could just think about that publishing era, because there were other publications, other editors and writers that you were connecting with too, and like you were a part of that. What was the import of that kind of publishing arm that was both catering to trans communities, but also engaging in sharing information, medical information, the kind of self-help that you already talked about, and there's a political undertone there too, you know.SM: I, huh. I think it was, I don't know, just, I wasn't prepared for the outpouring of letters that I got. You know, and so like we had, we always had letters to the editor that you know we would publish if we thought there was something helpful in there. Certainly, we'd publish them if they were complimentary because you know we all like to be patted on the back and so you know, we loved the letters that say, "I love your publication! Can you come out more often," blah blah blah. But what weren't published were the heart-breaking ones, and I made it sort of like my personal mission to respond to them. And I got a lot of support from the folks at Neptune Productions that gave me the time and the space to respond to a lot. And you know, it was heart-breaking to read some of them, and some of them were very gratifying, and a lot of them were looking for help. And so, after a while, the flip side of the coin is you can get burned out from doing this. And after almost about a decade I think, I got tired of, you know, I got tired of being a "professional transexual." And so, by the late 1980s I had gotten a legitimate job. You know, all this publishing that I did in the trans community was great. It paid minimally, I was able to meet my immediate expenses, but I saw that it was not a future. And so, I think probably by 1978 I was working a full-time job, and then doing this on the side. And so, I kind of, I'm digressing again. So, the impact is the early days of the, we were a part of the overall early days of the Gay Liberation Movement, and I call it that because that's initially what we called it. And trans folx have always had an uneasy kind of relationship with the LBGT thing, you know. And you know, Mary you're a scholar of this, there are other peoples that are scholars of this early thing, and so I'm only talking from my perspective, personally. You know, when we came out, it was supposed to be Gay Liberation, and it was an umbrella term that was supposed to include everybody. And as we started to do this work, it started to faction. And you know, the lesbians said, "Well, we're not gay, we're lesbians and our issues are unique, because they're wrapped around gender as well as being gay, and it's, you know--" Then it became gay and lesbian. And then you know, then the bisexuals kind of came in at some point and say you know, "How about us? You know, we have our own unique needs," and so you had LBG, L-G-B, and so the letters got a little bit longer. And then trans kind of got in there even though trans people were part of the early Gay Liberation Movement, and actually spear-headed a lot of it, but then we were added on as a T on the end, and I always thought that was kind of like not an easy fit, because L-G-B kind of like talked about sexual preference, at least in my gestalt. So, they had that in common. But trans said nothing about you know sexual preference. It talked more about gender identity than anything, I suppose. And so, I always thought that was kind of an interesting but not great fit. And you know, those, there were early fights where the trans folx were kicked out of gay organizations, and you know trans folx were kicked out of the lesbian community, a lot of in-fighting. A lot of scrambling for our own turf, and so that part to me was very disheartening. And I think was partially the impetus for me to kind of like, by the 90s I was done. Especially when Janice Raymond published that horrible book called, yeah, The Transsexual Empire? I mean, I wanted to crawl under a rock and just say, "I'm not coming out ever again to anybody," and that's basically how I led my life for the next 20 years. You know? And I, and you know, we had discussions off-line where in the 1990s, late 19080s/1990s it was okay for me to tell my coworkers that I was a lesbian, but I never discussed the T thing with them, because it just wasn't you know there yet. So, I, you know, I don't know what my accomplishments were. Some people have said that you know I'm responsible for the term "transgender." I don't take credit for that. I know we published it early on, but I think Ariadne Kane was the person who actually coined the term rather than Virginia Prince, but you know, I'm not going to get into that argument. Certainly, I was part of the people that made it widely used, let's put it that way, through the publications. And I thought it was a great term, because it took the word "sex" out of it, and you know, there's a lot to be said for that. So, in my early years, I was a transsexual, but now I'm a transgender person. MF: You had started to kind of go into you moved out of publishing, Raymond's book comes out, that's kind of the end for you, but there were tensions before-hand, and burn out, frankly, from all of the emotional labor that goes into that. What happens with your career once you kind of, you take some of these publishing experiences, and then you take flight into a different you know, stage of your work life? SM: Yeah, so I parlayed what I learned about publication layout writing and everything and applied for a job at W.B. Saunders company in Philadelphia. And, W.B. Saunders was at that time, I think it still is, a large medical publishing company, and W.B. Saunders had one best seller in their whole career, and I think that was the Kinsey Report. Other than that, it was you know, a multitude of medical journals and books. And so, I became a proofreader. At first, I was a layout person, and then shortly after that I became a proofreader. I did that for a few years. And so, you know, people tell me about, you know, was it harder or easier to transition in those days. I think the one good thing about those days was that without the internet, it was easier to hide yourself. And so, I put down Neptune Productions and Image Magazine on my resume, but I guarantee you nobody checked that, you know? And it was just, you know, there were no large databases where they could look up Sandy Mesics and see her social media profile and everything. So, in that respect it was easier to kind of like maneuver your way through life, and I took every advantage of that. So, I work for W.B. Saunders for a few years, and then had an opportunity to work for a graphic arts company that produced books for various publishers at that time, and so I became what was called a markup person. And basically, what that is in today's terms is like an html coder. So, you know, in the early days of type setting, it wasn't what you see is what you get, you had to code everything in order to get the right font, point size, and things like that. I loved that work, and I did that work for quite a few years, eventually moving from a company in New Jersey to a graphic arts company in Miami. And so, you know, I wanted an adventure in my life, I didn't have a significant other at the time, and so I took a job in Miami, and it was interesting. And so, that took me into the 80s and 90s, and then what happened at that time was the internet, personal computer, desktop publishing, and it wasn't soon before I could see the end of my profession. You could see it almost like a headlight coming straight at you, you know that within a few years, this is going to be gone. It's all going to be gone. And then, coincidentally at the same time, AIDS was starting to hit our community, especially in Miami, and so I felt kind of helpless when my friends were starting to get sick. I couldn't do anything for them, and the other thing that happened at the time was I met the acquaintance of my now spouse, and her colleagues who were all registered nurses, and certified nurse midwives and I said, "Do you think I could do this work? You think?" You know, and they said, "Yeah, you know, you'd probably be pretty good at it." And so, I went back to school. And I, in 1992 I graduated from Barry University which is a small Catholic school in Miami Shores, Florida with a bachelor's degree in nursing. A BSN. And, ironically, even though I did get my nursing degree, I never actually gave HIV care. It was peripheral to what I did. I occasionally did it, but it wasn't the focus of my career. And then I became a nurse, and even at that point occasionally I would write for publications, and at that time I was writing sometimes under a pseudonym, but sometimes under my real name, I was writing for like the Transsexual Voice, I was writing for Empathy Press in Seattle. If I had something to say. And I really enjoyed it that way, because I wasn't writing under deadlines, I wasn't trying to produce tons of content. If I had something to say that I thought was useful, I'd submit it, and more often than not it was published, and that's how, you know I think I finally stopped getting published around 92, 93. And then became pretty much a professional nurse, and then eventually a certified nurse midwife. MF: I love that description of like, "Oh, then I could do it when I really wanted to say something and take my time and really craft that piece." You, I want to hear more about what the move into nursing meant for you, as a worker, how did you experience that career in nursing? So, I want to go there first, but then you've also mentioned your spouse, and maybe we can do a little discussion of some personal life which we haven't talked about yet. But tell me a little bit about why nursing, and what the career really meant for you. SM: You know, nursing I truly believe, after all you know, it's a cliché, but you know but nursing is basically a calling. And I had considered it briefly sometime in the 1970s and went, "Oh no, there's no way I can do that. Just no way." But revisiting it as a more mature woman, I was 40 years old, I had some life skills, some organizational skills, and then the timing was right, because I had the tool kit to be able to do that. I couldn't have done that at age 21, and I certainly admire the students that I taught that had their crap together at age 21 to be able to do this, because I certainly didn't. So, it's honestly the best professional move I made in my career. Nursing has been fulfilling on so many levels. You know, I can't begin to describe you know the personal fulfillment I got from just doing my job. Helping babies come into the world, you know, helping tragedies sometimes as a result. Being able to educate young nurses, and being able to you know, administer a school that is the oldest nursing school in the United States, to be the director of that school for 15 years, and produce thousands of talented young people that are entering the workforce, that will have an impact on health care for the next generation, it's like wow! I mean, it's overwhelming. That really is the fulfillment, you know. I kind of lost the rest of the thought. Interestingly enough, for me, entering the nursing career was, nursing is still largely women. And I had never worked in an almost all-female environment before, and so at 40 years old, entering this environment, you know, I was very kind of like attuned to like, okay, let me get the lay of the land here and how this works. And unfortunately, what I really, I came away with, was that women can be really mean to each other sometimes, and I didn't expect that. You know, I expected like this sisterhood, and we all pull together, and it's like, holy crap! You guys are nasty! And so, I had to kind of like wrap my head around that for a while, and you know, the theory is that you know women are generally, at that time at least, I don't want to make any broad generalizations, but like, when people are put in powerless situations, and certainly nursing is not like at the top of the power chain, there's a lot of in-fighting. And so, you could actually see that, and you know honestly, to be honest with you, I think nursing as a profession would benefit from more gender diversity. More men, more gender-diverse people. And I think that's happening, I think that's happening and I think it's to the benefit of the profession, honestly. It's going to push us forward, I think, because you know, I wasn't too impressed with you know what I saw at first. It was kind of disheartening. I guess I expect too much from women. You know, my psychologist always said that I kind of idealized them in some ways. So, yeah. Segueing into the other question, I always knew that I was attracted to women, even as a kid, and boy that was confusing. You know, so like I want to, you know I am a woman, I want to be a woman, but I love women, and you know, so that was really hard. And you know, I will credit the fact that I had a psychiatrist in our gender identity program in Philadelphia that really tuned into my naivety about that. I was, I think I was 22 or 23 years old when I entered therapy, as part of the gender, you know you had to do, you know I had to do I think a minimum of six months to a year of psychoanalysis in those days, and I was blessed with really a great psychiatrist. He knew that I was kind of sexually naïve at the time. I had had minimal experiences with women and no experiences with guys at that time, and he says, "You just need to explore this." SO, you know, with his encouragement, you know, I started to explore my sexuality, and I started to explore experiences with both genders, and you know, those were the days where things were much simpler. It was pre-HIV days. You know, if you were not cautious, you know, you might have to go get a shot of penicillin to clear up something, you know. So, you know, it was a lot easier in those days, and as a result, a lot of us were more promiscuous you know probably than we should have been, in retrospect. But so, like he made me explore that aspect of my personality, I think he wanted to be sure that I wasn't gay and you know just couldn't accept the fact that I was gay, and was trying to (inaudible) being gay by becoming you know a different gender, and of course that didn't happen. I remember telling him, you know, at one of our first visits, you know, I'm attracted to women, and I don't see that changing after surgery. And to his credit, he didn't throw me out of the office, he just said, "Let's explore that," and we did, we worked on it. And so, he would send us to conscious raising groups, back when women had conscious raising groups, back then he'd send us to that. You know, he was really, really progressive, and I came out at the other end basically unchanged. I can say that probably my experiences made me a little bit more bisexual, but definitely a preference for women. In my serious relationships in life, almost exclusively been with women. I've been with my current spouse now for 30 years. Yeah. (laughs) We were one of the first same-gender couples in Pennsylvania to get a marriage license. I think-- not like the first dozen, I think we were within the first 100 or 150, so. You know, I'm kind of proud of that. And so, that covers most of what you asked me, I think. What did I leave out? MF: Would you be willing to tell me how you fell in love? How you met and what your story is there when you met your spouse? SM: Yeah, sure! My spouse and I met in 1985, in Miami. At that time, she was just graduating from the University of Miami's master's degree in Nurse Midwifery, and she at that time was exploring her own lesbianism. She had just, she was just emerging from a marriage, and was finally, finally I guess starting to learn her truth, and so we met, and we were friends. I had a different partner at the time, and she was just exploring being a lesbian, and coming out, with a couple kids, and trying to navigate a new job, and a new role as a nurse midwife, and so we stayed friends. So, we were friends from about 1985 to 1991, and by that time I had ended my relationship, and she had ended her first couple relationships with women. And we just sat down one night, and you know, we acknowledged the fact that we were attracted to each other. We had known each other for about six years at that point. We were both single at the same time, finally, and do we risk having a really good friendship for having a relationship? And that was the big discussion. You know, it's like, we're such good friends, are we going to screw this up? Because we don't want to screw that up. And so, we decided to embark on this, so I wish I could tell you that it was passionate, sudden, and the heavens opened, and the angels sang and the whole nine yards, but it was really a very rational (laughs) discussion that you know, you know, we acknowledged this, that we had this for each other, but you know, should we do this? And so, and I've never regretted it, and so. And then, ironically, a few years later when I entered the master's program at University of Miami, Sara, my spouse, was my instructor for one of my nurse midwifery courses. And we had already discussed this with the Dean, and the Dean was aware of our relationship, and we took very good steps to be sure that there were no improprieties. Sara could teach me, but she couldn't grade any of my work, and so that's how it worked out, so the rest is history. MF: So, can I ask a quest-- this is a fantastic story. Rational love story, but I can see all over your face that there was also a lot of passion and love there, as you transitioned from friends to, it's a fabulous story. Could you talk a little bit about, before-- I do want to move through your married life, and then how you come back to the Lehigh Valley, but I want to just-- with your spouse-- I want to put that on hold for a minute, and just ask you, what was it like to be a lesbian and a transwoman? Either, even while you were meeting your spouse, or while you were dating. What was that like to be part of a lesbian community at that time period in Miami, or even up in Philly? What was that like for you as a transwoman? SM: I had my first, what I would call serious relationship with a woman probably in Philadelphia in 1978 or so, and we were together for four or five years, and so in that aspect, you know, one of the big discussions among trans people is entering a relationship, do I disclose my trans status? And I think, I think it's a little bit easier maybe now than it was then, and that was really, where do you sort of disclose the fact that you're trans to a potential partner? And you know, I wrestled with that myself, because you know, as part of my work with my psychiatrist, I dated some men, and I did not disclose that until, you know, maybe there was intimacy on the scene. And then at that point, we had to have The Talk. Sometimes that went well, and sometimes it didn't go well, and you know as well as I do, that sometimes for people that talk ends in violence, and so the stakes are very high, and you're very careful about you know, who you disclose to, at least in those days. I can't speak to the situation nowadays. I suspect it's similar. I guess, I guess I was lucky in that the women that I was attracted to and had relationships with accepted that part of me. It was weird, I can remember (laughs) there's a joke in the lesbian community that you may have heard of. It's, "What do lesbians bring on the first date?" "A U-Haul." Yup. I met my partner, my first partner of 4 years, my first night in a women's bar in Philadelphia. Yeah. I was, you know, first of all I was dressed inappropriately. I'd come from work, it was a great bar, it was called The Upstairs, and it was like in Philly on the waterfront, by the Delaware River, and you know, it was a beautiful place. Great dance floor. Music. The whole nine yards. All women. Loved it, loved it. My first night there, she came over and asked me to dance, and asked, you know we had drinks, and you know so we started dating, and you know, I don't remember exactly when I disclosed, but it was pretty early on, and so again. That was a four-year relationship, it confirmed everything I always thought about my sexuality. We still stay in touch. So, then again, I went through a period where you know I was just like running amuck, sexually. And so, it was, you know, (laughs) I always say that, you know, trans people you're given, you're finally given the set of organs that you should have had, and you know, you've got these hormones coursing through your body, and so what do all transwomen do? Is like, once they start this journey, they start dressing totally inappropriately for their age. You know, the spike heels to go to the Wegman's store, and the whole nine yards, and I did all of that. You know, and so you're trying this out, you're basically an adolescent in an adult body for a while, and you know, all kinds of weird stuff happens. So, after that relationship ended, I dated around for a few years. Nothing was happening, that's when I moved to Miami. I had again took up with another partner who was lesbian, ten years younger than me. That was kind of culture shock. Again, not an issue for her. I will tell you an interesting story about that relationship, when I met her, she had long blond hair, really attractive, nice, you know. I introduced her at one point to a trans guy that was my friend from Philadelphia, he came down the visit, and Jason came to see us, and my partner at that time, Sally, was like, the eyes went, and so the next thing, he goes back home, she comes home with a short butch haircut, and she starts wearing polo shirts, and it's like "Wait a minute!" So, I can't tell you how unsettling that was for a trans person all of a sudden understand that the person that you're with is exploring a transition. That blindsided me, and so like, kind of like every bad deed that I ever did in my life sort of came home and hit me in the face at the same time, and I'm going, "How do I wrap myself around this? How many times has a person like myself put another person in that position?" It's kind of like, well, you know, eventually she kind of like kind of tabled that transition idea. We broke up. But all during that time I was friends with Sara, my current spouse, so Sara knew my past, my background, everything like that, so that was not something that we had to hack out upon starting the relationship. So, did I answer your question properly, or? I'm (inaudible) something. MF: Yeah, you did. You did. So, tell me a little bit about, you're in Miami, you're dating Sara, your career is moving along in nursing. Then what happens (laughs)? What's the next part of your life there? SM: Okay. So, that pretty much brings us up to the year 2000. And what is happening at that time is Sara is working in a clinic in Broward County, and is not real happy with her job situation. They're asking them to do a lot with a little, and you know, a lot of pressure. The practice, the OBGYN practice that I was working in, was breaking up. We had I think five OBGYNs at that time and myself, and they were all feuding with each other, and you know, they were splitting off and breaking up the practice, and all of a sudden, I was finding myself without a job. And so, coincidentally at that same time, my mom who had stayed in Bethlehem, was now in her 80s, and was starting to have some serious health issues. And so, even though I promised myself way back in 1969 that I would never come back to the Lehigh Valley, yeah. I relocated here first. So, I took a job for one year doing locum tenens work, which is like a traveling nurse, a traveling nurse midwife, and I was able to get assignments in Baltimore, Philly, and Northern Virginia. And so, I was traveling about, doing that, trying to figure out how to support my mom, and what the next steps were. Sara was remaining in Florida, so for about a year, we were kind of separated by this until we could sort it all out. So, my mom wasn't getting any better, so we made the decision to relocate to Bethlehem to support her. So, Sara quit her job, and moved up here, and I was already here. I had found a house, we bought a house, and then a job opened up at St. Luke's for an instructor in maternal-newborn nursing. And so, I took the job, and Sara eventually found a job at that time with the Visiting Nurses Association, and so we sort of settled down. And the timing was impeccable, because we settled around 2000, 2001, and my mom died in 2002, and we were able to give her a great, great quality of life for her last two years. I mean, she just blossomed. You know, we brought her to our house and had Thanksgiving, we spent, I would go to work every day and drop my Jack Russell terrier off, and she'd babysit the dog all day long, and it added to her life, it added to my life. I had a wonderful relationship with my mom for the last couple years of her life. Don't regret it for a second. And I was holding her hand when she passed away in her own bed, at home, with the care of home nurses. So, at that time, we sort of thought we would stay in the Lehigh Valley and see my mom through this final illness, and then we would go to California to take care of Sara's mom who was also ailing at that time, but what happened was Sara's mom decided to die before we could make that trip happen, that move happen, and so we stayed here. We stayed in the Lehigh Valley because we both had jobs we liked, and as we said early on in this long conversation, the Lehigh Valley had become a different place, a more accepting place, a kind of nice quality of life for us. Sara was really burned out from the Miami experience, and I was getting there pretty quickly. The crime was pretty bad, and congestion was terrible. And so, that's why we're back here, and that's why we stayed. And now we have grandkids that have moved to this area to be close to us, so you know, we've come full circle. MF: Tell me a little bit about, you said that your relationship with your mother at the end of her life was wonderful. And clearly, because you and Sara could be there, and provide excellent quality of life for her for the last two years, I mean what a beautiful gift for a daughter to give. Can you talk a little bit about that relationship and its evolution throughout your life with your mom? SM: As I said, way in the background, even though my mom was born in the United State, she basically grew up in Hungary, and then moved back to the States. And she had basically the equivalent of a grade school education, I don't think, she didn't have high school. And so, when she came back to the United States, it was like, learning English for her was like, she had to learn it all over, because she left at such an early age, that I don't think it was established. So, my mom could read and write at a basic level, she could manage herself through reading a newspaper or something like that, but you know, would never read a book. I don't think my mom ever read a book. So, she struggled to write checks and handle things and you know, that's where we provided that kind of support the best we could. When I was very young, I mean, I cross-dressed in front of my mom, and you know, she was concerned at the point I think in high school (laughs) when I was doing it, she was concerned for me. And you know, she was not condescending, she wasn't angry with me for doing it, but she thought I needed help. And she said, "You know, if you continue doing this, I think we need to take you to the family doctor." And like, I was a teenager, and I already knew what that meant in those days. What we were afraid of was you know, being transgender, transsexual, whatever have you, in those days was a pathology. And even the most enlightened doctors would probably send you to a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist would probably order electroshock treatments. And that scared the bejeezus out of me. You know, it was like there was no way I was going to discuss this with a family doctor, so basically my cross-dressing went under cover, and mom didn't see it ever again, although it never stopped. And so, we sort of like pushed that under the table, and but, by the time I started hormones, she could see that something was changing, even though I hadn't discussed it with her. And so, my plan was to tell her right before my surgery, which probably in retrospect is a bad thing, you know? So, like, remember, I was 22, 23 years old, and you know didn't always make the best life decisions at those times. So, what happened was, I was, I had finished my time with the psychiatrist in Philadelphia, was coming back to see my mom, you know I'd come back weekends, I actually there was a train that would take you from Philly to Bethlehem in those days, I'd ride the train every once in a while. I'd come and see her, but we never talked about that until I got the clearance for surgery, and I actually had a surgery date scheduled that was about, I don't know, maybe a month out. And so, I thought to myself, okay, I'm going to have to have this discussion with my mom. Well, what ensued was, 14 days before my scheduled surgery, I came down with Hepatitis B. Yup. And I've written about this experience, so you're going from somebody who has been on hormones for a couple years, I had completed my psychiatric workup, everybody said yes, you're ready for the surgery, you know, go meet the surgeon, okay, did that, had the date set. I had some misgivings about it, believe it or not. I didn't hit it off with the surgeon. I thought he was cold, I thought he was, you know, I didn't know why he was doing this because it didn't seem he was doing it for any compassion for the patient, so despite that, it was, okay, you know, I'm going to go through with this, and you know, I'm not sure about this guy, but whatever. And then I got sick, and because of the sickness, I had to go off hormones for a year. No alcohol for a year. No surgery for a year. And the worst part of it was, I had to have help recovering, because I was pretty sick. They didn't hospitalize me, but you know, I was... And so, I went back home to mom. And I was, like I said, I was about 22, 23 years old, and she took care of me while I was sick, and I recovered, and that's when we started having discussions about what I was doing with my life. And her first comment was, "I knew it!" You know, yeah. "I knew this hadn't gone away." You know, and so, yeah, that's true, and so she was very concerned about, you know, I would have to have surgery, was I doing the right thing, had I really thought it through. You know, the usual things a mom would be concerned about. But she was never non supportive of me, and she told me that unconditionally this didn't matter, you know, she still loved me, that in her way of putting it, she said, "I wouldn't love you any less if you were diabetic, I wouldn't love you any less if, you know, you had asthma or anything. Why would this change anything?" And so, it didn't. And so, she was supportive, and eventually I was able to recover, and but it was one of the lowest points in my life, and you know, I had considered suicide many times in my life, that was certainly one of them. I can't imagine, I can't begin to tell you, you know, number one you're ill, number two you're coming off hormones. And you know, all that good work and changes started to reverse, and you know, it was horrible, and then finally, you know, I was able to get back on track. But the good part of this is things always happen for a reason, and in that year that I was kind of like recovering from this, I found a different surgeon, and I found a surgeon in New York City, his name was Dr. David Wesser, he's passed away since then, and the thing that I liked about Dr. Wesser was that he had a technique that created a clitoris. Which wasn't necessarily what you got in those days with anybody else. And so, you know, hoping to remain as a, be as authentic as possible and at least have some semblance of a sex life, I went with him, and I never regretted that decision, and he truly was a compassionate human being. So, a few months after the surgery, I took my mom by the hand and took her in the bathroom, we had the grand reveal, she was like amazed and you know, she took me out shopping for clothes! And, so, you know, I think my mom probably, while she was, she was very accepting of me, I think she still had confusion to the end of her days about why it was that I stayed with women, but she was not opposed to that, and in fact she loved Sara to death, and you know, she told me to take care of her, and she told Sara to take care of me, and so we've done that, and you know, she, I couldn't have asked for a better mom. MF: She sounds wonderful. A really special mom. SM: Hey, could she bake! Ah. She wasn't a great cook, but boy could she bake. MF: Well, and I bet, in terms of like all of the good kind of Hungarian, Windish, you know for that Windish church, I bet she baked a lot of wonderful pastries. SM: A lot of kiffles. Tons of kiffles. MF: Well, I'm wondering what it's like for you now to be in the Lehigh Valley, and you said it's changed a lot. What's changed here for you? What makes the Lehigh Valley a place where you and Sara can live happily at this point in your lives? SM: As I said, think the industries are, not to say industries, but the professions in like the learning institutions, the medical care brings a more professional kind of class of people. I'm sorry, I'm sounding elitist there, and I don't mean that by any means, but it's a place that's culturally rich now, where it hadn't been before. You know, we have world-class music. You know, if you're not getting culturally fulfilled in the Lehigh Valley, you're not trying, you're hiding. And that's part of what I enjoy about it. We enjoy movies, we enjoy theater. You know, we'll enjoy being able to do those things again. You know, we enjoy reading, and so we enjoy intellectual stimulation. We're both involved in the life of our faith community, and so, that's all there. You know, the crime isn't horrible in the Lehigh Valley. You know, we do have our issues, but it's not like an urban center like Miami. So, there's that. So, there are things to do, there's a quality of life. I do believe it's getting a little bit kind of congested, and honestly, I'm not crazy about all the trucking hubs going in all over the place. I think that's kind of impacting our quality of life a little bit, but certainly as you view life as a senior, you know you're looking at things like, what is my support as I get older? You know, and we do have good medical and social supports in this Lehigh Valley right now. As far as LGBT in the Lehigh Valley, it's come a long way. When I was growing up here, I didn't know any gay or trans people. You know, I knew a couple in high school, not trans people, but gay people in high school, but it was all very hush-hush. You didn't talk about it. You know, and that's changed. You have groups like Renaissance that have arisen, the Bradbury-Sullivan Center, and so you know, it's a good place to be gay, the Lehigh Valley. Or be gender-variant or something. I mean there are, I assume there are better places, but taken as a whole, it's not so bad. MF: Yeah, I totally, we moved here in 2009, and even since 2009 I've noticed changes in the Lehigh Valley in terms of community center and a variety of different groups. Yeah. Well, we're getting towards the end of our time, and so I want to give you an opportunity to, is there something we missed that you feel, Sandy, like, "Oh, I really wanted to share this," or "this is something that I want people to know about my life." Did we miss anything? SM: You know, I really don't think so. It's been a long, strange journey for me, and I get kind of embarrassed when people say, you know, "You're a pioneer!" And it's like you know, no, not really. I mean, there were people before me, and you know, they laid the groundwork, but I think we're all building for each other, eventually, and you know I was proud to play my little part in this, in advancing the community, so. I think if anything, I am so hopeful for the future. When I see young non-binary kids not afraid to express their gender identity, not having to buy, you know, one or the other, you know, gender is everything in between, and that's okay, it's like wow! When I see, when I see the advances that we've made in treating transgender issues, and gender issues, in adolescence, you know, it gives me hope that these kids won't have to go through the wrong adolescence, which is devastating. Devastating. That gives me hope. I know there's a lot of push-back now about, you know, the ethics of doing this, but I think once that cat is out of the bag, and I think it is, they'll work out the details about the ethics. This will be not an issue. I know, you know, if anything, the last few years have taught me is that our political system is a lot more fragile than I thought it was growing up, you know, and I thought, I thought the United States had weathered some pretty significant storms in its day, but I was not prepared for 2016, 2020. And so, I think, I think that's the issue of our day, even more than COVID. You know, where is the United States going as a nation? And I think why I think about that is how it goes will have an impact on trans people, and LBGT people as well. I'm watching what's going on in Texas as we speak, you know. Everybody getting on the bandwagon about these you know, anti-abortion, anti-choice things, and I'm very much for choice, and that distresses me a lot. You know, I remember vaguely what it was like before Roe vs. Wade, and even with Roe vs. Wade, as a nurse, I took care of patients that had botched self-induced abortions, just because they didn't have access to care, and that concerns me a lot. So, I think it's a mixed bag, but I'm an eternal optimist I think, you know, and I think we will prevail in the long run, and we'll work it out. And you know, I'm not done advocating just yet. So. I think that's all I had to add. MF: Well, I'm going to think about this interview probably for the next month and thereafter. This has been amazing. Sandy, thank you so much for speaking with me today. I wanted to end the interview, maybe this will be a strange way to end it, but just to ask you know, all of your work on the publications, have you found an archive home for that? Is there someplace where that material can be accessed? SM: I don't have a lot of it. You know, I had kept a collection of my work and eventually threw it out thinking there was no value to it. Yeah. I have a little bit of it, I'm trying to catalogue it now, and I'm hoping to donate it to an archive somewhere, so if you have good suggestions, I'm open to that. You can find a little tiny bit of it on the Digital Transgender Archives. Yeah, there's a little bit there. If you google my name, a few things show up in that context, but I do, you know, now that I'm finally pretty much retired, the next part of what I'm hoping to accomplish is to catalogue that stuff and get it to somebody who wants to do something with it. I did send a little bit of stuff to a trans archive in Houston, and honestly, you know, I don't even have any print copies of Image anymore. You know, I have digital copies, but that's about it. But you know I hope to actually preserve that. I have a lot of negatives from drag balls and things like that that I covered during the days that I hope will get a home somewhere. MF: Yeah, I mean, those are I think the Digital Archives that you mentioned are really important. There are ways that, since your materials I think are so important, that you can donate them to a specific home, a trans archive that you really care about, but you could also say, "I'd also like these materials, or copies of them, to be at William Way." Because they have incredible archives, and you are certainly so important to Philadelphia's history. You could certainly have copies put at our archives here in the Lehigh Valley, you're from here. I even think the Lesbian Herstory's Archive would love your material. SM: (laughs) MF: So, you could think about, "Where is the place that I want to have the physical materials?" And you could work out a contract that says, "Okay, you get the physical materials, but I want them to be digitally available at other places, maybe even Miami, in communities that I really contributed to," so that those communities also have access to a real for-mother in publishing and you know, and someone who is really important to multiple regions. I always think about, for me regional archives matter because it's important to know that someone like Sandy Mesics came from the Lehigh Valley, and contributed really in important ways to publishing, to trans communities in Philadelphia, and those publications kind of move out everywhere. You are so humble, but that really matters. That you were a nurse, that you were, you know all of these ways that your archives can be connected to those communities that you really impacted, I think would be very powerful, and of course I would love to see-- I have not seen the publications that you put out, I'd love to see them. SM: We will, we'll arrange that somehow. MF: Okay, that would be fabulous. Well, I will then-- that was a weird way to kind of move to the ending, I apologize, Sandy. I just think like, I want to see these negatives of your photographs and read your early articles. But I'll end by saying this. I just feel so honored to have had the opportunity to talk with you today. It is a true privilege. I'm just sitting in gratitude, so thank you so much. SM: Thank you, Mary. I am astounded that you have an interest in this and thank you for letting me ramble on for so long, and I hope somewhere down the line some researcher finds something of interest in here. MF: I know they will. I know they will. SM: (laughs) MF: All right, I'm just going to pause the record and then you and I can close out together. Thanks again, Sandy. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:46:10
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Sandy Mesics, October 11, 2021
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Sandy Mesics describes her childhood, growing up in Bethlehem, PA; her reflections on Bethlehem Steel, including her father’s employment with the company and working-class steel communities; and her experiences as young transwoman trying to find information in tabloids and books about other transgender people. She discusses her enrollment at Penn State as a physics and later a psychology major; her anti-Vietnam war activism; her gender dysphoria during college; and her journey toward gender affirmation with support from the Erickson Foundation and a doctor in Philadelphia.
Moving to Philadelphia after college because of the large LGBTQ community, Sandy started Image Magazine, worked with Transsexual Action Committee, the Radical Queens, and Eromin Center; in addition, she built a relationship with publishers of Female impersonator Magazine and ultimately worked with publishers to produce articles and publications for transgender readers, beginning 1974-1975. Sandy then describes using her work in publishing to gain employment with W.B. Saunders, a graphic arts company, and as an html coder. Toward the end of the interview, Sandy describes living in Miami, training to be a nurse, becoming a nurse midwife, and meeting her wife. The interview concludes with Sandy’s discussion of moving back to Bethlehem to care for her mother and finding a job at St. Luke’s, training others in maternal-newborn nursing.
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LGBT-13
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2021-10-11
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/0c7b71cadc255be8a6483d1a921c6ba7.png
5cd2ace395e9791bd109f06664836894
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Foltz, Mary
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Goodwin, Corrine
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-12.xml
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5.4 October 11th, 2021 Corinne Goodwin, October 15, 2021 LGBT-12 01:33:58 LVLGBT Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Goodwin, Corrine Foltz, Mary video/mov 1.0:|27(6)|58(6)|79(4)|98(15)|117(11)|136(14)|159(16)|182(5)|205(8)|226(11)|249(2)|266(10)|283(11)|300(2)|321(8)|342(10)|367(4)|390(14)|411(8)|426(15)|447(11)|470(7)|489(13)|508(8)|529(9)|550(6)|569(14)|592(15)|611(14)|634(9)|655(3)|674(6)|693(5)|708(4)|725(13)|744(4)|763(5)|780(3)|797(11)|816(9)|839(6)|858(9)|881(14)|900(11)|923(16)|944(8)|963(14)|982(15)|1005(13)|1030(7)|1049(12)|1076(4)|1097(13)|1120(7)|1141(3)|1158(8)|1179(7)|1200(13)|1221(6)|1240(4)|1261(9)|1282(11)|1307(2)|1328(2)|1351(15)|1376(12)|1397(6)|1418(9)|1439(14)|1460(10)|1479(5)|1498(3)|1521(6)|1540(10)|1559(12)|1584(2)|1605(5)|1628(11)|1649(9)|1670(4)|1691(5)|1710(4)|1727(3)|1746(14)|1767(12)|1790(2)|1807(3)|1826(9)|1843(7)|1864(12)|1885(2)|1906(9)|1925(15)|1948(3)|1949(2) 0 https://youtu.be/CZvOsnjajNk YouTube video 0 Interview Introductions 0 129 Early Life 0 163 Early Gender Questioning 0 273 Experiences During Puberty/In High School 0 590 College Experience 0 682 Navigating Marriage and Gender Identity 0 745 Coming Out to Wife 0 928 Career 0 1378 Coming Out and Socially/Medically Transitioning 0 1594 Code Switching as a Trans Person 0 1846 Gender Performance and Overcompensating as a Trans Person 0 2062 Living Outside of the Gender Binary 0 2215 Pre-Internet Trans Representation 0 2381 Early Online Trans Support Groups 0 2496 Beginning of Lehigh Valley Renaissance 0 2575 Finding Renaissance in the 2000s 0 2878 Expanding Renaissance 0 2965 Inception of the Trans Equity Group 0 3082 Beginning of Renaissance's Large-Scale Events 0 3226 Partnering with the Bradbury-Sullivan Center 0 3277 Mission and Services of the Eastern PA Trans Equity Project 0 3712 Leadership Journey for the Eastern PA Trans Equity Project and Breaking Away from Renaissance 0 4097 Supporting Trans People and Their Partners 0 4378 Experiences Coming Out to Broader Circle 0 4521 Negotiating Transition with Spouse 0 4591 Evolution of Marriage 0 4891 Vision for the Future 0 4977 Plans for Trans Equity Project 0 MovingImage Corinne Goodwin describes her childhood in Yonkers, Long Island, White Plains, NY, and Glen Falls ; she focuses on her experiences as a transgender girl and the transphobia within her family. For example, she shares how her mother responded when she found feminine clothing in her room by exclaiming that it would “kill” her father if he found out. Corinne describes hiding her transgender identity from family after these formative experiences even as she continued to express her femininity in secret. Upon entering Eisenhower College, Corinne continued to be closeted, but developed important life-long friendships and met her future wife, Deb. When they married one year after college, Corinne discusses remaining in the closet even as she had “girl” days in which she was able to express her full self. In 1987, when she and Deb found out that Deb was pregnant, Corinne came out to her wife. The spouses developed routines in which Corinne could be her “real” self when Deb and her son visited relatives. Corrine also discusses her work life. She describes her 23-year career with Radio Shack, managing hundreds of stores within eastern PA ; her work as Vice-President of Sales for Vonage ; and her development of her own consulting business and then training and development business. 
 ; 
 ; Once she left the corporate world and started her own businesses, Corine describes coming out fully between 2008-2014 to everyone in her life, including her clients and living full time as her real self. She describes different parts of her transition, including social, legal, and medical transition. In other parts of the interview, Corinne discusses the import of support groups, like Renaissance, and how she developed the Eastern PA Trans Equity Project with other community members as well as their major work in our communities.
 ; Mary Foltz Interview October 15, 2021 MARY FOLTZ: All right, I'll go ahead and start. My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Corinne Goodwin to talk about her life and experiences in LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley. This oral history is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. Corinne and I are meeting on Zoom. Today is October 15, 2021. We're meeting on Zoom because there's a crazy pandemic going on, and we're protecting Corinne's health. We certainly don't, I don't want to get her ill, so that's why we're here on Zoom today. Corinne, thank you so much for joining me today. CORINNE GOODWIN: I'm really excited about it, thank you. MF: I'm excited about it too. And just to start, a few quick questions, would you be willing to state your full name and spell it for me? CG: Sure, my name is Corinne Dawn Goodwin, my name is spelled C-O-R-I-N-N-E D-A-W-N G-O-O-D-W-I-N. MF: Thank you. Will you please share your birthday? CG: 10/30/59. MF: Okay. And I know you already signed a consent form, but I just want to review the consent for today. So, do you consent to this interview today? CG: Yes, absolutely. MF: Do you consent to this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? CG: I do. MF: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including articles, websites, presentations, or other things that technology might bring us in the future? CG: Yes. MF: And do you understand that you'll have 30 days after I send you the transcript of the interview to identify parts that you might want to delete, or you could withdraw the entire interview if you wanted to? CG: I do. MF: Okay. All right, formalities aside, I'm just going to begin with kind of a general question. Corinne, tell me about the early years of your life. CG: So, I was born in beautiful Yonkers, NY, the garden spot of the state. In 1959 subsequently moved pretty quickly. My parents bought a house in Huntington, Long Island and I spent the first few years of my life there. So, my very first memory that I can, like, you know, like say oh yeah, I really remember that, was actually there, and it was around my gender. So, I was probably three, maybe four, and I was playing with the little girl next door. Her name was Gina. I remember my house was painted yellow, her house was painted green, and we were in her backyard playing doctor, and that's when I realized that I had different anatomy. And then my next memory, and I'm assuming that it was in the same day or, you know, close to it, was sitting in the bathtub in my parents' house trying to figure out how they had glued my penis on, because they insisted that they needed a boy. So, I remember talking to my mother about my gender, right, and why was I different. She kind of, in no uncertain terms, said, "Well, you know, you're a boy, and boys have penises." And I remember like just trying to figure out how to get it off. So that's my actual very earliest memory. Yeah, so. After that, we moved to White Plains, NY, so in Westchester County. We moved into my grandfather's house, so he retired and moved to Florida, and we moved into his home, and that was probably around I was eight years old, so third grade, and during the next few years, that's when I really began to realize that I was different than most other people. Especially, I think this happens a lot for trans folk, you know puberty is such a crazy time for people anyway, but for me it was like ultra-crazy because you had to figure out, that's when you have to start sort of putting on the "guy suit" you know when you're a teenager or adolescent, right? Or the "girl suit" if you're, you're know, and I couldn't do either (laughs), so. But during that time, I remember becoming incredibly adept at shoplifting, and shoplifting women's clothing. And so, we would go to, my mother shopped at McCrory's, which was like a five and dime store, a lot. It was like a Woolworth's. And I remember you know just really becoming really good at shoplifting and boosting everything from, you know, panties, to pantyhose to skirts, you know, and I would hide it under the mattress of my bed, which is not a great hiding place, right? (laughs) But and then my mom found my stash, and that's, you know, and she made it, my father at the time was traveling a lot, so he was in the paper business, so actually I worked in the paper business for a very short time. I was the fourth generation. Everybody in my family worked for International Paper Company. But he was traveling a lot. He probably traveled three weeks out of the month typically, internationally, to paper mills all over the world, and doing technical support, and he was away on a business trip, my mom found my stash, and I remember very, very clearly her telling me that, you know, this was deviant behavior, and if my father ever found out, it would kill him. That was like, the exact words that were used. And, you know, of course, you know, everything purged and, but it lasted maybe like three weeks and then I started shoplifting again (laughs), so. And that sort of lasted through, all the way up through high school. So, we moved to Upstate New York. So, moving from like the New York City area where like life is sort of like fast and we would go into the city pretty regularly and you know very racially you know, kind of integrated area that I lived in, you know, the junior high/high school that I went to was probably you know 40/50 percent people of color, and then we moved to Upstate New York. Glens Falls, NY. Which, like in the Adirondack Mountains, and it was like going from like, you know, overdrive to first gear for me. And right in the middle of adolescence, and I became very depressed. Actually, you know, I would skip school all the time. Go steal stuff (laughs). Have a girl day. And I did that for like two years. So, I had been a straight-A student when we lived down in Westchester, when we moved to Glens Falls, I became a C and D student. And it wasn't until my senior year in high school that I didn't even realize it at the time, but I was fully embraced by the queer kids at school. Right? And nobody talked about it, right? Nobody said, like, are you gay or are you, you know, transgender. Are you this, are you that? You know, nobody was talking about this stuff back in, you know, 1975, 1976, 1977. Especially when you're in high school, right? Because there's so much stigma around the stuff. But you know, looking back on it, you go like, oh my God! I was surrounded by all these queer kids, and we all took care of each other. That's what was going on. And yeah, so, finally I found my tribe in my senior year of high school, and I became a straight-A student again because of it, which was kind of cool, because it allowed me to go to college. But yeah, so that was my adolescence, you know. Being told I was a deviant several times, and I was going to kill my father if he ever found out. You know in hindsight, I think my father may have been a closeted trans person, frankly. So, he would shave his legs, he wore underwear that, you know, probably could have been classified as, you know, could go either way. You know, male or female in sort of the way it looked. In hindsight, you know, when I kind of think about his life, you know, I think that he may have been a very closeted individual. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, right. He's passed on a long time ago, so. I would have loved to have been able to have that conversation, so. That's the early years, I guess, right? So, I went to college. So, I went to a really small, tiny liberal arts college called Eisenhower College. It's since closed. It was actually only open for I think 14 years. But it was a very intense sort of classical liberal arts education, where you know, we read everything from Plato to the Bhagavad Gida, to the Koran cover to cover, and studied world cultures all across the world. I was an International Relations and Asian History major, and actually used to be able to speak Chinese relatively fluently. Not anymore. But you know, when I was in college, you know, you have roommates and you're living, eventually I got a single room, but even then, you know, you're in such close proximity that, you know, Corinne, who didn't have a name at that time, but you know that part of me, went very much into the closet. But it was really a wonderful time. It's where I met my future wife. And you know recently have started to reconnect with my larger college community, although our closest friends in the world were from, are from college, so. My wife and I, we get together with them several times a year every year for the last, you know, 40 plus years. We, so after college, my wife, Deb, and I got married in 1982. 1982? Yeah. 1982. Because we graduated college in '81. So, in '82, and then Corinne came roaring back. You know, so after a five-year sort of hiatus. Although I wasn't stealing things anymore, I was going out and buying them (laughs), but you know, still very, very secret. Kept it all from my wife. And you know, very closeted at the time, but you know, expressing my femininity through clothing as often as I could. My wife is an avid churchgoer and a believer, and I'm not, so my girl time was every Sunday morning when she went to church, frankly. And then we got pregnant in 1987. And that's when I kind of had my epiphany, so literally, and this is probably one of the biggest regrets of my entire life, and I apologize because it gets me a little emotional. But literally the day that we found out that we were pregnant, is when I came out to my wife. And in my mind, I felt I had to. Because it wouldn't be fair to her, or to our child, to go through life without them knowing about this part of me at some point. You know, there was lots of crying, there was lots of conversation, and what a horrible time for me to come out to somebody (laughs). But you know, in my head, the logic in my head said that you know, this is like the do or die kind of time. You have to be honest with her. And you know, it took a lot of years of kind of negotiating, you know, and ultimately, we sort of settled on sort of a don't-ask-don't-tell life around my cross-dressing, or my transness. So, essentially what would happen is for the intervening gosh, 30 years, my wife would go visit her mom once a month, she'd take our son with her, they'd go visit her mom for a weekend, and I would have a weekend to be the real me. And we did that for literally for decades. For decades. And it was really hard. It was hard when my kid found my fake boobs (laughs). You know, and like you know, he comes out of the closet with his little buddy from across the street you know and says to my wife like you know, "Hey, what are these?" (laughs) You know? And you know, "what are they doing here?" And he found my stash of stuff that I thought I had hidden away pretty good, and my wife said like, "Oh, they're just like for a Halloween costume," or something like that. And when a kid is eight, that's good enough, right? But that memory came up years later when I came up to my son and he goes like, "Oh, well you know, that explains the boobs." So, yeah. So, for years, you know, I worked in the retail business, so I was, I started off, so literally I got out of college, I had a liberal arts degree, I had gotten into grad school, I had gotten into Columbia and Johns Hopkins and some other schools to continue my education, but I really decided I didn't want to do that. And so, it was in 1982 in the middle of like a horrible recession, and I didn't know what to do, so I got a job literally selling shoes. I was in the shoe business for three years, I guess, and then a friend of mine from college, actually a friend of both of ours from college, her dad worked for Radio Shack, the now-defunct electronics retailer, and she got me an interview with Radio Shack. I had a 23-year career at Radio Shack, so at one point or another I ran all of the stores in eastern Pennsylvania, so I ran about 300 stores for them. The biggest territory they had. And then I did that for like 23 years. So I left there in 2004, and when their business model really started to shift and I was not pleased with where the company was going and I was, you know, like 40-something years old and I go like, you know, if I'm going to move, I gotta do it now, because my hair's getting grey, and I'm getting fat, and nobody's going to hire an old fat and grey guy, so I actually went to work, through a contact of mine, I went into the telecom business, and I was a vice president of sales and distribution for Vonage, the internet telephone company, so that's what I did after Radio Shack. I went from like this really established kind of traditional organization into the start-up world, and literally my desk for the first two and a half years was a card table, and it was just the most fun I ever had in my life I think at work was for those two and a half years, and then we went public, and you know, we all thought we were going to get rich, and that didn't happen, but when you go from like this ultra-entrepreneurial startup environment and then you go public, and now you have to comply with all these regulations and stuff like that, it was a little bit of a shift in what was going on. I was recruited away from them to go to work for Sprint, and I was in charge of the sales, consumer sales side, for Sprint's 4G business, when they were starting at 4G. You know, we're now in the 5G, and 6G's you know, on the horizon actually too in that business, but back then 4G was like the hot new thing in the wireless business, so I was in charge of all of their national consumer sales distribution for 4G for Sprint. They, in 2008 decided to merge our division into a new company with another company, called Clearwire at the time so we were involved in all that kind of merger activity, and I was offered the opportunity to go work in Seattle, essentially doing what I was doing for the new company, or I could take like a half a million dollars. So, you know, and the guy I would have been working for out in Seattle who I'd, you know, been working with in this merger thing was just, he was an asshole, so I decided to take the money (laughs), which came in a bunch of different ways. It wasn't just like cash. But the package was pretty lucrative, and really that allowed me to sort of sit back and go, "What is next?" And so, you know, in 2008 I was 50 years old, and you know, I could try to continue in a corporate world, and kind of do what I was doing, or I could go out on my own. And essentially what that money allowed me to do was have the freedom to give doing something on my own a try. So, I started my own consulting firm, and that firm doesn't look anything like it used to when it started, but at the time I was doing consulting work for a bunch of companies, but the biggest one was a company called Retail Business Development, and our business model was to help retailers who were struggling, and so literally what we would do is you know, and they're primarily in the wireless and telecommunications space, but like maybe you own 30 retail stores selling Metro PCS, the wireless carrier, and you were struggling, we would go in and consult with you and help you fix your business. And in many cases that was we would sign an agreement that you would turn over the keys to your business. The entire business to us, for a period of two years. And we would fix it. And that might involve closing stores, opening stores, relocating stores, firing staff, hiring staff. I mean literally we would, some of these businesses we tore them right down to the ground and rebuilt them from the ground up. And so, that took me back into the retail business. I was running about 350 retail stores. I was their senior vice president of operations and business development, and in the two years that I was working with them, we tripled the size of the business, landed a lot of new national accounts through my contacts, like you know, we were doing all of the in-store sales for DirecTV at Walmart, for example. So, every Walmart in the country, and things like that. So, it was just, again it was sort of like in that start-up sort of real entrepreneur-y kind of world, but me and the owner of that business sort of had a parting of the ways. We just wanted to go in different directions with the business, and then so I kind of was back starting square one again, and what do I do? And turned my business into a training and development firm. Because training is something that I always really liked doing. So, our business now is where we develop training and development programs for companies, really globally, so we have clients in the Caribbean, clients in Turkey, clients in Europe, the United States and Canada, and all kinds of different businesses, ranging from consumer electronics to adult pleasure products, so yeah, so one of my clients is the largest distributor of adult pleasure goods in the world. And we've written, a lot of our course stuff is electronic course work, computer-based training. We've written over 150 courses for them on how to use products. So, I know a lot more that I thought I would about things that I never thought that I would be selling, but. It's been an interesting experience. So, that's what I do now. But what that allowed me to do is by working from home, it started to give me the freedom, you know, as my wife was at work doing her job, she's a medical practitioner, is that every day I was able to be who I really am. I was able to be Corinne every day. And so, really my coming out process, my true coming out process started in 2008, when I left corporate world and started my own business, because it gave me the freedom, working from home most of the time, to really just be who I am. And you know, I came to the realization probably in, I guess in 2011, that I had to come out and really be genuine. My wife and I had a lot of difficult conversations, because partners transition right along with us, and family members transition right along with us. I think the other thing, by the way, that helped me with coming out, was that both of my parents died. And it gave me the freedom, I guess, if you want to call it that, to not have to worry about killing my father, because he was already dead. To be perfectly blunt. And to not have to deal with the judgement of my mother, which I think would have been very traumatic. But so, I started my transition, you know, kind of the coming out process in 2008, 2010. I transitioned full time socially in 2014, I guess. When we moved back here to the Lehigh Valley that's when that really started, and then medical transition started in 2016, so you know one of the things that many people don't realize is that transition involves a lot of things, right? So, I was actually just giving a training last night to some college students, and you know, people tend to think about transition, they tend to think about operations and medications. But really, it's sort of social transition, and a lot of people sort of socially transition but don't medically or legally transition. So, for me, social transition started around 2010, legal transition was just a couple years ago in 2018, and my medical transition started in 2016, and it's still an on-going thing, so. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. MF: Thank you so much for sharing. I'm wondering about the period of your life before the social, legal, and medical transition. What was it like to be Corinne, you know, on Sunday morning, or these just sort of selected parts of your week? How did you navigate that? What was that like for you during that time period? CG: So, yeah. Well, difficult would be I guess the best adjective, but probably a few things. So, one of the real challenges, and remind me to tell you about the second one if I forget, but one of the real challenges, and many people with transgender experience who are sort of living in this, you know, back and forth world, and many, many, many, many trans people do-- matter of fact, I would say the majority of trans people do-- is you're code switching all the time. So, you are, you know, mentally you are, you know in my case, a feminine space, or in the case of a transmasculine person, a masculine space, or you know, a non-binary person as well, but you are always having to put on this act. And so, I would have my girls' weekend, but I would feel like I was an imposter, right? So you have imposter syndrome, because in my case, I have body hair, and facial hair, and I don't know how to do makeup, or you know, I don't know how to whatever, so if I would go out, I would be just totally paranoid about, you know, people staring at me because, well, I'm still paranoid about people staring at me, but in a different way, but is that, you know, you're just not practiced, right? And then, when you switch back into, in my case, you know, into "dude mode," you know, there's just like this sort of mental break, and it is just so fatiguing. It is just, it just mentally drains you. And whether it's the imposter syndrome that you have, or it's that sort of, you know, having to kind of mentally switch back and forth, is just so hard. And then the other thing, well, the other thing that's hard, by the way, is that just this idea that you're having to hide, right? So, you know I would get my outfit out, or my clothing out, whatever it is, and then you know, it was, I used to store stuff in like plastic tubs that was like you know hidden in the bottom of a storage closet underneath, you know, our books from college, right? And so, you have to dig it all out, and then you pull your clothing out, it's all wrinkled and cruddy because it's been sitting in you know, in the basement with mildew, and you know, you put it on, and you don't feel right, and then you know, but then you gotta rush and put it all back because you know God forbid if you know a neighbor knocks on the door, or whatever, so you're just in this constant state of fear of being discovered. And I think this is one of the things that's different for many people in the LGBTQ community, or I should say the LGB community versus the trans community, right? Is that LGB folks can navigate the real world, right? So, you're not necessarily, you know, you're sitting home, you're watching TV, you're not worried somebody's going to discover that you're gay necessarily while you're watching TV. But if I'm, you know, was watching you know the Sunday morning news shows, but I was dressed as whatever, my next-door neighbor comes over to borrow a cup of sugar, and I'm discovered. And that is just a little bit different. And I don't mean to discount the fear and the stigma that LGB people have, but there's sort of a difference between being able to sort of move through the world with a little bit of invisibility, I guess I would call it, versus as a trans person, you are very visible. Especially when you're in transition, or you're not fully transitioned, you haven't started to medically transition. It can be really challenging. The other thing that I wanted to get at was because of that imposter syndrome, at least I know, and many people of trans experience that I know, overcompensate. So, for example, there's been studies that show that transgender people join the military at highly disproportionate rates, because they want to, you know if you're transfeminine, you're going to prove your masculinity. And you're going to, you know, become like, you know, an "army man," and you know, sort of beat it out of yourself I guess, right? And I know trans folks who have become like, you know, amazing athletes because they're trying to prove their masculinity, for example, if you're a transfeminine person. In my case, I became like this type A business executive who, you didn't want to get in my way. Matter of fact, my nickname back in the day, was "Evil Dave." And you know, I actually like to think that I was a pretty good boss, and I've actually had many people who say that I was a very good boss, but man, you didn't want to cross me. And I can make people cry in a heartbeat, and I did it, and I liked it, frankly. You know, I mean there were times when if you just, so my motto at the time was "Just do what I tell you to do, it's going to be okay." Right? And I was just this, I could be a total, total, pardon my language, asshole. And I was really good at playing that role. And I have a lot of regrets about that. Not because of decision-making necessarily, I didn't make but because I could have treated people better and frankly it was all an act. It was all an act. And so, you know, that overcompensation led to me living a disingenuous life for 50 years. And I look at those 50 years as 50 wasted years, and frankly a lot of the work that I do now I think, if I was to really look deep into my soul, is about trying to make up for those 50 years, and do the right thing by people, and to help people develop, and you know, get on a path that's going to make it so that they don't have to be on the path that I was. So. Probably a little bit of a mission there, which by the way, I don't think is really unusual for people who get into social services. There's usually some sort of mission, motivation going on back in there, but yeah, so. That's one of the problems I think that trans folk have, right, is code-switching and then imposter syndrome are really, really, really massive. I am so proud, especially of young non-binary people, who nowadays are able to navigate or working to navigate gender in a different way, where you know, wouldn't it be wonderful if we didn't have to fit into a gender box? You know, where you don't have to be this macho dude, or this hyper-feminine woman. You can just be genuine to yourself and on this whole spectrum of masculinity and femininity, you just find your place, and people support you in that navigation and being comfortable with the fact that these thing evolve, and everybody is sort of on their own path, you know some people move quickly across that evolution, some people move slowly across that evolution, some people stop in the middle, some people move back and forth, and I really think that, you know, we are at an inflection point where over the next sort of probably 20 years, hopefully I live long enough to see it, that these gender norms are just blown up, and we just start accepting people for who they are in this area, would make me very, very happy to see that. Yeah. MF: I do want to talk about, you talked about your career, I want to talk about Eastern PA Trans Equity, but first, since we're sort of still reflecting a bit on your earlier years, I'm wondering what was your relationship like with LGBTQ community spaces you know, prior to your social, legal, and medical transition? Were LGBTQ organizations on your radar? Were they not on your radar? How were you kind of thinking about gay liberation, trans liberation, and you know, kind of movements that were going on in the 80s and 90s? CG: Yeah, so, you know, back you know in the 80s in-particular, and even the early 90s, right, it was pre-internet, or pre-internet as we know it now, I should say, and so the way that you got involved with the transgender community in-particular, is that you went to adult bookstores, and you picked up magazines. Whether it was female impersonator magazine, or there was one called "TV/TS Tapestry," which was put out by IFGE in Boston for years, and you know, in the back of these magazines would be ads. You know, so they were filled often with you know, just pictures of people of trans experience often in pornographic or semi-pornographic modes, but in the back of these magazines would be personal ads, or ads for organizations, and two of the organizations back in the 80s that I was familiar with was, one's called Tri-Ess, which is still around, so Tri-Ess is the Society for Second Self, is what the three Ss stands for. And then another one was Renaissance. And what I did is I would, where we were living, I would get a post office box, and you know, sneak into my post office box and pick up my, you know, Tri-Ess newsletter, or my Renaissance newsletter, and furtively read it to go, "Here, there actually are people like me," and "Look, oh there's a picture of a lady with really big hair!" you know (laughs) or whatever, but they would sort of tell their stories, sometimes there would be personal ads, but that's really how you kind of communicated and found community back in the day. At the time, we were living in Upstate New York in the 80s, in Glens Falls again, and there was nothing. There was absolutely nothing locally, so my transgender life was lived vicariously through others in these newsletters. And then the dial-up internet happened, and actually there was, before AOL, there was a service called PC Link, and it was actually the progenitor of AOL, and I was working at Radio Shack as a store manager at the time, and we would sell this PC Link software that allowed you to go through a dial-up modem and find you know communities and I found a transgender support group, or cross-dressers support group I think it might have been called at the time. And I remember dialing in, you know, two or three times a month and getting into these chat rooms, and you know everybody talking about kind of what they're experiences were. Some of them were very sexual in nature, other times the conversations were very much about navigating coming out, or finding doctors, or you know, how do you do various things. But it was all very tentative, and very sort of closeted, at least on my part. You know, so I would do it when my wife was in the other room, and you know I didn't want to offend her, because the last thing I wanted was for my wife to leave me because I was leading this deviant lifestyle, I guess. I didn't want to scare her. But that's kind of how you found community, was like through these sort of like you know stealth newsletters. Things came in plain paper envelopes, you know, and but back in the at least especially in the late 80s/early 90s things started opening up a little bit and I became aware of some of these support groups. And they would often have meetings, although not near where I was living at the time, but Renaissance in particular, which was founded by a woman named Joanne Roberts along with a couple of other folks down in the Philadelphia area actually, is where they started, started opening chapters around the country. So, for example they had a chapter in Albany, NY, which is 50 miles from where I was living, and I was never brave enough to go to one of their meetings. But the way that you used to go to these meetings is you would be given a phone number to call, and that phone number was at a phone booth. So, somebody would say you need to call this number at seven pm on the 14th of the month, right, and you would call, and then somebody would be at this phone booth to answer the phone, because it was all super-secret, and they would interview you. Literally interview you about, you know,about who you are, to make sure that, then they might give you permission to come to a meeting at a super-secret place. So, you like you know you had to know somebody who knew somebody and that's the way a lot of these things really worked. So, you know you kind of fast forward to 2008 when I was, really made the decision to explore transition, I was looking for support groups and locally in the Lehigh Valley here, you know, I went into google and said like, you know, "Lehigh Valley support groups," "Allentown, Pennsylvania transgender groups," things like that, and there was nothing. There was nothing. By the way, there actually was something, you just couldn't find it. So, I remember going like, you know, "there's gotta be something!" And then I remembered Renaissance, this national organization that had things. I went to their website, and it said there was a Lehigh Valley group! And I go, like, "Oh!" You know, "Big win! Congratulations, Corinne!" And there was a website, and there was an address you could send a letter to. A post office box. Well, the website didn't work. It was just a dead end. And the post office box, I sent like three letters to it, and nothing ever happened. And this is one of the problems with a lot of trans support groups, is that somebody starts one, and then they might leave. And then it falls apart, right? These things are sort of you know based community, very community based, but luckily a couple years later, you know, through my therapist, she goes like, "Oh, I know somebody who knows somebody, and I'll get you connected." And, lo and behold Lehigh Valley Renaissance was there, it was just hard to find, and you had to go-- the phone booth was gone, so that was good news. But you know, you had to know somebody who knew somebody who knew where the meeting was and what time it was and where it was and things like that. So, I showed up for my first Renaissance meeting in 2014, maybe? 2015. And walked in, and I found a group of mature, white, women, trans women, some of whom identify as cross-dressers, some of whom identified as transgender, and I walked in there's like a little bowl of potato chips and you know, some cold pizza, and you know, iced tea, and I go to pour myself a glass of iced tea and this one person walks up and they said like, "Oh, you're new here." And I go like, you know, "Yes," and I remember going to this thing and man did I dress up. Like, I was wearing high heels and stockings and a killer skirt, and put my makeup on with a trowel, and you know, I was like really trying to be a girl. And this woman walks up to me, and she starts giving me a lecture on the right way to be transgender. Like, well THIS is how you have to do it. And I almost walked out. I almost walked out. Thank God I met Raquel Hebron who was the chapter leader for Renaissance who came over and saved the day, and she kind of you know just sort of put her arm around me, and she was like, "We don't care how you look, we don't care, you know, how you identify. You are welcome here, and we're here to help you." And I am so unbelievably grateful for that, because I probably would have never gone back, and maybe I would never have transitioned if it hadn't been for that intervention. There were probably, I'm guessing maybe eight people at that meeting. Lots of angst. Lots of people sort of you know complaining about life and you know all the obstacles that they encountered and things like that, but it was a really important start for me, in terms of like just starting to access resources, and that's, you know I kind of went to meetings you know for a few months. And there was another person, her name is Amanda, who was there and she, while not being a web guru in anyway, she went to Wix.com and started to set up a website. It was a little bit of a kluge, it was pretty rough, but you know at least people could kind of find us now, and then between me and her and some other folks, we started going like, you know, "This thing could be a lot more than what it is now." And so, while Raquel was still chapter leader and she would sort of run the support group meetings, we were doing a lot of work kind of on the backside. Frankly, I was paying for it out of my pocket, and we built a real website with lots of resources and like so, now you can go to the Renaissance website and download a list of therapists who are trans-affirming for the entire state. You know, you can, you know, find, you know, if you want to find a place to get your nails done, or where you if you're a trans guy you need to buy a binder, or whatever it is, there's all these resources available. Lots of articles. We started a blog, and things like that. You know, we optimized the site for search engine optimization, so you know now a days if you type in like "Lehigh Valley Transgender," we pop right up at the top, and it becomes easy to find. And those meetings have gone from where we would get like you know maybe half a dozen people would come to a meeting, the Renaissance meeting that we had just two weeks ago had 48 people at it. Which is just sort of controlled pandemonium. It's hard to have a support group meeting when you have 48 people, so we've had to kind of learn to manage those things differently. But that was really the start of what is now the Trans Equity project, is let's build something for the community that works for everybody. And one of the things that we've learned is that not everybody needs or wants a support group, right? Where you kind of come and sit around in a circle and you talk about your problems, and people give you solutions. Sometimes people just want to go to a website and find, you know, where can I find a doctor who will prescribe hormones. Or some people you know may not want to go to a website, they may want to go to a Facebook page, or an Instagram page and things like that, so we started building you know this sort of business plan around what should an organization look like, and about three years ago myself and some others started getting into some conversations and said okay, so if we had a clean sheet of paper, and we were going to build something new, what might it look like? And what it looks like is the Eastern Pennsylvania Trans Equity Project. So, myself and some other folx, trans folx in the area, trans-masc. folk, non-binary folk, we started to sort of you know meet at a Starbucks, or meet at you know one of our houses, and say, "What should-- if we were going to build something new, what would we build?" And I should say that in the intervening time, as Renaissance started to do more, we decided that you know, so for example, when I started coming to Renaissance meetings, Renaissance had maybe $100 in the bank at any given point in time. And you know, we would collect you know five dollars here or there from people coming to meetings, to you know to pay for the cold pizza and the carrot sticks and the iced tea. We had a little bit of money left over. But as we started to expand, you know, that five dollars started to add up, and we'd go like, "Well, what are things that we could do?" And one of the first things that we did is that there is a conference that happens every year in Harrisburg called the Keystone Conference. So, the Keystone Conference is where primarily trans-fem folx, but really anybody of trans experience, can go. It's a four- conference where they literally take over the entire Sheraton Hotel in Harrisburg. The only non-trans people there are the airline pilots who have a layover that night, and they like hanging out with the trans folx, frankly, because we party hard. But you know you go there and there's seminars that happen, you know like, so surgeons that come, doctors who come, therapists who come. Seminars on how to change your name, seminars on you know deportment, seminars on you know how to do makeup, seminars on you know, if you're a trans-guy, what is the right way to fit a binder, for example. Lots of workshops during the day. Lots of social activities at night. And when I went to my first one, it was literally a life-changing experience, because it's the first time I didn't ever feel tall. So, like you know there's a thousand other transgender people there, and I go and I'm like "Oh my God!" You know, "There are women here who are 6'8"!" You know? "I'm little! I'm petite!" (laughs) But it's a totally accepting environment, non-threatening, you're not worried about your safety, and that's when I go like, "Oh I can really do this, and I have the tools." So, one of the first programs that we started at Renaissance was a scholarship to send people to that conference. Because it costs about, you know, eight hundred dollars to go for the full time, for a hotel room, and meals, and conference fees. So, we started to pay for that. But we also realized there was liability involved, so we at that time the Bradbury-Sullivan LBGTQ Center was starting to open up, Adrian the executive director of the center needed a program, we needed insurance, and so we became a program of the Bradbury-Sullivan Center. So, you know Adrian got a ready-made program for trans people, and you know we got insurance to cover our liability. It was kind of like a great marriage of convenience. But over time, we started wanting to do more and more and more, and the mission that we started to put together didn't necessarily fit in with the mission of the LBGTQ Center. So, working alongside Adrian, and working with the trans community, we started to put together the plan for the Eastern PA Trans Equity Project. And our mission is to empower trans people while building community and fighting for social justice, and our vision is to be really the go-to source for resources for trans folk throughout ultimately all of Pennsylvania, but right now we support 14 counties across the Eastern part of the state. By the end of the year, I think it's going to be 20 counties. And we do a lot with very little. So, kind of our tagline is "Life begins now." And it's, from a mission perspective, it's really what is the one thing-- just one thing-- that we can provide to a person of trans experience, to help them navigate life better? And that started off really with legal name change assistance. So, if you think about all the places that you have to use your name, so if you want to buy a drink in a bar, and they card you, right? You have to show your ID, and you know, maybe you know, in my case, my ID said David, but I'm presenting as Corinne, and we've had it happen where people hand over their ID and then a bartender says, "Oh, so you're transgender then." And now the whole bar knows that you're a person of trans experience, and that puts you in physical danger. You have to show your ID if you want to buy a cell phone. You have to show your ID when you want to apply for a car loan. When you apply for a job, right? And you're hired for a job. You want to go through TSA because you want to fly somewhere. You, you know, have to show your ID all the time, and every time that happens, if it's mismatched to your gender, you're outed. And every time you're outed, you're literally put into physical danger. So, the first program that we launched was the name change project, where you can come to our website, you can download all of the legal forms that you need to complete your name change, automatically have them filled out, so you just enter in your name, your address, and you know, you're chosen name, and your current legal name, and all the forms are automatically populated. They come with step-by-step instructions, written in plain English, so that you can do it yourself and not have to hire a lawyer for $2,000. Then you can apply for a grant, where we will pay for your name change, so that you don't have to come out of pocket for that. And then we will mentor you all along the process. So, for example, this year, right now it's October 15th, we've helped just over 150 people complete their legal name change this year. And that is a life-changing thing. Other programs we have is that you can, if you're in transition, or maybe you're a teenager and you're going to school, or a college student you're going to college, and you're trans-masculine person, and you want a binder to help you to present more masculine, we will provide you with a binder for free. We've added, over the last two years, housing assistance, so you know if you're struggling with housing, we will pay your rent for you to keep you in housing. We actually did one not too long ago where a person was three months behind on their rent due to COVID, and the recession that's going on right now, and unemployment. We managed to negotiate away one month of that person's rent with the landlord, we paid two months of the rent to get them caught up, and we secured a letter from the landlord saying they weren't going to take any eviction process for 90 days. We provide food assistance for people who need to feed themselves, or their trans kids. We did four college scholarships for trans folk this past year. We do a scholarship to trans-affirming summer camp for trans kids. You know, the idea is like, what can we do besides the support groups? We run now six different support groups. But how do we really help somebody of trans experience get their life on track so that they can make a difference? So, we started the project in 2019, it's now two years later. It's 100 percent volunteer, nobody gets paid. So, you know, 85, 90 percent of every dollar donated goes directly to help people of trans experience. We have an education program where conferences like the Keystone Conference were canceled during COVID, so we decided to pick that up, and every couple weeks we do a workshop for trans folk and their family members, so we did one earlier this week on de-mystifying health insurance for transition. And how do you get everything you need to get surgeries, for example. We did one two weeks prior to that on "You Transition as Your Partner Transitions," so it's for spouses and partners of trans people. We've done them on surgery, we've done them on name changes, we've done them on, you know, mindfulness and how to deal with dysphoria, and you know, I'm just so proud of not only what I've helped to accomplish in building this project, but of all of our volunteers who put in their time and their effort to make the struggle easier, and to pay it forward for hopefully mainly for young folk, right? So, I mean, we'll help anybody of any age, but you know if we can help a trans kid, you know, get the binder they need that'll let them feel comfortable going to class, and then we help them get their degree so they can get a decent job, and we'll help them with their name change so they can get their name on their diploma, right? And we're sort of setting them up for success as they move forward, and it's just amazingly gratifying. Yeah. MF: Could you tell me a bit more about how you moved into the leadership of Eastern PA Trans Equity Project? You talked about going to a support group at Renaissance, and you talked about a group of people kind of meeting to imagine Eastern PA Trans Equity. I'm sort of more, I'm interested in that personal story of being a member, but then thinking, "No, I want to take a leadership role," with others, in collaboration with others, to really start something transformative in Eastern PA, that's connected to Renaissance, kind of building out of it, but also has a big vision for you know, directly helping trans people with specific challenges that they're facing in our region? CG: Yeah, so it was a coup d'état (laughs), so. So, essentially you know, kind of some of the current leaders of Renaissance were sort of very happy kind of doing what they were doing, and they are still happy doing what they are doing. And but we kind of just said, "like, listen. We think that we can do more," and I will raise my hand and say I was the ringleader in this, without a doubt, and but is it, you know, just through having conversations with other members of the community who said, like you know "What could we do? If you think about your transition, what was the most complicated thing? Or what was the thing that was the biggest, you know, pain in the rear for you?" Or whatever. And then we said, like "All right, so what if we could start building solutions for these, what might they look like?" And I was definitely the person who was behind, you know, kind of pushing all this stuff forward. You know, with input from other community members, but I was definitely the instigator, and ultimately it came down to, you know, I mentioned Adrian Shanker from the LBGTQ Community Center, so we said, "All right, we just want to kind of move in different directions. We're going to cooperate and help each other where it makes sense," but the LBGTQ Community Center is much more about cultural programs and things like that, whereas you know, we're much more about direct aid and intervention, right? So, think about it as the difference between your broad programs, so coming to seeing an art gallery showing, or a movie, or whatever it is, and you got 50 people. You know, our program is about how do we, you know, sort of belly to belly, one person to one person, make a difference in somebody's life. It's just sort of a different philosophy on how you help the community. And so, that was sort of kind of where we started from, is this idea okay so what is that one thing we can do for a person of trans experience to make a difference? Maybe it's a support group program, maybe it's one of these workshops, maybe it's a name change. Maybe it's helping to get them off of the street. But, you know, what are these things that we could do? And so we had a bunch of conversations, this is kind of going on in 2017, 2018, and then like I said, in 2019 is when we incorporated and started it, and then I sat down had a conversation with Raquel who was the group leader of Renaissance, and I said like, "Listen, this is what we're doing." And you know the Bradbury-Sullivan Center has decided that Renaissance really needs to go in a different direction, not be part of the center anymore, because we always were sort of a little independent anyway, like we never had our meetings at the LGBTQ Center, we had our meetings elsewhere. You know, we weren't going to give that up. So, I said like, "Listen, so here's the deal. So, you can go out and kind of become what you were ten years ago, or you can fold in underneath the Trans Equity Project umbrella. More than happy to have you do that. That gives you the [ear?] cover of having liability insurance and things like that." So, really Renaissance is the sub-brand, if you want to think of it from a marketing perspective, of the Trans Equity Project for our support group programs. So, like we have a group for partners and spouses, it is Renaissance Partners. We have a group that we've started up in the Poconos, that's called Renaissance Poconos. We have a group for non-binary folx, and it's you know Renaissance Beyond the Binary. So, Renaissance I guess if you want to call it that is sort of the sub-brand for our support group side, and everything else that we're doing is falling underneath the Trans Equity Project Side. But yeah, so I was the instigator, so I get the blame, good or bad. MF: I think the blame is all good (laughter). You mentioned when you were talking about doing some of the taking over workshops since Keystone was cancelled due to COVID, and you talked about a specific workshop that was for trans people and their partners, and that lead me to kind of reflect on, you know, when you were coming out more fully to your spouse, your wife, you were doing that without, you hadn't gone yet to Renaissance. How did you navigate that conversation? Did you have support? What sort of resources helped you with that conversation with your wife? And I guess there's a second question, is your experience in your marriage fueling some of the programming or workshops that you're building today? CG: Yes, absolutely! So, one of the things I think that-- so, transition, you know, when you're a person of trans experience and you decide to come out, and you know transition, you know, whether socially, medically, or legally, it is an inherently selfish act, right? It is an act often of self-preservation. Matter of fact you know, when people say things like "Oh, you're so brave to transition." It's not about bravery. It's literally about self-preservation, right? You know, the rate of suicide attempts for transgender people is at over 40 percent. And that's because people become so unhappy with the transition process, or the fact that they feel they cannot transition, or the stigma that's associated with being a trans person going to high school or whatever, and so we tend to become very, very self-absorbed, I guess, during that process. It's a very easy thing to do, and it's easy to lose sight of the fact that everybody around you transitions right along with you. So, my spouse, she's had to transition as well. Her transition looks different. But, for example, my wife has five sisters and a mom and nieces and nephews and cousins, and she has a huge family. I have one brother and that's like the extent of it. I guess I have a nephew now too. But basically, is that you know, she had to come out to all these people, and she's very close to her family, and she was worried about being rejected by them. You know, they live kind of in the sticks, they're very rural, you know, not what you would call social activists in any way, shape, or form, and so for her, she had to have a conversation with her mom about you know, I'm married to a woman now. And deal with all the questions that come with that. My son has transitioned right along with me, you know, so when I go to visit him in New York, and you know, we run into some of his friends, so he works in theater, so you know, we'll go to one of his shows and you know he'll introduce us to all of his coworkers on the show, on the crew, and you know, he has to navigate the fact that you know, this is my dad who is a woman, who has a deep voice and you know huge hands, and broad shoulders, and is six feet tall, right? And coming out for trans people never stops. Never stops. And frankly, it never stops for our family. So, we started our support group for spouses and partners, and that was based on my personal motivation of that my wife needed support, right. And you know I'll say that that group is just thriving, and the woman whose the spouse of another Renaissance member is a rock star and does an amazing job, and you know, one of the great things of COVID has been is that you know we started going virtual, so we have people who call into our virtual support groups, especially the spouses group, from California and Texas and Costa Rica, and you know, all over the place. And so, for example, we did the workshop you know on transition, you know as your partner transitions a few weeks ago, we had over 30 people on that from all over the country, and you know, and they were just so grateful because they all go like "There was nothing in Iowa for me, and I don't know how to navigate. I don't know what to do." And so, the gratitude is wonderful, but even better is the fact that we're able to provide some tools and some resources and just companionship for some of these men and women who are going through these transitions. I think it's really important. But getting back to my wife and I, so I'm a huge believer in therapy, so I had my therapist, my wife had her therapist, and then we had a couple's therapist, so we kept the entire therapy population in the Lehigh Valley in business for many years, I think. But so yeah, so my therapist was all about supporting me, my wife's therapist was all about supporting her, and then the couple's therapy was about okay, so let's make a plan on navigating. And literally just because this is kind of how I'm wired, but my wife and I built a spreadsheet listing all the people that we had to come out to, and how would we do it. So, you know, her mom, and her sisters would be a personal face-to-face conversation, right? Our son would be a personal face-to-face conversation. My business clients would be a personal face-to-face conversation. You know, my third cousin twice removed? Well, maybe that's an email. You know, certain friends was a phone conversation, and for other people was just like a Facebook post that goes like you know, "Ta-da!" You know. "I'm here now!" Right? "And take it or leave it anyway you want." So, you know we really, we built a plan together, and that was a lot of work. I think you know one of the things for spouses and partners and families is that, so the way my wife often talks about it, she goes like, you know "You've been thinking about this for your entire life." So, I'm going to be 62 in two weeks. I've been thinking about it for 59 years. And while my wife has known to one degree or another for 34 years, for a long time she didn't really have to think about it. Right? And so, she was like, "You've been thinking about this for 59 years, I've been thinking about it for five weeks. I need time to process." And you know, one of the things that would always happen is like, you know I would do something to push the envelope, right? I went out and got my ears pierced, and I never asked to my wife "So like, hey. Is it okay if I get my ears pierced?" I just got them pierced. Right? And she came home from visiting her mom, and I go, "Hey look! You know, isn't this cool?" And she'd go like, "Why didn't we have a conversation about this? Because now I'm going to have to explain this to whoever." And so, there were real times when I've had to slow my transition down to allow my spouse to catch up. And that's a hard thing for me to do, but it's, you know, I've been married to this woman for 40 years, I've known her for 45, we have built a life together, we have a wonderful child, and it's pretty important to me so I'm not going to lose it. I'm going to do everything I can to keep it. MF: How has your marriage changed over from first meeting each other in college, been married, how has that relationship grown and evolved for you across your lives together? CG: So, I'm not sure that if you kind of take the whole transgender thing just out of the picture, right, I think our marriage has very much evolved the way that many, many marriages do, right? Where you, when you first meet, you know it's about physical attraction, and exploring each other sort of like you know emotionally, and intellectually, and going like, "Oh, does this person, do I like having conversations with this person? Do I like hanging out with them? Does my family like them?" You know, and there's all this sort of initial stuff that you're navigating or you're working through you know when you're in the first few years of a relationship, right? You know, you break up, you make up, you break up, you make up. You know that-- at least we did a lot in college. And then you know you decide in our case to get married or to you know live together, and then you start building, right? So, you know, you buy stuff, and you get a house, and then you have a baby, or you adopt somebody, or you know, but and you start adding layer upon layer upon layer upon layer upon layer, and as you do that, the depth of the connection grows, right? You're growing roots. And then things also evolve, right? So, I can't tell you the number of people who've been married a long time, and they say you know "I'm married to my best friend." Right? So, this'll sound horrible because I'm still very passionate about my wife, right, but you know, but it's a different kind of passion, right? You know, to be honest, we don't have sex that often anymore, right? For lots and lots of different reasons. Some of which is because we're just freaking old! (laughs) And you know, we come home from work, and we just go like you know, "What's for dinner? I want to sit down and vegetate in front of the TV and watch Netflix," right? And then you know you have to go to bed and get up and do it all over again the next day, right? Like so you get into a routine sometimes. That routine is wonderful in many ways, right? And then you decide, "Hey, let's go to Europe and do something fun and spontaneous," or you know earlier this year we decided to take a train, overnight train trip to Chicago, and like the first time ever we got a little sleeper cabin you know, which is a whole experience in itself, but you know, you do different things, and you start to explore. My wife is a really avid quilter, and I am not. I'm a model railroader, so I have a basement full of railroad trains and the loft of our house just outside my office door here, my wife has all of her quilting stuff, and so she quilts on the third floor, I do my trains in the basement, and in the middle is like the common space, right? Where you know we meet for dinner, and we hang out with our friends, and whatever it is, so yeah. You know, marriage and relationships is a lot of work. And so, like I said, I'm a believer in therapy, so you know, when we had our child, not too long after we had our baby, right, which is a life-changing thing, we went to couple's therapy because we needed to figure out how to do it. And yeah, so. I'm guessing that someday we'll probably go to couple's therapy again, because it's just good for you to do it. MF: We're getting towards the-- thank you for sharing that. We're getting towards the end of our 90-minute time, but I wanted to just sort of kind of return to, there's so much going on in your life right now, your passion for your wife, your work life, and Eastern PA Trans Equity Project. I'm wondering, what is your vision of kind of moving forward for you? Either with Eastern PA Trans Equity Project, your career on-going, what is your vision sort of for the future? CG: Yeah. So, something I've been giving a lot of thought to. So, I own my own business, I own my consulting firm. You know, I have people that work for me to support my clients, and that business, you know at times it's a 60 hour a week job, other times it's a 30 hour a week job, but it's really important because it helps provide you know for our household, right? And I get a lot of satisfaction from helping my clients to become successful. Trans Equity Project is taking more and more and more of my time, frankly it's where my passion is right now, so it's probably a 30, 40-hour week gig for me right now, and then you know, obviously my marriage and our friendships with others, and you know our love for our son and his wife and helping him out. Those things all take priority too, right? So, it's a real juggling act. So, I anticipate that I'm probably two years from retirement, fingers crossed. During that time the Trans Equity Project will continue to grow and expand, and as part of that growth and expansion, we need to start thinking about succession planning, and what does it look like. Right now, it's 100 percent volunteer. Our budget is about $60,000 a year, which is not a lot of money. You're not going to hire staff and pay for staff with $60,000, and do all the other work that we're doing, so you know with our grants, you know this year we've given out so far $41,000 in grants, so with that $20,000 left over you know, we have to pay for insurance and rent and printing and postage and you know all this other stuff that we do. Support groups and everything else. We're going to need to figure out how to raise more money, and to create something that can be sustained long-- so we can decide to stay small and awesome, which we are right now, or we can decide to go bigger. And one of the things that, at least for me from my vision, is that in Pennsylvania, for trans folk, while there's not enough programming, you know in the City of Philadelphia there's a fair amount of programming and support of trans folk, and the same is true in Pittsburgh. But in between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, there's a whole lot of nothing. And I think we can fill that role. So, when you-- and we can do it virtually. So, if you think about legal name change: So, we can help people to mentor them through the process, that can be done over the phone or via Zoom webinar like we're doing right now. The grant can be provided you know via check or a transfer, financial transfer through the internet. The legal paperwork can be delivered you know through our website and through the internet. We can do that work for the entire state of Pennsylvania from in a virtual way. Really all of our grant programs are designed specifically to do that, so even though they're not part of our quote-unquote designated service area, I was on the phone the other day with somebody from Elk County, Pennsylvania helping them with their legal name change. I don't even know where Elk County is. It's somewhere out in you know, what we euphemistically call "Pennsyltucky," right? It is out in the western part of the state somewhere, and I think like 30 people live there. But, you know, trans folk in these rural areas need support, and I think from a vision perspective, we will have the opportunity to do that. It's really a matter of getting the money and the staff to support us doing that. So, succession planning is a big one. That's a big one for us probably over this next two to three years. And part of that conversation is also going to be, what do we do with the support groups. So, the support groups, by their very nature, pretty much have to be done in person, versus virtually. And by their very nature, they're local in focus. And so, if we decide to truly fill that gap between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, how do we deal with Renaissance, which is a Lehigh Valley-focused program. Or, you know, Poconos-focused program. And how do we, do we keep it? Do we transition it to an independent organization and make sure that it's set up for success? These are really important conversations strategically that we're going to need to have, and I think that for me, this next let's call it five years, that's a lot of what this is going to be about. MF: Well, we're at the end of our time, but before we close, I want to ask, Corinne, is there anything that you are thinking, "Oh, I wish I would have talked about that!" Anything at the end that you'd like to share? Personally, about your work life, anything that seems important upon which we can conclude? CG: So, I'll just say this. So, for me, transitioning is the best thing I've ever done in my life. And that may even include my marriage and the birth of my child. Because, if I hadn't transitioned, I may not be here to enjoy my life with my family. I may not be here to do the work that we're doing. Not everybody has to transition. You know, so I kind of talked about that evolution earlier. But we're here to support people no matter what, and if it looks like a transition, we want to make that easier. And that doesn't mean it's not going to be hard. So, you know, when I transitioned and I was coming out to my clients, for example, you know, in some cases it was awesome, right? So, like the client that sells sex toys? Yeah, they go like, "Yeah, we don't care." (laughs) You know, "We're into everything here." One of my other clients is like in the Fortune 50, they're a huge, very conservative organization, and they allow me to employ two people, so you know, if I lost them as a client, not only would it impact me, but it would impact two of the people that work for me. I probably would have had to let them go. And so, I was very worried about it. When I went to their offices and I sat down with my long hair in a ponytail and you know the last time I've ever, no sorry I shouldn't say that-- the second to last time I've ever had to wear a business suit, but, men's business suit, my main contact at this corporation said "Okay, so I guess that means you're getting a new email address?" And I go like, that's a win, right?! I don't think I could have had a better response than that, frankly, right? "So, oh we're just going to carry on and you're going to get a new email address. Please tell me what it is," right? I had other clients who just literally went dead silent on me and some even stiffed me on money they owed me, frankly. Luckily not a lot. But interestingly enough, one of those clients just reengaged with me like a month ago. Took them five years, but they did it. We, so I've muddled my way through, I'm a planner by nature, you know, had my spread sheet, but is it, there are people out there who will help you. Right? There will be, you know, that person might be me, it might be someone else completely, but that's really what it's about, is like we muddle through life, right? And not just in gender transition, you know. We have to muddle through figuring out new jobs, or buying a car, or you know, going to college or whatever it is, and if there's an opportunity for one person just to sort of reach out their hand and make one of those steps a little easier, then that's what it is. And so, I would respectfully ask that other people do that, right? Just you know when somebody comes out to you and says, "I'm a person of transgender experience," know that that is an act of revolution. Know that when that person comes out to you, they are scared to death. They are scared that they're going to lose you as a friend, or as a relative, or as a spouse, or a partner, as a business contact. They're afraid they're going to get fired, they're afraid they're going to get rejected. They're frankly maybe afraid that they're going to be physically assaulted. Just acknowledge the strength that it takes to do that, to say those words, and when we do our trainings on these topics with organizations, you know I was doing it last night with a college, is you know, we just say like, "When somebody comes out to you, just remember what a big deal it is." And then you just say three phrases: The first one is, "Thank you for telling me." The second one is, "It's going to be a change, but I'm here to help you through that." And the third one is, "No matter what, I'm with you." If you just do that, my anxiety level goes from you know, an eleven, down to a five. And then we can start having real conversations. So. That's my sermon. MF: Thank you Corinne. It was really an honor, a privilege to talk with you today. Thank you so much. CG: Well, thank you. My life is not particularly interesting. I'm kind of dull, frankly, but I really appreciate you taking the time out for this. MF: You are not dull at all. This was wonderful, I'm so grateful. I'm going to go ahead and stop the interview, but we'll stay on Zoom just to kind of conclude together, and I'll say thank you again. CG: Thank you! Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:33:58
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Corinne Goodwin, October 15, 2021
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Corinne Goodwin describes her childhood in Yonkers, Long Island, White Plains, NY, and Glen Falls; she focuses on her experiences as a transgender girl and the transphobia within her family. For example, she shares how her mother responded when she found feminine clothing in her room by exclaiming that it would “kill” her father if he found out. Corinne describes hiding her transgender identity from family after these formative experiences even as she continued to express her femininity in secret. Upon entering Eisenhower College, Corinne continued to be closeted, but developed important life-long friendships and met her future wife, Deb. When they married one year after college, Corinne discusses remaining in the closet even as she had “girl” days in which she was able to express her full self. In 1987, when she and Deb found out that Deb was pregnant, Corinne came out to her wife. The spouses developed routines in which Corinne could be her “real” self when Deb and her son visited relatives. Corrine also discusses her work life. She describes her 23-year career with Radio Shack, managing hundreds of stores within eastern PA; her work as Vice-President of Sales for Vonage; and her development of her own consulting business and then training and development business.
Once she left the corporate world and started her own businesses, Corine describes coming out fully between 2008-2014 to everyone in her life, including her clients and living full time as her real self. She describes different parts of her transition, including social, legal, and medical transition. In other parts of the interview, Corinne discusses the import of support groups, like Renaissance, and how she developed the Eastern PA Trans Equity Project with other community members as well as their major work in our communities.
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LGBT-12
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2021-10-11
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Interviewer
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Mary Foltz
Interviewee
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Rick Balmer
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5.4 December 6, 2021 Rick Balmer, December 6, 2021 LGBT-21 1:27:42 LVLGBT Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive Collection Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Rick Balmer Mary Foltz video/mp4 BalmerRick_20211206_video.mp4 1.0:|25(10)|60(8)|77(14)|98(5)|121(2)|142(10)|165(8)|188(6)|207(11)|230(6)|247(15)|272(5)|289(11)|308(12)|331(5)|350(14)|375(6)|396(2)|417(3)|434(12)|455(5)|478(4)|497(9)|516(18)|539(7)|562(4)|581(10)|600(14)|619(10)|644(9)|669(15)|690(5)|711(14)|734(15)|757(10)|782(6)|803(8)|824(9)|841(9)|860(10)|879(6)|900(9)|921(6)|944(17)|969(10)|992(4)|1009(13)|1032(11)|1049(6)|1066(14)|1087(15)|1104(15)|1119(15)|1136(15)|1155(15)|1176(2)|1199(10)|1222(4)|1241(8)|1268(2)|1289(8)|1310(9)|1333(5)|1354(15)|1375(10)|1394(16)|1417(4)|1440(4)|1457(15)|1478(3)|1499(8)|1518(9)|1541(8)|1562(2)|1581(11)|1602(6)|1623(10)|1644(7)|1663(10)|1682(16)|1703(7)|1720(8)|1741(3)|1760(6)|1781(5)|1800(8)|1819(10)|1842(14) 0 https://youtu.be/vMMrat3tMoU YouTube video 0 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I’m here with Rick Balmer to talk about his life and experiences in LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding this year from ACLS, and Rick and I are meeting on Zoom because there’s a pandemic going on, and Rick is up in Connecticut, so we’re meeting on Zoom on December 6, 2021, for this interview. So, Rick thank you so much for being here today with me.
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 ; RICK BALMER: Thanks, glad to be here.
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 ; MF: And to start, will you please state your full name and spell it for me.
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 ; RB: Yeah, it’s Rick, R-I-C-K, middle initial D as in David, and last name B as in boy, A-L-M-E-R, and I was born November first, 1951. 0 116 Early Years of Life / Growing Up Gay MF: Great! All right, well let’s get started, and I’ll just begin with this question: Would you tell me a little bit about the early years of your life?
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 ; RB: Yeah, I was born in Rochester, New York. My parents were there briefly. I grew up in Elmira/Horseheads, New York, which was where both their families had been rooted for a long-- like 150 years. It was a very ordinary and probably very typical life of the ’50s and ’60s as I grew up there, in a tract home. All those homes that were built after World War II. My dad had stayed there because they built the Westinghouse plant and he’d gotten a degree in engineering with the GI Bill after World War II. He was in the Air Force at that time. I was one of four siblings, the eldest, and very academic mostly. I was a book worm. Definitely wasn’t a sports enthusiast. 0 471 Finding Identity in the Lehigh Valley / Time at Lehigh University RB: Like I said, there was a little bit of literature. I started to find, again through libraries, you know the old, some of the novels of Mary Renault. Little things like that that came along. Once I got to my freshman year in college-- I left Horseheads for Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to go to Lehigh University, and that would be starting in the fall of 1969, and one of my first memories, very early memory there was, within a couple months of being there, finding the Bethlehem Public Library and it’s the same one that’s there today. It was brand new at that point. 
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 ; Going there by myself and found a book that I knew about, and I was thrilled to find it. It was Gore Vidal’s The City in the Pillar. A very early landmark gay novel. It actually dated back to 1948 if I recollect correctly, so it had been around a while. I was so thrilled to find it that I-- I didn’t have a library card so I couldn’t take it out, so I just sat in the library and read it in a couple hours that afternoon. 0 769 Study Abroad in Germany / Burgeoning Gay Art Forms RB: My first semester of my junior year, I went to Germany on a program abroad and spent one semester at the University of Bonn. I decided to pursue German as my major by that time, and the time I spent in that semester away from Lehigh actually was good for my growing up as a gay person. Not that I don’t think Germany was definitely more advanced at that point, but I just I think found other out people a little bit and found a couple of people to talk to for the first time and interacted just a little bit with other gay people. It was just sort of very enlightening. Had my first sort of brief romance. It was very platonic, but it was a brief romance, so. Cut off obviously by my having to leave. 
 ; 
 ; So, I came back with just a little more I think self-confidence and reassurance and I was really much more assured as a gay person at that point. Also, around that point, there started to be gay films, and I think that was part of the whole thing. You know, there’s gay literature was important to me, but films also started to become important, and I know I saw specifically while I was in Germany, the Luchino Visconti film of Death in Venice, of Thomas Mann’s novel, very famous novelette, and you know that was quite eye-opening. It was subtle for the times, but it had a great impact for me. 0 1023 Creating Community at Lehigh University / Connecting with Le-Hi-Ho RB: So, just backing up a tiny bit, when I came back from the semester abroad in Germany, so it was in fall of 1971 just as I was turning 20, I was really ready to you know somehow come out and meet the gay community, and I found at some point that fall, there was an ad in Lehigh’s student newspaper, the Brown and White, for draft counseling for gay students, and the Vietnam War and the draft being a big issue at that point, and whether or not you wanted to say anything about being gay to get out of being in the military, that was a big issue then. 
 ; 
 ; In any case, Le-Hi-Ho, the Lehigh Valley Homophile organization, which had as I found out had started in the Lehigh Valley in 1969, so it had been there a couple years, had put the ad in. So, I called. Not that I really wanted the draft counseling, but I called because I just wanted to get in touch with the group, you know, and I didn’t know that much about it. So, I did. Got in touch with the group and very quickly I found myself, I don’t know, within a couple of weeks, invited to a party which was held at Kutztown. 0 1394 Le-Hi-Ho Outreach / Creating A Safe Space to Socialize RB: I believe I went to their first monthly meeting in December of that year, shortly after the party at Kutztown, and I think I jumped right in and within the next couple of months, maybe January or February, I decided to do their speaking-- they were doing speaking engagements around the community, which ultimately, I thought was just one of the most important things they were doing. And in retrospect, 50 years later, I truly, truly believe that being public and being out in some way to any number of people, as many as you could be, just made a momentous social change which accomplished way more than I thought it would within my lifetime. 
 ; 
 ; I never at that point dreamed that society would change as much as it has in these 50 years, and that we would be where we are now with all the things that have changed, and how for granted gay people are taken at this point in time. I know it’s not universal, I know it’s not [laughs] thoroughly spread across and through the United States, even, and probably here in the Northeast we’re in a much better place for the most part than maybe other parts of the country still, but still: society has changed so radically, and I just, it’s one of the things I’m proud of, is that I started doing the speaking engagements and kept them up. 0 1770 Le-Hi-Ho Library / Anonymity & ; Being "Out"
 ; RB: There was also Le-Hi-Ho was well-known for its library, which was dear to my heart, being the bookworm that I am, so I got very active in that and I was the librarian for a number of years, and I wrote book reviews for their newsletter for a number of years, and years later after that sometimes I wrote the whole newsletter, but in the earliest years I just wrote book reviews, and movie reviews sometimes. 
 ; 
 ; I was a great proselytizer for gay literature-- literature and non-fiction because I think those were just two so important things for coming to terms with yourself and educating yourself, and like I said, it was up to you to do it yourself. You couldn’t just go out and soak up the media, you know, of everything sitting around the way it is today. Just much easier to find everything. You really had to search things out. It was much harder to get the information. 0 2131 Political Work w/ Le-Hi-Ho RB: So, those little things were pretty rare at that time, so that was a really nice memory. It was also around that time that, I mean Le-Hi-Ho had been doing political things since the beginning, some of the members had gone to New York City and Philadelphia with all kinds of initiatives relating to civil rights, which were in a very primitive state at that point, but there were on-going state efforts, and a number of us in the group went to Harrisburg to talk to, lobby so to speak, talk to legislators in Harrisburg, and that also I’m quite sure was in 1975. 
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 ; It was an interesting experience, I mean we all dressed up to the nines to go there, and the reception was very, very touchy. I think the legislat-- I’m not positive it was THE first time, but you know, the legislators were very, very antsy and touchy about all these gay men and women in the state legislature, and you know we had some cordial interviews with legislators, and some that were rather frosty and very stiff [laughs] and uncomfortable. That was just all part of the start of things getting better, ultimately. 0 2425 Activism in the Workplace RB: Just going back again, another memory: although I was never really a parade person, a number of us from Le-Hi-Ho went I think to the 1975 Christopher Street March in New York City and had a Le-Hi-Ho banner in the parade that year. So, that was important that we did it, and it was a good memory. It was a good memory. Those are I think maybe most of the things I wanted to touch on there. I’ll just add an addendum, a little later in life I became active again in the LGBT movement, but this time it was at work. In short, after I left the Lehigh University libraries in the late ’70s, I went to work for Aetna. 
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 ; It was Aetna Life and Casualty at the time. They were in Allentown, and worked for them all through the ’80s, and then in 1990 moved to Connecticut to take a job transfer with them, and my partner, Ron, had worked for Bethlehem Steel for years, as did so many people in the Lehigh Valley, but they were a fading company at that time. They were in deep trouble, and Ron was ready to exit. He thought the timing was good, so we left the Lehigh Valley and moved to Connecticut, and I worked for the rest of my working career to retirement at Aetna. Their home office was there, although the home office was in Hartford, which is well known, but the home office for the division I was in was in Middletown, Connecticut so that’s where I was located. 0 2573 Official Coming Out / The Process of Coming Out RB: So, I mean in a way that was like another coming out. It’s funny, coming out is you know everybody talks about it and there are so many layers coming out. You know, you come out to yourself, and then you come out to family. And I never touched on that, so I’ll just make a quick retro, and say [laughs] I came out officially, even though I’d been with Ron for a couple years, I didn’t officially talk to my family about it until around 1975 when we were getting into politics and everything, and I just said, “Okay, so we just have to sit down and talk about it.” 
 ; 
 ; So, we did. Everything went pretty well with my family. They weren’t a talkative, warm, talk, talk, talk family so we didn’t talk about it much or a lot. Until years had gone by, I would say. Which was okay. That’s just the way things were then. But you know, it was all accepting. So, it was never traumatic for me in the way it is for a lot of LGBT people, which is very, very fortunate you know for me. I never had really horrendous coming out experiences. 0 2912 Experiences During the AIDS Crisis / Relationship between Gay Men and Lesbians
 ; RB: [...] I will go back and intervene perhaps, and touch on what the AIDS crisis did to all of that. 
 ; 
 ; In the latter part of, well, in the say about ’83, ’84, ’85 when things started to become up for public discussion, you know without going into the AIDS crisis itself and just talking about the social impact, it was both good and bad. I think there was just hysteria around it. And with that I can go back to one memory, which is unfortunate but amusing in a way. I remember at that time in the department I was working in in Aetna-- this was probably ’85. Yeah, you know, I think it was after the public had become much more aware of AIDS because a couple of celebrities had died, and I’m thinking I think it was maybe after Rock Hudson had died, and the whole issue of AIDS had just come into the public consciousness at that time. But of course, it was-- there was hostility. There was a lot of discomfort. People didn’t want to talk about it. 0 3203 Reflection on Identity Development RB: [...] In retrospect, I think I’ve been lucky as a happy gay person. I think I’m very lucky I didn’t undergo the trauma of coming out or being guilty or terribly unhappy as I was growing up. I really knew I was gay, I just had to figure out what it was all about. I was ready to be gay and call myself gay as soon as I could. 
 ; 
 ; You know, it’s so hard to say this, but I’m really sure that in today’s climate I would probably have been one of those 12 to 13 years old, you know 13 year old person who is coming out as they do today. Maybe not until 14 or 15, who knows. What can I say? It’s hard to project. But those were different times, so it took you a lot longer [laughs] to figure everything out. 
 ; 
 ; So, my not coming out say officially until I was 19 to 20 was very typical. In fact, you know, many, many people came out much later than that. In their thirties, in their thirties. It’s sort of a little mind boggling now, and even later. We would sometimes have people getting involved in Le-Hi-Ho, I remember one man who was in his sixties and started getting involved after his wife died, because then he felt he was free. And so that was always a touching memory too. The fact that you hope that isn’t happening today. 0 3330 Vietnam War Draft & ; Gay Men MF: Well, I have some-- thank you so much for all that you’ve shared. I have some questions that just as I was listening to your story, you know some of which are about Le-Hi-Ho. You had said that you had reached out to Le-Hi-Ho because they published something in the Brown and White about the draft. We’ll have some younger listeners who will tune in here, and they won’t understand what was going on with the draft, so could you talk a little bit about Le-Hi-Ho’s sort of outreach around the draft and what that meant for gay men at the time? 
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 ; RB: Yeah. I can a little. I mean, I never got involved in it myself so I was never-- I can’t say that I was expert on what gay men were being told, but it had to do with the fact that of course the draft was in place, I can’t remember since when, in the ’60s, and you know basically because of the Vietnam War, and it still went on through most of my Lehigh career. In fact, [laughs] one of my, I don’t know what the logistics were, one of my indelible memories of being at Lehigh was sitting in the TV room in my dorm, ooh, what year was it? I was probably a sophomore or junior. Around the TV with all the guys in the dorm, I can’t remember what exactly. Finding out something relating about what our lotto draft numbers were, because you were assigned lottery draft numbers in those days. And you know, if you got the lowest draft numbers, it meant they were going to call you up first for the Vietnam War. 0 3556 Le-Hi-Ho Newsletters MF: -- go join!” That’s wonderful. Well, I had another question about the Le-Hi-Ho newsletters, because as you know I’ve been reading them studiously, and I think they’re just phenomenal productions, and my question is what was your intention as one of the writers, the book reviewer, film reviewer, and also someone who put together entire newsletters? What was your hope for those newsletters? What did you want them to accomplish? What did you want to include? How did they circulate? I’m just really curious about your desire for those publications, and then where they went. 
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 ; RB: Yeah, that’s interesting. Maybe I’ll just touch on first, I mean Le-Hi-Ho had a post office box, which turned out to be the best solution for an address. You didn’t have a physical office space, which we didn’t ever really have. The community, LGBT community centers came later in the ’80s with other entities, like the Lambda Center, and much later entities in Allentown. 0 3987 Social Atmosphere of Le-Hi-Ho / An Alternative to Bars MF: [...] I’m interested in Le-Hi-Ho as an alternative to the bars, and could you say a little bit more about what it was like to be a member of the group? What the meetings were like, why they were a good alternative to the bars, what they offered that bars weren’t?
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 ; RB: Yeah, yeah, because I think I was such a big advocate of that, to make those meetings, to make them welcoming for one thing. And so, I think what we always tried to do is the people who went -- there was always a board of directors, you know a running board, which I can’t remember consisted of five or eight people, and there was annual elections, so there was turnover all the time, but there was always a core group, and it was always one of their jobs to be welcoming and network with especially the newest people who would show up at any given monthly meeting because you always had to realize that any meeting could be the first public entrance on the stage for some of the people who were showing up into the gay community, as an alternative to a bar which yeah, people do that too. They make their entrance into the gay community at a bar, and it is what it is. I mean, there’s no official structure [laughs] to welcome you, or make you feel comfortable or happy, and probably some of those experiences are good, and some of them are not. 0 4460 Connections with LGBT Organizations Outside the Lehigh Valley MF: Did Le-Hi-Ho have relationships with homophile organizations in New York and Philly? You talked about in 1975 going to the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade in New York City, and you’ve talked about what a life-affirming kind of organization it was in the Lehigh Valley. What was sort of the connection beyond the Lehigh Valley? Was there a connection beyond the Lehigh Valley? 
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 ; RB: Yeah, I would say there was. A lot of it happened actually in the earliest years, you know, from ’69, even before I got active in early ’72. A lot of it really, I think was from that era. My partner Ron, was involved in that. But some of it continued after and you know I knew some of that, but yeah, I would say it was especially New York City, Philadelphia oriented, with extensions out to like I know there was a group I think at State College in Pennsylvania, and outfits like Delaware Valley College Students in whatever city that’s nearest, in Bucks County, [laughs] Pennsylvania. I forget exactly where the college is. Everybody was on everybody’s distribution list. You know, they got our newsletter, and we’d get all their newsletters, so there was networking in that way, and some of it was actual travel. 0 4766 Relationship with Ron MF: [...] I’m wondering if maybe we could talk a little bit about your relationship with Ron. You talked about meeting Ron in the 1970s at that Kutztown party, or meeting him through Le-Hi-Ho. Do you want to share a little bit about your life with Ron, and that your relationship with your beloved?
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 ; RB: Yeah, I will a little bit as an overview. I guess I’m a little probably, I’m going to try, to get very personal. I’m not really good at that, but yeah. I’m definitely willing to give it an overview. Yeah, I’d said it was 50-- it’s almost 50 years to the day right now when Ron and I met, but I mean we started seeing each other immediately after that. Could really consider our anniversary-- when I graduated from Lehigh, it was Memorial Day weekend, that’s when I moved in with him. 
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 ; He had already, he had bought a house in Bethlehem, an old house, which was, he was restoring, and needed a lot of restoration. And so that was the start. That was a year and a half later after we met, so that could really be called our official anniversary. We lived in that house during the time that I worked at Lehigh. During the ’70s. We moved in 1980 to a separate, yeah, to a different house that we bought in Bethlehem and that lasted until the 1990 move to Connecticut. 0 5136 Theater Trips / Closing Remarks RB: Yeah. Trivial memory. Ha. Le-Hi-Ho also sponsored occasional theater trips to New York City to see gay plays. In the ’70s. And there weren’t too many of them around, but that was fun. We did that. I just thought of that, that was a great experience. We always wondered what the bus drivers thought when we hired buses to cart 50 people, so to speak, to New York City, but it all went well. It all went well. So, I guess I’ll end with that rather trivial memory [laughs].
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 ; MF: It’s one of my true joys reading the newsletter when I see that you all have, you’re talking about going to a show, and then like not enough people signed up, but reading it now, you get to see like, “Oh, that was playing in New York in the ’70s!” And it’s almost like a chart of gay cultural, you know just a little bit of the gay theatrical happening in New York, and especially with the book reviews, you really get the sense of what books mattered to our community in the Lehigh Valley, and you know, to the [reviewers like you. I just love those parts of the newsletter. It gives just a snapshot of some of the culture. 0 MovingImage Rick Balmer recalls his life as a gay man in the Lehigh Valley, and the process of “coming out”, as well as his work with Lehigh Homophile Organization (Le-Hi-Ho) and its legacy on the LGBTQ+ community. INTERVIEW WITH RICK BALMER DECEMBER 6, 2021 MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Rick Balmer to talk about his life and experiences in LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding this year from ACLS, and Rick and I are meeting on Zoom because there's a pandemic going on, and Rick is up in Connecticut, so we're meeting on Zoom on December 6, 2021, for this interview. So, Rick thank you so much for being here today with me. RICK BALMER: Thanks, glad to be here. MF: And to start, will you please state your full name and spell it for me. RB: Yeah, it's Rick, R-I-C-K, middle initial D as in David, and last name B as in boy, A-L-M-E-R, and I was born November first, 1951. MF: Thank you. And I want to just go over, just brief questions about consent. I know you previously signed a consent form, but I just want to check back in. Do you consent to this interview today? RB: Yes. MF: Do you consent to have this interview transcribed, digitized, and made available online in searchable formats? RB: Yes. MF: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including articles, films, websites, presentations, or any other formats that the future might bring us? RB: Yes. MF: And do you understand that you will have 30 days after the electronic delivery of a transcript of this interview to review it, identify any parts that you'd like to delete, or you could withdraw the whole interview from the project if you so wished? RB: Yes, I understand. MF: Great! All right, well let's get started, and I'll just begin with this question: Would you tell me a little bit about the early years of your life? RB: Yeah, I was born in Rochester, New York. My parents were there briefly. I grew up in Elmira/Horseheads, New York, which was where both their families had been rooted for a long-- like 150 years. It was a very ordinary and probably very typical life of the '50s and '60s as I grew up there, in a tract home. All those homes that were built after World War II. My dad had stayed there because they built the Westinghouse plant and he'd gotten a degree in engineering with the GI Bill after World War II. He was in the Air Force at that time. I was one of four siblings, the eldest, and very academic mostly. I was a book worm. Definitely wasn't a sports enthusiast. I think overall I had a very happy childhood, very typical of the '50s and '60s. I think they were very innocent times in a lot of ways. I don't have an awful lot probably to say about it, except if I come back in retrospect. I don't think there was terribly much that was really, really interesting in my earliest years. You know, as far as growing up gay? Again, it was the Age of Innocence. It's such a contrast to today, where I think young people know so much and learn so much about the context of being LGBT today, but at that point there really was absolutely nothing, and you were on your own. I think I started exploring that aspect of myself as soon as I was cognizant of it, which was fairly early. Probably maybe 12 and 13. Libraries were your greatest friend at that point-- even though you wouldn't think so, but amazingly there were some LGB-- not called that, of course, but you know LGBT resources in libraries at that time. Very primitive and very unfortunate, some of them you know, but I found some things that were there, I remember going not to the little public library that was in our branch in Horseheads where I great up, the village outside Elmira, but to the main county library in Elmira, New York: The Steele Memorial Library, and finding some early resources there like I just remember a title or two. I remember Judd Marmor's Sexual Inversion. You know, unfortunate title, but for the times it was probably [laughs] pretty progressive. Trying to hunt through the card catalogue and not finding much, but just scrutinizing every little scrap of detail I could find. Although I didn't know it at the time, just what my intuition and gaydar tells me now was, you know I had a very helpful lesbian librarian, although she never-- we never discussed the things I was looking for at that time. I all did that independently, but she was very nice to me, and I just always remember her. So, that's an early remembrance of my exploring what I could find out about myself. Because as I said, you know there really was so little in the media or anything, and what came along tended to be of course just incredibly negative. I mean, much later on there were things like I remember the great Time Magazine article in 1968, forget the title of it, Gays in America or something like that. I think it was on the cover, and of course it was sort of momentous, but you know very, very negative in terms of how we view things today. You know, I think I only heard the word "homosexual" said out loud by somebody maybe once in high school. I mean, that's how innocent things were. I think everybody was innocent, not just LGBT people growing up, but the general population. All the other kids you know. I mean, it just wasn't talked about. Which, you know in retrospect, probably was a good thing for the most part? I mean, not being talked about, of course, is one of the reasons were in the terrible situation we were in, but on the other hand I think it sort of sheltered you to a certain extent from abuse. And of course, that would depend on your environment, obviously. I know the experience varies for different people, but I guess my growing up was innocent and sheltered, and you know my parents never talked about it. No one I knew talked about it. It probably was a good thing ; it gave me this bubble to find myself without horrendous abuse or oppression. Yeah, I'm certainly aware of that a little later on in life, after I left home and went to college, that started becoming perhaps a little more apparent, but maybe that innocence I think was really sort of a good thing, just considering the times. There was no context. You had to figure it all out yourself. Like I said, there was a little bit of literature. I started to find, again through libraries, you know the old, some of the novels of Mary Renault. Little things like that that came along. Once I got to my freshman year in college-- I left Horseheads for Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to go to Lehigh University, and that would be starting in the fall of 1969, and one of my first memories, very early memory there was, within a couple months of being there, finding the Bethlehem Public Library and it's the same one that's there today. It was brand new at that point. Going there by myself and found a book that I knew about, and I was thrilled to find it. It was Gore Vidal's The City in the Pillar. A very early landmark gay novel. It actually dated back to 1948 if I recollect correctly, so it had been around a while. I was so thrilled to find it that I-- I didn't have a library card so I couldn't take it out, so I just sat in the library and read it in a couple hours that afternoon. That was the first gay novel I ever read, and that was just sort of a thrill. Being a book worm and having written things being such important to me, that was just a big, big memory. In retrospect you know, I guess I can't say too much more about growing up. I really, in retrospect, do not remember knowing anybody who was gay in growing up, although I did find out as you often do later, that one of my be-- I had very few friends. I was an introvert and didn't have many close friends. Found out later one of my closest friends was gay. Years later I found that out. I think I was aware when I went to some conference that they did, it was run by the American Legion for high school juniors, I think, during some summer. That probably would have been '67, perhaps. And you know, running across maybe the first other boy I thought was gay, but was very tentative and there was nothing [laughs], nothing, there really wasn't any communication, but that's an early memory. But other than that, pretty innocent. Pretty sheltered. Not a lot of progress in finding myself. I think things really changed when I went to school when I went to college. In retrospect I'll also say this: at that time Lehigh was all male. Had nothing to do with my choosing the school, and in retrospect I could almost say, eh, you know, maybe I wouldn't recommend that [laughs] for somebody. I really think that atmosphere, I think that breeds homophobia and homoeroticism amongst young men of that age. I really do. And it was very complex and tricky to negotiate, and confusing, especially if you had no context and you didn't know, you know you were still finding yourself and you didn't know where all these other guys were coming from. I mean, it was just a very, very odd dichotomy the way young men act. You know, young men in groups. That's where, I've always said that: a lot of homophobia is rooted in young men in groups. It just aggravates [laughs] the whole thing. But it was interesting, because I was there for the last two years when Lehigh was all male, and my third and fourth year, the first women came in. Of course, they were in such small quantity that I can't remember how many. It was probably less than 100 for the first class, I think. It wasn't enough to see major changes. I think I saw the inkling of changes in the whole atmosphere. I'm sure it took years at Lehigh to completely, not completely, but to you know, improve the environment in that sense. But I think I saw just the beginning of it. I got involved with other gay students at Lehigh, not until about my junior year, what was sort of a dividing point. My first semester of my junior year, I went to Germany on a program abroad and spent one semester at the University of Bonn. I decided to pursue German as my major by that time, and the time I spent in that semester away from Lehigh actually was good for my growing up as a gay person. Not that I don't think Germany was definitely more advanced at that point, but I just I think found other out people a little bit and found a couple of people to talk to for the first time and interacted just a little bit with other gay people. It was just sort of very enlightening. Had my first sort of brief romance. It was very platonic, but it was a brief romance, so. Cut off obviously by my having to leave. So, I came back with just a little more I think self-confidence and reassurance and I was really much more assured as a gay person at that point. Also, around that point, there started to be gay films, and I think that was part of the whole thing. You know, there's gay literature was important to me, but films also started to become important, and I know I saw specifically while I was in Germany, the Luchino Visconti film of Death in Venice, of Thomas Mann's novel, very famous novelette, and you know that was quite eye-opening. It was subtle for the times, but it had a great impact for me. And in that period, right around '71 and '72, a couple of other films started to come out that I think really made impact. There was, specifically I can remember John Schlesinger's Sunday Bloody Sunday, the English film. Although I believe that was probably maybe spring of '72 that I ended up seeing that in the old College Theater, which was just a block from Lehigh. It's no longer there ; torn down. It was very impactful but also you know-- and it had full audience, but it was very shocking to the audience, because there was a kiss between two men, and that was just such an impact then. Collective gasps from the audience. Absolutely shocked. And so, that's you know [laughs] something I remember from that. Also, right around that same period they made the film of Mart Crowley's the Boys in the Band which had been a well-known Broadway play. I wasn't really thrilled with that. It wasn't a wholly positive thing. In fact, a memory, a little bit later after-- I'm cutting ahead of my story, but I remember being in a speaking engagement later with the staff of a psychiatric clinic in Allentown, I believe. I don't remember the name of it. And they wanted to know, and I was with others from Le-Hi-Ho, the Lehigh Valley Homophile Organization, which I'll talk more about, but they wanted to know our opinion of The Boys in the Band film. They thought, "Whoa, wasn't this spectacular? Oh, this was great!" And they were really surprised because both I and practically everyone else said "Well, no. We didn't think it was that-- yeah, it was a good film, but its portrayal of gay people we thought was really innate unhappiness seemed to be the mode, and we weren't that thrilled with it," and they were really surprised by that, I think. So. And I still have always had mixed-- I saw the film a couple times later since then and I you know, I can view it more objectively now, but still, you know have mixed feelings about it. So, just backing up a tiny bit, when I came back from the semester abroad in Germany, so it was in fall of 1971 just as I was turning 20, I was really ready to you know somehow come out and meet the gay community, and I found at some point that fall, there was an ad in Lehigh's student newspaper, the Brown and White, for draft counseling for gay students, and the Vietnam War and the draft being a big issue at that point, and whether or not you wanted to say anything about being gay to get out of being in the military, that was a big issue then. In any case, Le-Hi-Ho, the Lehigh Valley Homophile organization, which had as I found out had started in the Lehigh Valley in 1969, so it had been there a couple years, had put the ad in. So, I called. Not that I really wanted the draft counseling, but I called because I just wanted to get in touch with the group, you know, and I didn't know that much about it. So, I did. Got in touch with the group and very quickly I found myself, I don't know, within a couple of weeks, invited to a party which was held at Kutztown. Then Kutztown College, now it's University, there was sort of a very informal student gay group there, and they had invited via Le-Hi-Ho, which had sort of informally coordinated some area college students, so they'd invited some Lehigh students, and you know people from other places to this party in Kutztown so, got myself invited [laughs] to that, and it was a great occasion because I met one of the gay students from Lehigh who I grew to know for the rest of my time at Lehigh, and I also met [laughs] at that party my future-to-be partner, Ron Seeds. Coincidentally two days ago on December the fourth happened to be the fiftieth anniversary of that party. The party at which I met my long-time partner, Ron, and sort of consider it my coming out. Now I'm 70. At that time, I was 20, so great, great memory. You know, so I was in touch with those students obviously after going back to campus, and there sort of developed a very informal student group, a gay student group at Lehigh. I don't think it ever really got off the ground in a really strict organizational way. It was more an informal collection of people and we tried to meet. We tried to organize a little bit. Our biggest ally at that point was Hugh Flesher who was the chaplain of Lehigh at the time. He was a great ally and tried to help us. I wouldn't say there was any other support from the administration at that point beyond the first-- I think her title was Dean of Women Students. That's an approximate title, but it was Ruth Hurley, and she had been hired really essentially to go along with the admittance of women to Lehigh, and she was an ally as well. My one specific memory, other than just meeting and socializing with other Lehigh students, which was you know, very, very important for all of us, was we got permission probably through the chaplain's office to make up a flyer and distribute it to all students at Lehigh. So, this was probably in early '72, and so we did up this flyer, and I don't remember the whole context of it other than saying you know, just trying to start a student group. Something like that, but we had to stuff the mailboxes at Lehigh so in the University Center we got permission to go [laughs] into the old post office and go behind the post office and stuff all the mailboxes. You know we had to do it ourselves, which was probably a good thing, but at the same time we were stuffing the mailboxes, various students were opening their mailboxes on the other side, and we can hear them. And some of them would open the flyer and look at it, and would just, you know small uproars of, people were aghast, and almost, not screaming and yelling I don't think, but just you know we heard raised voices, definitely. It was a great shock to [laughs] a lot of the students. So, that was a little momentous, I would say. But you know, we got a trickle of students, and we were able to network with some gay faculty and staff members. It was very, very unofficial, I mean none of them ever really officially got involved with the group, and the group really didn't get that far or do too many official things. There really wasn't support from the administration for anything like that at that point in time. As long as it was sort of low key and behind the scenes, I'd say it was tolerated. My outlet also really sort of transferred not just from Lehigh to Le-Hi-Ho, the Lehigh Valley organization which I started immediately to get very active in, because I thought it was great. I believe I went to their first monthly meeting in December of that year, shortly after the party at Kutztown, and I think I jumped right in and within the next couple of months, maybe January or February, I decided to do their speaking-- they were doing speaking engagements around the community, which ultimately, I thought was just one of the most important things they were doing. And in retrospect, 50 years later, I truly, truly believe that being public and being out in some way to any number of people, as many as you could be, just made a momentous social change which accomplished way more than I thought it would within my lifetime. I never at that point dreamed that society would change as much as it has in these 50 years, and that we would be where we are now with all the things that have changed, and how for granted gay people are taken at this point in time. I know it's not universal, I know it's not [laughs] thoroughly spread across and through the United States, even, and probably here in the Northeast we're in a much better place for the most part than maybe other parts of the country still, but still: society has changed so radically, and I just, it's one of the things I'm proud of, is that I started doing the speaking engagements and kept them up. In any case, the very first one was to I believe some sort of youth group at the Unitarian Church in Bethlehem on Lechauweki Avenue, and it was very casual and low key, and I think these were mostly high school students, and they were very cool, which I was quite floored with, but being a Unitarian church, I think probably made all the difference in that time, even [laughs]. And the speaking engagements I started getting involved with tended to be-- and I probably did that for the best part of the next decade, and we went many places. Probably most typically college classes. Repeatedly we went back to a sociology class at Lehigh. Robert Williamson, the head of the sociology department, thought that was really important and so he made sure that we were always invited to a certain-- it was a human sexuality class that ran for years. So, we always went to that. And it was whoever could make the speaking engagement. Sometimes there were two or three or four of us, generally. We would sometimes do unusual situations, like I think we went to speak to student nurses at Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown once. I don't know how we got invited to that. And there was something at Muhlenberg College. A couple times we went to conferences, and I'm not really sure how we got invited to those either, except it was by networking. You know, it's amazing. Audiences were basically polite, civilized, and I don't think we underwent any horrendous experiences with those speaking engagements. Oh, certainly there were individuals who just were a bit hostile and would sometimes ask not civilized questions. Sometimes slightly hostile questions. I can remember at one conference a couple of clergymen being quite rude and hostile [laughs], but we did end up going to a number of churches over the years. We networked a bit with some Lafayette students. So, overall, I think it was one of the best things the group did were the speaking engagements. Other than that, it wasn't aimed at just outreach. One of its primary goals was socializing and providing a welcoming space for the LGBT community. Not called those initials-- I use those initials just because it's the easiest streamlined thing to say, and of course they weren't really used at that point. But the monthly meetings were the only thing that a lot of gay people could go to. There were bars of course ; bars weren't for everybody. Once I was old enough, I popped into a couple, but they just really weren't for me. I wasn't a bar person. So, it was a great alternative. They were nice-- you know, we had potluck dinners, we had refreshments, we had speakers. And we tried to get a variety of speakers. As many as possible relating to the LGBT community, addressing topics of interest. There might be something on alcoholism in the community. We did transgender programs quite a few times in the '70s. It was much more, obviously, I'll just say primitive [laughs] compared to where things are today, but it was there. It was interesting. And we did have an ally. There was a doctor in Allentown. It was Dr. Charles Reninger, and he I believe he himself was involved in treating, had many, many transgender patients and got involved in the surgical component of it, and he was a great ally for our group too, and came and spoke. He invited us to a couple of speaking engagements, so that was a really good thing back then. There was also Le-Hi-Ho was well-known for its library, which was dear to my heart, being the bookworm that I am, so I got very active in that and I was the librarian for a number of years, and I wrote book reviews for their newsletter for a number of years, and years later after that sometimes I wrote the whole newsletter, but in the earliest years I just wrote book reviews, and movie reviews sometimes. I was a great proselytizer for gay literature-- literature and non-fiction because I think those were just two so important things for coming to terms with yourself and educating yourself, and like I said, it was up to you to do it yourself. You couldn't just go out and soak up the media, you know, of everything sitting around the way it is today. Just much easier to find everything. You really had to search things out. It was much harder to get the information. But we slowly and carefully collected books. Some were donations, and some we purchased, and you know we'd go to some of the famous bookstores in New York City or Philadelphia or had to order them. It was a lot of work to get them, but it was treasured, and they lived in cardboard boxes and got dragged to the meetings at the Unitarian Church because they didn't really have a physical home. A lot of the things were kept, well I'll just say this: my partner Ron, Ron Seeds, was one of the earliest people, one of the founders along with Joe Burns, of Le-Hi-Ho in '69, and so a lot of the... What should I say? Accessories? of the group resided in our house, which be the books in cardboard boxes, and some of the mimeograph machines where the newsletter was actually run off sometimes, and where the newsletter was actually folded and stamped and all that, and various members would come to our house and put it together. So, those are some good memories too. It's funny because obviously you can imagine in those days there were a lot of people who were reluctant to you know be on our mailing list, and it was a really, really tricky thing, the anonymity that a lot of people still required, and you know very understandably, you know. Some people went by pseudonyms for mailing lists, and even when they came to a meeting. It wasn't really common, but it was something you had to be really, really careful about is other people's privacy. And even as far as using your own name in the public media, it was an issue for a lot of people. I would say it wasn't until maybe later in the '70s that a lot of the members started being much more open about having their names in the media. I remember I could say another of my, other than-- you could almost say my first official public coming out was going to the speaking engagements because you would never know who would be at the speaking engagement, so it was public. Whether it was a group of students or people at a conference or whatever. But I first wrote a letter to the editor to the Allentown Morning Call with my name to it. There was one other fellow and I wrote a letter together and signed our names, relating to something-- it was 1975, and it was relating I think to on-going efforts for-- I really am not sure what the topic-- it probably was, we were talking about, there were all kinds of political things going [laughs] on in the '70s, but in any case, that was my public, public coming out you would say, having your name in the newspaper, and so I was waiting for the impact. At the time I was working-- I worked for a few years after I graduated trying to figure out what I was going to do, and doing a little bit of graduate work, I worked at the libraries at Lehigh, and so I was wondering what the impact would be, and it was basically dead silence. No one I worked with or that I knew ever said anything to me, except one fellow at the library. A much older gentleman from the maintenance department and you know, he was married, grandfather, he's the last person I thought would say anything, he was the only person who came up to me and said, "I saw your letter and I just want to commend you. That was a very brave thing to do." And I'm so appreciative of that, you know? It was the only thing. Absolutely dead silence from everybody else. Which, you know, that was the way it was then. People still just [laughs] didn't talk about it. MF: Rick, you broke up just a little bit there. Can you just tell that story in the lib-- the person who responded to your letter one more time? Our cameras fine now, but just at the beginning it kind of bleeped out a bit. RB: Yeah, after the letter came out in the Allentown Morning Call I was waiting to see if anybody I worked with in the Lehigh University libraries, or anybody I knew, would say anything and it was basically dead silence. No one said anything except one gentleman, older gentleman. You know, married, grandfather, he was in the maintenance department: the last person I would have expected. And he came up to me, and he said he saw my letter, and he commended me. He thought I was brave to do it. He said that was a good thing. So, you know, that made me feel really good. So, those little things were pretty rare at that time, so that was a really nice memory. It was also around that time that, I mean Le-Hi-Ho had been doing political things since the beginning, some of the members had gone to New York City and Philadelphia with all kinds of initiatives relating to civil rights, which were in a very primitive state at that point, but there were on-going state efforts, and a number of us in the group went to Harrisburg to talk to, lobby so to speak, talk to legislators in Harrisburg, and that also I'm quite sure was in 1975. It was an interesting experience, I mean we all dressed up to the nines to go there, and the reception was very, very touchy. I think the legislat-- I'm not positive it was THE first time, but you know, the legislators were very, very antsy and touchy about all these gay men and women in the state legislature, and you know we had some cordial interviews with legislators, and some that were rather frosty and very stiff [laughs] and uncomfortable. That was just all part of the start of things getting better, ultimately. There were also I think lots of sessions of people going to Allentown City Council when they were trying to enact anti-discrimination laws. I mean, that was one of the biggest initiatives of the '70s, was working on anti-discrimination. So, there were a lot of things on-going there as well. So, those are some of my really good, good and interesting and impactful memories from that period. I would say both I and my partner Ron sort of burned out around the end of the '70s. I mean, it had been pretty intense, and we sort of went into a much lower key from then on [laughs] through the '80s. And we were still active. Le-Hi-Ho started to fade around that time too, and transition into other organiz-- the Lambda Center and other organizations in the Lehigh Valley, and I won't go into them much, not being as much of an expert on all the affairs of the '80s, although I will hit upon one that I remember, and I believe it was about as late as maybe, oh, 1985? 1986, '87? There was a Massachusetts state legislator, Gerry Studds, who had been out for a number of years. He was the only congress representative U.S. who had been out for a long time. I think he was it. And some of the organizations in the Lehigh Valley had arranged, I don't know what you would call it, a reception for him at the Hotel Bethlehem in Bethlehem. It was a really great affair. I remember some very supportive Lehigh faculty came to it and [inaudible] but also notable for a protest. There were various churches in the Lehigh Valley. I can't remember their names. Probably mostly would be termed fundamentalist churches, had very raucous protestors all around the hotels, so as we went in, we had to walk through those protestors, so that was sort of a unique-- you know, the only time I ever experienced something exactly like that. It wasn't really horrendous, but it obviously it was a little disconcerting, so, what can I say? Just going back again, another memory: although I was never really a parade person, a number of us from Le-Hi-Ho went I think to the 1975 Christopher Street March in New York City and had a Le-Hi-Ho banner in the parade that year. So, that was important that we did it, and it was a good memory. It was a good memory. Those are I think maybe most of the things I wanted to touch on there. I'll just add an addendum, a little later in life I became active again in the LGBT movement, but this time it was at work. In short, after I left the Lehigh University libraries in the late '70s, I went to work for Aetna. It was Aetna Life and Casualty at the time. They were in Allentown, and worked for them all through the '80s, and then in 1990 moved to Connecticut to take a job transfer with them, and my partner, Ron, had worked for Bethlehem Steel for years, as did so many people in the Lehigh Valley, but they were a fading company at that time. They were in deep trouble, and Ron was ready to exit. He thought the timing was good, so we left the Lehigh Valley and moved to Connecticut, and I worked for the rest of my working career to retirement at Aetna. Their home office was there, although the home office was in Hartford, which is well known, but the home office for the division I was in was in Middletown, Connecticut so that's where I was located. But in any case, about 1992, a number of LGBT employees started assembling and congregating and deciding what maybe we could do in the corporation, and one was just to build a professional support network, which happened. That was a great goal. It ended up being called ANGLE-- the Aetna Network of Gay and Lesbian Employees. We networked with some organizations that were started at other corporations in the greater Hartford area, but our primary initiative to pursue for the '90s was to work on getting the company to offer domestic partner benefits, which obviously prior to gay marriage was a big, big issue, and it ended up being successful. It took us five years, we worked on it from 1993 until 1998, and we got it implemented. And you know, I have nice photos of those of us in the group who worked with us standing with the CEO of Aetna having our picture taken, and so we were out in company media. So, I mean in a way that was like another coming out. It's funny, coming out is you know everybody talks about it and there are so many layers coming out. You know, you come out to yourself, and then you come out to family. And I never touched on that, so I'll just make a quick retro, and say [laughs] I came out officially, even though I'd been with Ron for a couple years, I didn't officially talk to my family about it until around 1975 when we were getting into politics and everything, and I just said, "Okay, so we just have to sit down and talk about it." So, we did. Everything went pretty well with my family. They weren't a talkative, warm, talk, talk, talk family so we didn't talk about it much or a lot. Until years had gone by, I would say. Which was okay. That's just the way things were then. But you know, it was all accepting. So, it was never traumatic for me in the way it is for a lot of LGBT people, which is very, very fortunate you know for me. I never had really horrendous coming out experiences. Anyway, just going back to those levels, so you come out to yourself, and then maybe I come out in the newspaper in Allentown in 1975, but you know not everybody reads the newspaper. Not everybody reads the letters to the editor, so you still aren't out completely, because not everybody knows that, so you never know how fully you're out, so you really have to keep doing it over and over and over again, and then if you move, you move to Connecticut you know you're starting all over again because of course there was no great network of social media or anything like that then, so you really, really were starting over again. So, coming out officially at Aetna was something over again. So, I remember again not being a parade person, but I said "Okay, I'll do it once." So, I marched with, there were Pride parades basically coinciding with Christopher Street at that time, in Hartford and so when the Aetna group decided to participate, I went. You can vaguely recognize me in the pictures in the newspaper one year, but some of my fellow employees then said, "Oh, great! Saw you in the newspaper!" So, times had changed. [laughs] But again, that was coming out in a way because you know, well obviously I worked in a huge corporation, and you don't know everybody that well, so there's no way to be personally out to everybody. But as the years go by, you learn how to just be more casually out in casual conversations with people. One of the big ways of being out of course is being in a relationship with somebody. You know, if you're totally single, it's easier to be more invisible as an LGBT person, but as soon as you enter a relationship you sort of have to renegotiate all your communications with other people, and you know it went from being very, very awkward in the earliest times. You didn't know what to call your significant other. The word partner wasn't even used then. It sometimes was your significant other, or my other half, or the friend I live with. Things just were so different. So, the terminology became very important later on as many of us know, at least eventually evolving into the word partner, and eventually being able to use the word spouses etcetera. That's all part of coming out too. I think that's where things have just gradually gotten easier. You can sense it in conversations. When I was in a corporate meeting waiting for a meeting to start in a large room with maybe 20 other people, and so they're waiting for the meeting to start, and they start going around and talking about something relating to their spouses or something like that, you know. So, whether or not you choose to chime in and say something about your other half, or spouse, is part of this whole part of still coming out and just helping to make the world a better place, and I always tried to do that as much as I could, and I think again with the perspective of 50 years, I think it's just one of the most successful things I'm proud of. It's not just helping myself as a gay person within the gay community, but just being a small piece of what it took to change society. It's an ongoing process, we're still doing it, but it was a nucleus of, it was a start, all those little things we did years ago, and it made people very uncomfortable in the beginning for a long time. It was very tentative, and like I said you never knew what receptions you were going to get, but it just gradually changed over the years. I will go back and intervene perhaps, and touch on what the AIDS crisis did to all of that. In the latter part of, well, in the say about '83, '84, '85 when things started to become up for public discussion, you know without going into the AIDS crisis itself and just talking about the social impact, it was both good and bad. I think there was just hysteria around it. And with that I can go back to one memory, which is unfortunate but amusing in a way. I remember at that time in the department I was working in in Aetna-- this was probably '85. Yeah, you know, I think it was after the public had become much more aware of AIDS because a couple of celebrities had died, and I'm thinking I think it was maybe after Rock Hudson had died, and the whole issue of AIDS had just come into the public consciousness at that time. But of course, it was-- there was hostility. There was a lot of discomfort. People didn't want to talk about it. But I remember in the department I worked in at that time, I was in customer service at Aetna, as we sometimes did, brought in refreshments. I baked-- I was pretty good at baking muffins in those years, and I baked some special muffin, specialty of mine, and brought them in for everybody. I was known, you know, I was sort of out gay then, but everybody knew that I lived with Ron, and I wasn't officially talking about being gay to everybody, but I knew that everybody knew that I was gay at that point. But you know what? No one would eat my muffins that day. And they had previously. And I knew it was AIDS. And there was this paranoia at this time about, "Oh my God. Don't touch gay people. Don't touch food that they had touched." It's sort of a very sad thing. It was transitory. It was, but it represented some of the things that were happening at that time. But again, I'm just touching on social impact. The good things that it did were forcing some people to come out, and be out, and many, many more gay men and lesbians were out, and it was well-known as the era when I think lesbians became great allies to gay men in the movement, and just gay men in general. And certainly prior to that, I haven't really touched on it, there definitely was always well, sometimes strained relationships and friction between lesbians and gay men in the movement, definitely. There was a lot of separatism. We always tried to do a lot of integrated things as much as we could in Le-Hi-Ho, but the number of women active in the group was definitely smaller. I think lesbians were very much involved in overall women's movement issues in those years too. But what did change I think is that they became great allies in the later '80s. And you know, as that transitioned into the '90s, I think it just you know, again because AIDS forced so many more people to come out to their families and to talk, and to go to charitable benefits and things like that, it had to do with changing society as well. Amidst the tragedy of it came some social good, I would say. So, I'm thinking maybe I'm running out of coherent pieces of what I was going to try to put together of my life. In retrospect, I think I've been lucky as a happy gay person. I think I'm very lucky I didn't undergo the trauma of coming out or being guilty or terribly unhappy as I was growing up. I really knew I was gay, I just had to figure out what it was all about. I was ready to be gay and call myself gay as soon as I could. You know, it's so hard to say this, but I'm really sure that in today's climate I would probably have been one of those 12 to 13 years old, you know 13 year old person who is coming out as they do today. Maybe not until 14 or 15, who knows. What can I say? It's hard to project. But those were different times, so it took you a lot longer [laughs] to figure everything out. So, my not coming out say officially until I was 19 to 20 was very typical. In fact, you know, many, many people came out much later than that. In their thirties, in their thirties. It's sort of a little mind boggling now, and even later. We would sometimes have people getting involved in Le-Hi-Ho, I remember one man who was in his sixties and started getting involved after his wife died, because then he felt he was free. And so that was always a touching memory too. The fact that you hope that isn't happening today. MF: Well, I have some-- thank you so much for all that you've shared. I have some questions that just as I was listening to your story, you know some of which are about Le-Hi-Ho. You had said that you had reached out to Le-Hi-Ho because they published something in the Brown and White about the draft. We'll have some younger listeners who will tune in here, and they won't understand what was going on with the draft, so could you talk a little bit about Le-Hi-Ho's sort of outreach around the draft and what that meant for gay men at the time? RB: Yeah. I can a little. I mean, I never got involved in it myself so I was never-- I can't say that I was expert on what gay men were being told, but it had to do with the fact that of course the draft was in place, I can't remember since when, in the '60s, and you know basically because of the Vietnam War, and it still went on through most of my Lehigh career. In fact, [laughs] one of my, I don't know what the logistics were, one of my indelible memories of being at Lehigh was sitting in the TV room in my dorm, ooh, what year was it? I was probably a sophomore or junior. Around the TV with all the guys in the dorm, I can't remember what exactly. Finding out something relating about what our lotto draft numbers were, because you were assigned lottery draft numbers in those days. And you know, if you got the lowest draft numbers, it meant they were going to call you up first for the Vietnam War. Of course, what happened was by the time I graduated in '73, things had sort of gone away as far as that goes, so my timing was good in the sense of not having to even have it be an issue for me, although I ended up with a fairly high draft number as I remember. But the point was that technically homosexuals weren't supposed to be in the military, okay? And you were supposed to reveal it if you were, whatever they called it, you know, in your induction interviews. In-take interviews. And if it came up later, if you were already in, you were supposed to be thrown out of the military. So, gay men who were drafted or gay men who wanted to join the military had this tricky thing to negotiate about basically to lie. Shall I lie about being homosexual? I forget the exact questions. "Have you ever had sexual relations with a man?" I do forget the exact verbiage that was used in those days. But it was something that you had to negotiate and decide what to do. So, that's basically what the counseling was about to try to help you know what your options were and what the implications were, and would there be any negative feedback if you were honest. You know, would that be a bad thing? So, it was sort of a big deal. Especially for college-age men at that point. So, again, I'm not the best person to speak to more detail than that. MF: But it's interesting how Le-Hi-Ho, that kind of advertisement in the Brown and White, that they were really keyed into the issues that younger gay men might be facing at that time. And interesting that that advertisement could be used not just for that counseling, but like "Oh, hey! There's a group [laughs] that I could-- RB: Yeah. MF: -- go join!" That's wonderful. Well, I had another question about the Le-Hi-Ho newsletters, because as you know I've been reading them studiously, and I think they're just phenomenal productions, and my question is what was your intention as one of the writers, the book reviewer, film reviewer, and also someone who put together entire newsletters? What was your hope for those newsletters? What did you want them to accomplish? What did you want to include? How did they circulate? I'm just really curious about your desire for those publications, and then where they went. RB: Yeah, that's interesting. Maybe I'll just touch on first, I mean Le-Hi-Ho had a post office box, which turned out to be the best solution for an address. You didn't have a physical office space, which we didn't ever really have. The community, LGBT community centers came later in the '80s with other entities, like the Lambda Center, and much later entities in Allentown. So, Le-Hi-Ho had a PO Box at what was called Moravian Station on New Street. Where the old post office was in Bethlehem. So, and that's an old memory of mine. Just you know, all the mail we would get. Not just relating to the newsletter, but just from anybody contacting the group. Ranging from harassment to just people who wanted to find out, and other newsletters on distribution of publications from other groups. So, either Ron or I or other people had to go frequently, a couple times a week, to collect that stuff from the post office box in Bethlehem. And it also, you know, it was an anonymity thing too. I mean, using someone's home address wouldn't have been a really, really good idea in those days. People didn't want their mail carrier deliverers to know anything like that. So, the mailings of Le-Hi-Ho were pretty anonymous, and I touched on using pseudonyms and things like that, but also, I'm quite sure that just the return address was the PO Box, you know, and it didn't say Lehigh Valley Homophile Organization, because there were people who just would not have been comfortable with getting anything in their mailbox with something like that on it. So, we sort of had to do that. So, our goal with the newsletter was to circumvent that and get it out to as many people as we could, and so we really just sort of proselytized to try to get people on the mailing list. So, that was a very, a tricky thing too because you had to promise security, and that it wasn't going to be used for any other kind of distribution purposes. It had to be a very secure mailing list, and it was. It had to be guarded. And as I said, you knew that some of the names on the mailing list were pseudonyms, actually. Well, and even some of the people on the mailing list had PO boxes themselves. I think that was a big deal in those days. People, a lot of LGBT people, would take out PO boxes to get their gay mail, anything they subscribed to, rather than have them come to home addresses. But the newsletter itself, yeah, it changed and evolved depending on who was willing to be involved in it. So, there were always some people who were heavily into politics, and some people who liked films or books like me, and sort of whatever you chose to write about, we just welcomed everything, and we just wanted to get the maximum amount of information into these we could to try to make them interesting to a variety of people and get them out to as many people as we could, and as part of their education too, really. I mean, I always saw it in those days as an educational thing because so many LGBT people didn't have access to a lot of this information. It took effort again to find out all this stuff. There was no easy way to get all the information. I think it accomplished its goal very well. It had its ups and downs. If you look at the old issues, sometimes they were very short. I think in later years when the group was sort of fading a bit and there weren't as many active members, it got shorter, which is just sort of a natural [laughs], natural occurrence with a lot of organizations, I think. But I think that's... It was really important, you know. One of the major things the group should be remembered for is the outreach, the political outreach, the social outreach with monthly meetings, and the speaking engagement educational and social outreach, and just the newsletter to generally all around educate anybody it possibly could. MF: Thank you so much for sharing that about the newsletters. I love that you talked about trying to interest different people so the arts and culture, the politics, and one of the just truly important things about them is that it was, that you were charting legislation that was occurring just in Texas or in other states, so it was almost like you were capturing national political legislative battles and informing a public in a way that bars can't do. Not that you couldn't have a political conversation at the bar, but that's just not their purpose. But you also had like that busybody column, which may have been written by a drag queen, or maybe someone just putting on the persona of a [laughs] drag queen. You had jokes in the newsletters, which I've been telling at staff meetings. [Nerk?] from 1969 that I found in your newsletter, which I loved. So, they were fun and political, and about representation both in academic books, non-fiction books, and then of course vibrant artists. Just, they're incredible pieces of work. I'm interested in Le-Hi-Ho as an alternative to the bars, and could you say a little bit more about what it was like to be a member of the group? What the meetings were like, why they were a good alternative to the bars, what they offered that bars weren't? RB: Yeah, yeah, because I think I was such a big advocate of that, to make those meetings, to make them welcoming for one thing. And so, I think what we always tried to do is the people who went -- there was always a board of directors, you know a running board, which I can't remember consisted of five or eight people, and there was annual elections, so there was turnover all the time, but there was always a core group, and it was always one of their jobs to be welcoming and network with especially the newest people who would show up at any given monthly meeting because you always had to realize that any meeting could be the first public entrance on the stage for some of the people who were showing up into the gay community, as an alternative to a bar which yeah, people do that too. They make their entrance into the gay community at a bar, and it is what it is. I mean, there's no official structure [laughs] to welcome you, or make you feel comfortable or happy, and probably some of those experiences are good, and some of them are not. It wasn't my experience, so I can't comment personally on that, but I mean generally-- and I'm not trying to be negative about bars because they of course fill the vacuum and served a great function, you know, served a great purpose, but they often just weren't the best environment for being friendly social and networking with people. Having honest, serious discussions. I mean, you just wouldn't expect that to happen in a noisy, smokey bar late at night. So, not the right environment. But, on a Sunday afternoon in a very casual Unitarian Church setting, it was very comfortable and so we always made that point of greeting anybody. We knew who the regulars were, and who the brand-new people were, and you just had to try to make them welcome and feel comfortable. Really comfortable. Knowing that some of them were probably very, very uncomfortable showing up at the meeting. I'm sorry, just sometimes snippets of memories come to you. This was just such a touching one: we had phone calls in advance. Le-Hi-Ho did at the time have-- I didn't even touch on that-- we had a phone line that really, but just took voice, it was answering machine messages in later years. It never really was staffed, but and sometimes, well our, Ron and my phone number just got out there and so sometimes we just got a lot of [laughs] a lot of the calls, as did other board members. But in any case, we had a fifteen-year-old boy come once. And normally that was something-- in those days, interaction with young gay people, it was a real big issue, and it was just something you didn't get involved with because you'd get in trouble. But in this case, his mother permitted it, and she called us in advance, and it turned out he was terminally ill with cancer, and he knew he was gay, and he wanted to meet other gay people. So, she called us up and asked if he could come to a meeting. And so, she drove him. She didn't come in, but she drove him and picked him up. I'm sorry, I can get a little teary at this. So, I think his name was Scott, and he came to the meeting, and I think he came to a few meetings. And I think it was Leukemia he had, and he did die within a year or two after that, so, that was just so touching but it also reveals the vacuum of how it just almost wasn't possible to do much for young gay people then. I mean, we really had to use, you know, the eighteen-year-old cut off thing. It was a tough thing. It's more than I can discuss here, but not to say that we didn't get contacted now and then by younger people, we did, but it was something you just had to really, really be very, very careful with. But in any case, I loved the meetings because I loved to get to know people, and you know socialize with them repeatedly, and see a lot of times these were people who would never have been comfortable inviting you to their home, or coming to other gay people's homes, because that in and of itself was a revealing, out thing. Just having the Le-Hi-Ho board meeting at your house, which we did. We rotated. We didn't have those at the church, we had them in our houses. But you had to be willing to have, you know it wasn't like throwing a party, but you had to be willing to have maybe six or eight or ten gay people showing up at your house, and you know what neighbors might see and say and deduce, and that was just one of those things you navigated in those years, and so many people weren't comfortable in having [laughs] other LBGT people in their homes except under certain circumstances. So, again, these meetings were just such a neutral setting, you know. You're going to a church on a Sunday afternoon. It's a really easy thing to slip away to, and we knew that. We knew some people were slipping away from really restricted lives of, yeah, some of them were married, or some of them lived with families even though they were old. [laughs] They weren't really young. But they could slip away for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon, and so it was an outlet for them, and it worked. So, it was really important to a lot of people. In that sense too, I could almost get a little teary about it, and we grew close to a lot of people that way. Of course, some of them, some of it was probably some people came in frozen with fear, might have lasted one meeting and left and were never seen again, because they, you know, didn't cope well with it. Not to say that didn't happen, because it did. But a lot of people did come back. That was the good thing. MF: Did Le-Hi-Ho have relationships with homophile organizations in New York and Philly? You talked about in 1975 going to the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade in New York City, and you've talked about what a life-affirming kind of organization it was in the Lehigh Valley. What was sort of the connection beyond the Lehigh Valley? Was there a connection beyond the Lehigh Valley? RB: Yeah, I would say there was. A lot of it happened actually in the earliest years, you know, from '69, even before I got active in early '72. A lot of it really, I think was from that era. My partner Ron, was involved in that. But some of it continued after and you know I knew some of that, but yeah, I would say it was especially New York City, Philadelphia oriented, with extensions out to like I know there was a group I think at State College in Pennsylvania, and outfits like Delaware Valley College Students in whatever city that's nearest, in Bucks County, [laughs] Pennsylvania. I forget exactly where the college is. Everybody was on everybody's distribution list. You know, they got our newsletter, and we'd get all their newsletters, so there was networking in that way, and some of it was actual travel. I know Ron and some other members went into New York City to the Mattachine Society, you know the oldest society in New York City at that time and were even there at the beginning of the Gay Activist Alliance and the Gay Liberation Front, and a lot of the very, very early stuff that started up in New York City. I forget. I'm just having a mental lapse on what the one in Philadelphia was called, but I know I went down there to visit them at their, they had a center I think on South Street in Philadelphia and talked to them. And a lot of it was used to networking to get some of the speakers we got, and we got like Frank Kameny from Washington, DC and Barbara Gittings from Philadelphia, and I always remember those two because, I'm pretty sure my memories good on this, they were sort of early icons of the LGBT movement. Famous I think if you go back to the photograph of the LBGT protestors marching in front of the White House in roughly 1965? Very, very early, about job discrimination. Frank Kameny was of course notoriously fired by the US government from his high, you know, very high-level job. But I believe Frank and Barbara were in that photo. They were of course all dressed up impeccably in suits and ties, and you know very, very conservative clothing carrying their placards very formally. But that's a very good memory. Dick Leitsch came from New York City, and oh gosh, some of the names... Mark [Segal] from Philadelphia, and I'm sorry, his surname is escaping me. You can probably research it. And those were important because I think you know, we fed off each other's energy to a certain extent. So, there was a good amount of networking that went on, and some of it I probably wasn't even involved in, so. It was hard to get involved in everything because there were [laughs] really quite a few things going on, so sometimes you just chose your little threads that you got involved in. I know once, I think the first time Barbara Gittings actually came to the Lehigh Valley though, was not to Le-Hi-Ho, but she spoke at Muhlenberg College, so I remember Ron and I going there to, he knew her already previously and I remember we went to hear her speak and talk to her afterwards, so yeah. So, those are some good early memories. MF: We've spent a lot of time talking about Le-Hi-Ho. We talked a little bit about your work at Aetna. We've talked about the social aspects of Le-Hi-Ho and how life-affirming it was. Social organizations tend to get sort of disparaged, but the way that you describe the monthly meetings with Le-Hi-Ho is how important that kind of social space was for members. I'm wondering if maybe we could talk a little bit about your relationship with Ron. You talked about meeting Ron in the 1970s at that Kutztown party, or meeting him through Le-Hi-Ho. Do you want to share a little bit about your life with Ron, and that your relationship with your beloved? RB: Yeah, I will a little bit as an overview. I guess I'm a little probably, I'm going to try, to get very personal. I'm not really good at that, but yeah. I'm definitely willing to give it an overview. Yeah, I'd said it was 50-- it's almost 50 years to the day right now when Ron and I met, but I mean we started seeing each other immediately after that. Could really consider our anniversary-- when I graduated from Lehigh, it was Memorial Day weekend, that's when I moved in with him. He had already, he had bought a house in Bethlehem, an old house, which was, he was restoring, and needed a lot of restoration. And so that was the start. That was a year and a half later after we met, so that could really be called our official anniversary. We lived in that house during the time that I worked at Lehigh. During the '70s. We moved in 1980 to a separate, yeah, to a different house that we bought in Bethlehem and that lasted until the 1990 move to Connecticut. What can I say? He was rooted in Bethlehem. His whole family was there. Very, very rooted you know for a long time in that surrounding area. I had no immediate connections to the area, but I grew very, very fond of it after being there for so long, of course. And you know it's funny, I mean again, the degree to people were out in those days, but in the '70s you know his parents were quite friendly to me, and just accepted me. His father told me I could be his, another son to him, which I thought was very nice. But again, no one talked about it, you know. But we, it's funny. I think we weren't as fully integrated as a couple into society as we would be today, or are still today, just because of the way things were. Just because people were so, so uncomfortable. And so, I think you often did a lot of things separately, you know, and led slight-- not different lives, but there were more threads of your life where you might just do them separately. Interact with certain relatives separately. What can I say? I met a great deal of his relatives, and some we were very close to, and we would go to visit his grandmother every Friday night and watch [laughs] television with her in the '70s. Eventually, you know maybe not immediately, but we started going to some of the holidays with my parents. Thanksgiving, Christmas kind of holidays with my parents and family, who would congregate back with my family in Elmira/Horseheads, New York, you know and those went fine. Things evolved, and certainly there were like I said, things you had to negotiate as a gay couple in those days about interacting with society at large. Like I said, it just wasn't the same thing, and it's gradually, gradually gotten so that now everything is just so casual, you know. What can I say? You know, Ron and I have been together 50 years, less a year and a half, call it, formally [laughs]. We haven't married for complex reasons. I won't discuss that here. We're still together, although I'll just say unfortunately Ron's health isn't good, and he's currently in an assisted living facility, so I've actually been physically apart from him for a year and a half, which is first time, you know, I've lived on my own since then, and it's difficult but I spend oh, about three hours with him every day, seven days a week, and frequent phone calls and grossly, and completely engrossed with his life in so many ways. It's not like we're separated at all, but it's not quite the same thing. You know, and we've had you know, a lot of good times, and a lot of friends, and I guess that's the overview I'm going to give. MF: Thank you so much for sharing. We are at the end of our 90 minutes, but before we close, I just want to give you the opportunity, is there anything that we didn't talk about that you really wanted to share? Did we miss something? Anything that you want to share at the end here? RB: Yeah. Trivial memory. Ha. Le-Hi-Ho also sponsored occasional theater trips to New York City to see gay plays. In the '70s. And there weren't too many of them around, but that was fun. We did that. I just thought of that, that was a great experience. We always wondered what the bus drivers thought when we hired buses to cart 50 people, so to speak, to New York City, but it all went well. It all went well. So, I guess I'll end with that rather trivial memory [laughs]. MF: It's one of my true joys reading the newsletter when I see that you all have, you're talking about going to a show, and then like not enough people signed up, but reading it now, you get to see like, "Oh, that was playing in New York in the '70s!" And it's almost like a chart of gay cultural, you know just a little bit of the gay theatrical happening in New York, and especially with the book reviews, you really get the sense of what books mattered to our community in the Lehigh Valley, and you know, to the [reviewers like you. I just love those parts of the newsletter. It gives just a snapshot of some of the culture. RB: Yeah. MF: And I wish I could have been on that bus to New York City. I don't know why we don't do that now. I mean, I would pay to go to New York City on a bus, so I don't have to drive-- RB: Yeah. MF: --and go see theater. What a wonderful program. Well, I'll just end our interview by saying thank you so much, Rick, for taking the time to talk with me today. It has really been a pleasure, a real honor to speak with you about your life story. RB: Thanks so much for doing this. It's been great for me too. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Rick Balmer, December 6, 2021
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Rick Balmer recalls his life as a gay man in the Lehigh Valley, and the process of “coming out”, as well as his work with Lehigh Homophile Organization (Le-Hi-Ho) and its legacy on the LGBTQ+ community.
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LGBT-21
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2021-12-06
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Laura Mercedes
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Felix Molina
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5.4 February 22, 2022 Felix Molina, February 22, 2022 LGBT-26 45:17 LVLGBT Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive Collection Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Felix Molina Laura Mercedes video/mp4 MolinaFelix_20220222_video.mp4 1.0:|17(8)|48(6)|71(9)|96(3)|119(2)|140(4)|159(7)|184(10)|205(12)|226(9)|245(8)|264(12)|287(13)|308(10)|329(5)|354(18)|377(2)|396(5)|417(4)|440(3)|459(15)|478(2)|501(2)|520(10)|539(14)|560(12)|575(15)|594(7)|609(7)|628(4)|643(15)|662(13)|675(6)|698(8)|715(11)|740(4)|753(3)|770(11)|789(7)|810(3)|829(16)|848(8)|873(18)|892(5)|913(2)|918(5) 0 https://youtu.be/ig296ba1Ojw YouTube video Spanish 18 Interview Introductions LAURA MERCEDES: My name is Laura Mercedes, and I am here with Felix Molina to talk about his life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT community oral history project. Our project has funding from the American Council of Learned Societies, and we are meeting on Zoom on February 22nd, 2022. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today, Felix. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? Félix, gracias por estar aquí hoy. Para comenzar, por favor ¿puede decirme su nombre, apellido y deletrearlos?
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 ; FELIX MOLINA: Okey, mi nombre es Félix Molina. Mi nombre es F-E-L-I-X, Molina, M-O-L-I-N-A. 0 136 Early Years of Life LM: Muy bien. Pues, para comenzar, ¿me puede contar sobre los primeros años de su vida y describir su niñez?
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 ; FM: Bueno, yo nací en Río Piedras, que ahora pertenece a San Juan, aquí en Puerto Rico. Tuve una niñez muy feliz. Desde pequeñito, sabía que era gay. Como a los 10 años, 10 a 12 años, trataron de sobornarme ; me dijeron que tenía que pagar dinero, si no, le iban a decir a mi familia que yo era gay. Yo dije, “Pues no, yo no voy a pagar nada, así que yo se lo diré a mi familia.” Me senté con mi familia — nosotros siempre comíamos todos juntos — y les dije, “Bueno, quiero decirles algo: yo soy gay. Si me aceptan, bien, y si no, pues seguiré, pero yo no voy a cambiar mi vida por nadie. Éste soy yo, así que está bien.” Mis papás me dijeron, “Eres nuestro hijo, comoquiera te queremos.” Mi hermano me dijo que ya lo sabía. Quedamos así más o menos. 0 284 Representing Puerto Rico & ; Speaking at the NYC Pride Parade / Moving to the United States FM: Le invitan a ella y a mí a representar a Puerto Rico en la parada gay de Nueva York. Mi primo estaba enfermo con SIDA en ese tiempo y yo fui entonces para allá para verlo a él y participar de la parada. Y me pusieron en el station, me dieron el micrófono para que hablara. Y dije, “Bueno, parece mentira de que yo tuve que venir de Puerto Rico a visitar a mi primo, que él tiene tantos amigos aquí, y ninguno habéis ido a visitarle al hospital, teniendo tanto miedo por esta enfermedad que nos está afectando además a muchos de todos nosotros. Tenemos que dejar el miedo y venir y estar nuevamente juntos como hermanos que somos y hacernos procurar uno con el otro.” 0 399 Facing Puerto Rican Discrimination in the Lehigh Valley / Fighting Discrimination Laws in Allentown FM: Cuando llegué a Bethlehem, me di cuenta de que a los puertorriqueños los maltrataban. Definitivamente, discriminaban mucho por los acentos y por qué eras. Pero, más que todo, los mismos puertorriqueños discriminaban más a los puertorriqueños. Yo estaba en una tienda de espejuelos y había una -- yo estaba en la parte de atrás y vino una señora, “Ah, estas personas deben ponerles otro sitio de que estén esperando, que no pueden estar al lado de uno, que si esto y lo otro, que si me están haciendo -- yo estoy muy nerviosa aquí.” Y la gerente dijo, “¿Él la ha molestado en algo?” Y ella, “No, pero su presencia nada más me molesta, y esto y lo otro, que no voy a estar si no, pues que yo no vengo más aquí.” “Pues si no quiere venir, no venga, pero él está muy bien y lo vamos a atender a él.” Voy, se lo digo a mi amigo, y en vez de darme la razón, me dice, “Sabrá Dios si tú estabas gritando o con la voz tuya intimidaste. Está tu forma de ser, que esto y lo otro.” Pero la verdad es que nosotros mismos nos tiramos a nosotros mismos. Yo no dije nada, yo no estuve haciendo nada y hasta la misma gerente de la tienda lo vio. O sea que definitivamente no fue que yo estaba haciendo absolutamente nada malo. 0 696 Experiences as President of the Puerto Rican Parade FM: Y esta vez, sí, pasó por los miembros que estaban y fue un éxito. En ese tiempo estuve también como presidente de -- bueno, antes de ser presidente de la parada puertorriqueña, estaba como miembro. Y había mucho desorden después que se acababa la parada, porque había parada por la Hamilton, parábamos en la -- en aquel día, hacíamos una -- tocaban unas fiestas y unas cosas y esto y lo otro, y ya a las cuatro se paraba de cantazo y todo el mundo para su casa. Y estaban ya todo la gente con la ansia revuelta y lo que hacían era que empezaron entonces a revolucionar los carros y estar caminando y gritando porque querían más fiesta y todo. Y no se hacía más nada. Y tuvimos bastantes problemas porque decían que se iba a eliminar. Los antiguos miembros de la parada dijeron que como castigo a los puertorriqueños, iban a parar la parada un año. Y dije, “No. A los puertorriqueños no se les tienen que castigar. Y si se para por un año, va a ser más difícil para volver poder a hacerla nuevamente.” 0 1067 Working with the Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition (PSLC) / Other Jobs FM: Durante estaba en eso, cambié a PSLC, Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition. Y ahí tuvimos unos guardias de Pensilvania, de Filadelfia, atacaron a un latino y le apretaron tanto la medalla en el pecho que se la incrustaron dentro del pecho y lo mataron. Y cuando fuimos a ver -- eso fue en Shenandoah. La cosa era mucho más mala de lo que parecía. Estaba dentro la policía, la gente de la policía, el juez, el alcalde. Todos estaban incluidos dentro de esa trama en contra de los latinos. Y los White Supremacy estaban dentro. 
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 ; Cuando nosotros vamos, vamos en un grupo, esto y lo otro, estaban detrás de nosotros persiguiéndonos. Yo me eché a reír en una porque ellos se estaban escondiendo y tratando de mirar para dónde yo me había ido y yo había corrido por la parte de atrás y yo estaba ahora detrás de ellos. Yo les dije, “Hola.” Y cuando miraron y me vieron atrás, dieron un brinco. “Ah, ¿qué usted está haciendo aquí? Que usted no puede venir aquí sin pedir permiso.” Y yo digo, “Que yo sepa, esto es Estados Unidos y es un país libre, así que yo puedo venir.” Y el mismo representante, el council viene y me dice a mí lo mismo. Y da la casualidad que me lo dice frente al agente federal. El agente federal le dije, “Déjeme unas palabritas con usted, porque aquí no hay que pedir permiso para venir a su ciudad y esta no es su ciudad ; esto es ciudad de Estados Unidos y vamos a chequear.” 0 1248 Moving Back to Puerto Rico FM: De ahí, estuve un tiempo trabajando en diferentes casos de daños civiles a los latinos y también a los que no eran latinos, solamente eran prejuicios sencillamente porque eran pobres o porque eran gais. Y estuve bastante con una compañía de abogados. De ahí, me dije, “Okey, ya está bien de tantas cosas.” Me vine para -- mis padres estaban un poco más enfermos, ya mayores. Así dije, “Déjame irme para Puerto Rico a estar junto con ellos,” y decidí venirme para acá hace ya como 12 años que estoy acá. Estoy en Caguas. Estoy tranquilo. Estoy disfrutándome mis viejos, estoy junto aquí. Y extraño mucho todavía porque yo estaba metido -- yo, en un tiempo, estuve hasta en 10 organizaciones a la misma vez y trabajando en todas los diferentes cosas, y ahora no estoy haciendo nada. 0 1366 Relationship between the Latino Community and the LGBTQ Community in the Lehigh Valley / Being Latino LM: ¿Cómo usted vio la relación entre la comunidad latina y la comunidad LGBTQ aquí en Lehigh Valley cuando usted estaba aquí trabajando con estos dos aspectos, con estos dos --?
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 ; FM: Bueno. Yo la vi bien. No sé si era que a mí -- yo me di a respetar mucho. Yo en todos los sitios me hacía respetar y todo el mundo sabía que yo era gay. O sea, yo iba y puse la parada, puse que estaba la carroza gay, teníamos el día gay, que íbamos a la discoteca, que íbamos y salíamos y todas las cosas. Y la gente latina se ponían así, pero no se atrevían de frente a insultar o nada ; sencillamente aceptaban. Yo sabía que detrás a veces pasaba sus cositas, pero entonces cuando yo llegaba, todo se arreglaba, todo estaba tranquilo. Peaches and cream. No había ningún problema. Estaba todo bien y, no, los aceptamos, y están todos bien y seguimos lo más bien. 0 1598 Reacting to Discrimination LM: Si le puedo preguntar, ¿cómo usted manejó, manejaba, maneja ese discrimen? ¿Cómo lo maneja?
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 ; FM: Bueno, es que yo no me creo ni más, pero tampoco menos que nadie. Y yo hago que me respeten por lo que yo soy. Y yo sencillamente digo, “Tú tienes que valorarme por lo que -- conóceme y después me hablas. Y vamos a vernos y yo hago frente a lo que sea.” Como que me vean y, no es que me imponga, pero hago que me respeten. Tú puede ser que no me quieras o puede ser que no te interese que yo esté aquí, pero vas a tener que aceptarme. Como una canción vieja que decía que no importa cómo me veas, pero vas a tener que amarme. Pues, sí, haga lo que haga, vas a tener que amarme, porque yo no voy para ningún lado. Me vas a tener que aceptar de una forma o de otra. 0 1676 Lessons Learned from Father LM: Estoy yendo un poco para atrás. ¿Cómo usted llegó de hablar en la parada gay en Nueva York a tomar todos estos roles de liderazgo en la comunidad aquí?
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 ; FM: Yo creo que mi padre es bien hablador y es sumamente un líder como tal. Y él me enseñó mucho eso. Él era el Santa Claus de la ciudad. Como éramos cuatro hermanos, tenía una guagua y siempre montaba a todos los muchachos y les llevaba y nos llevaba a la bolera y pagaba con todo el mundo, nos llevaba a comer a todo el mundo. Si estábamos haciendo la feria de la ciudad, buscaba chavos para hacer la catedral. Y eso era todos los años. 0 1814 Getting the Anti-Discrimination Law Passed in Allentown LM: Quería preguntarle un poquito más sobre la ordenanza de antidiscriminación. ¿Puede dar un poco de detalle de qué diría usted que fue lo que logró que esa ordenanza se diera y cómo fue ese proceso?
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 ; FM: Si se hubiera mantenido el city council que estaba cuando se introdujo la primera vez, no hubiera pasado nada. Fue que la ciudad cambió ; la gente de la ciudad pidieron ese cambio. Y lo pidieron de una tal forma que también cambiaron a la gente que estaban en puestos dentro del city council, botaron a todos los que estaban en su forma retrógrada y pusieron entonces a unas personas mucho más avanzadas y pusieron directamente -- estaba Candida estaba dentro de la misma city council. Abiertamente una persona gay. 0 1940 What Can Still Be Done for the LGBTQ+ Community LM: Y pensando en ahora, ¿hay algo que usted sienta que hay que hacer?
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 ; FM: Bueno, creo que debe ser -- yo ahora mismo no estoy muy enterado si ya es una ley federal el no discrimen contra los gais, pero debe ser federal. Creo que todavía, lo tuvimos ahora mismo con Trump, los white supremacists siguen y están avanzados completamente. Y lo que más reivindican, lo que más quieren hacer ellos es dividir y conquistar. Y lo hacen con las minorías más que pueden y con lo que pueden hacer directamente. Y lo vemos que tenemos que aumentar la división de la iglesia y el estado. Sencillamente la iglesia, muchas iglesias, están creciendo por ahí fomentado la desunión, fomentando que esto es algo inmoral, que esto es algo directamente del Demonio y el Demonio va a eliminar a Estados Unidos y va a eliminar todas cosas porque no se están haciendo las cosas como tiene que ser. 0 2086 Being Gay in Puerto Rico LM: Pensando en Puerto Rico, ¿cómo fue para usted ser un niño de 10 años fuera del closet en Puerto Rico si puedo preguntarle para atrás un poquito?
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 ; FM: Como mismo te dije, como yo me hacía dar a respetar, yo fui el presidente de mi clase. Todo el mundo lo sabía. Yo era el presidente de la clase, yo fui el presidente de pequeño, estaba llamando a todos los sitios. Fui la primera persona que en un colegio católico de Caguas hice una huelga porque estaban no dejando entrar a unos de nuestros compañeros porque fueron a darle una serenata a unas muchachas en retiro y ellos la pusieron -- entonces, después de que lo que faltaba era un mes para acabarse las clases de cuarto año, querían eliminarlos y no graduarlos. 0 2203 Being Gay in Puerto Rico versus the Lehigh Valley LM: ¿Cómo usted compara ser un hombre gay en Puerto Rico ahora y en el Lehigh Valley?
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 ; FM: Fíjate, aquí los dirigentes están más con los gais. Tienen a los católicos, a los religiosos en contra diciendo que se van a ir al Infierno. Está un nuevo partido, que puso ahora uno o dos -- hay dos senadores puestos. Pero están mucho más aceptados ahora mismo en todas las cosas. Aun en la televisión, en todos los sitios. Aunque de vez en cuando, salen sus peleas y sus negaciones, pero es mucho más aceptado, es mucho más visto, mucho más querido. Y creo que en el Lehigh Valley era lo mismo. 0 2346 Working in Biological Sciences FM: Bueno, yo en el Lehigh Valley, lo de la parada y lo de Human Relations, eso eran mis pasatiempos, como yo decía. Mi trabajo fue directamente dentro del laboratorio. Yo trabajé en el University of Penn, trabajé en Lehigh University, trabajé en OraSure. Trabajé con Biological, trabajé haciendo todas las cuestiones en biología. Y me decían cómo era que yo podía poner la ciencia y estar mirando a la gente. 0 2418 Attending the Presidents’ Summit FM: También, cuando pasó lo de Presidents’ Summit, que estaba Bush, Clinton, y todos esos, fui uno de los representantes de Lehigh Valley. Estuve en Pensilvania representando a los latinos de Lehigh Valley. Fue una experiencia bastante grande. Conocí a mucha gente allí. Y todo fue directamente, o sea, allí, una de las personas que conocí que me gustó mucho su forma de ser fue Barbara Bush. 0 2494 Fighting for Other’s Rights FM: Estuve con la comunidad dominicana. Me dieron también una placa presumiendo de que los ayudé bastante a ellos, de que ellos no tenían quién levantar a la bandera ni la bandera dominicana en la ciudad y que no les daban permiso. Y yo luché por ellos para que le dieran el permiso de que levantaran la bandera directamente allí. Tuve buenas relaciones con los peruanos, tuve unas buenas relaciones con... Sencillamente, yo no me limitaba nada más a los puertorriqueños ; eran latinos, gais, o cualquier persona que sufriera directamente una discriminación por parte de alguna persona de que no querían hablar, lo hacía. 0 2622 Closing Remarks LM: Última pregunta: ¿sabe o piensa que hay alguna otra persona en la comunidad LGBT en el Lehigh Valley que deberíamos nosotros entrevistar para nuestro proyecto de historia oral? 
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 ; FM: Yo te diría si quieres buscar de gente de lo que está pasando ahora, lo nuevo, mi sobrino sería bueno para esas personas. Porque él sabe lo que está pasando ahora directamente dentro del círculo social, cultural y, junto con todo lo demás, laboral y todas las cosas juntos. Y él es abiertamente gay. O sea, él sabe lo que está pasando frente a la demás gente y está trabajando en el school district y sabe las penalidades que conlleva eso, está directamente dentro de él. 0 MovingImage Felix Molina recalls his early life growing up in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, fighting against Latino discrimination and for non-discrimination laws in the Lehigh Valley, and creating space for the Latino community. INTERVIEW WITH FELIX MOLINA FEBRUARY 22, 2022 LAURA MERCEDES: My name is Laura Mercedes, and I am here with Felix Molina to talk about his life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT community oral history project. Our project has funding from the American Council of Learned Societies, and we are meeting on Zoom on February 22nd, 2022. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today, Felix. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? Félix, gracias por estar aquí hoy. Para comenzar, por favor ¿puede decirme su nombre, apellido y deletrearlos? FELIX MOLINA: Okey, mi nombre es Félix Molina. Mi nombre es F-E-L-I-X, Molina, M-O-L-I-N-A. LM: ¿Me puede dar, por favor, su fecha de nacimiento? FM: Tres, tres del '62. LM: Preguntarte consentimiento. ¿Da su consentimiento a completar esta entrevista hoy? FM: Sí. LM: ¿Da su consentimiento a que esta entrevista sea transcrita, digitalizada y publicada en línea en formatos buscables? FM: Sí. LM: ¿Da su consentimiento a que el archivo LGBT utilice su entrevista para propósitos educativos, incluyendo películas, artículos, páginas webs, presentaciones y otros formatos? FM: Sí. LM: ¿Entiende que tendrá 30 días luego del envío electrónico de la transcripción para revisar la entrevista, identificar partes que desee eliminar, y/o retirar en su totalidad la entrevista del proyecto? FM: Sí. LM: Muy bien. Pues, para comenzar, ¿me puede contar sobre los primeros años de su vida y describir su niñez? FM: Bueno, yo nací en Río Piedras, que ahora pertenece a San Juan, aquí en Puerto Rico. Tuve una niñez muy feliz. Desde pequeñito, sabía que era gay. Como a los 10 años, 10 a 12 años, trataron de sobornarme ; me dijeron que tenía que pagar dinero, si no, le iban a decir a mi familia que yo era gay. Yo dije, "Pues no, yo no voy a pagar nada, así que yo se lo diré a mi familia." Me senté con mi familia -- nosotros siempre comíamos todos juntos -- y les dije, "Bueno, quiero decirles algo: yo soy gay. Si me aceptan, bien, y si no, pues seguiré, pero yo no voy a cambiar mi vida por nadie. Éste soy yo, así que está bien." Mis papás me dijeron, "Eres nuestro hijo, comoquiera te queremos." Mi hermano me dijo que ya lo sabía. Quedamos así más o menos. Así que desde esa edad, ya todo el mundo -- yo había salido del closet y había hablado con ellos. A los 18 años, tengo mi primer novio. Mi mamá, molestándome, me decía, "Tú, aquí, hablando todo el tiempo por teléfono. Y cuando él termina de hablar por teléfono, sabrá Dios si él se va por allí por las calles buscando y estando con otras personas y todo." Y yo, "Pues yo me voy." "No te puedes ir a menos que se lo digas a tu abuela." Y digo, "Eso es fácil." Salimos de compras y le digo a mi abuela, "Mira, abuela, cómprame estas sábanas king." Y ella, "Pero ¿cómo king si la cama tuya es twin?" "Ay, es que se me había olvidado. Es que voy a mudarme para casa de unos amigos, y tenemos una cama king." Y ella, "Ah, pues sí, pues yo te la compro si necesitas." Yo dije, "Venga -- se lo dije así -- definitivamente mañana me mudo." Y de ahí, me mudé a los 19 años, me mudé de casa. Me fui a vivir con mi amigo, era mayor que yo. Estuvimos viviendo por 12 años. Cuando tenía como 25, yo estaba ahora con una amiga mía, se llamaba Christina Hayworth. Era bien conocida aquí en Puerto Rico. Ella fue la que fundó la parada gay aquí en Puerto Rico. Le invitan a ella y a mí a representar a Puerto Rico en la parada gay de Nueva York. Mi primo estaba enfermo con SIDA en ese tiempo y yo fui entonces para allá para verlo a él y participar de la parada. Y me pusieron en el station, me dieron el micrófono para que hablara. Y dije, "Bueno, parece mentira de que yo tuve que venir de Puerto Rico a visitar a mi primo, que él tiene tantos amigos aquí, y ninguno habéis ido a visitarle al hospital, teniendo tanto miedo por esta enfermedad que nos está afectando además a muchos de todos nosotros. Tenemos que dejar el miedo y venir y estar nuevamente juntos como hermanos que somos y hacernos procurar uno con el otro." La verdad es que fue un orgullo para mí estar en la parada gay en New York y estar en la tarima. Fue una experiencia bien grande para mí. En eso, a los 30, nos dejamos mi amante y yo ; nos separamos. Y yo dije, "Puerto Rico es muy pequeño para nosotros dos estar aquí separados," así que me mudé para Estados Unidos. Me fui para Pensilvania. Allí llegué a New Hope. De New Hope, conocí a una persona que vivía en Bethlehem. Voy para Bethlehem y ahí entonces -- bueno, mi primer amante era ruso. Era ruso. En Bethlehem conozco a un puertorriqueño. Y entonces tuve que ir a Estados Unidos a conocer a un puertorriqueño que fuera entonces a estar conmigo. Estuvimos juntos por 13 años. Pasamos los sinsabores. Cuando llegué a Bethlehem, me di cuenta de que a los puertorriqueños los maltrataban. Definitivamente, discriminaban mucho por los acentos y por qué eras. Pero, más que todo, los mismos puertorriqueños discriminaban más a los puertorriqueños. Yo estaba en una tienda de espejuelos y había una -- yo estaba en la parte de atrás y vino una señora, "Ah, estas personas deben ponerles otro sitio de que estén esperando, que no pueden estar al lado de uno, que si esto y lo otro, que si me están haciendo -- yo estoy muy nerviosa aquí." Y la gerente dijo, "¿Él la ha molestado en algo?" Y ella, "No, pero su presencia nada más me molesta, y esto y lo otro, que no voy a estar si no, pues que yo no vengo más aquí." "Pues si no quiere venir, no venga, pero él está muy bien y lo vamos a atender a él." Voy, se lo digo a mi amigo, y en vez de darme la razón, me dice, "Sabrá Dios si tú estabas gritando o con la voz tuya intimidaste. Está tu forma de ser, que esto y lo otro." Pero la verdad es que nosotros mismos nos tiramos a nosotros mismos. Yo no dije nada, yo no estuve haciendo nada y hasta la misma gerente de la tienda lo vio. O sea que definitivamente no fue que yo estaba haciendo absolutamente nada malo. De ahí, estoy como presidente -- me eligieron. Estaba entonces trabajando en la -- bueno, me fui a trabajar con recycling a traducir todos los papeles de la ciudad al español porque vi entonces la necesidad de que estuvieran las cosas en español. Ahí vino la gran ordenanza de que todo tenía que ser en inglés. Yo estuve peleando bastante con Tropiano y con mi amigo Julio Guridy porque él no hizo nada para quitarla. Él decía, "Algunas ordenanzas están muertas, ¿para qué pelear por allí?" Y le digo, "Porque definitivamente es injusto que esté diciendo que tiene que ser todo en inglés cuando más el porciento de aquí, que hay gente aquí, es en español, y no lo conocen. Así que, yo considero que tú deberías hacer algo para eliminarla," lo que nunca hizo. Cuando estuvimos trabajando con eso, me seguí involucrando en las diferentes agencias y caí dentro de la Human Relations Commission. Estuve entonces como representante y en un tiempo entonces fui el presidente de Human Relations. Y estábamos recibiendo ordenanzas directamente para -- lo que bregábamos era más con los del housing y las cosas. Y venían y decían -- en una creyeron que yo iba a decir que no, que estaba mal la gente, que había que autorizar a los latinos estar con la música en alto y todas las cosas. Y digo, "No, no, no. Eso está mal hecho y los latinos, se supone, tienen que respetar al vecino y tienen que bajar los volúmenes, todas las cosas." Y en eso, me hice un poco más susceptible de que si ellos creían que yo porque era latino iba a estar en todo de acuerdo a los latinos, y a todo lo que no era latino iba a estar en contra. De ahí, empezaron entonces para hacerse las ordenanzas de incluir como discrimen a los gais y todo dentro de la ordenanza en Allentown. El consejo no quiso aceptar nada. Y una de las cosas que yo le dije -- o sea, estaban discutiendo si era legal o si era un animal doméstico o si era un animal de granja un cerdo. Y yo dije, "¿Para ustedes es más importante adivinar eso pero no le dan la importancia de que una persona que sea gay pueda tener sus derechos para estar viviendo aquí?" Y eso salió bastante reluciendo en el Morning Call porque después que estuvimos -- nos dejaron hablar por un tiempo en el City Hall porque por ley nos tenían que dejar hablar. Que una vez que terminamos de hablar, empezaron y cambiaron el tema y como si no hubiéramos dicho nada. O sea, nos trataron como nada. De ahí, se fue bastante tiempo. Cambió el City Hall, cambiaron los miembros del city council, y pudimos introducir nuevamente la ordenanza. Y esta vez, sí, pasó por los miembros que estaban y fue un éxito. En ese tiempo estuve también como presidente de -- bueno, antes de ser presidente de la parada puertorriqueña, estaba como miembro. Y había mucho desorden después que se acababa la parada, porque había parada por la Hamilton, parábamos en la -- en aquel día, hacíamos una -- tocaban unas fiestas y unas cosas y esto y lo otro, y ya a las cuatro se paraba de cantazo y todo el mundo para su casa. Y estaban ya todo la gente con la ansia revuelta y lo que hacían era que empezaron entonces a revolucionar los carros y estar caminando y gritando porque querían más fiesta y todo. Y no se hacía más nada. Y tuvimos bastantes problemas porque decían que se iba a eliminar. Los antiguos miembros de la parada dijeron que como castigo a los puertorriqueños, iban a parar la parada un año. Y dije, "No. A los puertorriqueños no se les tienen que castigar. Y si se para por un año, va a ser más difícil para volver poder a hacerla nuevamente." Así que, ahí hicimos elecciones nuevamente y yo salí como presidente. Y dije, "No, lo que vamos a hacer es que vamos a proporcionar un sitio donde puedan sacar esa energía y quitarla." Ahí hicimos entonces la parada y un festival luego de la parada. Una de las cosas que me insistieron mucho fue que incluyera cerveza dentro del festival. Y dije, "No. Nosotros no necesitamos más para hacernos, así que va a ser sin cerveza, va a ser sin alcohol. Y vamos tener el mejor festival latino sin alcohol y de mucha gente." La primera vez que pusimos las solicitudes para quienes querían entrar, una de las primeras que nos trajo la solicitud fue Bradbury del grupo gay poniendo entonces, okey, que querían participar. Y yo, "Pues claro." Y nos presentamos en el comité y el comité todo el mundo dijo que sí, que aceptaba, "exactamente así vamos a hacerlo, vamos a tenerlo." Y estaba Diamonz, estaba Stonewall, estaba Candida y todo el mundo. Incluyendo la press, estuvieron todos participando. Hicimos una semana cultural, en la cual estábamos un día en el club puertorriqueño, otro día en una bolera. E hicimos entonces un día que era gay dentro de la semana cultural, los gais latinos, e íbamos a Stonewall e íbamos a Candida o íbamos a Diamonz y se hacía entonces la noche cultural. La noche cultural dentro de todo se ponía gay. Y fue una aceptación bastante buena de la misma comunidad latina directamente hacia la comunidad gay. Para colmo, estuvimos en un tiempo cuando íbamos a hacer la parada, nos paró el alcalde, dijo que teníamos que pagar la policía anticipadamente. Pero siempre le hemos pagado luego. Se hace la parada y de ahí cuando se recoge el dinero, se paga. "No, esta vez, si no me das los chavos ahora mismo, no tienes parada." Y da la casualidad que la que vino enseguida a nuestra defensa fue Sullivan y nos dio un cheque de 3,000 dólares para que hiciéramos la parada. Y dijo, "Pues aquí están los chavos." "Ah, ¿ustedes se unen con esa gente?" "Pues, mira, bastante bueno que soy, y quiere eliminarnos, aquí están los chavos, así que vamos con la parada." Entonces, él mismo quería unirse con el centro. Estaba un grupo de la unión y yo la había puesto diferente. Los políticos siempre iban al frente solos y cada uno iban aparte. Y él cogió a los de la unión, "No, no, no, yo los quiero a ustedes al lado mío, se vienen conmigo." Y yo, "La unión va atrás, donde yo los puse." "Ah, el alcalde me dijo a mí que yo iba a ir acá." Y yo, "El alcalde no es el que manda en esta parada -- el que manda en esta parada soy yo. Yo soy el presidente y ustedes van allí atrás o se van de la parada. Una de las dos deciden." Así que se quedaron en la parte de atrás y fue todo -- removió directamente todo. Tuvimos un buen éxito, se dio una parada bastante bien, llegaron hasta casi en un tiempo -- nos contaron [inaudible] entrando y saliendo de eso que así una parada que estuvo Andy Montañez. Vinieron casi 10 mil a 12 mil personas. Y fue una parada -- estaban todos bien contentos, recibimos bastantes anuncios de que era una parada que no tenía licor y que venía tanta gente celebrando con nosotros. Estaba Kutztown, la gente de Kutztown, el grupo latino, tenían las piraguas, venían muchos artesanos, el gobierno de Puerto Rico nos mandaba artesanos. Teníamos a diferentes pintores y todo directamente allí, había bastante comida. Todo salió bien de las cosas, estuvo A-Treat, nos servía con todo los refrescos. Y aun así, la Budweiser, aunque no bebía -- mandábamos cerveza, durante la semana se podía usar, ellos siempre nos compraban anuncios y nos mandaba para celebrar directamente cuando estábamos en la semana cultural, se mandaba. O sea que aunque no estábamos directamente, ellos siempre estuvieron con nosotros aun así, aunque no usábamos ningún alcohol directamente en la parada. Durante estaba en eso, cambié a PSLC, Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition. Y ahí tuvimos unos guardias de Pensilvania, de Filadelfia, atacaron a un latino y le apretaron tanto la medalla en el pecho que se la incrustaron dentro del pecho y lo mataron. Y cuando fuimos a ver -- eso fue en Shenandoah. La cosa era mucho más mala de lo que parecía. Estaba dentro la policía, la gente de la policía, el juez, el alcalde. Todos estaban incluidos dentro de esa trama en contra de los latinos. Y los White Supremacy estaban dentro. Cuando nosotros vamos, vamos en un grupo, esto y lo otro, estaban detrás de nosotros persiguiéndonos. Yo me eché a reír en una porque ellos se estaban escondiendo y tratando de mirar para dónde yo me había ido y yo había corrido por la parte de atrás y yo estaba ahora detrás de ellos. Yo les dije, "Hola." Y cuando miraron y me vieron atrás, dieron un brinco. "Ah, ¿qué usted está haciendo aquí? Que usted no puede venir aquí sin pedir permiso." Y yo digo, "Que yo sepa, esto es Estados Unidos y es un país libre, así que yo puedo venir." Y el mismo representante, el council viene y me dice a mí lo mismo. Y da la casualidad que me lo dice frente al agente federal. El agente federal le dije, "Déjeme unas palabritas con usted, porque aquí no hay que pedir permiso para venir a su ciudad y esta no es su ciudad ; esto es ciudad de Estados Unidos y vamos a chequear." Estuvieron haciendo las investigaciones necesarias y da la casualidad que la persona que había matado al hispano era nieto del juez. Y los que estaban cubriendo todo, el policía y el jefe de la policía y todo, todos fueron arrestados. Todos fueron completamente. El juez, todos. Y el alcalde, todos se fueron completamente y se llevaron. Pero yo recibí bastantes cartas de los White Supremacy, que me estaban velando, que yo estaba organizando a los latinos y organizando a la gente, que no podían hacer cosas, que me estaban velando, que me tuviera mucho cuidado. Y yo digo, "Mi dirección es pública, todo es público, así que lo que ustedes quieran hacer, lo pueden hacer. Aquí estoy." Y me mandaron cartas. Las tuve que mandar al FBI para que chequearan lo que estaba pasando. Pero todo estuvo bien. Nunca me hicieron nada, así que estaba todo bien. De ahí, estuve un tiempo trabajando en diferentes casos de daños civiles a los latinos y también a los que no eran latinos, solamente eran prejuicios sencillamente porque eran pobres o porque eran gais. Y estuve bastante con una compañía de abogados. De ahí, me dije, "Okey, ya está bien de tantas cosas." Me vine para -- mis padres estaban un poco más enfermos, ya mayores. Así dije, "Déjame irme para Puerto Rico a estar junto con ellos," y decidí venirme para acá hace ya como 12 años que estoy acá. Estoy en Caguas. Estoy tranquilo. Estoy disfrutándome mis viejos, estoy junto aquí. Y extraño mucho todavía porque yo estaba metido -- yo, en un tiempo, estuve hasta en 10 organizaciones a la misma vez y trabajando en todas los diferentes cosas, y ahora no estoy haciendo nada. Ahora lo que me paso es haciendo rompecabezas o viendo películas, todo tranquilo. O sea, ha sido algo bastante diferente a lo que hacía antes. Pero esa ha sido más o menos mi vida en cortas palabras ahí diferente. Y sí, aun así, si veo cualquier discrimen, nunca me quedo callado, ni me quedaré. Siempre lo seguiré haciendo y les deseo la mejor de la suerte a todo lo que ustedes están haciendo. Muchas gracias. ¿Si tiene alguna pregunta? LM: Gracias, sí. ¿Le puedo hacer alguna pregunta? FM: Sí. LM: ¿Cómo usted vio la relación entre la comunidad latina y la comunidad LGBTQ aquí en Lehigh Valley cuando usted estaba aquí trabajando con estos dos aspectos, con estos dos --? FM: Bueno. Yo la vi bien. No sé si era que a mí -- yo me di a respetar mucho. Yo en todos los sitios me hacía respetar y todo el mundo sabía que yo era gay. O sea, yo iba y puse la parada, puse que estaba la carroza gay, teníamos el día gay, que íbamos a la discoteca, que íbamos y salíamos y todas las cosas. Y la gente latina se ponían así, pero no se atrevían de frente a insultar o nada ; sencillamente aceptaban. Yo sabía que detrás a veces pasaba sus cositas, pero entonces cuando yo llegaba, todo se arreglaba, todo estaba tranquilo. Peaches and cream. No había ningún problema. Estaba todo bien y, no, los aceptamos, y están todos bien y seguimos lo más bien. LM: Hablo un poco desde el punto de vista de la comunidad latina, ¿cómo era ser un hombre latino en la comunidad LGBTQ aquí? FM: Era bien discriminante. Me veían como que "ah, tú eres un latino. Tú no tienes razón de estar aquí metido." Muchas veces me pasó en Candida. Sencillamente, me veían como un extraño, de "¿por qué tú estás aquí metido? Tú no eres -- nosotros somos aquí -- los americanos somos los que mandamos. Ustedes no tienen de eso, tú tienes que estar escondido en la esquina o afuera y no frente a nosotros. Nosotros somos los que te decimos qué tienes que hacer y dónde hacerlo." Y eso sí me encontré mucho. En las barritas chiquitas, así pasaba. Fuera de Allentown y Bethlehem, para los Poconos, había muchas barritas que había que tener miedo para entrar. O sea, te decían claramente, "No te queremos aquí, ni porque eres latino ni porque eres gay. Fuera de aquí y no te vamos a atender. No te vamos a hacer nada. Lárgate de aquí." Y era bien fea. No podías hacer absolutamente nada porque estábamos en su territorio. Pero yo sabía que para Bethlehem o Allentown yo tenía las de ganar, pero si me iba para fuera, para los Poconos, pues yo las que tenía era las de perder, estaba fuera de mi ambiente. Así que me aguantaba, y sabiendo dónde hacer las luchas que tenía que hacerlas. Pero, sí, la comunidad gay Allentown y Bethlehem eran bien reticente de aceptar a otra gente. Máxime, los gais blancos, rubios se creen que se lo merecen todo. Son bonitillos y esto y lo otro, y sencillamente no aceptan a otros que no sean igual que ellos, de ojos azules y todo lo demás. Discriminan mucho con los latinos como tal. Aunque sean gais también. LM: Si le puedo preguntar, ¿cómo usted manejó, manejaba, maneja ese discrimen? ¿Cómo lo maneja? FM: Bueno, es que yo no me creo ni más, pero tampoco menos que nadie. Y yo hago que me respeten por lo que yo soy. Y yo sencillamente digo, "Tú tienes que valorarme por lo que -- conóceme y después me hablas. Y vamos a vernos y yo hago frente a lo que sea." Como que me vean y, no es que me imponga, pero hago que me respeten. Tú puede ser que no me quieras o puede ser que no te interese que yo esté aquí, pero vas a tener que aceptarme. Como una canción vieja que decía que no importa cómo me veas, pero vas a tener que amarme. Pues, sí, haga lo que haga, vas a tener que amarme, porque yo no voy para ningún lado. Me vas a tener que aceptar de una forma o de otra. LM: Estoy yendo un poco para atrás. ¿Cómo usted llegó de hablar en la parada gay en Nueva York a tomar todos estos roles de liderazgo en la comunidad aquí? FM: Yo creo que mi padre es bien hablador y es sumamente un líder como tal. Y él me enseñó mucho eso. Él era el Santa Claus de la ciudad. Como éramos cuatro hermanos, tenía una guagua y siempre montaba a todos los muchachos y les llevaba y nos llevaba a la bolera y pagaba con todo el mundo, nos llevaba a comer a todo el mundo. Si estábamos haciendo la feria de la ciudad, buscaba chavos para hacer la catedral. Y eso era todos los años. Yo cuando niño, me acuerdo que me dieron un libro que era la parada de la iglesia y me dieron la Biblia para que la aguantara. Y como no venían a buscarla, yo cogí, abrí la Biblia, y seguí caminando al frente de todo el mundo y, "Ay, mira, qué lindo, el nene de la Biblia." Y era yo, sencillamente porque no me dijeron más nada, pues seguí caminando al frente de todo el mundo y yo con la Biblia entonces. Y desde ahí, pusieron "el nene de la Biblia." Entonces, caminando siempre al frente de la parada. Pero yo creo que sí, es más siguiendo los pasos de mi padre, directamente, en la parte de ser jefe, de ser -- ¿cómo es? -- un cacique no indio dentro de la parada. LM: Quería preguntarle un poquito más sobre la ordenanza de antidiscriminación. ¿Puede dar un poco de detalle de qué diría usted que fue lo que logró que esa ordenanza se diera y cómo fue ese proceso? FM: Si se hubiera mantenido el city council que estaba cuando se introdujo la primera vez, no hubiera pasado nada. Fue que la ciudad cambió ; la gente de la ciudad pidieron ese cambio. Y lo pidieron de una tal forma que también cambiaron a la gente que estaban en puestos dentro del city council, botaron a todos los que estaban en su forma retrógrada y pusieron entonces a unas personas mucho más avanzadas y pusieron directamente -- estaba Candida estaba dentro de la misma city council. Abiertamente una persona gay. O sea que cogieron y cambiaron directamente el cuerpo -- la gente de Allentown cambió su mentalidad hacia una mentalidad mucho más avanzado y dijeron, "No, esto ya tiene que acabar, esto tiene que ser." Y creo que mucha gente lo hacían porque se educó de que ellos creían que -- al principio, decían de que eso no hacía falta porque eso estaba ya incluido. Ya cuando se les enseñó que eso no estaba incluido. Lo pensaban, pero todavía podía traer y hacer el discrimen porque no era una ley. Mucha gente decía, "Ah, no. Entonces, la quiero, sí, está bien. Entonces, quiero hacer ese cambio." Y se produjo entonces. Directamente, vino la gente a hablar y esta vez sí se escuchó y se hizo el cambio. LM: Y pensando en ahora, ¿hay algo que usted sienta que hay que hacer? FM: Bueno, creo que debe ser -- yo ahora mismo no estoy muy enterado si ya es una ley federal el no discrimen contra los gais, pero debe ser federal. Creo que todavía, lo tuvimos ahora mismo con Trump, los white supremacists siguen y están avanzados completamente. Y lo que más reivindican, lo que más quieren hacer ellos es dividir y conquistar. Y lo hacen con las minorías más que pueden y con lo que pueden hacer directamente. Y lo vemos que tenemos que aumentar la división de la iglesia y el estado. Sencillamente la iglesia, muchas iglesias, están creciendo por ahí fomentado la desunión, fomentando que esto es algo inmoral, que esto es algo directamente del Demonio y el Demonio va a eliminar a Estados Unidos y va a eliminar todas cosas porque no se están haciendo las cosas como tiene que ser. Y debemos saber que eso no es lo que dice en la Biblia, y que tenemos que estar -- yo soy muy religioso. Yo voy siempre a la iglesia. Y eso no es lo que dice en la Biblia. Tenemos que aceptar la división de iglesia y estado y tenemos que ponernos juntos a crear que esa gente no entren en el poder, como tengo miedo de que vaya a pasar en el '24. Sencillamente juntos nuevamente vaya a pasar, porque están bien adentro y tienen unas mentalidades bien retrógradas y solamente piensan en pajaritos preñados y no hacen absolutamente nada por el bien del pueblo. Creen que ellos se lo merecen y que ellos son los que lo saben todo lo tiene que ser para el pueblo. LM: Pensando en Puerto Rico, ¿cómo fue para usted ser un niño de 10 años fuera del closet en Puerto Rico si puedo preguntarle para atrás un poquito? FM: Como mismo te dije, como yo me hacía dar a respetar, yo fui el presidente de mi clase. Todo el mundo lo sabía. Yo era el presidente de la clase, yo fui el presidente de pequeño, estaba llamando a todos los sitios. Fui la primera persona que en un colegio católico de Caguas hice una huelga porque estaban no dejando entrar a unos de nuestros compañeros porque fueron a darle una serenata a unas muchachas en retiro y ellos la pusieron -- entonces, después de que lo que faltaba era un mes para acabarse las clases de cuarto año, querían eliminarlos y no graduarlos. Y quedamos en acuerdo de que ellos se graduaran, que no pasaran por la graduación, pero que tenían que graduarse y tenían que coger los exámenes. Y quedamos en ese acuerdo, y yo levanté entonces a la gente. Pero todo el mundo nos sentamos al frente del portón y no dejábamos que pasara ningún carro, dejar ni nadie ni nada. No podían entrar. Y eso me costó la medalla del pensamiento del estudiante. Pero me gustó más tener a mis amigos, en su posición, que tener cualquier medalla que me hiciera tener que doblegar mis pensamientos de lo que realmente era verdad para nuestra comunidad. LM: ¿Cómo usted compara ser un hombre gay en Puerto Rico ahora y en el Lehigh Valley? FM: Fíjate, aquí los dirigentes están más con los gais. Tienen a los católicos, a los religiosos en contra diciendo que se van a ir al Infierno. Está un nuevo partido, que puso ahora uno o dos -- hay dos senadores puestos. Pero están mucho más aceptados ahora mismo en todas las cosas. Aun en la televisión, en todos los sitios. Aunque de vez en cuando, salen sus peleas y sus negaciones, pero es mucho más aceptado, es mucho más visto, mucho más querido. Y creo que en el Lehigh Valley era lo mismo. Lo único que, como te dije, la diferencia entre los white supremacists gais, los blanquitos de ojos azules, frente a los latinos y frente a la demás gente, y aquí no se encuentra eso sencillamente porque todos somos de diferentes colores y todas las cosas. Aquí lo que tiene es que el que tiene el cuerpo mejor y va mucho a la playa y hace ejercicio y esto y lo otro, a todos nosotros que somos gorditos nos tiran para el lado. Pero con eso no se puede hacer más nada. A mí me gusta comer y yo no voy a dejar de comer para que alguien me quiera. Si me quieren, que me quieran así -- gordito. Si no, que no me quieran. LM: Estamos ya llegando al final. No sé si haya algo que no haya dicho que quiera decir, algo de lo cual quiere hablar o que quiera expandir sobre su trabajo en Lehigh Valley, sobre su historia, sobre lo que usted quiera. FM: Bueno, yo en el Lehigh Valley, lo de la parada y lo de Human Relations, eso eran mis pasatiempos, como yo decía. Mi trabajo fue directamente dentro del laboratorio. Yo trabajé en el University of Penn, trabajé en Lehigh University, trabajé en OraSure. Trabajé con Biological, trabajé haciendo todas las cuestiones en biología. Y me decían cómo era que yo podía poner la ciencia y estar mirando a la gente. Yo no creo que hay una diferencia. Sencillamente, es la persona. O sea, la ciencia mira mucho lo que son los datos para tomar entonces tu decisión. Y con la gente es lo mismo. O sea, tú los tenías que mirar y tomar entonces tu decisión de cómo actuar frente a ellos y cómo seguirlos. Y yo tuve la dicha de que mis jefes siempre me dieron las oportunidades de que podía tener un horario flexible y podía hacer todas las cosas que yo quería aun teniendo entonces eso, estaba directamente. También, cuando pasó lo de Presidents' Summit, que estaba Bush, Clinton, y todos esos, fui uno de los representantes de Lehigh Valley. Estuve en Pensilvania representando a los latinos de Lehigh Valley. Fue una experiencia bastante grande. Conocí a mucha gente allí. Y todo fue directamente, o sea, allí, una de las personas que conocí que me gustó mucho su forma de ser fue Barbara Bush. Era tremenda persona, bien open mind. Tenía su forma de ser y cómo miraba las cosas y cómo miraba a la demás gente y cómo ella se pronunciaba. Creo que fue una de las personas que me impresionó bastante. Fui bastante junto con Ridge, el gobernador, Tom Ridge. Él fue el que me dio la placa de primer Latino Award de Pensilvania. También la tengo bastante bien. Tuve unas buenas relaciones con ellos, directamente bregando con los asuntos de latinos, bregando juntos con todas las cosas. Estuve con la comunidad dominicana. Me dieron también una placa presumiendo de que los ayudé bastante a ellos, de que ellos no tenían quién levantar a la bandera ni la bandera dominicana en la ciudad y que no les daban permiso. Y yo luché por ellos para que le dieran el permiso de que levantaran la bandera directamente allí. Tuve buenas relaciones con los peruanos, tuve unas buenas relaciones con... Sencillamente, yo no me limitaba nada más a los puertorriqueños ; eran latinos, gais, o cualquier persona que sufriera directamente una discriminación por parte de alguna persona de que no querían hablar, lo hacía. Tuve una vez en Filadelfia un pastelero que no le querían pagar los chavos, lo querían mantener fuera de que no querían darle el dinero porque supuestamente él renunció y se estaba yendo. Dije, "Pero si él te dio las dos semanas, entrenó a la persona que va a estar por él, ¿y no le quiere aun dar...?" "Ah, pero es que yo quería que él estuviera aquí por más tiempo." Y yo, "Pero es que él tiene un hijo que está muriéndose en su ciudad y él tiene que irse para allá. Así que tú le vas a pagar y se lo vas a pagar ahora." "Ah, pero que usted... Yo vine con la prensa." Y la prensa le dijo, "Yo no sabía que era con Félix que ibas a luchar, así que mejor que le pague porque yo con Félix no voy a luchar, así que te toca pagarle." Y, okey, pues le pagaron y se fue él directamente. O sea, fue bastante -- fueron muchas las luchas. Y me siento orgulloso de lo que pude hacer en defensa de las personas que estuve para yo lograrlo. LM: Nosotros estamos orgullosos de usted, y de todo lo que ha hecho. ¿Algo más que quiera añadir o alguna otra historia que quiera contar? FM: No por ahora. LM: Última pregunta: ¿sabe o piensa que hay alguna otra persona en la comunidad LGBT en el Lehigh Valley que deberíamos nosotros entrevistar para nuestro proyecto de historia oral? FM: Yo te diría si quieres buscar de gente de lo que está pasando ahora, lo nuevo, mi sobrino sería bueno para esas personas. Porque él sabe lo que está pasando ahora directamente dentro del círculo social, cultural y, junto con todo lo demás, laboral y todas las cosas juntos. Y él es abiertamente gay. O sea, él sabe lo que está pasando frente a la demás gente y está trabajando en el school district y sabe las penalidades que conlleva eso, está directamente dentro de él. LM: ¿Cuál es su nombre? FM: José Ángel Molina Agosto. LM: Gracias. Muchas gracias por su tiempo y por compartir, por abrirse a nosotros y contarnos su historia. Y gracias a todos por escuchar. Voy a darle pausa, no se vaya. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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00:45:18
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Felix Molina, February 22, 2022
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Felix Molina recalls his early life growing up in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, fighting against Latino discrimination and for non-discrimination laws in the Lehigh Valley, and creating space for the Latino community.
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LGBT-26
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2022-02-22
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and Archives
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b7dd5f396d8dbbc7a0bff8074fe5d208
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
Oral History
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Nadia Butler
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Aoife Ward
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-33.xml
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5.4 May 7, 2022 Aoife Ward, May 7, 2022 LGBT-33 1:25:03 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Aoife Ward Nadia Butler video/mp4 Aoife Ward Oral History Combined MOV File.mov 1.0:|25(6)|60(18)|81(11)|102(14)|127(13)|146(6)|171(8)|192(13)|213(6)|234(10)|255(11)|274(15)|297(6)|316(9)|335(16)|358(7)|381(14)|400(4)|421(4)|442(12)|463(7)|480(16)|499(6)|518(5)|543(12)|568(7)|589(9)|614(6)|637(13)|660(8)|679(7)|702(4)|721(8)|744(8)|765(7)|788(3)|809(13)|830(11)|853(7)|876(3)|895(6)|920(2)|943(14)|962(3)|985(4)|1008(3)|1031(4)|1054(10)|1073(10)|1098(4)|1117(15)|1140(10)|1163(4)|1182(8)|1203(7)|1226(12)|1247(15)|1266(12)|1289(5)|1312(7)|1331(13)|1350(7)|1373(6)|1394(5)|1415(15)|1438(8)|1457(6)|1476(4)|1497(8)|1518(11)|1543(4)|1566(5)|1591(3)|1614(3)|1639(2)|1662(16)|1687(12)|1708(6)|1731(8)|1750(2)|1775(5)|1798(2)|1813(9)|1838(7)|1877(3)|1878(2) 0 https://youtu.be/UOcm4IeVU4k YouTube video English 8 Interview Introductions NADIA BUTLER: And we are live. My name is Nadia Butler, and I am here today with Aoife Ward, to talk about her life and experiences and LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley, as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the ACLS. We are meeting on location today on May 7th, 2022. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? 
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 ; AOIFE WARD: Certainly it's Aoife Maeve Ward. It's spelled A-O-I-F-E. The middle name, Maeve, M-A-E-V-E, Ward, W-A-R-D.
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 ; NB: Will you please share your birthdate?
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 ; AW: It's October 11, 1976.
 ; 0 102 Childhood & ; Early Upbringing NB: To begin, would you start by telling us about the early years of your life? Could you describe your childhood for us, including where you were born?
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 ; AW: Sure, so I was born in a hospital in Brooklyn and raised in Long Island, New York. Both my parents were Irish immigrants. My father was an investment banker from Dublin originally. Trained as a veterinarian, but walked in, basically got a job on Wall Street one summer and came back and started his version of the American Dream. My mother was from a farming family outside of Dublin, outside of Wicklow. Seven sisters, her grandmother was an amazing woman who raised them all on her own on a small farm. And also fought in the Irish revolution. So, interesting family history. 0 359 Exploring Sexuality & ; Gender Identity AW: By the time I was out of high school, I had already kind of been secretly visiting the village and going downtown to Kelsey. And at a young age, trying to see where I would fit in on a gay scene if it would happen. No real boyfriends. Then I had worked through high school, so I ended up -- since I have a European citizenship as well as US citizenship, I had a year in Spain, which my father helped fund, which was an amazing privilege to have. Learn the Spanish language, learn the culture. And it was especially interesting because sexuality was a big deal in restoring my gender identity. But for the most part, they were kind of experiencing a revolution as their dictator Francisco Franco had finally passed. And they were allowed to become their own country really without a dictator. 0 504 Marriage & ; Trauma Healing AW: So that's pretty much the early part into my teens, I'm 45 years old. So I've had a lot of good life experiences, I think. I hope that answers your question. But I've always put it in the frame of, I've transitioned multiple lives at times in my life. I've transitioned out of the fear that there's always going to be violence and things around me. I still continue to do that. I ended up marrying a woman for about 12 years.
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 ; Working in a medical device corporation, playing in bands, owning a home, during the other American Dream, the heterosexual American Dream. And as a bisexual, I guess throughout my life, my gender identity was always on the back burner. Fitting in was always a priority. Feeling safe was always a priority that I couldn't tell people about. Cross dressing the whole time in private, afraid not knowing how people would take it or my family. 0 796 Time Spent with Mother NB: We will. One of the things you mentioned was your mother and it sounded like you were very close to her.
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 ; AW: Yes, yeah, definitely. She was definitely an incredible force in both me and my sister's life. Very intelligent, a lover of nature, having grown up on farm and animals. Also a fair amount of theatrical when she needed to be, a fair amount of sarcasm and humor. But she was living in a time in society where, she still couldn't have a credit card in the 80s. Her divorce was the biggest shame to bring on any family. Even from my grandmother, who had gone through similar things. 0 1032 Relationship with Religion NB: Something else you've mentioned a few times is kind of the place of faith in your childhood. Would you be willing to talk a little bit about what it was like for you to grow up as a young closeted transwoman during the 70s and 80s and how the Catholic Church and the kinds of impact it had on you and your sister?
 ; 
 ; AW: Yeah certainly. Well, yeah, it was an interesting time, there was so much going on with the AIDS crisis that even at 10 years old I was aware of it. Luckily my sister is a journalist. So even after getting out of la la land of Long Island, she was fiercely looking for information almost the same way she had to look for information in the home to see how to help ourselves. Total researcher. My sister just always 20 questions everything that's going on in your life and it's lovely though because you get to know it's out of the place of concern. But growing up in there and also being left in Ireland with an auntie and having my grandmother on my father's side, take me to 3 hour masses where it's hellfire and brimstone and God is coming down on the sexual. In the news, God is coming down the homosexuals. Transgender wasn't even really talked about, I didn't even know what transgender was until maybe eight years ago. So, the wording of things in the media did end the loss of my mother. 0 1261 Feelings on the AIDS Crisis / Finding Comunity AW: But then when I finally, without my mother, grew up trying to understand my femininity. It was a different time yet again when I was of age, the AIDS crisis was still the most terrifying thing and the thought of having a partner or possibly as a transfem from passing on the virus just I cut that out of my life because it was just so terrifying. 
 ; 
 ; Every boyfriend you're just like, oh I'm gonna test it again, it's just so much fear. And really, I was seeing a real separation of, after the death of a lot of great leaders, just the kind of the death of the social scene, the queer social scene, the closing of clubs. Obviously, a lot of clubs I couldn't go to, we're still going on, it was really more everyone, but those local spaces were gone down in New Brunswick. 0 1832 Journey to Transition / Finding Eastern PA Trans Equity NB: Yeah. So, can you talk for us a little bit about your transition and coming into your womanhood? Can you talk about -- was there a single event which was kind of a catalyst for that? Was it multiple things?
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 ; AW: Well, it had been coming up quite a bit. And leading up to my father's death about five years ago, I was already going through a divorce. I was facing a layoff from a good company. I was gonna be selling my house because of the divorce. And I was having major mental health stuff. My father had dementia for a number of years, and he was kind of, that voice, that internal voice sort of internalized homophobia, internalized transphobia. 
 ; 0 2394 Early Years of Transition NB: When it came to kind of starting the process of transition -- you've talked a lot about how Eastern PA a few years after starting transition became really important for you and your survival. In those early years, how did you go about accessing things like hormones, medical care, clothing when you were Ubering and living out of your car? Do you mind talking about that a little bit?
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 ; AW: Sure, yeah. Yeah, that was particularly rough because I did not have insurance for a good period of time. I had about a 5-month severance from Johnson and Johnson where I continued to have medical care. I was laid off around my birthday that year which is also around when my father died. A few months later in December, he died. So, my birthday is October, so I really started on my birthday, HRT at, it was called the Proud Health Center in Somerset, New Jersey which it really had been open only a little bit. But it was part of a family practice that was LGBTQ friendly from Robert Wood Johnson. 0 2725 Connections with Trans Women of Color in New Brunswick / Community Advocacy NB: You mentioned a community of Latina trans women in New Brunswick.
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 ; AW: Sure.
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 ; NB: Can you kind of talk about what they taught you and what you learned from that?
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 ; AW: Sure. Well, I actually forgot about the first trans woman I met in New Brunswick used to deliver my film from Epson film -- Fujifilm, sorry. And she was wonderful transfem, big lady, just really hysterical Latina woman, and we always cracked up about whatever is going on with my boyfriends, with whoever she was dating. But she would kind of clue me into what some of the girls that would come into the shop to get either passport photos or just a photo to send home or to a partner of how good they look. 0 3229 Becoming Comfortable in Trans Identity NB: What do you think it took for you to get to that place of being able to openly and freely discussing your identity, not just with other transfems and trans women, but just with people in generally.
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 ; AW: It's a really good question, I mean through all the previous stuff I was talking about with my mental health and stuff, that was certainly the most terrifying part, just the fear of violence, I think. Having a friend in that group, having younger people actually who I worked with, just being supportive, like it's cool. Like it being no big deal. Because still I think -- what I point out to a lot of people is that everybody has a bit of internalized transphobia, especially trans folks. At some point in your transition, there's just this overpowering fear that you're gonna destroy your life and because that's what society tells us. 0 3434 Relationship to the Lehigh Valley Community NB: Yeah. You mentioned feeling safe in the Lehigh Valley. Can you talk a little bit about what it was for you to kind of come into that sense of safety?
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 ; AW: Sure. It's honestly only been the past year. So, I've been here maybe 3 or 4 years but it's more really about the country's political environment, not so much about the Valley. But when you're in a new place, like when I was in Spain or all the moving I did throughout my childhood, every new place kind of comes with a whole new set of where am I, what is going on? Am I safe here? 0 3791 Spirituality NB: I'm curious, you mentioned at the start of the interview that Catholicism, was quite harmful for you in terms of growing up during the AIDS crisis. And seeing the Catholic church is kind of blatant homophobia. I'm curious as you've gotten older, have you ever returned to faith. Is it something that has become important to you?
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 ; AW: So, oddly enough, I mean I think a lot of children just understanding childhood development and stuff. My ex was actually once an art teacher, so we had a lot of discussions about that type of thing, and it's nice to watch and understand, like to see almost how I was learning and the things that my mom was doing more along those lines. Sorry, what was the question again? I have a really like -- I always have to kind of like think things through. 0 4116 Professional Work AW: I'm not sure. Well I guess it's interesting, you know the company I’m at now the enterprise resource group stuff they're doing – it’s like their first year doing it. So that's great to see companies still starting to embrace this, I'm probably their only trans employee. I would love in the work that I'm doing with them as they're starting out to get some better speakers into these businesses because we are a capitalist democracy. Business runs a lot of things including public opinion sometimes.
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 ; And the fact that, you really can't decide we're not going to do business with a whole group of people or something and the corporations understand this now. While the capitalist mindset is pretty cutthroat, can have a lot of ills in society, I think that seeing them starting to work towards the betterment of marginalized communities is just amazing. I want to see more of it, and I want to be a part of it. 0 4371 Impact of Music on Life NB: Something that's been recurring throughout our conversation I've noticed is the role of music and kind of creative endeavors in sustaining you. When do you think that started? 
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 ; AW: God, I mean, that's definitely at age five. My mother was great at encouraging that as well as my sister, and you know, in ways my father even would do magic tricks or whatever, whatever it took to just kind of get through the sad part and I think it is actually culturally an Irish trait like you just laugh through everything. 0 4525 Time in Spain NB: So we are nearing the end of our time. But on the note of culture, I wanted to circle back, and to ask you about your time in Spain?
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 ; AW: Sure, sure.
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 ; NB: And what that was like, what it was like for you as a young person to kind of be abroad as so much was happening in the 90s? 
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 ; AW: Sure, yeah, I mean, right out of high school and doing Spain was just the best experience of my life. A lot of family members like, why did you come back? [laughs] Which I thought was funny. I was like, cause I was just gonna be broke if I stayed out there. [laughs] They were still kind of bringing their economy back together at that time in Spain. 0 4778 Outlook on the Future NB: Are you optimistic about the future? 
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 ; AW: A little scared certainly. I just think that coming at least from the background of my grandmother and the revolution and civil war there -- she was in jail at 14 by the Irish. There's actually a book written about it by my uncle Thomas. But, to know that somebody can be that resilient to get through things like that, and then go on and continue to raise a family, is so inspiring, and just kind of fills your heart. 
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 ; At least for me with a connection to that, to knowing enough about myself that given the time and the need to protect members of my community in whatever, if I can, I'm always going to be doing that no matter what, no matter what. It's very easy when life is constantly pressuring you on all sides, especially in the new media landscape, to feel like the other shoe is gonna drop tomorrow. 0 4965 Closing Remarks NB: [laughs] We shall see indeed. So, we have about four minutes left. Is there anything you would like to add that we haven't touched on? 
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 ; AW: I've covered a lot. [laughs] Gosh, I mean, I don't really think so. I just love seeing my community grow and expand. I'm looking forward to seeing the ways that we all can continue to support each other and feel supported. But also, we've all been giving each other a lot of space, and we've needed it. Everyone is needed to heal right now. This isn't just trans people, this is the whole country. 0 MovingImage Aoife Ward describes her early upbringing, transition, finding transgender community in New Brunswick and the Lehigh Valley, and her outlook on the future. INTERVIEW WITH AOIFE WARD MAY 7, 2022 NADIA BUTLER: And we are live. My name is Nadia Butler, and I am here today with Aoife Ward, to talk about her life and experiences and LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley, as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the ACLS. We are meeting on location today on May 7th, 2022. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? AOIFE WARD: Certainly it's Aoife Maeve Ward. It's spelled A-O-I-F-E. The middle name, Maeve, M-A-E-V-E, Ward, W-A-R-D. NB: Will you please share your birthdate? AW: It's October 11, 1976. NB: Do you consent to this interview today? AW: I do consent to this interview. NB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized and made publicly available online and searchable formats? AW: Absolutely. NB: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes and other formats, including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats? AW: Absolutely, yeah. NB: Do you understand that you will have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review the interview, identify any parts you would like to delete and or withdraw the interview from the project? AW: Yes I do. Excellent. Well then, let's start. AW: Okay. NB: To begin, would you start by telling us about the early years of your life? Could you describe your childhood for us, including where you were born? AW: Sure, so I was born in a hospital in Brooklyn and raised in Long Island, New York. Both my parents were Irish immigrants. My father was an investment banker from Dublin originally. Trained as a veterinarian, but walked in, basically got a job on Wall Street one summer and came back and started his version of the American Dream. My mother was from a farming family outside of Dublin, outside of Wicklow. Seven sisters, her grandmother was an amazing woman who raised them all on her own on a small farm. And also fought in the Irish revolution. So, interesting family history. My mother was a nurse in the U.S. And they raised me and my sister Margaret, who is eight years older in Long Island. My mother died later when I was nine. I knew I was transgender at about four years old. But unfortunately, there was a lengthy divorce, lot of abuse in the home, a lot of kind of, what do you call it? What was going on inside the home did not reflect the outward appearance of this perfect American family starting to live in their American Dream. So my only times to express my gender was when it was just me and my mom. And then when dad got home, that was all cut off or if my grandma caught me. So, my gender was expressed very much in my private time with my mother and my private time with myself. And there wasn't much time or availability to express my emotions and my needs in my home. Especially in Long Island in that -- those years because it would have been the early 80's. So, in '85, my mother finally died after a lengthy divorce, a lot happens in that time frame. A lot of people in and out of my home, lawyers, police, until we finally kind of got away from my father. Well when she died, my father ended up raising me and my sister for about a year, but she was at high school age, so she ended up kind of being kicked out of the house. And then he raised me as a single father, nannies and so forth, and you know, he had money, so he was able to do things, but he didn't really have time for a child or the patience. And again, so my gender identity was completely suppressed. In later life, around high school and middle school when I was finally outside of Catholic school systems, because I was being raised Irish Catholic, I got more time to think about and express my gender identity throughout high school, when my father remarried and that was, by then I was in Ridgewood, New Jersey. And that was good. Also a great deal of bullying and other things and trying to understand myself in that current landscape where homosexuality was so frowned upon. But it was still in the 80s and 90s, it was all on television, which I usually didn't have access to. Well, cable television, like MTV and whatnot, but you get a peek of what your life could be like at those ages, and you hope that you can express it one day. My father though, in a verbally abusive individual with me mainly, you know, threats of military school and that type of thing, was somewhat more understanding in the aspect of me needing to understand my culture, European culture, though not necessarily American culture. So, I did get chances to visit Ireland to stay with family and get away from him [laughs]. By the time I was out of high school, I had already kind of been secretly visiting the village and going downtown to Kelsey. And at a young age, trying to see where I would fit in on a gay scene if it would happen. No real boyfriends. Then I had worked through high school, so I ended up -- since I have a European citizenship as well as US citizenship, I had a year in Spain, which my father helped fund, which was an amazing privilege to have. Learn the Spanish language, learn the culture. And it was especially interesting because sexuality was a big deal in restoring my gender identity. But for the most part, they were kind of experiencing a revolution as their dictator Francisco Franco had finally passed. And they were allowed to become their own country really without a dictator. So, the youth and the people I met there were incredible, they were supportive. They understood me, questioning my gender identity, and did what they could. But still it was a very, I guess a boy mode lifestyle, because it is a very Catholic country as well. Finally, when I came back to the U.S., started trying to go to college down in Middlesex Community College next to Rutgers. And there like I met my first boyfriend, who was going to Rutgers, I met my musician friends, I started doing photography. My own storytelling, songwriting and being in bands kind of started and things were a little more accepting. Though again, access to any queer community, didn't really seem like it was possible. There was no places to go except coffee shops. The art scene was probably my best friend in terms of being accepted, but meeting people was difficult. So, I was primarily dating men for most of that part of my life, which became more and more difficult because of my femininity, my history of domestic violence, my lack of trust and a lot of psychological issues that I hadn't really had time to work out. So that's pretty much the early part into my teens, I'm 45 years old. So I've had a lot of good life experiences, I think. I hope that answers your question. But I've always put it in the frame of, I've transitioned multiple lives at times in my life. I've transitioned out of the fear that there's always going to be violence and things around me. I still continue to do that. I ended up marrying a woman for about 12 years. Working in a medical device corporation, playing in bands, owning a home, during the other American Dream, the heterosexual American Dream. And as a bisexual, I guess throughout my life, my gender identity was always on the back burner. Fitting in was always a priority. Feeling safe was always a priority that I couldn't tell people about. Cross dressing the whole time in private, afraid not knowing how people would take it or my family. Even though I had come out to my father as homosexual, that was a whole ordeal, but he was accepting. But would never have been accepting of transgender. Just because of how that was viewed in New York, was that we were all streetwalkers, that we were troublemakers. That we only brought pain and disgrace to a Catholic family, because their boy, had abandoned them and their faith. So, it's always in the back of your head along with the violence growing up. Well, anyway, in my marriage it was a good marriage for a time until symptoms of yeah, sorry. NB: So, what year did you get married in? AW: So I was married, my goodness, [laughs]. So this --I would have been around 32 at that point in time. So, the exact year is evading me right now. But that was in New Brunswick, I was in New Brunswick, New Jersey by that point in time. So, the marriage went well, but my sexuality was always never really allowed to be discussed. Because now I'm in a committed relationship, I've married my best friend basically. So anytime I would bring up that past, or queer concepts, or wanting to go do drag or -- it was always, no, just not, no. Even though a lot of my friends and our friend group had known me as the gay boy or the queer boy. So, toward the end of our relationship is when -- and it's something I talk about a lot, is mental health, because it's just so vital. Especially as a queer kid growing up, you don't get -- you get misdiagnosed, I was misdiagnosed my whole life. So not knowing that I had complex post-traumatic stress, that was exhibiting itself in different ways in taking on, and dropping addictions like alcoholism, or excessive drug use of whatever kind, was making it very difficult to operate on a daily basis, maintain my job, several attempts at rehab and things along those lines. Eventually I got the trauma diagnosis and that kind of set me on the right path. And did men's trauma outpatient groups about three times after several different psychiatric hospitalizations. Just because the symptoms are pulling you in multiple directions and you really -- you're never able to maintain a sense of inner stability, a sense of inner healing. Finally, through the men's trauma group, I was able to start my transition emotionally with a really good therapist. And there wasn't really a discussion about my gender at all. It was discussion about how I was dealing with my trauma symptoms and allowing myself to live as a person I want to. And that's kind of where the past five years of my journey have started. And we're all -- throughout that though, I've always had some level of activism going on in my life, usually attending things, reading the literature. But I mean we'll probably talk about that later. [laughs]. NB: We will. One of the things you mentioned was your mother and it sounded like you were very close to her. AW: Yes, yeah, definitely. She was definitely an incredible force in both me and my sister's life. Very intelligent, a lover of nature, having grown up on farm and animals. Also a fair amount of theatrical when she needed to be, a fair amount of sarcasm and humor. But she was living in a time in society where, she still couldn't have a credit card in the 80s. Her divorce was the biggest shame to bring on any family. Even from my grandmother, who had gone through similar things. During the divorce, , we were homeless for a minute together. She, me and my sister, and nobody would support us. All the food resources were cut off. But the things she had done to maintain the kind of illusion of wealth or whatever it was to get that American Dream were lavish parties for all the executives, croquet on the lawn like some magical fairytale in England or Ireland, that everyone seemed to want to be living in the late 70s, early 80's. And there was no time for kids, but the little time she had, she did spend with us. She did stuff in the garden, she made sure my diet was good, that I had laughter and fun, but at the same time she kind of had to whisk me in my sister way out of view after the adults needed to get together. Which was very Great Gatsbyesque in some way, but also wonderful to see her dressed up and entertaining and people playing cards or laughing. It was something I was lucky to witness but it was also on the other side of it, because once the parties would end it was violence. It was hiding down next to my Atari or TV, it was me standing between my parents trying to stop the blows, my sister pulling me away. So, the real legacy in the home was unfortunately one of violence, and even in adulthood with a remarriage, we could never discuss these things, oh well your parent loves you, but there's that history. I had to move on to forgiveness. Of all the things that happened to the home, but I don't think my sister ever will and I don't blame her. She was older, she knew what was going on, whereas I basically blocked out a lot. So that's why these things come up later in life, right? They come up when things are going good, you would think, but something's not matching and for me it was my gender identity. And honestly, I can say that once I did transition, I didn't have to take my psychiatric medications anymore. I mean everything started to match like overnight almost it felt like, that I can move forward and work on the things I needed to work on to be my truest self. The mother that I've always felt that I am even though it's two other people and it's not children. The support network that's a walking judgment free zone whatever it takes, to live as ourselves, it's just the most important thing to me.And I think my mother understood that, my sister knew she understood that, but it just wasn't the time for us as a queer kid wasn't for me at least. NB: Something else you've mentioned a few times is kind of the place of faith in your childhood. Would you be willing to talk a little bit about what it was like for you to grow up as a young closeted transwoman during the 70s and 80s and how the Catholic Church and the kinds of impact it had on you and your sister? AW: Yeah certainly. Well, yeah, it was an interesting time, there was so much going on with the AIDS crisis that even at 10 years old I was aware of it. Luckily my sister is a journalist. So even after getting out of la la land of Long Island, she was fiercely looking for information almost the same way she had to look for information in the home to see how to help ourselves. Total researcher. My sister just always 20 questions everything that's going on in your life and it's lovely though because you get to know it's out of the place of concern. But growing up in there and also being left in Ireland with an auntie and having my grandmother on my father's side, take me to 3 hour masses where it's hellfire and brimstone and God is coming down on the sexual. In the news, God is coming down the homosexuals. Transgender wasn't even really talked about, I didn't even know what transgender was until maybe eight years ago. So, the wording of things in the media did end the loss of my mother. Definitely it was scary because one, the way my remaining parent, my father was, there was no time to mourn. You're not allowed. No emotion, I'm uncomfortable with emotion was the finished reaction. Literally the day of her funeral, you're a big boy now all this type of things. And the only people who were there for that support were her sisters, and he immediately pushed them all away. So my sister was the last remaining one and he pushed her away. But the information that I did see on the news etc. and the conversations I could have with my sister were key for me to understand what was going on especially -- they had happened when I was too young, but the AIDS crisis protests you know where they lie down in the catholic church in New York City. And protesters dying basically in play on the floor and getting dragged out was definitely heavy in my mind. The fact that my sister's gay friends, because she was now in college, were dying left and right and their activism was going strong until the day they died a lot of them. And just being familiar with those stories like that my family history story of the kind of revolution stuff that my grandmother had to do definitely instilled in me a mindset for fighting for a liberation of queer identities. Which even though that wasn't really in the Catholic church in Ireland or Irish Catholic mentality in the U.S., it was definitely a part of our history and something that now, if you look at that country, it's very much they passed marriage equality before we did. All with the help of similar types of activism that have been taking place in here in the 80s and into the 90s. But then when I finally, without my mother, grew up trying to understand my femininity. It was a different time yet again when I was of age, the AIDS crisis was still the most terrifying thing and the thought of having a partner or possibly as a transfem from passing on the virus just I cut that out of my life because it was just so terrifying. Every boyfriend you're just like, oh I'm gonna test it again, it's just so much fear. And really, I was seeing a real separation of, after the death of a lot of great leaders, just the kind of the death of the social scene, the queer social scene, the closing of clubs. Obviously, a lot of clubs I couldn't go to, we're still going on, it was really more everyone, but those local spaces were gone down in New Brunswick. So, I threw myself into the music scene with very cute few queer personalities, but a few. So, it kind of just became its own mix of everyone and all cultures and all ideas that were supportive, which was its own joy, its own space that you made like you make a queer space your own. And finding that chosen family, if they're out there, there's always a challenge but it happens here and there. NB: So, it sounds like you were in New Brunswick involved in the music scene and at the same time, you were going into New York city on the weekends. Can you talk a little bit about kind of that period for us and its significance for your development and what it was like to be going into New York at that time, where you meeting other trans women or not really? AW: So yeah, that's always a tough one. As a transfem myself who was always in boy mode and also someone who having grown up with abuse and then the allure of New York was always there, was this big thing. But I always -- I guess I'm more -- I prefer the country or something or just small cities or college towns compared to the big city because of the way my trauma kind of expresses itself, like rejection, this sensitive dysphoria, things like that. And though I'm very capable of traveling at any rate in New York City and getting around safely, my earliest years were actually not hanging down there. They were hanging up in Harlem, going to see jazz early on with the girlfriends, getting to learn about that scene in small clubs there. But it also wasn't the safest time and a lot of parts lower than the 90s on Broadway streetwise. And then the train ride to go down to the village, you didn't really know anyone and you weren't really a New Yorker anymore because you're coming from New Jersey, so you're just an out-of-towner. So, what happens is you go into these clubs and if you don't immediately code switch to whatever is cool or whatever people are talking about, because I'm a little rock and roll girl, if I'm not into Madonna or this artist or whatever, I'm not necessarily going to fit in, not having set myself up in New York. Because the way that city works is like the cool things that happen is what everyone is following for the most part and they all know each other and they're all on the same scene. So emotionally it made it difficult. I was never really a fan especially with the AIDS crisis of the kind of hook up culture that goes along with being gay, a gay male. And so basically I would always kind of just kind of bring myself back to my New Brunswick area and see if I could find a group of friends. I had a boyfriend for a long period of time and I know one of the big events we went to was multiple marches were happening around the murder of Matthew Shepard, which is very critical time and kind of really opening up everyone's eyes again. Because it had been a bunch of years since the AIDS crisis was still going on really, but not in the same way as when all these people are dying, and nobody was helping. So those types of activities and other ways that I could get informed and get involved with the types of activity I do, but really my true activism didn't start to come back up until in my mid 30s when I wasn't really going to the city anymore except to see music concerts and things like that. I hope that answers your question. It was definitely an interesting time that I think it's easy to glorify the queer scene, but as a transgender it's never been all rainbows for me, and I've come to terms of that. We can't always fit in, we can't always like everybody, can't always feel safe everywhere. And in a big city there's that crushing pressure to be seen and when you don't have the money and the resources and the support around you -- the best place for me has always been the local pride center, which there was one in New Brunswick. But I guess I never had the wherewithal to talk it stop into the New York City ones, although I meet girls and people going out and stuff, but they always had their own things to do and I'd always have to get back and go work or something at a restaurant or photography or whatever I was doing. [laughs] NB: Can you talk a little bit about that LGBT Center in New Brunswick? AW: Sure. NB: How old were you when you discovered it? AW: So, I probably discovered that around 21. Yep, it was very small, and they had some great events here and there. But it always seemed like it was never able to kind of get out of the building, it's there for the support and that support community was important but people have to go about living their own lives. And really a lot of the activity then seemed to be going on more around college campuses like Rutgers had its own, which is specifically for Rutgers students, and so they're their own group of cultures. There's always kind of on the fringe, and your identity gets lost when you're in the mix with everybody else and you don't have those consistent queer friends or when you're dating, and there's no one quite like you because you're too rock and roll, you're not into what's cool. Cultural evolutions in this country especially around the queer scene there pretty fast, and people kind of raise themselves up with it which I applaud but a lot of people get lost in the mix too. We're seeing that I think today, as well as were way more insular and stuck in our online communities which are also good. But the in-person stuff is what I always grew up around, so I'm always gonna gravitate toward. But, I honestly can't say for most of that time I had many trans identifying friends. Didn't until it transitioned. And that's always been upsetting but it's been so great to get in and learn really what's going on, especially in the new age of it and see what people -- what I was doing my 20's is different, but what they're doing now is just exactly what I'm doing now. So about supporting younger people so that they have these spaces and that's my goal in the next couple of years to find those spaces and find those spaces to put people together. Because there's one thing I've known as a trans person is, going to shows or done drag on occasion, my body is the greatest revolution. That walking freely as myself is the main thing that I've always had in the back of my head. How wonderful it would be, and then to finally do that thing, to be yourself unashamedly, is just the biggest inspiration to watch other people doing that same path too. Yeah. [LAUGH] NB: Yeah. So, can you talk for us a little bit about your transition and coming into your womanhood? Can you talk about -- was there a single event which was kind of a catalyst for that? Was it multiple things? AW: Well, it had been coming up quite a bit. And leading up to my father's death about five years ago, I was already going through a divorce. I was facing a layoff from a good company. I was gonna be selling my house because of the divorce. And I was having major mental health stuff. My father had dementia for a number of years, and he was kind of, that voice, that internal voice sort of internalized homophobia, internalized transphobia. That voice that was kind of constantly beating me up. And it never really allowed me to mature into my womanhood because frankly, I don't think this is a person that likes women very much, as evidenced by their behaviors throughout my life. And pushing all the women in my family away. When my father died is when I finally started transitioning. And you could think about how an individual can have that much manipulative and psychological strength of somebody's identity. I think it's evidence pretty clearly that my transition, I only allowed myself to begin once he passed. I think that's a pretty common story I've learned from doing my trans support groups. Like often we put our lives on hold because we do love and care about the people, even our abusers. And we're taught that we're the burden when we have so much more to offer and we're not a burden. So that journey has been rough. Only recently starting to get better. I was homeless the first year of my transition driving Uber, so sleeping in my car, crashing on couches because I lost that job, and then lost my apartment that I had after selling the house. And Uber just is Jersey city, all New York City, even down to PA. Just,you can never catch up with a small car payment and everything else and tolls and bad tips and all that. It was fun though, because I got to kind of do the early awkward stages of my transition in my car and meet fun people in my own stomping ground and have good conversations. So, it was kind of an ideal job to be having with the money. Just, I couldn't keep afloat on it and my confidence, and my trauma symptoms were still really in this kind of hypervigilant state of like, I gotta run, I gotta run, I gotta run. And to top that off because of the divorce and my mental health, I was kind of losing all of my old friends, like they didn't know what to do with me. They couldn't help. They wouldn't talk to me. They knew I was going through stuff, but they weren't available on purpose. [laughs] So one trans male friend did help me get down here and at least have a place to stay. So, this is why I'm in this area, after that first year and eventually my car got repossessed. [laughs] So now I had nowhere to live which was my car. And so, I crashed in their place for a few months, tried to collect myself on my own. No money and finally, I was terrified of this whole area, I knew nothing about this area. I thought I was in the boondocks. I really didn't know because I didn't have a car, I couldn't see things, and nobody's wanting to support. But around those years is actually when I got involved with Eastern PA Trans Equity Project. They saved my ass. [laughs] One, I found a huge group of women like me and different from me from all walks of life. And I started to find the resources that I needed to give me kind of a boost in living as my full true self. One of oddly enough, the saving grace was just going back to bartending, that was my first job in the area. And even though there's a lot of passive aggression and microaggression as a transwoman behind the bar, you can control it. You can kind of keep that distance because you're responsible for people's liquor intake, and service, and whatnot. But that allowed me to get introduced to people in the community, and then COVID hit. And that was rough because then I had the feelings again which I've had throughout my life with no family, no future. The world's falling apart, all the PTSD symptoms coming up and I had some older friends start helping me a little financially here and there. Without them, I'd be on the street. So that was rough, and it still continues to be. All types of things and blockades get in your way financially. Unemployed for about a year after the bartending, and then bartending during COVID on and off as the restrictions were lifted and it's really affecting the industry. And then finally, most recently I got a decent job in my old field of medical devices. So, my life stability is a little better. But through all those years without Eastern PA Trans Equity Project-- I got food cards from them, I got assistance getting clothing from the Allentown Women's Center for my return to work through a referral from them, money towards my legal name change to make everything easier for me and living my life as myself. I had rent assistance for a period that was not even like eight months ago. And then of course I volunteered my time during the pandemic to provide support for other girls in the community. And that to me is the mutual support. Me having gone through some of these difficult experiences, all I can do is share some of the things I've learned about managing my mental health. And some of the attitudes I've learned to have to take, to keep kind of strong stance for myself, strong boundaries which are things I wasn't allowed to have growing up. I wasn't allowed to have any boundaries. And just relearning them in your 40's, and relearning about yourself and your body and going through -- sorry the word is evading me. Going through puberty again I meant to say, just all a flurry. A flurry of things to suddenly be learning when you're basically almost at midlife. [laughs] But you learn from other people when you share of yourself. And then you get to see them grow and you get to feel a sense of accomplishment for them in that you provided your strength and hope. And then they can see them themselves. Which I never had a mother to help me to do that. My sister hasn't lived in the country since I was 19. She lives in Ireland with her husband and kids. And if there's anything that starting my own journey of being a support member of our community has shown me it's our strength and resilience as a community, and the things that we go through. And to me those all happened in those small moments of togetherness when we come together. And I just want to provide those more and more as I get older and further along in my transition. I just want to be available for people in my community because sometimes we're the only people available for us most of the time. And that was also always clear in New York growing up, transgirls stuck to themselves. My bisexuality is always erased by my partners, you're not bi, you're gay. Then by my straight partner, You're not gay, you're hetero. It's small microaggressions that people don't realize that they're erasing your identity because they're living by theirs, and they want you to fit into it. They want you to fit into their box. But that's the beauty of breaking that with transition because you can make new goals for yourself and new norms for yourself that may only apply to you. [laughs] NB: When it came to kind of starting the process of transition -- you've talked a lot about how Eastern PA a few years after starting transition became really important for you and your survival. In those early years, how did you go about accessing things like hormones, medical care, clothing when you were Ubering and living out of your car? Do you mind talking about that a little bit? AW: Sure, yeah. Yeah, that was particularly rough because I did not have insurance for a good period of time. I had about a 5-month severance from Johnson and Johnson where I continued to have medical care. I was laid off around my birthday that year which is also around when my father died. A few months later in December, he died. So, my birthday is October, so I really started on my birthday, HRT at, it was called the Proud Health Center in Somerset, New Jersey which it really had been open only a little bit. But it was part of a family practice that was LGBTQ friendly from Robert Wood Johnson. And so, I started my hormones there and they were great but they didn't have a lot of time ; since it's expanded, it's a much better program. Also, because I was driving Uber, I could kind of drop in on meetings that Robert Wood Johnson was holding from some -- a great nurse over there. Yeah, I don't want to put their name on film, but they really kind of spearheaded getting, reaching out to the trans community because our care was so complicated. And in my early years, I had met a lot of trans people that were like, I can't even deal with hormones and this hospital's horrible. They're all awful, that was really my first experience was fear. Is these people are going to misgender me, they're going to not understand why I'm doing this. But the reality was a lot of what I was expecting would be needed at the time frame that I went in, wasn't a requirement. Maybe I think I needed my psychologist letter at some point, but really after a while, it was just the doctors were happy enough to be like, okay. So that was nice that it was changing, but all the other trans people I had met, that hadn't been the case. Their journey had been very difficult. So, in terms of accessing my hormones, I was able to continue even without insurance to pay full price. So, I just paid out of pocket. So that was a big challenge, right? And another reason my car got repo'd because I was not going without my spironolactone or hormones because my depression would just kind of come over me if I did. I met a good friend in the music scene who's also trans and nonbinary who's in her thirties. So -- they use they/them pronouns, their thirties. And we kind of helped support each other too, which was ideal for me. She needed a ride from her job that there was no bus route out of, and I would drive an hour from wherever I was and get her help. We had $5 to our name. We'd [laughs] buy some meat at Aldi together and cook it. Whatever it took, share spironolactone, that's pretty common story. I was really getting low on hormones and things when I finally came to this area. And eventually through the bartending I learned that I could get medical assistance around the time of COVID, continue to get my injectable estrogen. So that worked out and also that that you get like a six-month prescription. [laughs] Kind of helps too that I could kind of float through a year without it being too difficult. But luckily, I had been around the trans community in New Brunswick, mostly Latina trans community since I speak Spanish. And I had learned a lot about what they went through for the feminizing aspects, a lot of this harm they do themselves. And so that was my greatest fear. So having understanding of biology in the medical background, I refused to kind of do this almost approaching self-harm things to myself. Thankfully, I didn't have to resort to that, but I would have easily unfortunately, and I know girls who do. I do everything to help them not go down that path. But it's education, it's support. And this is what small nonprofits are doing in this country the same way that, empathetic, sympathetic churches have always been doing to this country on civil rights. We need our community and need each other to do that. We don't get those things online. I don't think, some may, but I don't think that's the case. NB: You mentioned a community of Latina trans women in New Brunswick. AW: Sure. NB: Can you kind of talk about what they taught you and what you learned from that? AW: Sure. Well, I actually forgot about the first trans woman I met in New Brunswick used to deliver my film from Epson film -- Fujifilm, sorry. And she was wonderful transfem, big lady, just really hysterical Latina woman, and we always cracked up about whatever is going on with my boyfriends, with whoever she was dating. But she would kind of clue me into what some of the girls that would come into the shop to get either passport photos or just a photo to send home or to a partner of how good they look. And so often just being in the community, I would get -- even at the local HIV like testing place. Which is around the corner from me right on George Street, New Brunswick I would meet girls there and just talk about what they're going through. And some of the unfortunate, negative side effects of like bad breast implants or injectable liquids of all different kinds, that's just like horror stories. And so, from those experiences, I always kind of try to carry forward like, anyway that will help that I can. It ended up at my corporate job being kind of doing that advocacy because in the past 20 years corporations are really picking up in their attempts to reach out to communities, like ours which are marginalized. And advocating within the organization, but also trying to support external groups like Eastern PA Trans Equity, etc. in getting the message out about our health care, about our lives. I'm glad they're doing that. Probably seen like the Love Has No Labels kind of campaign that brings out a lot of corporations. I hope it helps, but honestly often it doesn't, it's only our smaller groups, our insular groups that are doing really super grassroots stuff to just support each other. There was a Puerto Rican Action Board was a group there that I didn't actually end up getting involved with, but coworker at the time did. And kind of keep me apprised and I try to support when I can, but again, when you just kind of work in a living for your life, it's very difficult to get along those things unfortunately but you learn. NB: So, what has your advocacy looked like both in your current place of work and with Eastern PA Trans Equity Project. AW: So, I mean most of my advocacy is really through Eastern PA Trans Equity Project. In my previous positions was around the time of marriage equality. I had people coming in from PFLAG and doing like the How To Be An Ally 101 courses the PFLAG has. So, I would get speakers to come in and do Lunch and Learns, also have LGBTQ people speaking of our facilities, doing fundraising around the organization. Do you mean -- one of my favorites was a photo event will read it like different pride, rainbow flag colored backgrounds. And gave people signage to kind of show their support and hold up signs supporting LGBTQ people that was right before marriage equality. So, 5 or 6 years I was organizing that alongside doing my work. Fortunately, corporate setting, you're still running a business so you only get a few hours a day or a week. And you just really have to get it all done, but you're getting the money to get that out there. So, it's really just kind of like a quick production, get everyone excited about it, do something fun, get them involved and then it's back to business as usual. And usually unfortunately, this is kind of like an extracurricular thing, you're not really getting rated for it at your job. It's just you're doing it out of love. And so that would be in my career at least one of the things I'm proudest of doing. Then with Eastern PA in the past couple of years, that's been my main focus. So, I run the online Zoom trans support group. I set up a Discord server during the pandemic for members of our community trans identifying, as well as a separate space within it for non-binary individuals, because they may have more private things they don't want to discuss. And we're just trying still to get everyone there to be able to talk to each other to get the access and be able to discuss their medical needs, legal needs, beauty needs. Understanding how do I do my makeup, one of the hardest things because we haven't been raised or allowed to be raised as we want to be. And then we have to do it ourselves, but you have to have community around you to teach that. So all the personal things and the life things can happen in that private space, which has been wonderful. Hopefully in the next year we're going to have a lot more kind of public hangout events, board game parties, DJ parties, whatever. Which is something I'm hoping to start getting the funding for. Then Corrine Goodwin, who's the leader of the organization, she is the one organizing all of our larger events. So, all of the Trans Day of Visibility events, all of the Trans Day of Remembrance events, and [inaudible] events, fundraising events all throughout the state. I mean last Trans Day of Remembrance, I think she did four in a row, drove all over PA to do different events. I mean it's amazing. Little hard for me to do, I don't have a car, but I'd be right there with her. Also, you know the LGBTQ events locally, we do stands at those, we try to get people involved, get them to join the Lehigh Valley Renaissance. Which is our transfem and non-binary kind of social group that also meets once a month which Corrine runs, and I can run occasionally. But the main part of that really is for me, I try and do support since I'm still working on getting out of a long period of always on the edge of. [LAUGH]. homelessness again. So, the hope is in the next few years it's really gonna kind of get to where we can be out there and supporting each other and getting the word out. Because, I think if there's anything I've learned it's just I am meeting now at this point in my life, so many trans folks from all different walks of life. I love their stories ; I love the things that they've gone through. I love how unexpected, and talented, and compassionate so many of them are and how good we're at supporting each other and supporting the community that we can. And I think one of the bravest things, which Corrine is kind of pointed out for each of us, is just living out our day to day life sometimes. Even bartending was really showing up in a way for my community because so many people haven't met a trans person. And like that means somebody who can openly and freely talk, as like no, just leave me alone, has been nice. NB: What do you think it took for you to get to that place of being able to openly and freely discussing your identity, not just with other transfems and trans women, but just with people in generally. AW: It's a really good question, I mean through all the previous stuff I was talking about with my mental health and stuff, that was certainly the most terrifying part, just the fear of violence, I think. Having a friend in that group, having younger people actually who I worked with, just being supportive, like it's cool. Like it being no big deal. Because still I think -- what I point out to a lot of people is that everybody has a bit of internalized transphobia, especially trans folks. At some point in your transition, there's just this overpowering fear that you're gonna destroy your life and because that's what society tells us. But just that little bit of acceptance and a friend, currently I lost a very good friend, who was that friend who just show up and just bounce stuff off each other, take a trip somewhere. Both having difficult things going on in our lives and having that it took a long time to find anyone who's even willing to hang out with me. I'm usually the person alone if I go out somewhere because it's just, you're new to an area, you haven't really met people who want to spend time with you. That and you're terrified of how they will perceive you or that they'll notice the microaggressions that you receive on a daily basis. Which did happen a lot during the early years of my transition, particularly in this area. Until you start to meet this -- really, okay. Well, I didn't think I was safe here, but wow, I actually am. So it's those little steps in the right direction from the driving to this like -- you just kinda gotta reiteratedly do the thing. [laughs]. Until you're comfortable, but that was my process. Other people, I know they're just right in it, they're like, yeah, this is it. I'm like, wow, that's amazing, because for me, I would spend a lot of time really worrying about how this is affecting my mental health if it was a good thing. But always knowing that it was down the line because of the moments of gender euphoria and the moments of self care, or all the things you've always ever wanted about your femininity. And those who appreciate it, realizing that they truly appreciate you and they have questions, but they accept you. I love the communication of it. I'm a storyteller, I guess. So it makes sense that I would like to get involved and get into the nitty gritty with people who have questions for our community. About who we are, and what it took us to get individually where we are? NB: Yeah. You mentioned feeling safe in the Lehigh Valley. Can you talk a little bit about what it was for you to kind of come into that sense of safety? AW: Sure. It's honestly only been the past year. So, I've been here maybe 3 or 4 years but it's more really about the country's political environment, not so much about the Valley. But when you're in a new place, like when I was in Spain or all the moving I did throughout my childhood, every new place kind of comes with a whole new set of where am I, what is going on? Am I safe here? And I've certainly had that from of my other friends from marginalized communities. You go into a bar with them and then they're like, I am not feeling safe here and all of a sudden this was me. Where am I, like I am not safe here as an immediate reaction, because you've been in those situations before throughout your life. So originally, I did not feel safe here. The reason I do now is being out and proud and really not letting anyone get in my way with that, they certainly try wherever you go. I would guess externally I do have a bit of passing privilege, but usually when people hear my voice and stuff, I don't. And that's when the questions start to dig in and the stares, if there's somebody who is unsympathetic to me just being left alone to live my life. But finally in the past even five months as people are coming out of COVID, the events are starting to come back. The places that we can go are starting to come back. The Stonewall closed here toward the end of the pandemic. I'd never been there except for that closing. Which is upsetting, but I was finally starting to hear the stories from the community, about how sad it was that space was going. And I'm already learning and seeing queer community building the spaces up again, and I think it's a great opportunity for a lot of people to get in and start building those up. Because we need them, especially the trans community, a lot of the people that are on the server with me, they don't leave the house and I hate that for us, I hate it. That makes me feel like the kid I was stuck in my parents' basement and it breaks my heart, because it took years of therapy or me to go embrace that kid and be like, you're okay, you're safe. And what our community has always needed to do at some point our lives is embrace ourselves, embrace that hurt inner child that wasn't allowed to be who they are. It's who you are, why would anyone not allow that? It's just, I'll never understand. And so safety for me with the complex post-traumatic stress has come through those friendships I was talking about. Going through some of the experiences that were difficult, like with political rhetoric and pundits. And that stuff comes into your life when you work in a public setting, like a bar or restaurant, the attitudes, the MAGA hats. People with Nazi symbols on their clothing, literally walking into your restaurant and sitting down and having a meal, but I'm the problem. It takes a great deal of humor, somebody to turn to and be like, I don't know what's going on, let's get through this day, please. Which is fun in the food industry, because you have that ability to, to joke things off, otherwise you wouldn't be there. But also, for the PTSD part it's about learning to compartmentalize again. Which is so difficult when you're struggling with mental health. PTSD is about living in the past and not being able to live in the present. How do you get yourself back to right now and stand with pride. And I just have to pull from so many sources in my past, in my life, and the people I talked to and I know love me, which are very few it seems sometimes when you're in a new place, because they're far away. You have to pull from all those sources to make yourself hold your head high basically and get through it and not allowed allow yourself to go through your life [inaudible] basically. Which sometimes there'll be days, that's all that's gonna feel like. But you have to get back to being able to put the negative feelings in some regard on the shelf so that you can continue. But it's literally only something I think I had to completely relearn in the past couple years. Because when you're really suffering from serious trauma symptoms, you don't know where you are. You hit a point of frozen to collapse, to hyper vigilant, to frozen again, to collapse. And as you get your head out of that and you learn to do self care and what it takes for yourself. That's when you can come to that point. Yeah, that's what's worked for me at least [laughs] NB: I'm curious, you mentioned at the start of the interview that Catholicism, was quite harmful for you in terms of growing up during the AIDS crisis. And seeing the Catholic church is kind of blatant homophobia. I'm curious as you've gotten older, have you ever returned to faith. Is it something that has become important to you? AW: So, oddly enough, I mean I think a lot of children just understanding childhood development and stuff. My ex was actually once an art teacher, so we had a lot of discussions about that type of thing, and it's nice to watch and understand, like to see almost how I was learning and the things that my mom was doing more along those lines. Sorry, what was the question again? I have a really like -- I always have to kind of like think things through. NB: No that's okay, I'm just curious, do you feel at this point in your life that a sense of faith is something that -- AW: I see yeah, the faith questions. So, and losing my mother even in the Catholic church setting. And then going to Catholic school for the rest of my life, you certainly still rely on some of the allegories and stories behind the Catholic faith. And the concepts of loving God, but the god I was experiencing was hurtful. He took my mother away, right. The violence of my home hurtful, right. That's not the religion's fault. But certainly, the way I was not allowed to mourn and etc., made it very difficult for me to appreciate that there was a loving God. It just seemed like an angry guy to me. So, I did though bring up on the spirituality of feeling that my mother was always around me and watching for me. My grandmother when she died. And so only around the time I started getting my therapy and understanding through that and meditation and EMDR, which was some of the things that kind of help you surface the trauma and talk to it to settle some of the [shudders] that causes those bodily reactions. And around this time when I realized how visual I've always been in dreaming and in looking at my life. I actually started to embrace Celtic paganism. Which is stuff I had read up throughout my life on their mythology. The name Aoife, she was a warrior chieftainess, so that's why that's my chosen name now. And I felt a strong spiritual connection to the kind of pantheon of gods and goddesses as well as the natural connection to an agrarian lifestyle, to farming, to the cycles of the Earth, to nature. So, for me that's my I wouldn't call it religion, I'd call it just myself practice of faith, because it's only me who does it. I don't discuss it with anyone else. It's just helps me put the symbols and the imagery around me that helps me feel protected. That would be the best way to describe it. And that was something that even in my grandmother's Catholic faith. She had Roma or you know people of Roma descent come to the farm. And she would help them even though she was Catholic because they had to help each other in those areas. So, I don't see it too much different from the idea of the Christian faith for some reason. I do know though that the dogma of the Catholic faith is certainly what, yeah really kind of tore me up. Because it has no place for me as a queer person, it's just kind of is pushing away the things that are really needed for people to heal. Which is why I never felt comfortable because I was never allowed to heal. So, it's as much the society around it as it is the kind of dogma surrounding it. That said I would never be angry at somebody for being faithful. I think the Catholic faith is the only thing that got my grandmother through what she went through in the Irish Revolution and civil war and to her dying day so I respect it in that regard too. I see its power. I think that I wouldn't consider myself an atheist anymore. I'm scientifically minded, but definitely feeling more along the lines of Pagan these days. NB: Is there anything we haven't talked about that you would like to discuss? AW: I'm not sure. Well I guess it's interesting, you know the company I'm at now the enterprise resource group stuff they're doing -- it's like their first year doing it. So that's great to see companies still starting to embrace this, I'm probably their only trans employee. I would love in the work that I'm doing with them as they're starting out to get some better speakers into these businesses because we are a capitalist democracy. Business runs a lot of things including public opinion sometimes. And the fact that, you really can't decide we're not going to do business with a whole group of people or something and the corporations understand this now. While the capitalist mindset is pretty cutthroat, can have a lot of ills in society, I think that seeing them starting to work towards the betterment of marginalized communities is just amazing. I want to see more of it, and I want to be a part of it. But for me, I'm more honestly the kind of nonprofit route is where I hope to keep going with my future endeavors. And supporting how I can and get into the rallies and getting to the meetups and the show ups to just get out the message that we're regular people, like everyone else. That's really all I can stand for. NB: And so you would like eventually to leave your current role then and move into a nonprofit? AW: I would hope to at some point. I think I have some other things to do in the meantime in getting my life back together. Seems to have been a long couple of years. But I have some small, more creative projects in mind ; possibly getting back into another band. Music has been one of my avenues. I haven't talked about some of the music I did, but it's humorous. I did it just a wacky album a while back and then one I would like to do again is kind of cute. It was around the time of Don't Ask Don't Tell. I did a band where it was basically [inaudible] up the military with jokes about military jargon and a lot of people in the military understands. There's kind of like a very gay undertone, some of the stuff. Other groups of men together or groups of women together that anyone on a sports team could probably tell you too. But it was just a cute thing that I used to do as a kind of protest thing around the time of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. So hopefully more little pop up art things like that. Like try and focus on my art, since my focus right now really is as much caring for others as it is caring for my creative spirit, honoring that legacy of family members have always kind of, some of them been creatives, and bringing a little bit of joy into what feels like a dark world. I hope to do that in a way that will work. And those connections are one of the connections in bands and stuff that a lot of people don't see, they feel are very insular, if you go to like a queer rock show or whatever. But people are starting to see it more and I know like 20 queer bands all of a sudden, whereas I feel like 10 years ago I would have known one. So those are the spaces where you can kind of feel like you're on the front line and do some fun things to kind of send out a message. Like we're here, we're not going anywhere, [laughs] and we're gonna sing very loud about it. And hopefully bring some of that energy into future protests, whatever it takes. And definitely just trying to up my activism level as well as my support level and hopefully that ends up in a nonprofit. NB: Something that's been recurring throughout our conversation I've noticed is the role of music and kind of creative endeavors in sustaining you. When do you think that started? AW: God, I mean, that's definitely at age five. My mother was great at encouraging that as well as my sister, and you know, in ways my father even would do magic tricks or whatever, whatever it took to just kind of get through the sad part and I think it is actually culturally an Irish trait like you just laugh through everything. I'm very thankful for that as well as the other members of like -- my mother's best friend and her husband were just always a source of laughter growing up. That was very lucky to have, even though I've had a lot of hard times, I'm immensely privileged and I know that. And so for me, one of the earliest things I did to mourn her was to focus on my creativity, focus on my love of nature, and express it to the best of my ability to bring humor and joy and intensity to other people's lives. I think it's just one of the most amazing mediums -- and always in the illage, right? The piano bars, drag shows. I just went to drag queen bingo for the first time here over Easton. Amazing! I won gummy sushi. I think it was on -- yeah. And so like those are the types of things that I think just bring people that momentary joy or like listen, I don't take myself so damn seriously. You know, all this stuff that's going on in the world. Yeah, it's serious, but we can give ourselves a moment to laugh together, to celebrate something together and to celebrate the strength of and resilience of our queer communities and what they can provide to the rest of culture, you know, in this country. Because that's what marginalized communities have always done. We've always given culture back to this country that seems to just be glossed over. Meanwhile, it's mostly what we look at on the television, on Netflix right. There's a great deal of history of arts and things that lead up to all the amazing things that are happening in the media, right? And I just want to be there to support it. NB: So we are nearing the end of our time. But on the note of culture, I wanted to circle back, and to ask you about your time in Spain? AW: Sure, sure. NB: And what that was like, what it was like for you as a young person to kind of be abroad as so much was happening in the 90s? AW: Sure, yeah, I mean, right out of high school and doing Spain was just the best experience of my life. A lot of family members like, why did you come back? [laughs] Which I thought was funny. I was like, cause I was just gonna be broke if I stayed out there. [laughs] They were still kind of bringing their economy back together at that time in Spain. But yeah, the culture, this history, the sense of community and family, the music scene. Jazz clubs, which I grew up seeing jazz in New York. Punk clubs, there was an anarchist club or bar in every city I went to. There's a lot more socialist and deeply entrenched kind of revolutionary spirit in a lot of Spain, considering what they went through with their dictator. Learning the language and the culture, I mean, I've been very lucky to get access to European cultures and Latino cultures throughout my life. And, just that loving to learn about life, and loving to learn about other people, and celebrate things together with them. Which, when I did come back to the states, it just seemed we're getting further and further apart from each other. Owning a home, nobody's going and visiting each other unless there's a downtown. All these things are evaporating. Instead of being a place like Spain, -- in Salamanca, Spain, North of Madrid is where I lived. They have seven massive renaissance era churches there, huge steeples. A strong appreciation for the contributions of all aspects of cultures there. And so, walking around the streets around that Spanish architecture and the food, and then having different kind of French roommate, two Italian roommates, I stayed away from all Americans. I made sure I made no American friends, which sounds selfish, but on the Irish passport it's like, I don't wanna speak any English, I'm here to speak Spanish. So, we all speak Spanish in our broken accents, it's pretty cute. [laughs] So, I learned a lot about myself, and my sexuality too. Because honestly, they were really finally free from the -- a lot of Americans may not get the kind of grip the Catholic church has had throughout Europe for so long. That it was interesting to be an environment where everybody was anti-Catholic, down to the humor. I mean, they respect to religion, but the humor is completely dissing. The Catholic faith, even though most of the parents would have been Catholic, but the church did not do kind things to their families. And that the Catholic church did not do kind things to my family either, and my grandmother and mother's generation. So, I think just getting to experience that, to see a society kind of moved along outside of the kind of structures of religion was amazing, right? And then, it's just so odd to me that now we're seeing this kind of attempt to claw that old way of thinking back. But seeing them both I think, has helped me kept from some perspective about, hopefully society goes along the path of embracing more diversity and more openness to other cultures into our own. But a lot to learn there definitely. NB: Are you optimistic about the future? AW: A little scared certainly. I just think that coming at least from the background of my grandmother and the revolution and civil war there -- she was in jail at 14 by the Irish. There's actually a book written about it by my uncle Thomas. But, to know that somebody can be that resilient to get through things like that, and then go on and continue to raise a family, is so inspiring, and just kind of fills your heart. At least for me with a connection to that, to knowing enough about myself that given the time and the need to protect members of my community in whatever, if I can, I'm always going to be doing that no matter what, no matter what. It's very easy when life is constantly pressuring you on all sides, especially in the new media landscape, to feel like the other shoe is gonna drop tomorrow. But the thing that always seems to happen when that shoe does drop, people don't back down, they stand up. And so it might be a long series of years with the current news of Roe versus Wade, and Supreme Court. But I think that these are the types of things that galvanized the right people to get up, and stand up, and make our voices heard. And then we're going to see a lot of that. And I've wanted that for this country, I really have. I think there is an American revolutionary spirit that has been lost. And a lot of other countries have been going through these periods of time. So, seeing those other countries having those historical perspectives and I can't forecast what's going to happen. But I can certainly sense that we have been for a long time now, and a lot of change, and that is the start of fighting for what we believe in, however we can. And I think hearts and minds are opening slowly. But, the negative voices are always the ones that get themselves arrested first, [laughs] right? And that speaks to the ability of our country to, in the right places, actually do the right thing when it comes down to protecting the standards of a civil society, a separation of church, and state, and so forth. I think there will always be negative forces clawing at the edges of that, to see what they can get in their favorite part. We shall see, I know where I'll be standing. NB: [laughs] We shall see indeed. So, we have about four minutes left. Is there anything you would like to add that we haven't touched on? AW: I've covered a lot. [LAUGH] Gosh, I mean, I don't really think so. I just love seeing my community grow and expand. I'm looking forward to seeing the ways that we all can continue to support each other and feel supported. But also, we've all been giving each other a lot of space, and we've needed it. Everyone is needed to heal right now. This isn't just trans people, this is the whole country. One of the main things I noticed part ending too, is just a boy, here's another group of people that are just falling apart, because everything they know is being challenged. And they're going to try and take that on. It's something they don't understand. That's the big thing that I had. Think people without a little historical perspective in the country, and without a little more of a kind of like, we gotta stand up for this, queers bash back. All that 1980s, 1990s powerful stuff. I hope I'll start to see that stuff coming back. I hope it's not needed though. There's way other better ways to get our message across. And I think those are the things that happen in our day to day lives when we support our friends, and we support each other. Everyone needed each other's support right now. But what we've been doing for so long is living in our little cocoons, and there's no room for anyone else's thoughts but your own in that space. So, I just hope that more of us learn that we can bring our thoughts out there, and help support and inspire each other by our actions, and sometimes just by being ourselves, which is an action enough itself. That's it, that's all I got. NB: That's it. AW: That's it. NB: That's it. AW: That's [laughs][snaps]. NB: You heard it here first ladies and gentlemen. AW: [laughs] NB: Well Aoife thank you so much -- AW: Thank you NB: -- for your time, and for sharing your story with us. It was really an honor. AW: Absolutely you too. Absolutely great interview skills. I love it. NB: Thank you. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Aoife Ward, May 7, 2022
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Aoife Ward describes her early upbringing, transition, finding transgender community in New Brunswick and the Lehigh Valley, and her outlook on the future.
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LGBT-33
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2022-05-07
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Nadia Butler
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Christine Penn
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5.4 May 8, 2022 Christine Penn, May 8, 2022 LGBT-32 1:37:26 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Christine Penn Nadia Butler video/mp4 PennChristine_20220508_videotrimmed 1.0:|47(13)|82(4)|107(12)|136(2)|161(5)|188(4)|211(11)|234(8)|259(9)|286(12)|313(9)|338(8)|359(2)|382(14)|407(14)|436(8)|463(13)|492(18)|513(13)|542(5)|565(4)|590(9)|623(8)|646(11)|677(3)|700(4)|721(11)|742(9)|771(4)|796(7)|821(13)|848(11)|875(7)|906(14)|927(13)|952(7)|975(14)|998(9)|1029(4)|1056(3)|1081(13)|1108(10)|1133(3)|1154(6)|1173(12)|1202(9)|1219(17)|1242(6)|1265(12)|1294(4)|1317(12)|1342(9)|1371(16)|1394(9)|1423(4)|1448(5)|1475(9)|1500(9)|1527(4)|1550(14)|1573(14)|1600(7)|1631(8)|1650(17)|1671(6)|1696(17)|1719(13)|1744(4)|1773(4)|1798(18)|1821(7)|1846(7)|1871(2)|1898(5)|1925(8)|1950(6)|1973(7)|1996(12)|2021(18)|2048(9)|2077(11)|2104(14)|2129(14)|2154(11)|2177(7)|2200(16)|2227(15)|2254(2)|2281(3)|2308(12)|2329(18)|2352(8)|2377(16)|2402(16)|2435(7)|2462(11)|2483(10)|2496(13) 0 https://youtu.be/7Q7MfSDEZ-8 YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions NADIA BUTLER: Hello, my name is Nadia Butler, and I am here today with Christine Penn to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the ACLS. We are meeting on location on May 8th, 2022. Christine, thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. 
 ; 
 ; CHRISTINE PENN: You're welcome.
 ; 
 ; NB: To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? 
 ; 
 ; CP: Christine Anne Penn, C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-E, A-N-N-E, P-E-N-N. 0 81 Beginning to Cross-dress CP: That was the first time I basically considered cross-dressing. So, I went up to my mom's closet or whatever and started putting on her clothes, which obviously didn't fit very well. So, I was kind of tiny at the time. [laughs] So but that then started the behavior I would say of cross-dressing or whatever for the rest of my life. And up until later, obviously I don't consider that a cross dress anymore. And it's sort of weird or whatever. Just to me or whatever, it's like I have an issue or whatever with saying that, that I was cross-dressing, because to me, it wasn't really cross-dressing. I would say that was the only time I was right dressing.
 ; 
 ; But at the time or whatever, since I was male, everybody would have seen this as cross-dressing. And later on, I actually found out that there was a term called cross dressers or whatever. So later on in my teenage years, I started telling a couple of people and I told them that I was a cross dresser because that's what I thought I was at the time, but anyway. 0 86 Early Childhood / Early Thoughts on Gender
 ; NB: So to begin, would you tell me about the early years of your life? Could you describe your childhood for us?
 ; 
 ; CP: [laughs] Wow, sorry. I recognized that I was different at about four years old. It's my second earliest memory. So all of my early memories are based on like trauma, I guess you could say. So I was in a car accident when I was three years old. That's my first memory. It's the only time that I remember in my whole life that I was not feeling like I was transgender. I didn't know what it was at the time or whatever, but during that car accident, it was not an issue. Every point whatever forward from that point after that, I would say it's been an issue. [laughs] 0 504 Conversations with Parents about Gender CP: So, I call it being lazy, but really what it was, was a matter of convenience. What I didn't realize is that my grandmother would occasionally make the bed, flip the mattress and things like that. I didn't know that she was doing that stuff. So, I went to school one day, and she came in to basically change the sheets and flip the mattress. And when she did, she found my stash of clothes underneath, which then she told my mother about. [laughs] 
 ; 
 ; And then my mother decided to confront me about what it was, and she told me about it in the morning, on a school morning type of thing. And she said I want to have a conversation with you about the clothes that were underneath the mattress, and I'm like, oh shit, I'm dead. But she didn't have time to talk about it in the morning. So, she decided that we're going to talk about it in the evening when she got home from work. 0 784 Life During Puberty / The ACME Lady CP: So, for the most part 12 and 13, in that time frame, were pretty depressing for me. I just felt absolutely horrible. I had no idea what the hell I was going to do, the whole nine yards. And I wrote a story [laughs] about the ACME lady. It's one of my Medium stories. I recommend you read it. So when I was 13 -- so I had formed a theory when I was younger that basically it's like, I must have felt this way because maybe I had some internal female parts that just people couldn't see. 
 ; 
 ; And that's why the doctor declared me as male and instead of as female. So, I was hoping that puberty was going to save me. I would start developing breasts and start being the true woman or whatever that I was. And so I was really hoping that biology was going to save me. And when I was 13, I found out that my sister had already started puberty. So, puberty had not started for me. [laughs] So it turns out that there was something going on, and puberty got delayed on me for a long time. 0 1114 Schooling CP: But anyway, managed or whatever to get through high school. I kind of -- puberty sort of didn't really kick in or whatever until it's about 18 years old. It was a little bit of depressing to me. I wanna say it was -- I don't want you to get the wrong impression, whatever I wanna say ii was like maybe slightly helpful, because at least whatever I was now fitting better in with the boys. 
 ; 
 ; So, at least I was now looking more like a boy, which then made life a little bit easier. In one ways it made life easier because now I wasn't standing out as much because now I looked a little bit more manly. It didn't help with my internal [laughs] at all, so it's like not really th direction that I wanted to go in at all. But at that point in time or whatever it was like, there was a lot of information or whatever I was not familiar with at the time, I really wish I was, there was no internet, things like that or whatever. 0 1382 Sexuality CP: So, I quickly found out that was like I was curious [laughs] I've had lots of feelings or whatever. My whole, let's say attraction thing or whatever had flipped. So, when I was going through, let's say the 12, 13, and 14, I had a real attraction to boys. And quite I had a crush on somebody on my track team in 10th grade, it's like [laughs]. 
 ; 
 ; I never told anybody this or whatever, but I'd be like I'd go gay for you, that's how hot he was and how much he like turned me on. But I would never do anything about it. It's like that would have been like social death to basically come out or whatever and ask a guy out or whatever and as you're being seen as a guy or whatever, that's just never was happening. When puberty kinda kicked in, it flipped. It flipped for me. So, at eighte -- like around 17 to 18 or whatever, all of a sudden whatever, I started liking girls. 0 1532 Finding Community to Confide In / UCLA LGBT Group
 ; NB: You mentioned talking about your childhood that you grew up around Philadelphia and stuff, and you also had two siblings. I'm curious, did you have anyone aside from the grocery lady who you confided about these feelings?
 ; 
 ; CP: I did not, no, so, and I really didn't confide with the grocery lady at all. She just basically thought that I was a girl, and I just loved the interaction. So, really I didn't confide in anybody, that was a secret or whatever, and I was deeply held or whatever and wasn't gonna tell a soul type of thing. So I would have liked to have confided it to my parents, but as I said or whatever, that thing did not go well. 0 2012 Considering a Name Change CP: Immediately I was like, oh my God, these people have the same experience that I had. And we started really connecting or whatever. And then they asked me what my name was, and I was like, I didn't have one at the time. So, they were like, great, we'll help you figure one out or whatever, what we'll call you or whatever. And they were like, do you know what your parents would have named you or whatever, if you were born a girl? And I'm like, yeah, I do. They would have named me Kathleen, and they're like, great, do you love it? Do you like it or whatever? It's like, maybe you should go with that. 0 2257 Writing Prospects / Trouble Finding a Steady Therapist CP: So, anyway, I kept in contact with these people for probably a couple of years. And later on, I was in the middle of a chat, and the moderator jumped in and he was finding the stories that we're talking about very interesting because it was like sharing life experiences or whatever. I was telling them about the ACME lady and other things or whatever that was going on. And the moderator said, you guys should really document your stories, you should start writing a book. So, nothing had existed yet. Who's that famous author, I can't think of her name, I can see her, the blond. 
 ; 
 ; NB: Tori Peters? 
 ; 
 ; CP: No, God, what the hell is her name? She basically released a book or whatever. I used to have it. I had to return it, [laughs]. She was probably the only sane person on Caitlyn Jenner -- when it was Caitlin or whatever. She's the writer, what's hell’s her name?
 ; 
 ; NB: I know who you're talking about but it escapes me as well. 0 2635 The Birth of Christine Anne Penn / Finding Renaissance CP: So that's how Christine Anne Penn came about. So, Penn quite literally is appending, that was going to be my writing alias name. And because my original last name ended in two Ns, I added two Ns on the end of Penn as a tribute or whatever as a linkage or whatever, it's just sort of my original last name. And from that time forward started my alias of Christine Anne Penn. 
 ; 
 ; NB: And what year was this?
 ; 
 ; CP: That was in, that was like in the 1999/2000 time frame is when Christine Anne Penn was born. And one of the first things I did was basically Hotmail, it just came onto the scene and I created an alias email address or whatever for me, so chrispenn
hotmail.com, I lost that email address later by the way. 0 3092 Struggle for Family's Acceptance
 ; CP: And at the six-month mark is when my wife and my parents kind of beat up on me and said, you can't do this. So, I was on a path to transition and I had come out publicly back then was not publicly as we know it today, there was no Facebook where you could make an announcement, there was no -- what you got, but that doesn't mean it didn't spread by word of mouth and things like that. I was having lots of problems in life, like I walked into a bar and this guy came up and was like, are you that panty wearing faggot? I’m like, oh, lovely. Like, who do you know? 
 ; 
 ; So, he knew my brother-in-law, my brother-in-law told him that I was transitioning, lovely. So I was having all sorts of issues like that or whatever, going in public or whatever and things like that. But the funny thing is that I was able to walk that back later when I did not transition, when I did not go through with it. 0 3571 Living Dual Lives NB: I'm wondering, you mentioned your wife and your kids, and you also mentioned the sense of your having like a split identity. Would you mind talking about that for us?
 ; 
 ; CP: Sure, so, I basically associated the two behaviors, my behavior as male or whatever with my name, Christopher. And I associated my behaviors of what I did as female or whatever as associated with Christine and for the longest time or whatever, that was my life or whatever. It's like, quite literally, I had two lives. And for many years, whatever it's like during that 1999/2000 time frame or whatever, definitely had two lives going on. Then, two very active lives. 0 3784 Reaching the Boiling Point
 ; CP: And in 2015 I reached a boiling point, that was major. I want to say, it started in January. It started in January, and I was like, this is -- I had separated from my wife in November. And in January, I was starting to realize that all of those commitments that I made, about raising my kids and being the father to them and the husband to my wife. Kind of like, I met all those, they were done, it's like my kids were now, my daughter was in college, my son was about to graduate high school. It was obviously -- my marriage was falling apart, with my wife we were now separated, and I'm like you've met all these commitments or whatever you're done, you don't need to live up to that commitment that you made anymore.
 ; 
 ; And I started thinking about that in January of 2015, and I was like, I don't know, I'm now older, and like is HRT even gonna still work, you know? Do I wanna totally upset my life or whatever and so on and so forth. And I would say for a good five months whatever, I was like, I don't know if I can do this, I'm too old, I have established a life. 0 4461 Finding Hope / Searching for a Therapist with Gender-related Knowledge CP: Just get back to the truck, and drive to the bridge and fucking end it. That's quite literally, that was the mode, that was the mindset I was in. It's like, I've had it, I cannot, I don't wanna even think about it anymore, it's not even worth working out or whatever, and so on and so forth. And my mind was just driving me fucking crazy and I decided to turn on a song. I had my phone with me and on my phone I had music, and I decided to just turn on some music or whatever just to get me back to the truck, and a song came on and that song changed my way. 
 ; 
 ; That song is Peter Gabriel’s “Don't Give Up”. And I wrote this down in another Medium story [laughs]. The words to that song connected with me on that day. So believe it or not, this has actually been documented now. The Medium story that I wrote was actually referenced by a paper in the UK. They used it as an example of how many different people that this song has helped, in suicidal situations. Because essentially what I did is I documented how I felt that day, and what I was thinking about how that song saved me. 0 5003 Health / Impact of Sports on Life CP: Oh yeah, absolutely. Sports has been a major thing in my life. So the whole transition and things like that, it's kinda like ignited this thing where it's like I needed to get control of my life. And getting control of my life basically, I changed a lot of things, and one of the things that I had changed is is that, I spent an awful lot of time going through marriage and things like that being sort of depressed.
 ; 
 ; And I drank a lot, did a lot of what I would say bad behaviors or whatever and things like that. And so when I separated from my ex, one of the things I wanted to do was basically get control of my life or whatever, get healthy again and things like that. And it started getting back into my -- if you go all the way back to high school and even some college or whatever, is like I was always in into sports or whatever a little bit and I was like, I wanna get back into things. I really felt that kind of like -- it was somewhere I needed to be [laughs]. 0 5334 Finding Transgender Community in Cycling CP: So, they were struggling with, we don't know how to tell you how to deal with these things or whatever because we don't normally treat athletic people who are going through HRT, and things like that and that was leading to problem. And I was having a lot of problems that they couldn't explain. And the funny thing is that I know what a lot of them are now, but it's, [laughs] So I've been through one hell of a medical journey. [laughs] but eventually that led to me is that I got connected with a woman who was starting up a transgender cycling team and that opened up a world to me. 0 MovingImage Christine Penn recalls her early/family life and relationship with gender, as well as her experiences with transgender positive communities online and in-person. INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE PENN MAY 8, 2022 Dear Reader, You may notice an issue trying to follow along watching the video or reading the transcript for this person. The repeating of the word "whatever" occurs frequently, as well as some incongruent thoughts smashed together. Christine Penn is aware of these issues and seeking treatment for them. Please do not allow it to distract you from the topics being discussed. It simply documents the human experience and where she was on her journey at the time. She asked the archival team to include this message to readers. NADIA BUTLER: Hello, my name is Nadia Butler, and I am here today with Christine Penn to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the ACLS. We are meeting on location on May 8th, 2022. Christine, thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. CHRISTINE PENN: You're welcome. NB: To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? CP: Christine Anne Penn, C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-E, A-N-N-E, P-E-N-N. NB: Will you please share your birthday. CP: June 21, 1967. NB: Do you consent to this interview today? CP: Yes I do. NB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized and made publicly available in online searchable formats? CP: Absolutely, why not? [laughs] NB: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats? CP: I really hope that they do. [laughs] NB: Do you understand that you will have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review my interview. Identify any parts you would like to delete and or withdraw your interview from the project? CP: I'm looking forward to it. NB: Well then, let's get started. CP: Okay. NB: So to begin, would you tell me about the early years of your life? Could you describe your childhood for us? CP: [laughs] Wow, sorry. I recognized that I was different at about four years old. It's my second earliest memory. So all of my early memories are based on like trauma, I guess you could say. So I was in a car accident when I was three years old. That's my first memory. It's the only time that I remember in my whole life that I was not feeling like I was transgender. I didn't know what it was at the time or whatever, but during that car accident, it was not an issue. Every point whatever forward from that point after that, I would say it's been an issue. [laughs] So how I recognized it was is that I was doing something and I don't even remember what I was doing. But what I remember is the emotions of the situation. So I was doing something that my father did not like and basically he yelled at me and he basically said, boys don't do that. And I immediately just wanted to turn around and tell him I was like, well I'm not a boy. And I knew that if I told him that, that he would not understand, and I was eerily accurate. I kind of find that hard or whatever that I recognized what type of person he was or whatever at that such an early age. But that was like spot on or whatever, just like dad still doesn't support me very well today. [laughs] But that's what started it I guess you could say is that basically I did not feel like a boy, I want to say ever. I really felt that I probably should have been born a girl. I know a lot of people say that or whatever, but it's just an internal feeling that you have, and you just know it right off the bat. And that day it just pointed out that people didn't see me that way. And from that point forward, it just started a long series of issues or whatever that basically came up over time. So my next major incident when that happened at four, believe it or not it wasn't until I was maybe about seven. So even though I was aware of it and things like that, starting at that time when I was getting yelled at for doing girly things, it's really the first time that I started actively trying to fit in. So, in other words, I corrected my behavior that day because I was trying to make my parents happy or trying to make my dad happy. So, whatever I was doing, I stopped doing it and I started doing it the way that he expected me to do it. And that set up a long series of things that really took a really hard thing to get over because from that point forward, I was just correcting my behaviors constantly. Because if I acted naturally, I got in trouble for it. It is really what happened. So anyway, I wouldn't say that it was a major problem during those early years. So, but I was watching TV, and I was watching a commercial. [laughs] And I remember this commercial, it's like it happened yesterday. But there was this girl, and she was playing dress up on the commercial. She was basically playing in her mom's closet, whatever, putting on her mom's clothes, doing her makeup or whatever, and I was like, I want to do that. [laughs] I so desperately want to do that. And that was the first time that I basically, quite literally, went and did that. That was the first time I basically considered cross-dressing. So, I went up to my mom's closet or whatever and started putting on her clothes, which obviously didn't fit very well. So, I was kind of tiny at the time. [laughs] So but that then started the behavior I would say of cross-dressing or whatever for the rest of my life. And up until later, obviously I don't consider that a cross dress anymore. And it's sort of weird or whatever. Just to me or whatever, it's like I have an issue or whatever with saying that, that I was cross-dressing, because to me, it wasn't really cross-dressing. I would say that was the only time I was right dressing. But at the time or whatever, since I was male, everybody would have seen this as cross-dressing. And later on, I actually found out that there was a term called cross dressers or whatever. So later on in my teenage years, I started telling a couple of people and I told them that I was a cross dresser because that's what I thought I was at the time, but anyway. So anyway, that started at seven. When I was nine, nine is the first time I considered actually transitioning, even before I even knew that it was possible. I'm like this is serious enough that I should probably tell my parents. And at the time, I thought transition was gonna be, we're gonna go down to the store, we're gonna pick out a whole new wardrobe. [laughs] And we're gonna come home, and we're gonna start just dressing as a girl all the time or whatever. And basically, we'll just go to school and live life as normal, and everything will be absolutely perfect. So, I started thinking that way, but I really never acted on it. So, in other words, I never told my parents about it the whole nine yards. But I started thinking about that a lot, but I never quite got up the courage [laughs] to do it. At 12 years old, I got caught. So, it's kind of funny, it's like I didn't know I was caught [laughs] until later. So, when I was nine, we moved to -- originally, I grew up in Philadelphia and when I was nine, we moved to Bensalem which is a suburb outside of Philadelphia. And when we did that, my grandparents moved into the house with us. So, they sold their house. My parents sold their house. They helped my parents. I didn't know it at the time, but they helped my parents get the house. And essentially my grandparents moved in with us and my grandmother used to do a lot of the housework and I had gotten lazy with my cross-dressing. I stopped putting clothes back. [laughs] So a lot of times what I would do is I would basically go into my mom's room, basically take stuff, and then I would typically put it back after I was done with it. Well, what I realized or whatever is like some of the clothes I was borrowing never got used, other than by myself. So, I stopped putting clothes back. [laughs] And I basically just started leaving them underneath my bed, which was much easier because now I didn't have to worry if somebody was going to be in the room or in the house. I only had to worry about my room. So, I call it being lazy, but really what it was, was a matter of convenience. What I didn't realize is that my grandmother would occasionally make the bed, flip the mattress and things like that. I didn't know that she was doing that stuff. So, I went to school one day, and she came in to basically change the sheets and flip the mattress. And when she did, she found my stash of clothes underneath, which then she told my mother about. [laughs] And then my mother decided to confront me about what it was, and she told me about it in the morning, on a school morning type of thing. And she said I want to have a conversation with you about the clothes that were underneath the mattress, and I'm like, oh shit, I'm dead. But she didn't have time to talk about it in the morning. So, she decided that we're going to talk about it in the evening when she got home from work. That was a very hellish day for me cause, what it did was, it gave me about eight hours to think about what I was going to do. And during that eight hours, I decided it's that okay, now is the time to come out to tell them what's really been going on. And I wanted to tell them that I wanted to transition. So, I'm thinking -- so, I started envisioning this wonderful, loving conversation with my parents where I finally tell them. And mom's gonna come embrace it wonderfully, and we're gonna go shopping this weekend, and we're gonna get new clothes, and so and so. That is not the way the conversation went [laughs] at all. So basically, when I got home, that was my goal. I was like, I'm telling them this is driving me crazy. It's like nothing has changed. This has been going on since I was four years old. It's time to come clean and let them know. So anyway, mom came home from work. Immediately, the first thing she wanted to do was have dinner. I was ready to go. It's like let's have this conversation now and so on and so forth, and I can't wait the whole night. And the end result is that we ended up having dinner. After dinner, the conversation is not moving. So, I'm like mom, can we have that conversation now? [laughs] So I'm super excited because I'm ready to spill and she says there was some laundry in the laundry room. She goes, take this upstairs. When you come down, meet me in the family room. So, I take it upstairs to wherever it was going to. It was dropping off some clothes in the bedroom and came back down. And as soon as I turned the corner to come into the family room, my mom just blasted me. It was like, why the hell, basically really angrily. It was like, what the hell are all these clothes? Are you gay? And I started getting hit with all this horrible conversation that I was just not expecting at all. So instead of opening up, sorry, I'm getting a little emotional. I closed up and all I wanted to do is basically get the conversation to end because basically she was just yelling at me and accusing me of being gay and so and so forth. And so instead of telling her what was really going on. The end result is that it didn't go well at all, and I ended up not telling them. And that turned into a really shitty time for me. I was really wallowing. You know, it's like what the hell do I do now. That was a chance, and I blew it and so on and so forth. And I lost access to my clothes for a little while. [laughs] I was a bit more careful after that. It did not stop me from dressing up. It's just that I actually stopped using mom's clothes a little bit more and I had a younger sister, her clothes fit me better anyway. In fact, when I finally came out, one of the things I did is I apologized to my sister. I said I was stealing your clothes for years [laughs] the whole time we were growing up. [laughs] I laugh about it now and she never knew, never even picked up on it, never even knew and I'm so sorry. Anyway, I laugh about it now but it's pretty serious to me. So yeah, I knew everything in her closet that fit me. [laughs] And everything that did not. So, for the most part 12 and 13, in that time frame, were pretty depressing for me. I just felt absolutely horrible. I had no idea what the hell I was going to do, the whole nine yards. And I wrote a story [laughs] about the ACME lady. It's one of my Medium stories. I recommend you read it. So when I was 13 -- so I had formed a theory when I was younger that basically it's like, I must have felt this way because maybe I had some internal female parts that just people couldn't see. And that's why the doctor declared me as male and instead of as female. So, I was hoping that puberty was going to save me. I would start developing breasts and start being the true woman or whatever that I was. And so I was really hoping that biology was going to save me. And when I was 13, I found out that my sister had already started puberty. So, puberty had not started for me. [laughs] So it turns out that there was something going on, and puberty got delayed on me for a long time. I didn't know it at the time or whatever when I was 16, a doctor actually wrote a note about it in my chart, which I didn't find out until I was like 46 years old by the way that they had written down that note when I was 16, that they had noticed it as well. But I'll have to tell you that story later. But any rate or whatever, when I was 13 or whatever, I found out that my puberty has started for my sister and that was like even worse. That made me like seriously, like I would say almost like suicidal. And then and then I walked into a store and this lady addressed me as miss, and I was like holy shit, you know somebody can see me for who I really am. And I started going to the store all the time just to interact with that lady because she thought I was a girl. At the time or whatever it was part of -- so I know today or whatever, there was sort of probably an underlying medical condition sort of going on. And that probably played into it and it's played into the way that I looked as well. So I looked -- I was very skinny. I was growing very tall. So, if you look at like little girls today as they're growing up or whatever, they get kind of like they get to this like really skinny awkward phase or whatever, [laughs] that's probably what I looked like. And when I went into the store, or whatever, just talked to this lady or whatever, I'm pretty sure that's what she saw and just assumed that I was that I was a girl. And that went on for a couple of years and I would say that lady kinda saved me because it's like she recognized or whatever is like who I really was and that interaction or whatever kind of saved me. So, instead of going even further down the suicidal path, just because I was so depressed at the time, just that interactions or whatever with that lady kind of saved me through that period of my time. And I never got to thank her, that's what my story is, it's like I never got to thank her. And I ended up throwing her under the bus later on [laughs] so -- which I felt, I still feel horrible about it to this day. So, I don't know if you wanna hear that part of the story or not [laughs]. So, I was constantly having problems off and on in school, basically being looking like a girly boy, at times or whatever, I would get picked on. It's a very common story or whatever is, I think every one of us goes through it at some point in time. So, what I had found is that if you acted like a badass [laughs] then people picked on you less [laughs]. So, I had recently [inaudible] basically trans -- well, eighth and ninth grade or whatever basically move schools or whatever. I would go into catholic school, all the way through eighth grade and when I went to ninth grade, I went to public school. And I'm like, here's a chance or whatever to kinda start over again, and I'm gonna try to act like a badass, so I'm not getting beat up all the time. And so, I hung out with this really bad, I would say bad crowd of boys, [laughs]. And I was trying to act as a badass with them, and we ended up going into the ACME, and we ran into that lady, and she addressed me as miss and the guys that I was with picked up on it. And the one guy or whatever said to me is like, yo dude, she called you a girl, you're gonna let her get away with that [laughs]. And I came up with like a snide comment, I was like, thank you very much sir, whatever. And she looked at me like really weird, and we left, and it's like I saved my face with the boys or whatever, but I was like I just ruined my, the only thing that was going on that was positive in my life with her and I never got to apologize to her for that. So, there's some sorta weird circumstance whatever, I don't know if she was retiring at the time, but she ended up leaving the store. I went back and I tried I tried to go talk to her, I wanted to tell her what was really going on, [laughs] and why I did that, and tell her why. And I never got a chance or whatever to tell her, and she ended up leaving the store and I lost contact with her. So, I was like I feel really bad about it, it's one of the worst things I think that I ever did in my life. And I wrote a Medium story about it, [laughs] which kinda goes through some of those details. But anyway, managed or whatever to get through high school. I kind of -- puberty sort of didn't really kick in or whatever until it's about 18 years old. It was a little bit of depressing to me. I wanna say it was -- I don't want you to get the wrong impression, whatever I wanna say ii was like maybe slightly helpful, because at least whatever I was now fitting better in with the boys. So, at least I was now looking more like a boy, which then made life a little bit easier. In one ways it made life easier because now I wasn't standing out as much because now I looked a little bit more manly. It didn't help with my internal [laughs] at all, so it's like not really the direction that I wanted to go in at all. But at that point in time or whatever it was like, there was a lot of information or whatever I was not familiar with at the time, I really wish I was, there was no internet, things like that or whatever. I found out or whatever that, -- and by the way I was pulled out of public school at the end of 10th grade, and I was shoved back into catholic school. And for 11th and 12th, that was probably a good thing in the long run [laughs] because hanging out with that bad crowd at the public school. I probably would have crashed and burned, probably would have never went to college, or did anything that came along later in life. Which is sorta what happened to my older brother, [laughs] my older brother hung out with -- with a bad crowd too, and he ended up not going to college and things like that, and they felt that it was the school or whatever that influenced his decisions and things like that. That turned him that way, which my parents were like, well we're gonna fix that for a second kid, I'm the middle kid. So, I have an older brother and a younger sister, and I'm the middle kid, and they threw me back into catholic school. That did turn things around for me, when I was thrown back into catholic school, it was an academic type of place as opposed to the public schools, I would say a little bit more social. Social was first, academic second at the catholic school was academics first, social second. And I felt right back into let's go fix the academics, which then got me back on the path, whatever to basically go to college and I ended up going to college and I -- that's another long story in itself or whatever. But I went to college and I did -- overall I did fine there. Graduated, got a degree and basically went on with my life per se. But anyway, from a trans perspective, by the time I got to college or whatever, I was looking more masculine, so I fit in a little bit more. I was still trying to play, trying to be the best man, I guess you could say that I could be, yeah, it's getting very used over let's say playing that role. So, I wanna say it's sort of like acting but it kinda -- you get to the point of whatever where have you done it for so long it sorta becomes I would say normal acting, but it's still an act. It's kinda hard to explain that or whatever to people who haven't been through that experience or whatever, where you feel one way but you're trying to you're trying to do everything to kind of like fit in type of thing. So, it's kinda weird or whatever to kinda like go through that or whatever but you kinda get used to it. If you didn't do it for a really long time, it just becomes second hand, and that's the way I felt that it got for me, it just became second hand. It's like I know how to do this, I know how to fit in someone and so forth. Like I've learned how to do this, I can do it and get by per se. So when I got through college, basically I went through college or whatever, essentially that way. There was an LGB group in college there was no 'T' [laughs] I would have really have liked to have met a 'T' in college that would have been really cool. I did check out the LGB group and that was social death, at my school or whatever. It is like if you went -- if you hung out with the LGB people or whatever, that was like you were social death or whatever. It's like they had their own little clique or whatever and that did not interact with the rest of the let's say the normal college students or whatever. So, I quickly found out that was like I was curious [laughs] I've had lots of feelings or whatever. My whole, let's say attraction thing or whatever had flipped. So, when I was going through, let's say the 12, 13, and 14, I had a real attraction to boys. And quite I had a crush on somebody on my track team in 10th grade, it's like [laughs]. I never told anybody this or whatever, but I'd be like I'd go gay for you, that's how hot he was and how much he like turned me on. But I would never do anything about it. It's like that would have been like social death to basically come out or whatever and ask a guy out or whatever and as you're being seen as a guy or whatever, that's just never was happening. When puberty kinda kicked in, it flipped. It flipped for me. So, at eighte -- like around 17 to 18 or whatever, all of a sudden whatever, I started liking girls. And that worked out well [laughs] cuz I ended up getting, in the long run, getting married and having kids and things like that. Funny thing is that when I started HRT, it flipped back. So, it's like -- and that's to me or whatever that was not a surprise [laughs] cause it's kinda like when testosterone really wasn't doing much of anything. It seemed like I was going down the path or whatever of being a normal girl whatever and being attracted to boys or whatever. So, when I flipped over to estrogen or whatever, it was like yeah, that was not a big surprise whatever that would flip back again. So just, it's kinda really weird or whatever when shit like that happens, it's like you don't necessarily expect it. So, but anyway, that's why it's like I have serious issues or whatever with labels, basically calling somebody like gay or lesbian or things like that or whatever because it's like, yeah, I'm pretty sure that I could have identified with just about any one of those labels at some point in my time or whatever does it really matter? And I was like, I don't really care at this point [laughs]. You wanna call me gay fine, you wanna call me a lesbian technically you'd be correct in that too. Do I consider myself like straight? Yeah, [laughs] the funny thing is that overall I'm sorta more on the asexual side. It's like, yeah, I have the attractions or whatever, but it's like there's no real big push to go do anything. So it's like not a whole lot of motivation [laughs] I guess you can say. NB: You mentioned talking about your childhood that you grew up around Philadelphia and stuff, and you also had two siblings. I'm curious, did you have anyone aside from the grocery lady who you confided about these feelings? CP: I did not, no, so, and I really didn't confide with the grocery lady at all. She just basically thought that I was a girl, and I just loved the interaction. So, really I didn't confide in anybody, that was a secret or whatever, and I was deeply held or whatever and wasn't gonna tell a soul type of thing. So I would have liked to have confided it to my parents, but as I said or whatever, that thing did not go well. Didn't go well later either, but that was a clear pattern across my life or whatever. So, we haven't gotten to that, it's like I tried to come out in -- so to me or whatever it was like, I think I did a story or whatever it's like for The Gay Journal. And basically, I came up with five times I attempted to come out [laughs]. So that first interaction with my father, that was a chance or whatever to come out that I blew. So that was one. [laughs] So there was, when I considered transition, when I was nine, that was considering or whatever coming out again or whatever, that was two. So, the 12 or whatever was number three, when I got caught and considered coming out again and that failed as well. I actually did come out in 1999 and then reversed. And then I came out again in 2015, 2016 time frame, that one stuck [laughs]. So that's the one where I actually went through with it. So, to me or whatever, I came out like five or attempted to come out three times, actually did come out twice, only one, actually worked [laughs]. So, in 1999, when I came out or whatever, that was after -- it's kinda funny or whatever, it circles around my exploration with the Internet a little bit. So, in 1994 I went to work for Honeywell, which is where I'm still working today. And Honeywell was actually on the Internet, but the Internet in 1994 was not the Internet that we know today. So, the Internet in 1994, there was like almost no World Wide Web. It was mostly interconnected, like mail servers and -- or call them like FTP servers or whatever, like file transfer type of mechanisms. But I don't wanna say that they were called FTP at the time they were called something else, and I can't think of -- not remembering what the hell they were called. But basically, you had like a whole bunch of like dial up interfaces, you could dial up and basically connect into your mail and things like that. So, the only thing that was kinda like on the internet back then, was defense contractors and colleges and the government, that was it. So, Honeywell was a defense contractor, that's why they were on the internet. So, and I had a lot of interaction with that, I was working as a network administrator at the time, as a network engineer [laughs]. And I was basically managing a piece of Honeywell's network. I had managed other networks for other companies before I came to work for Honeywell. So it was nothing new. But Honeywell was the first company that I worked for that was actually on the internet. And because I was a network engineer or whatever, I subscribed to a couple of magazines at the time. One of them was Network World, and I was reading an article in Network World bulletin boards. That's one of the things that, [inaudible] think of at the time. You can connect to bulletin boards whatever on the internet or whatever. Nobody had like web servers up, but they would have like a bulletin board service, which was kind of like a messaging service and things like that. Anyway, I read a story that UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles, was converting their bulletin boards to be now connected onto the internet directly. And they listed the groups that were basically within the college or whatever that basically had bulletin boards. And one of the things they listed was LGBT, their LGBT group, had a bulletin board and they were converting that over to the internet. And I was like, I had recently through other, let's say other research, had recently found information about transgender people. So, somewhere in the 90's, that term or whatever started to, I wanna say float around, [laughs]. And I wanna say whatever, is the term had existed or whatever for many years before that, but I wanna say it was more in in academic circles, it wasn't necessarily in public use. And I wanna say in the 90s, whatever, it started to become more public, where you could actually go to the library and find something to read about it. And I had recently discovered it. And at the time I, whatever I was thinking, it's like, I'm pretty sure that I've been transgender my whole life. Prior to that time, or whatever, I was thinking that it was primarily a cross dresser, because that was the activity that I was doing all the time. But, to me or whatever, it was never quite satisfying, is a good word to say cause it's all it basically did was reminded me of the predicament that I was in. So, it's something that I felt that I had to do, but basically it just reminded me is that this isn't temporary for you. And then when I looked at myself in the mirror, it's like, it didn't look right. And I was like, I look like a guy in a dress, [laughs]. I didn't wanna be a guy in the dress, I wanted to be a girl in the dress. And basically, getting dressed up or whatever just reminded me, I was like, no, I'm a guy in a dress. I feel like I'm a girl, but I look like the guy in the dress. Anyway, so, I started finding out information about transgender people. So, when I read that article about UCLA converting their thing, and they had an LGBT group, T being the transgender piece or whatever, and they spelled it out, they didn't say LGBT. They put in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and immediately or whatever that was like holy shit or whatever, [laughs]. There's this group in UCLA of transgender people. And later on, I was on a business trip out to Phoenix and I decided to go onto the internet to see if I could find the UCLA bulletin board system, to see if I can talk to these transgender people. And I ended up finding them, so, there wasn't a Google, [laughs] at the time to go find it. There was a couple of other search engines or whatever, there was a couple of search engines or whatever before Google. Believe it or not, these things existed. They weren't very good, [laughs]. They weren't like Google is today. So, you really had to know what you were looking for or whatever in order to find things, and so on and so forth. But I was able to find them and I was able to connect to them. And one of the first, when I connected to them, I got into this chat group. And one of the first things they asked me is, what is your fem name? I didn't have one at the time, [laughs]. It's like, holy shit, so, this is another Medium story by the way, I have documented this as well. It's how my name came about. Basically, I connected with these with this group of other transgender girls and they started asking me questions or whatever. Immediately I was like, oh my God, these people have the same experience that I had. And we started really connecting or whatever. And then they asked me what my name was, and I was like, I didn't have one at the time. So, they were like, great, we'll help you figure one out or whatever, what we'll call you or whatever. And they were like, do you know what your parents would have named you or whatever, if you were born a girl? And I'm like, yeah, I do. They would have named me Kathleen, and they're like, great, do you love it? Do you like it or whatever? It's like, maybe you should go with that. And I'm like, well, the only problem is that I had a younger sister and she got the name instead, [laughs]. So I said, yeah that doesn't work, [laughs]. So, they're going back and forth or whatever, it's like do you have a favorite aunt or whatever that you like? Or a family member, so on and so forth. And I'm like, no, I've kind of -- so my deadname was Christopher, and I was like, never really like Christopher, never fit. So basically, I had, going by Chris, my whole life, Chris to me was gender neutral, it could go either way. That, to me or whatever, the name that I had decided on. And everybody just called me Chris. And I was like, no I'm pretty su -- I've settled this a long time ago in my head or whatever, so, Chris is fine, I just need to change the gender of it. So instead of Chris it's Christopher, we'll just make it officially as Chris is Christine instead. So, where were we, [laughs]? NB: I believe you were talking about, it was the late 90s, you discovered this -- CP: Okay, yep. So anyway, I was like no, Chris is Christine or whatever, it's fine. And I said, we gotta change more than that or whatever, I have a middle name, it's Albert and I'm like Albert has never worked either. And I was like, we're gonna change that too, and I said Albert was married to Ann, and technically my grandmother's name is Anna. But she hated Anna. She always, always had everybody call her Ann instead of an Anna. To her, Anna was an old lady, and she wasn't old, at least she was old to me, but in her eyes she wasn't old. And so she always had people call her Ann. So when she wrote out her name, she wrote out A-N and then she slanted the last A, so that it looked more like an E. And I remember her telling me that story or whatever, and I was like, I'm like, well, instead of you know her husband or whatever, and I was like, I'm gonna flip it to her, only I'm gonna spell it A-N-N-E. In tribute to her. And I ended up, so, at that point or whatever, Christine Anne was born. And that was enough, that's all I needed to do at the time. And it was never really gonna use Anne on the website or whatever, it's just gonna be Christine on the website or on the bulletin board. And that's what started it. But anyway, I found out later my sister is Kathleen Anne as well and she's Kathleen Anne with an e because my mom, her mother had told her the same story. So when she named my sister Kathleen Anne, she also did the same thing. But anyway, I am Iike, Christine Anne and Kathleen Ann, yeah, that's different enough, I'm not changing it again or whatever. We're sticking with Christine Anne with an E, [laughs]. But anyway, my sister is Christine Anne without an e, she's Ann, period. But she dropped it specifically because of the same story that my grandmother told me or whatever only I went with the A-N-N-E. So, we are technically two different Anns. I'm Anne with an E and she's Ann without it, without anything. So, I'm like, that's different enough, I'm not changing it again. So, anyway, I kept in contact with these people for probably a couple of years. And later on, I was in the middle of a chat, and the moderator jumped in and he was finding the stories that we're talking about very interesting because it was like sharing life experiences or whatever. I was telling them about the ACME lady and other things or whatever that was going on. And the moderator said, you guys should really document your stories, you should start writing a book. So, nothing had existed yet. Who's that famous author, I can't think of her name, I can see her, the blond. NB: Tori Peters? CP: No, God, what the hell is her name? She basically released a book or whatever. I used to have it. I had to return it, [laughs]. She was probably the only sane person on Caitlyn Jenner -- when it was Caitlin or whatever. She's the writer, what's hell's her name? NB: I know who you're talking about but it escapes me as well. CP: Anyway, she had not released her -- NB: Jennifer Finney Boylan. CP: Yes. Jenny Boylan, Jenny Boylan's book had not come out yet or anything or whatever. So, we were all encouraged or whatever to basically write our stories down or whatever and share it with the world or whatever. It's like people should know about our stories or whatever in the whole nine yards. And I took that to that to task. I actually did, I started documenting my story, I started writing down whatever, all my experiences, whatever in the whole nine yards about coming out and things like that. So, after getting in touch with these people at the bulletin board or whatever, one of the first things I did is, I'm like I need to talk to somebody about this and figure out what I need to do and so on and so forth. So, I started seeing psychologists, there was no such a thing as a gender therapist at the time. So, life was harder back then, in the late 90s than it is in the, let's say the later 20s or whatever today, totally different time frame. Everything was not easy as it is today. I can even tell you more stories, [laughs] more stories about that. You wanna hear them all? Okay. NB: Absolutely. CP: So I started seeing a therapist or whatever and I came out to my first therapist or whatever that I went -- I'm gonna call him a therapist, but they were technically psychologist. Basically, I set up an appointment with a psychologist or whatever, and I told her what I wanted to talk about. And I did this emotional dump on her. And basically, it's like I cried my freaking head off or whatever. And it's like I've been hiding my whole life or whatever and went through the whole story, and so on and so forth or whatever. And our second appointment, so I got through all of that or whatever the whole nine yards, it was like a two-hour appointment, where it's like I think I cried probably for 90% of it. And just dumped on her. I was thinking of all the turmoil or whatever that had been through and struggling with this and the whole nine yards or whatever. The second appointment I had with her, she's like, yeah, this is way too complicated for me to handle, [laughs] and she sent me to a second psychologist. She goes I haven't dealt with this or whatever. She is obviously whatever, it's very emotional for you and you're struggling with this and the whole nine yards. She goes, I don't have the expertise, but I have a friend of mine that I think you'd be better off with. So, she referred me to a second person. And then I started seeing the second psychologist, the second psychologist or whatever. And I ended up overwhelming her. Who then sent me to a third psychologist. And this is the way things went back then. Quite literally it's, like I said, there was no gender therapist and things like that. And I would say the majority of the medical community weren't even aware that transgender people existed and the type of emotional problems that they had and things like that. So, basically it was just being tossed from one to another. That was a little hard I guess you could say. So, the last psychologist I went to see told me, she goes, you're finding information faster than I can, [laughs] I still had access to the internet, she did not. Okay, so I was telling her about, basically it's like I really want to seriously consider starting HRT or whatever and things like that. She had never even heard of HRT. And I'm like, well the people out in UCLA are telling me there's this medical thing that you can go through and so on and so forth. And she said, supposedly or whatever, you have to go see a doctor and you need a letter for that, can you give me a letter? And like she's like I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. I'm like Jesus, this is gonna be like really tough. But anyway, I ended up not getting that far, [laughs] Anyway, back to the -- I started writing my story. I was sitting on another business trip on a plane coming back from Phoenix, Arizona this time to Pennsylvania. And I started writing my story and I was starting to think about publishing it. And I basically, I was not out at the time, and I was like, I didn't necessarily want my family knowing about it and things like that or whatever. So, I didn't necessarily wanna associate my name with the family because I wasn't out to them and I didn't want necessarily anything coming back. So, I started building what I would say a dual identity, okay? So, I'm sitting on the plane and I'm thinking is like, I need a pen name and over and over and over again, I'm thinking I need a pen name, I need a pen name. And it was like, I have a pen name, it's Penn, [laughs]. So that's how Christine Anne Penn came about. So, Penn quite literally is appending, that was going to be my writing alias name. And because my original last name ended in two Ns, I added two Ns on the end of Penn as a tribute or whatever as a linkage or whatever, it's just sort of my original last name. And from that time forward started my alias of Christine Anne Penn. NB: And what year was this? CP: That was in, that was like in the 1999/2000 time frame is when Christine Anne Penn was born. And one of the first things I did was basically Hotmail, it just came onto the scene and I created an alias email address or whatever for me, so chrispenn
hotmail.com, I lost that email address later by the way. But yeah, I would say that really started what I was considered the start of a dual life. So when I was female, I was Christina Anne Penn when I was male, I was Christopher Lunemann, was my original last name, which I now considered by the way a maiden name, I don't like to call it a dead name. Because I'm like if I was born right, and would have got married then it would have been a maiden name, and we would have dropped it. So, in fact I mentioned that in my name, change story or whatever, so I was like yeah, obviously whatever, just like yeah. Sean Penn after he dropped Madonna hooked up with me, we got married in Vegas, and it's such a pain in the ass changing your name, which it really is it pain in the ass changing your name. I just decided not to change it back. So hence Christina Anne Penn, and then I apologize and basically said, yeah, Sean, I don't remember that trip to Vegas either. So anyway, Christine Anne Penn was born around, we'll just say 2000 or whatever, just to narrow it off, because I don't know exactly, I don't remember exactly what it was, but it's somewhere in that time frame. But anyway, one of the other things that significantly happened is that like my, one of my psychologists, whatever, she suggested that I join a support group. And that actually put me in touch with the first transgender person I ever knew, which was, God I keep on forgetting names. I'm drawing blanks on names all of a sudden. I found Renaissance of Philadelphia is what I found, and God, what the hell is her name? This is pissing me off, I might have to fire up my computer and look some of the stuff up. She was pretty freaking awesome or whatever, and I didn't meet her physically until like I wanna say like 17 years later, but I had awesome conversations with her on the phone. So, I ended up finding out that Renaissance had a Lehigh Valley chapter and instead of going to the Philadelphia one, they ended up tossing me over to the Lehigh Valley one. And I joined the Lehigh Valley Renaissance, and this was around the 2000 actually 1999 because -- I know this because upstairs I actually have the magazine still. In one of my first meetings, I bought the Transgender Community News, which was a magazine that Renaissance was publishing at the time. And I bought the May 1999 edition at my first meeting I ever went to with Renaissance. So, and I still have it to this day. So, it was not the May meeting, I want to say it was the June meeting, they were selling the May -- the prior month's book or the prior month's magazine at the June meeting. So, June of 1999 I think was my first transgender support group meeting. So, it had actually taken several months to get in, by the way. So back then, okay, you couldn't go out on the internet and see where they're meeting and just show up, they didn't publish things like that. So, what you had to be is you had to be vetted. Angela [Gardner], what the hell is the last name, okay, it's coming back, it's Angela somebody and I can't think of her last thing at the moment, but she was the president of Philadelphia Renaissance. So, she's still active in the community to this day, but I first -- basically I found a telephone number for Lehigh Valley Renaissance, called was nervous as hell called them up and left a message. They didn't answer -- it wasn't manned telephone line, they just basically -- it was a voice mail and I left a voicemail and then Angela ended up calling me back later. And she vetted me. Basically whatever is like her job was to basically find out who I was, was I a crazy person or whatever, what I wanted and someone and so forth. And eventually I made it through her vetting process. And that's when I found out whatever that they had a Lehigh Valley group or whatever and then I was basically put in contact with the president of the Lehigh Valley chapter. And she then vetted me again before they shared the information of where they met and things like that or whatever. And basically, I was told, we meet on this -- the funny thing is that they were meeting on the second Saturday of the month, they continue to meet on the second Saturday of the month to this day that goes back to like original. So, but it was not they were not meeting at the MCC -- I don't know if you've ever been to Lehigh [inaudible], have you been to Lehigh Valley Renaissance? NB: I have actually, yes. CP: You have, okay. NB: I think we met there once prior. CP: There's a good chance we have, I have not been there recently but I had been attending from 2015 to -- we'll say 2015 the current, so it's not 2022. So, I've been going fairly regularly for the last seven years. So, this is back in 1999, so I basically I joined them or whatever, but the first time I went, I went as male. Second time I went, I went dressed. That was the first time I had actually ever left the house being dressed. So back in 1999 or whatever, that's the first time I actually went in public in fem. Had never gone in public before that. Never had left the house or whatever, still dressing in a closet. Had been dressing in a closet since I was seven years old or whatever at that point or whatever, I was now 33, so this is when I was 33. And that was the first time I had ever gone out in public in fem, and I went to my second Renaissance meeting in fem. So, it was quite the experience the first time or whatever, it was quite the experience the second time. I went for about six months. And at the six-month mark is when my wife and my parents kind of beat up on me and said, you can't do this. So, I was on a path to transition and I had come out publicly back then was not publicly as we know it today, there was no Facebook where you could make an announcement, there was no -- what you got, but that doesn't mean it didn't spread by word of mouth and things like that. I was having lots of problems in life, like I walked into a bar and this guy came up and was like, are you that panty wearing faggot? I'm like, oh, lovely. Like, who do you know? So, he knew my brother-in-law, my brother-in-law told him that I was transitioning, lovely. So I was having all sorts of issues like that or whatever, going in public or whatever and things like that. But the funny thing is that I was able to walk that back later when I did not transition, when I did not go through with it. So, my parents, not really my parents, my mother and my wife or whatever ganged up on me. And basically, my mom or whatever, she laid down what I would say is the worst thing that you could ever tell to a transgender person, but basically she said if you're really a woman then you know that you put everybody else's life in front of your own. So, she goes if you are really a woman then you will put your kid's life and your wife's life in front of your own, and you'll stay in the end for them. And that hit home for me, it's like I knew exactly what she was talking about, and I stopped transitioning basically, it's like now I made a commitment to my wife, to be the man for her. And Two kids were young at the time, my daughter was like six and my son was three, and it's like now we're gonna go back in the closet. Well, the intention was not to go back in the closet at the time. The intention was to basically nope, we're gonna stop doing this, and we're gonna ignore it, and we're gonna try to live the best life that we can as a man and be the father to my children and be the husband to my wife. And I went back in the closet for another 15 years. And I want to say for about six months, I didn't get dressed, I didn't do anything, I stopped going to the Renaissance meetings. I stopped writing my book, that came to a halt. So, I could have been a famous author like Jenny Boylan, I could have released my wonderful transgender story and gone through transition and release that as well. And it could have been a famous author, but nope, never happened. So, I stopped writing the book because nothing was going on, I wasn't transitioning anymore. I lost my contact with UCLA. I stopped looking at my Chris Penn email that I set up with Hotmail, and that's when they deactivated my account because it wasn't active anymore. And when I did that, I lost contact with all the UCLA people, cause I had no way of contacting them again. Which that was always a little problematic too because those people were kind of like they would come in, and they were college students, so they graduate and disappear. It wasn't like Facebook or whatever, like you become friends with something, and you can stay friends with them for the rest of your life. I only had contacts or whatever for people that were active college students at the time, they would come and go. So basically, it's like if you went, how do you get in touch with somebody who isn't there anymore, you know type of thing? So, I never ended up going back to the bulletin board system anyway. So, by the time -- after 15 years ago, but I wouldn't even know how to connect with the UCLA people at all or if there would be any reason to, so on and so forth. But the end result is that my wife always knew, when we were dating I told her is that I'm a closeted cross dresser, and she was okay with it. Which is part of the reason why I ended up marrying her in the first place, this is like if you could deal with this then you're a keeper. [laughs] She kind of like thought it was a little kinky or whatever. She was like as long as it stays in the bedroom and so hence why I was a closeted cross dresser and never went out. You know, because essentially I never left the house. Did have a couple of minor incidents as the kids were growing up. Apparently or whatever, I sleepwalk on occasion. I had dressed and fallen asleep and apparently, I slept walked around the house and my daughter saw me, and she then decided to tell her day care. It was like my dad dresses up in dresses at home. That did not go over well, because the daycare then confronted my wife and my wife then came and yelled at me, she's like we had an agreement or whatever, you don't you don't show the kids this, and I'm like I didn't show the kids this and apparently whatever your daughter knows, and I'm like, oh shit, I'm like how the hell did she find out? So, the best that we can find out, whatever it is that I probably slept --or slept walk one night or whatever, and she saw me. Believe it or not, that's how we, that's how we ended up with part of this Pocono house that we're currently sitting in. So, this was the second house when I was married, this was my house, it was always my house. I always fell in love with this area, whatever my -- we did make an attempt or whatever to let's say, live here full time as a primary house, but my wife couldn't stand it up here, so we ended up moving back down south, like the Landsdale/Montgomeryville area is where we -- where I met her and that's where I spent a lot of my time raising my kids down in that area, and this became a second house, and this was my weekend house, or whatever, to basically go away and get dressed and have a fun weekend by myself and I could come up here and we would, we would still spend like holidays and things like that up here, it wasn't just my getaway house, but it was very important for me to have like a getaway house. I needed a place to go. To basically -- so, most of the time when I was here, any time I was here by myself or whatever, I was -- I was dressed, in fem didn't typically go out. Basically, I would come up and go grocery shopping or whatever and then spend the whole weekend in them or whatever, but really never left the house. It's part of the reason why we're back here, kind of like we're in the back of a development or whatever, not really a whole lot going on here. It's not -- not a single neighbor ever noticed a thing. Pretty quiet back here. So that's how that's, believe it or not or whatever that, the location of this house where it is, why it exists, and things like that are very much tied into my life and continues to be. When, I got divorced, I was like, I'm keeping in this house. So, and my wife or whatever knew that, she's like, yeah, that's always been your house. It will always continue to be your house. She had no problems with it, had problems with lots of the furniture in it, which is, which did not go very well, and I've not really replaced. So, I had a very nice table at one point in time. I had a very nice sectional and things like that. They left when I got divorced and this got -- this was a really old table or whatever and that was like borrowed furniture and things like that or whatever it's like, I really need to replace a lot of these things, but I haven't really done so. But yeah, it's all tied in, it's all tied into the story, so. NB: I'm wondering, you mentioned your wife and your kids, and you also mentioned the sense of your having like a split identity. Would you mind talking about that for us? CP: Sure, so, I basically associated the two behaviors, my behavior as male or whatever with my name, Christopher. And I associated my behaviors of what I did as female or whatever as associated with Christine and for the longest time or whatever, that was my life or whatever. It's like, quite literally, I had two lives. And for many years, whatever it's like during that 1999/2000 time frame or whatever, definitely had two lives going on. Then, two very active lives. And what really became -- I wanna say is that basically I had two very active lives running like 50/50, for I want to say a good six months. And then transition came to a halt and then became a 90/10 split. Now it's like 90% Christopher and 10% Christine. And that's the way it stayed for about the next 15 years or so. And that 90/10 split was like Christine did not go away. She disappeared for about six months and then came roaring back. It's like, we can't stay -- cannot not do, let's say, these private behaviors or whatever and things like that or whatever. It's like I just can't live that way. And eventually what happened is that over time or whatever, Christine, I call her, I always say it's like she was the second person, whatever. But it's like really what happened was, is that, over time or whatever, it's like it started creeping, she started creeping up. Christine was yelling or whatever, it's like I can't be held in the closet [laughs] forever, and basically, eventually you just start exploring or whatever and so on and so forth. And you start -- now you go out in public, and you venture on public or whatever, see how it goes. So, I remember one time or whatever leaving the house or whatever, and it's like nervous as hell or whatever, but instead of getting dressed and coming back down to like the Landsdale area, whatever I drove and back then or whatever, it's like there was no EZ Passes. I actually had to pay a toll. I actually had to stop and interact with somebody and hand them money, and I was like, oh my God, whatever, what are they gonna say or whatever It was like dressed in fem. Of course, they just said nothing or didn't even notice it. I was just one in 40 million people that they collected money from that day, but to me or whatever, it's like harrowing event or whatever. It's like, oh my God or whatever, it's like, so on and so forth, it's those little things like that, that sort of like start out. It's the simplest things or whatever, just like, going to the gas station for the first time or whatever, and filling up your car when you're in fem or whatever and things like that. Everything's like nerve wracking, it's like, I'm gonna get found out, somebody's gonna be like oh transgender person, kill them. [laughs] But any rate or whatever, it's like, you kind of just keep on doing that. And the funny thing is that the more you do it, then the more it just becomes normal. And then all of a sudden it's like, now you have just -- now you have like two normal lives. It's like everything's got to like kinda normalizing or whatever on both sides. Over time or whatever, it just became, it's like, you know, this is the life I've always wanted to have. And in 2015 I reached a boiling point, that was major. I want to say, it started in January. It started in January, and I was like, this is -- I had separated from my wife in November. And in January, I was starting to realize that all of those commitments that I made, about raising my kids and being the father to them and the husband to my wife. Kind of like, I met all those, they were done, it's like my kids were now, my daughter was in college, my son was about to graduate high school. It was obviously -- my marriage was falling apart, with my wife we were now separated, and I'm like you've met all these commitments or whatever you're done, you don't need to live up to that commitment that you made anymore. And I started thinking about that in January of 2015, and I was like, I don't know, I'm now older, and like is HRT even gonna still work, you know? Do I wanna totally upset my life or whatever and so on and so forth. And I would say for a good five months whatever, I was like, I don't know if I can do this, I'm too old, I have established a life. Now we're talking about 2015 [laughs] we're up to May of 2015. All of a sudden in May of 2015, right around Memorial Day, I get hit with anxiety, it was not, and it was not a good time. So, during that six months, or whatever, that had passed whatever, since I'd separated from the wife for whatever, I was having a lot of financial problems. Basically, when we separated, the way that we had done finances is that -- I made more money than she did, and my paycheck went basically paying for like all the bills, like car payments, and car insurances, and mortgages and so on and so forth. But by the time my paycheck paid off all those things, there wasn't any money left. So, my wife had also worked. So, her money was the fun money or what I call the fun money, but it really wasn't necessarily fun money like it was the grocery money. And it was what we bought clothes with and all the stuff that you do outside of life or whatever. It's like my paycheck was basically sucked up with living, the mortgages, the health care, all of the necessities I guess you could say. But when we separated, essentially, I still had all those obligations. And now she had all the fun money [laughs] and no obligations. So, I'm like, you need to take over your car payment. I need to free that up, so I can go grocery shopping for myself, and she was like, well no, I'm not doing that. So basically, I was going broke, it was like I couldn't feed myself. And if I stopped paying like her car payment or whatever, it was like primarily on my credit to begin with anyway, so it's like all I'd be doing is screwing myself. I was in financial trouble big time, and that created a lot of stress. And then at work at the time, there was a financial slowdown and my work was doing furlough programs. So, in other words, basically, every two weeks, you're gonna get a day less pay. Rather than lay you off or lay off a bunch of people, were gonna basically cut back. We're now only gonna pay you for nine days out of a 10 day for work rate. So basically the end result is that my paycheck was going down. [laughs] So basically whatever I'm getting inundated with, I have no free money, I can't even go grocery shopping for myself, my paycheck or whatever is getting smaller, I'm basically getting screwed. So, I'm like, I need to get divorced right now, I need to force her to basically take over her obligations or whatever, so I can get money to free up, so I can basically go grocery shopping and live. And I had no way out, I had no money to hire a lawyer or anything like that or whatever. I did finally talk to my parents and basically, they lent me the money to pay for a lawyer to basically force her into divorce. Because she did not want things to change, whatever. She's got somebody paying for all of her stuff or whatever, and she's living wild and free and now has a shitload of extra money because now she doesn't have to do anything for me. So anyway, basically going through that through the normal stresses of life or whatever. So, it's not like work or whatever was going away. I now have the stress or whatever, finances, whatever going on or whatever, the whole nine yards. I did not need any other stress that's going on in my life when I went up like gender dysphoria, hi, I'm here. And by the way, I'm going to fuck you [laughs] and I'm gonna screw you over, like, as bad as you can be or whatever. And basically whatever, and that started in Memorial -- I don't know why Memorial Day or whatever, but it's like, right around that time frame or whatever. It's kind of like, you need to transition, and you need to do it now [laughs] and then quite literally, it was like a little voice in my head or whatever. It was like, yeah, you met all your obligations, you need to transition, you need to do it now. Your whole life is screwed or whatever, so we're just gonna screw everything. At any rate, that hit me in May or whatever, and quite literally, I just had the super anxiety or whatever. It was driving me freaking crazy or whatever. It's like -- it was going nuts, and I'm like, I can't do this, I can't handle this right now. It's like, I can't do that or whatever, the whole nine yards. My gender therapist or whatever basically said the stress of all those other things basically brought that stress to life, is really what happened. It's kind of like a frequent thing or whatever they see in us or whatever, it's like one stress situation kind of like bubbles up another one. It was definitely happening to me. And basically, it was just driving me crazy or whatever, and I'm like, and I was still thinking or whatever, it's like, is HRT even gonna work or whatever. It's like, I can't pass to save my life or whatever. It's like every time I go out in public or whatever, it's horrible, you know? And this isn't worth it. I quite literally started getting suicidal, and I picked a drop-dead date. My drop-dead date was July 4th, 2015. I said if I can't figure out what the hell I'm doing by then, I'm done, I'm ending it. And July 4th came around, and I was like I've had it, I'm done. I don't wanna go through the turmoil of transition, I can't keep living or whatever, the way that I am. I don't wanna live as male anymore. Basically, it's like I'm done, and I planned it. I started to execute it. So north of here, so this believe it or not, this goes back to cycling. So, part of the reason why I live here is because I fell in love with things like the D& ; L Trip. So, the D& ; L Trail is a trail that basically goes from Bristol, Pennsylvania all the way up to Wilkes-Barre, and it runs through the Lehigh Gorge right here. The Lehigh Gorge is, quite literally, three miles that way. So, this development is on the edge of whatever of the Lehigh Gorge State Park. So basically, you walk down the end of the block here, you walk into the Gorge State Park, and then from there to a mile or whatever is the river, but it's also a river and 1000 ft drop. So we're about 1000 ft above the river. But anyway, I was writing through all this time or whatever that I had the house up here, whatever, okay, I wasn't spending all my time in the house, let's say dressed up. Now I would go out and I would basically go ride a bike up and down the D& ; L Trail. I was very familiar with, well, to this day or whatever I can tell you about like every inch of the trail from here, all the way up to White Haven. So, at White Haven is the Interstate 80 bridge that goes across the Lehigh Gorge. It's about an 800 ft drop, from the Lehigh -- from the bridge to the gorge, or to the river. People have driven off that bridge. I knew people had driven off that bridge. People have committed suicide driving off that bridge. There's probably like about three or four people a year that do it. That's what I decided I was going to do. I was basically going to drive up to Interstate 80 or whatever and drive off that bridge. I was not going to call a hotline. I found out or whatever, my life insurance had a suicide clause. So, I was not gonna document it, not gonna do anything. I wanted it to look like a tragic, tragic accident, basically or whatever is just basically, I live in the area, or whatever. So, it would be like, it's not like I haven't driven across that bridge before. So, I knew exactly where to hit it. The whole nine yards, or whatever, basically I planned it the whole nine yards. Because it was July 4th weekend, I had been riding my bike all weekend trying to figure out, a way out, to not go and commit suicide. And when I left the house and basically said that's it, I'm done or whatever, I'm driving to the bridge. I realized or whatever that might bike was still in the back of my truck. That truck down there, the one that I still have. That was the truck that I had at the time, still have it. [laughs] Anyway, my bike was still in the back of the truck from -- because I had ridden the trail or whatever the day before, and I said, let's do one more bike ride. If I can't solve it on this bike ride or whatever, I'm not coming home, put the bike in the back of the truck, and we're driving off the bridge. [Inaudible] the beginning of the bike ride or whatever went absolutely horrible. I was still thinking about everything negative, I was thinking about it if I came out or whatever, and it's like everybody would have to know, my kids didn't know at the time or whatever. I was thinking that my auto mechanic has to know. Everybody in the area, or whatever is gonna find out, someone and so forth or whatever, it was just focused on everything negative, and I was like, I can't pass whatever, is HRT even still work for me, someone so forth or whatever it's like do I really wanna put myself through this? And the end answer was, no, didn't wanna do it. So eventually whenever I turned around on the bike and then I was headed back and I was gonna basically drive straight to the bridge or whatever, drive off the damn bridge, and I could not settle my mind down. My mind was just micro focused or whatever on, I've had it, I'm done thinking about this, I don't wanna do anything. Just get back to the truck, and drive to the bridge and fucking end it. That's quite literally, that was the mode, that was the mindset I was in. It's like, I've had it, I cannot, I don't wanna even think about it anymore, it's not even worth working out or whatever, and so on and so forth. And my mind was just driving me fucking crazy and I decided to turn on a song. I had my phone with me and on my phone I had music, and I decided to just turn on some music or whatever just to get me back to the truck, and a song came on and that song changed my way. That song is Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up". And I wrote this down in another Medium story [laughs]. The words to that song connected with me on that day. So believe it or not, this has actually been documented now. The Medium story that I wrote was actually referenced by a paper in the UK. They used it as an example of how many different people that this song has helped, in suicidal situations. Because essentially what I did is I documented how I felt that day, and what I was thinking about how that song saved me. So basically or whatever it goes through, it's a song or whatever and really what it does is it applies to just about any depressing type of situation. I would say go listen to it if you're not familiar with it, or go read my Medium story because I go through the story line by line and equated to what I was thinking about at the time or whatever and how that line connected with me. I had listened to that song probably 20 million times before that day, and never got the meaning of it. It's like I knew the words to it, but it never connected with me, that day it connected with me. And when I got back to the truck instead of driving to the bridge, I came back here instead, and the day after, I called my insurance company or whatever looking to basically go talk to a gender therapist or psychologist again. I had not spoken to one in 15 years at that point, from back to the 2000, you know, when I had spoken to him one last time and of course whatever as soon as I told them, what I had just been through over the weekend. They were like, please hang up and call the transgender suicide hotline. And, I'm like, no I think I'm okay there now, I'm not going to do that, but I really need to speak to somebody. And I did and it took about 2.5 months to find somebody. My company's health plan did not support anything transgender related. So, they did not have a list of gender therapists to give me to call. All they could give me was basically just mental health professionals. So, I ended up going through a list of like about 50 people, I think the 48th person that I called, was actually somebody who was familiar with gender related issues. And I ended up making an appointment with him, and he's the guy that actually wrote my letter to start HRT, or one of them [laughs]. What a unique guy, [laughs] I did not want a guy to talk to. I always found that women are much more empathetic. So I was really hoping or whatever to find another woman. The psychologist that I had spoken to before like years ago, they were all women, and I really felt that I had connected with them, I did not think that I could connect that way with a guy. But he ended up being a really good guy for me to to talk to. And he did all sorts of weird stupid shit, that I thought was stupid at the time, but I got it later. I always equate him to like The Karate Kid movie, and Mr. what the hell is mojo or what the hell? What the hell is his name? NB: In Karate Kid? CP: Yeah. NB: I have no idea that might be a little before -- CP: I forget his name or, so basically he's like Daniel-san or the kid basically goes to this little old Japanese guy or whatever. And he's going to teach him how to do karate, and he puts them to work, and he's basically telling him, he's like -- he wants him to paint the fence. And you must paint it this way or whatever, it's like stroke up and down, no side to side or whatever, it has to be up and down or whatever the whole nine yards. And then he has him wax his car, and basically once in the wax or whatever, doing these circles or like this, things like wax this way, wax on, and then off with your left hand. So basically, he's like teaching him, all these things, whatever Daniel-san or eventually gets pissed off or he goes, you're supposed to be teaching me karate and you're doing all this weird shit. It's like, I don't know anything or whatever, and then basically they have this fight scene. He goes paint defense, so he tries to throw a punch and Daniel-san goes and does the paint motion or whatever, and it's a block or whatever for the thing coming or whatever. Then he's like, wax the car [laughs]. Each one of these moves is a karate move or whatever, and he was getting him used to it by doing these things, that made no sense. And that's exactly the type of shit that my gender therapist was doing. A great thing would be one of the first questions he asked me, he's like, if I told you to put a tutu on and go dance in front of your house, would you do it? And I was like no, it's freaking crazy or whatever, and all the people will think I'm nuts or whatever, and the whole nine yards. And it was nothing about that, there's nothing about, putting on a tutu, it was everything about self-confidence. And me not caring about what other people thought, and it's like, I did not get it [laughs]. But later on, I was like, now I know exactly what the hell he was talking about, so it's kinda like that Karate Kid moment or whatever. Where he's talking about things or whatever and you're not getting it, you know the whole nine yards, and then later on it becomes perfectly clear. And he did a lot of shit like that with me and, [laughs] it's like doing this crazy shit or whatever, it's like why the hell are we doing this, what the hell does this mean? And then later going, okay I get it. He ended up being, I would say the right person that I needed at the time, and he helped me out a lot. Kinda like bring me out of my shell, I guess you could say cause I was still primarily closeted at the time. And you know very afraid or whatever to go out in public or whatever because all my public experiences to-date was absolutely horrible, and they weren't getting any better [laughs]. And I wanna say for the next two years or whatever after that they didn't get any better [laughs]. And he was sort of like preparing, basically he's like you need to build up some tolerance or whatever and not care about what other people think or whatever, it's like you're doing this for you. You're not doing this for them and who cares what they think and so on and so forth. And he really instilled a lot of that into me, so got me to change my perspective on things, which was very important at the time, it's like if you're going down this path or whatever, those are the types of skills that you needed. And it's like he would say -- I would say he was the first person that actually really helped me. So, there's the psychologist that I had seen years ago, and they were not helpful. Telling somebody about it was actually helpful, but they weren't doing anything to help me per se, other than being a place to vent [laughs]. So, the funny thing is that I still have -- and I see a psychologist today, I don't even see a gender therapist anymore. But I see a psychologist today and I feel I'm back to, she's just a place to vent [laughs]. It's not really necessarily helping me, but I have not necessarily given up or I still have the need to basically go vent to somebody on occasion. So I kept her around, [laughs]. NB: I think that's a pretty good idea given where we're at right now CP: Yes exactly. NB: Well unfortunately, we are running out of time. We have about 5 minutes left. CP: Oh wow. There is so much more I can tell you [laughs]. NB: Oh my goodness. Well, is there anything, before we wrap this interview up the next 5-10 minutes, is there anything else about your life story that you wanna talk about that we haven't gotten to yet? CP: Oh yeah, absolutely. Sports has been a major thing in my life. So the whole transition and things like that, it's kinda like ignited this thing where it's like I needed to get control of my life. And getting control of my life basically, I changed a lot of things, and one of the things that I had changed is is that, I spent an awful lot of time going through marriage and things like that being sort of depressed. And I drank a lot, did a lot of what I would say bad behaviors or whatever and things like that. And so when I separated from my ex, one of the things I wanted to do was basically get control of my life or whatever, get healthy again and things like that. And it started getting back into my -- if you go all the way back to high school and even some college or whatever, is like I was always in into sports or whatever a little bit and I was like, I wanna get back into things. I really felt that kind of like -- it was somewhere I needed to be [laughs]. And it's sort of weird, the way that went because it's really driven a whole lot of my life later. And it's very much tied with my transition or the whole nine yards. And so before I transitioned, and things like that, but when I started -- the health kick really started before I got divorced and went through the whole suicide thing and the whole nine years. It really started with my thyroid went. My thyroid went and I started gaining a lot of weight, and I had been, let's say, an occasional cyclist at that point in time. In order to offset some of the weight gain that was going on with my thyroid, I started ramping up my cycling. I started doing more and more of it, as a way to try to control the weight gain or whatever that was going on. I found out later, the funny thing is that, it ended up playing into it helping me get diagnosed with a thyroid condition. So, it was creating a lot of cardiac issues at the time, the thyroid problem. So, I was also seeing a cardiologist and the cardiologist was just driving himself nuts. He could not figure out what the hell was causing all these cardiac issues going on. So, at a meeting he asked me, what did you do this weekend? And I'm like, I did a bike ride on Saturday and Sunday, and he goes, how far did you go? And I said, I did about 40 miles on each day, so I did about 80 miles, and he goes, how much weight did you lose? I'm like, I didn't, I actually gained 5 lbs. [laughs]. And he goes, you biked 80 miles over the weekend, and you gained 5 lbs., and I'm like, yeah, I said, if I didn't, I probably would've gained 20, and he goes, holy shit. And he says, are you seeing your -- my general physician or whatever again? And he said, yeah, he's sending me for another batch of blood tests, or whatever. He goes, I want to see if there's one on there, and he goes, if it's not, I'm gonna add one. And he added the test or whatever, to basically test -- I forget what it is or whatever, but there's something that basically elevates in your blood if your thyroid is not working. Mine was off the freaking chart [laughs]. So he added the test for it, and it came back, it was also a freaking chart or whatever, so. But at any rate I was ramping up my cycling of more and more, which was actually, getting me more and more into, like a fitness routine type of thing. And so, after I got on the thyroid medication, I stopped gaining weight. Now I was cycling to lose all the weight that I had put on, I had to put on over 100 lbs. From when my thyroid went, to where I was when we finally got on the medication. It probably would've killed me within 6 months if they didn't figure it out [inaudible]. So, my fitness cycle, getting into cycling just continued from that point forward, and I never stopped it, and that then led into transition. It's quite literally one of the reasons why my bike was in the back of the truck. So cycling was always a way for me to like get out in the middle of the woods, like up on the trail to think about things, it's like, what the hell do I do in this situation? It was a place that basically get some clarity and things like that. So, it fit very much into my life, and I always wanted to be an active person. I wasn't -- there was a long time where I wasn't as active, but I was like partially active. We would go camping, have a camping trailer out there [laughs]. Any place where everyone camping, I went out hiking, [laughs] things like that, wife and things like that would not, but I would grab the kids or whatever. It's like let's go on a hike, or let's go on a bike ride and so on and so forth. And, I was always attempting or whatever to be active. It's just that there's lots of times where I was not. Once I separated from my ex, then I just became more and more active, I was biking all the time and so on and so forth. When I started transitioning, I found that HRT and things like that had a major impact, on all of my athletic activities, and I was struggling with it, and my doctors, and things like that, they had never treated a person who was like an athlete at the time. So, they were struggling with, we don't know how to tell you how to deal with these things or whatever because we don't normally treat athletic people who are going through HRT, and things like that and that was leading to problem. And I was having a lot of problems that they couldn't explain. And the funny thing is that I know what a lot of them are now, but it's, [laughs] So I've been through one hell of a medical journey. [laughs] but eventually that led to me is that I got connected with a woman who was starting up a transgender cycling team and that opened up a world to me. So, I ended up joining because I wanted to connect with other transgender cyclists who were, are you having these types of problems. With somebody to talk to or whatever and things like that, cause I wasn't getting answers from like the medical community and things like that. It's like, well, let's -- I didn't know any other athletes, I didn't know any other cyclists or whatever who were transitioning and things like that or whatever. It was like, I didn't have anybody to talk to and joining that team gave me people to talk to and I'm still a very active cyclist today. I call myself a semi competitive cyclist, I'm not very good, [laughs] so you'll never hear about me. So, in other words, I'm not gonna be the next Lia Thomas of the world or anything like that. I'm one of the many, I don't wanna say millions or whatever, but let's say thousands of transgender athletes out there that are basically not that good. So they don't put a spotlight on us type of thing. So for every Lia Thomas of the world, I wanna say there's probably thousands of others that are just not making the headlines because if you're losing, then it's not a story, [laughs ]. So I've been basically losing for years. [laughs] I'm well aware of what women's sports is like. I see all the bigotry, I see all the misogyny, I also see the lack of participation and things like that or whatever, it's like I see all of the bad and good. There's lots of good as well, don't get me wrong or whatever but there's a whole other side of the world or whatever when you kind of open that up. And so I am by the way, I'm trying to get more women involved in sports or whatever because the only time I've ever won is by default. So eg. or whatever, if you only get three women showing up and one of them has happens to be a transgender woman. Guess what? All three of you are making the podium. [laughs] Okay, so the only time I ever managed to get onto a podium at an event is because by default, [laughs]. Any time I've actually competed with other -- and there's much more of a story here or whatever. I'm actually pretty good in my age group, okay, but I wanna say 95% of the time, I'm not racing my age group, I'm racing a lot younger people. And then the younger people are a hell of a lot better than I am. [laughs] So I cannot compete with the younger people. So 90% of the time, 95% of the time when I'm competing with the younger people, I'm gonna come in last. If I managed or whatever to get into a master's race where I'm actually competing with people my age, I actually do fairly decent. I also do better at some distance races and things like that, but I'm still not considered an elite athlete at all or whatever and I'm just an entry level type of person or whatever. But the fact that I -- that I'm out there competing or whatever is to believe it or not a pretty big step. Plus I see what it takes, it's like I have a full time job, I have a full time life that really gets in the way of trying to maintain an athletic schedule. And I know what it takes to be a mediocre athlete, [laughs] I don't have the time to put into to get to that elite level anyway. Because unless you've got somebody paying for it and you can do it like, let's say 24/7, you're just never gonna be able to make it there. So unless you're and it's not worth anybody to invest in me or whatever cuz I'm already almost 55 already in a master as it is anyway. So another, it's basically I'm not gonna be heading to the Olympics or anything like that anytime soon, [laughs] unless like half the population was to die off or something. [laughs] It's like if you're like the last person or whatever that they would choose to go, it'd be like me over a couch potato. Yeah, [laughs] but I have experience, I know what the competition is like, I know strategy and things like that or whatever, but it's I'm not good enough to ever make it to that level. So because of that, you'll never hear of me, the funny thing is that I meet all the other goals or whatever. So I'm big, I stand out, I look like I'm gonna dominate type of thing or whatever. But in reality, the answer is like, nope, so therefore you'll never hear about me. NB: Not happening? CP: What's that? NB: Not happening? CP: It doesn't fit their mode of the story that they wanna tell. But anyway, that's been tremendous to me. So, the girl who started up the team or whatever, that was the first transgender sports team ever. So yeah, so I was on the first ever transgender sports team, it was the transnational women's cycling team, and it existed from 2017 to 2019. We did three active seasons of racing, so yes, if you go look at my racing schedule. You will see that I actually did a couple of races or whatever where I was listed underneath the transnational women's cycling team. It's kind of interesting or whatever that I do a lot more than what I get credit for. So, there's only so many races or whatever they basically like count or whatever towards your, let's say, your official record. So, like for example, I do a race every Thursday night, you have to have a license to participate in the race. But it does not count towards your record, it's considered a training race. So, the idea is that basically you do that race to basically build up your skills necessary to participate in the real races. So, it's absolutely vital or whatever that you participate in a series like that, but you don't get any credit for it. So, it's like I've done like thousands and thousands of races, but I think my race record is like maybe 27 races, [laughs] It's not that impressive. But my experience level is significantly higher. [laughs] NB: Yeah CP: So like for example, I've done the Tour to Tucson twice, the Tour to Tucson is not an official USAC sanctioned race. The reason why a lot of people do it is, is that it's in the off season. So in other words, it's a bike race, it's primarily a charity bike race. And a lot of elite cyclists will actually go do the race, it just doesn't count, [laughs] to the thing. So, -- and I've actually done fairly well at that race, so like in the top third. So, like for example, the one year I came in 25th out of 133 women, I think. So that's decent, nowhere near the podium, [laughs] But that's, I'm not a slouch either. So I'm not in like the 33 women who came in like after the 100, [laughs] So, no, I was in like the top -- I don't know what is it? At the top, I'm the eighth or something. NB: That's pretty impressive. CP: Yeah, so, but anyway, so I do okay, nothing record smashing or anything like that or whatever, but it's like I can do pretty decent things. It's just that it's not that -- yeah, nobody cares. Well I care, [laughs] What it really comes down to is that I care, lots of my friends care or whatever and things like that. The cycling scene or whatever is a pretty social atmosphere or whatever, and I absolutely love the groups that I'm involved in and things like that. I'm in four different cycling teams, by the way, [laughs] NB: Wow. CP: So and I'm pretty active in just about all of them. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Christine Penn, May 8, 2022
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Christine Penn recalls her early/family life and relationship with gender, as well as her experiences with transgender positive communities online and in-person.
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LGBT-32
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2022-05-08
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Mary Foltz
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Kevin Jefferson
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5.4 June 21, 2022 Kevin Jefferson, June 21, 2022 LGBT-34 1:14:17 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Kevin Jefferson Mary Foltz video/mp4 JeffersonKevin_20220621_video_trimmed.mp4 1.0:|27(9)|64(10)|81(14)|102(4)|125(14)|148(6)|169(4)|192(4)|213(10)|234(13)|253(16)|276(3)|301(4)|322(2)|347(13)|368(10)|393(5)|414(17)|435(2)|456(14)|479(7)|498(17)|519(10)|540(16)|565(6)|582(7)|607(11)|632(4)|653(13)|674(2)|695(19)|718(7)|739(7)|758(2)|781(3)|800(8)|827(6)|844(10)|861(13)|884(10)|907(5)|928(8)|949(8)|966(15)|989(4)|1010(2)|1029(16)|1050(10)|1069(4)|1088(14)|1107(12)|1130(12)|1151(11)|1176(14)|1197(5)|1216(10)|1233(14)|1254(15)|1277(3)|1296(11)|1319(9)|1340(10)|1361(10)|1380(6)|1399(16)|1420(8)|1439(10)|1456(6)|1475(14)|1494(19)|1515(2)|1534(13)|1553(3)|1572(14)|1581(12) 0 https://youtu.be/AT-zqO7LZxQ YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions MF: Well, my name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Kevin Jefferson to talk about his life and experiences in LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley. And this is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This year our project has funding from ACLS, and Kevin and I are meeting at Muhlenberg College today is June 21st, 2022. And I want to just start by saying thank you so much for meeting with us today.
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 ; KJ: I'm humble. Humble to be here.
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 ; MF: I'm just thrilled that you're here. And to start, could you please state your full name and spell it for me?
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 ; KJ: My name is Kevin James Jefferson. That's K-E-V-I-N, J-A-M-E-S, J-E-F-F-E-R-S-O-N. 0 117 Upbringing
 ; KJ: Um, I grew up, there was five of us, I had four sisters, only boy. I was spoiled. Definitely. My, um, my mother. My mother really spoiled me. She did. A lot of my drive and motivation actually comes from her, and just our upbringing. My mom was a single mom. She definitely did her best. But there were times where we lived in shelters and things of that sort. 0 243 Growing up in Whitehall, PA
 ; MF: Describe the community where you grew up, was that..? 
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 ; KJ: I grew up, when I was a kid, about until I was about five. We lived in Florida till I was about five. Did move to Allentown for a little bit. But I can say, like when I was around six or seven, we moved to Whitehall and that's where I actually say I grew up because really, once we moved to Whitehall, the house that we lived in, we stayed in until graduation. So now I always say I'm from here. I lived here the most. Yeah. 0 508 Relationship with Mother KJ: And my mom was really good at those machine games where you put the quarter in and it drops down and picks-- the claw machine. And I think honestly, we spent like $15, but she made sure she got me that doll and like she never treated me different out there. I wanted the doll, [snaps] she got me the doll. So I just, I didn't know I was different. I didn’t. And she didn’t make me feel that way.
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 ; I even have an older sister, who's a lesbian, and she came out to my mom, and my mom was doing the dishes when she came out to her. And my mom was just like “Yeah okay”, and like Deanna was like, “I'm serious, mom, I’m gay”. And my mom was like, “Yeah, I know. I like, I know these things”. So, I just remember her being really accepting. Even when I had to educate her on things like even… My mom was a white woman from New York. She had blue eyes, blond hair, a New York accent. You couldn’t tell she had mixed kids unless you met them. 0 769 Going to School in Whitehall / Friendships little bit about the Whitehall community. What was what was school like for you in Whitehall?
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 ; KJ: I was my mom's star child. They would say, they would say in their own words, they would just -- stop. My sister – My sisters they weren’t rough and stuff. It's just, I would say I'm more laid back, in a sense. Everyone knew Kevin for good reasons, and I never fought or anything like that. And I just remember the teachers would pull me aside and say, you know, you're your mom's star child. And anyone that knew Kevin, and I don't say this to gas me up. But they would smile because they had a funny story about Kevin. 0 1070 Coming to Terms with Sexuality MF: You said it was a long process to come into your gayness. Can you describe that process? 
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 ; KJ: Which is sad because I shared a room with my older sister. Well, first she tricked my mom into giving my room to pay rent, and I think she paid rent once. But whatever, I shared with my older sister, eventually. She's a lesbian stud. And there was a gay flag on the wall and stuff. I had a girlfriend for about five years, and at the time ; I don't know if this is TMI, but at the time, that's all I knew. So of course, I was, like, faithful and I really cared for her. I really did. 0 1282 Dating in Early 20s MF: You talk about -- so you kind of made this decision. Well then what? Where did you go in the Lehigh Valley to meet people or was there a process for you sort of like, I'm going to the Stonewall or I'm going…
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 ; KJ: You know what's sad and I hate to say this cause I was supposed to go there like when they were about to close, but I never been to Stonewall. I've been to, I've been to other gay bars in the Lehigh Valley, but I never experience like Diamonz or Stonewall, never got to experience that. But I've gone to Philly to gay clubs and stuff. And when I first came out of the closet and I knew, like, this is what I want, I don't know who I want and when, but this is what I want. I went into a gay bar and it did take some adjustment of like getting hit on. I was always the one like doing that. That was me and initiating and stuff and it took you used to but one once I got out there and I met the community and stuff, I actually got to see how beautiful our gay community is. 0 1565 Meeting Justan
 ; KJ: [...] But I met some good guys and stuff, but little did I know the love of my life lived in the same town as me, it just took a little while.
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 ; MF: How did you meet? 
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 ; KJ: Oh, we met on an app called Badoo. I don't even know if the app still works now. And, I mean I’ll let him tell you what --, I can tell you from my perspective, he like, he didn't know if I -- because there were straight people on there, as well as lesbian, gay, and transgender. 0 1719 Work Life MF: We talked a little bit about -- I mean, I'm sure we'll talk more about Justan in quite a bit. But we talked about education. What happens to you sort of after you’re sort of moving through school? What is your work life like? We talked a little bit about your dating life, like what's happening in terms of your work life. And then I'm hoping we could kind of move towards your organizational...
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 ; KJ: Oh, yes. Okay. So my work life started when I was 16. I would help my mom, as well as my older sister, as we would all help with the bills and stuff. And I had a under-the-table, full time job, and then I had a part time job and I worked my butt off. I was 17, 16, turned 17, and I felt like working and stuff that helped ground me. 0 2130 Change Now KJ: And I think -- and I know we don't speak about it yet, but I think that's why we went official with Change Now. Instead of “Hey, we're going to go do a Thanksgiving meal at the men's shelter and stuff or we're going to drop [presents] off at the shelter”. We started something I feel that is beautiful, Change Now, and it's just the beginning and I see us doing really big things with that. We have an awesome team and I see the change that we're making in the community. It may be small to other people, but those accomplishments are big to us. Really big. 
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 ; MF: Tell me the story of Change Now. I mean, it's so clear that your mother is an inspiration. 0 2376 Change Now's Programs/Mission of Change Now KJ: Yeah, Justan can quote me on that, but I want to say we had it officially for two years. Now, our last event that we just did was Humankind Day last month. And where we provide it like toys, summer toys and stuff to the community, they didn't even have to get out their cars. You literally just stayed in your car and went stations and station and you were provided with -- We would just ask how many kids? And we had buckets, bubbles, chalk, games. And I love doing that -- working on Change Now, is something that I can do around the clock, and I feel like I kind of never get tired from it because it's honestly something I enjoy doing. And at these events with speaking with members of the community and stuff, or even one of our programs. 0 2739 Goals of Change Now MF: When you and Justan were talking about that, is that what you were imagining in that original conversation, this kind of organization with these wonderful, incredible gifts to our community, or has it passed, surpassed? 
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 ; KJ: Surpassed by far. I honestly couldn't imagine like it -- us accomplishing so much with Change Now, and just the friends that we've made with Change Now and stuff. I couldn't imagine not knowing them though. Anita and Luna come to mind, they're the one that's run SELF! Women's Reentry and they’re our sisters we have gone to Puerto Rico with them. We have cried with them. We failed with them, we've succeeded with them and stuff. And I just couldn't imagine my life without them. 0 3003 Structure of Change Now MF: Can I ask you a little bit about the structure Change Now, because I know you work a full time job and Justan works a full time job. How does the organization operate? Is it all volunteer or how do you keep it so successful, even when you're working full time?
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 ; KJ: We have -- and I have to thank our team, we have a tight circle. A lot of our volunteers are actually people that I've been personally work with. 0 3213 Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley MF: Can I ask -- so what is the relationship or is there a relationship between Change Now and then your work with Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley, putting up the page…?
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 ; KJ: We kept that separate, just because with nonprofits, you really don't want to get into politics and stuff and so we separated the two, but that didn't change our focus with the two. With the Black Lives Matters Lehigh Valley page, that page, like we do have a Change Now Facebook page, but the Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley page is the page that is really active. There are families in the community reaching out, whether it be question for assistance or, hey, did you see this article and stuff, and you want to stay on top of it. You don't want to keep these people leaving this page. 0 3553 Importance of Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley MF: I know you've passed the baton on, but I have a question about that origin story for Black Lives Matter, Lehigh Valley. I guess my question comes from, you know, it's a national movement. I mean, we can hear about organizations in different sort of major cities. Why was it important to start Black Lives Matter in Lehigh Valley here in Allentown? Like, you know, what is the important for you of having a local organization that's also sort of connected to the national conversation? 0 3844 Engagement to Justan/Visions for the Future 0 4179 Co-Parenting MF: So can I ask you, what's it like to be, as you are right now, a dad with Justan and with….
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 ; KJ:. And I will say, our son, even though is a small case, he has autism. And I think when I first met him, I was like 21, 22, 22, became a stepdad and he had autism. And I only asked that question like, “do you have kids?” just to make conversation, I didn’t expect him to say yes. But honestly, being a step-parent I felt like is what I was meant to do and stuff. That -- just as Justan's my best friend, my partner, the person I trust, it's the same for his daughter and son. That's my family right there, I give them my heart. 0 4312 Closing Remarks MF: Well, we're nearing the end of the interviews, but I want to ask you, is there anything that we missed that you thought, oh, I really want to talk about that. Anything that you wanted to sort of talk about at the end? 
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 ; KJ: I would just say, let's -- it's nice that we talked how Black Lives Matter, I'm a Black man. But let's talk about more LGBTQ issues going on in the community and let's just talk more about it. 0 MovingImage Kevin Jefferson describes their early life in the Lehigh Valley, personal relationships and coming to terms with their sexuality, and their pivotal non-profit work with Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley and Change Now. MF: Well, my name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Kevin Jefferson to talk about his life and experiences in LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley. And this is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This year our project has funding from ACLS, and Kevin and I are meeting at Muhlenberg College today is June 21st, 2022. And I want to just start by saying thank you so much for meeting with us today. KJ: I'm humble. Humble to be here. MF: I'm just thrilled that you're here. And to start, could you please state your full name and spell it for me? KJ: My name is Kevin James Jefferson. That's K-E-V-I-N, J-A-M-E-S, J-E-F-F-E-R-S-O-N. MF: And would you be willing to share your birthday? KJ: Yeah. October 25th, ′91. MF: And before we started the interview, you and I went over a consent form. But I just want to go back through those questions. Do you consent to an interview today? KJ: Yes. Definitely. MF: And do you consent to having the interview transcribed and digitized and made publicly available online? KJ: Yes. Yes, I do. MF: And do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes or in other formats like articles or on the website or presentations? KJ: Yes, I would love that MF: Thank you. And then we talked about after the interview is transcribed, I will send it to you, and you'll have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review the interview. You can identify our parts that you want to delete, or you could withdraw the interview from the project. Was that clear to you? Did I make that clear? KJ: Yep. MF: Okay, great. So I think we can just go ahead and get started. KJ: Awesome. MF: So my first question for you would be just tell me a little bit about the early years of your life. KJ: Um, I grew up, there was five of us, I had four sisters, only boy. I was spoiled. Definitely. My, um, my mother. My mother really spoiled me. She did. A lot of my drive and motivation actually comes from her, and just our upbringing. My mom was a single mom. She definitely did her best. But there were times where we lived in shelters and things of that sort. So and I think that is why I started and my partner started doing what we do, to try to give back, especially in her honor. My mother passed away in 2020, but before that, she would even help me. I would go and get gifts and donate them for like a boy and a girl, donate them to the shelters each year and stuff, just to give back. Because I was that child. She let us make mistakes and she was really accepting, you know, like I never had the conversation with my mom, like, "Oh, I'm gay". I just came home with a boyfriend, and she just was like, "Okay". [laughs] I mean, she teased me. She teased me before then, when we were just friends, but, moms know. So, she wasn't really shocked. What else-- I just. I just remember being a kid and playing and just playing in the streets with my sisters and my friends. I have cerebral palsy, but never used it as like a disadvantage. And I was in the streets, climbing trees, all of that. So that never stopped me. What else, I'm trying to think here. MF: Describe the community where you grew up, was that..? . KJ: I grew up, when I was a kid, about until I was about five. We lived in Florida till I was about five. Did move to Allentown for a little bit. But I can say, like when I was around six or seven, we moved to Whitehall and that's where I actually say I grew up because really, once we moved to Whitehall, the house that we lived in, we stayed in until graduation. So now I always say I'm from here. I lived here the most. Yeah. MF: What was Whitehall like? KJ: Whitehall was...I feel like kids nowadays are different than the kids that we were. I mean, bike riding, manhunt in the neighborhood. Everyone knew when the streetlights came on. Get your butt home and stuff. It was a beautiful upbringing and a good time. There's a lot of stuff that I see today, that maybe shouldn't happen, even though I'm what was a brown boy, with a limp. For some reason, I always met the description in Whitehall, and I never understood that. And I honestly never knew that it was a bad thing until I got older. It was just something I was used to. I didn't really have my father around to educate me about being a black man, you know? And these things can happen. Definitely things my mom mentioned to me, but it was nothing that was instilled in me. Oh, yeah. I got to take a little breather once I, once I think about that, because I have to say, it happened about like three times. And the youngest, I was ten years old and how does a ten-year-old meet the description? It's crazy. But besides all that, I grew up Fullerton, Fullerton Park in Whitehall. I played football for two years, baseball for one year. You can even say I was a cheerleader. [laughs] Like because my sister was a cheerleading coach, so I never missed a practice there either. But a really active kid and we're a tight family, so, so we would support one another and stuff. So I can't complain my upbringing. There is not one thing that I would take back. I wouldn't even say, like when we were at our brokest. I feel like those were my happiest times growing up in the shelter with my sisters. We always made the best of it. So it was home, it was what I knew. Yeah. MF: You said that being in the shelters had of some of your best memories, do you remember specific memories that you might want to share? KJ: Yeah. So one time my sister Daina, she's the second, the second oldest. And I tell you, my mom, she always just let us fly and let us learn. Daina wanted to make Christmas cookies the one year that we were there, and she made these Christmas cookies and she had to use half a bottle of salt. I mean, when I tell you, they were so salty, they were so salty. But you can see like the displeasure on her face because she knew they were salty. So we would eat them, and lie to her like "Oh they're so good, they're so good". But then everyone's running to the bathroom to get a drink of water. Because they don't want to hurt Daina's feelings. And that is one memory I always go back to, living in a shelter. I remember my mom taking us on a surprise trip, and the surprise trip was going to the movies to see the Rugrat movie. And that always brings me back. One of my favorite memories is going to see the Rugrat movie, and I'm telling you, my mom had to know that I was gay, because there was this doll in the machine and I had to have the doll. And my mom was really good at those machine games where you put the quarter in and it drops down and picks-- the claw machine. And I think honestly, we spent like $15, but she made sure she got me that doll and like she never treated me different out there. I wanted the doll, [snaps] she got me the doll. So I just, I didn't know I was different. I didn't. And she didn't make me feel that way. I even have an older sister, who's a lesbian, and she came out to my mom, and my mom was doing the dishes when she came out to her. And my mom was just like "Yeah okay", and like Deanna was like, "I'm serious, mom, I'm gay". And my mom was like, "Yeah, I know. I like, I know these things". So, I just remember her being really accepting. Even when I had to educate her on things like even-- My mom was a white woman from New York. She had blue eyes, blond hair, a New York accent. You couldn't tell she had mixed kids unless you met them. But my mom, she always let us -- even when, and I don't mean to jump ahead, but like when the Black Lives Matter movement came and stuff, my mom, instead of saying, like, "All lives matter", she, she let us educate her on, when we say Black Lives Matter, what we're truly trying to say. And it's not that all lives don't matter, it's just right now our Black lives are the ones hurting. And she understood and she asked questions and stuff, and she respected my point of view and stuff. Even if she felt -- Even if she didn't say it and she thought I was being extra, she still made it seem like "I understand, I care," and I appreciate her for that.I really do. I remember she always kept a garden, so we always grew tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers. I remember one time she made pickles. She tried to make homemade pickles. And they came out nasty from the pickles that she grew -- the cucumbers. So what she did was, she threw them out, and she bought pickles and put them in a Mason jar and everyone was just so amazed at her cooking skills, "You made these pickles", like "We never need to buy pickles". And later on it came out that she went to the store. So she was always a trickster like that and stuff. Just a wonderful person, honestly. I just I can't stop talking about her, because she's the reason why I do what I do now and stuff. She raised me to be a man, a woman raised me to be a man. And I don't think that me having four sisters and a single mom turned me out to gay. And it's sad, I even have to say that. But a lot of people in society feel that way. And it's, it's sad. But I had girlfriends, I just like guys more. Yeah, but what else can I think of from my upbringing? I remember being in the kitchen a lot. I learned how to cook at an early age. I went to say like ten, ten, 11. I know people who cooked before that, but that's really when I learned how to cook. And my mom was just big on cooking, and cooking, brought the family together and stuff and getting the meals prepared and stuff. That was family time in the kitchen. So I was always one of those, one of those boys tied to their mom's hip in the kitchen cooking. And now I could cook anything, I could cook anything. Yeah, I'm trying to think of other stuff, they'll come to mind as we go on. MF: Well, you talked a lot about your beloved and wonderful mother and your siblings, a little bit about the Whitehall community. What was what was school like for you in Whitehall? KJ: I was my mom's star child. They would say, they would say in their own words, they would just -- stop. My sister -- My sisters they weren't rough and stuff. It's just, I would say I'm more laid back, in a sense. Everyone knew Kevin for good reasons, and I never fought or anything like that. And I just remember the teachers would pull me aside and say, you know, you're your mom's star child. And anyone that knew Kevin, and I don't say this to gas me up. But they would smile because they had a funny story about Kevin. So I appreciated my time in Whitehall, and my teachers and stuff, and I felt like I was cared about by my teachers and staff. So I can't say nothing but good things about the staff out in Whitehall and stuff. I never felt different, whether it was being black or being black with a disability. I never felt different. I honestly didn't realize, I had a -- I walked with a limp until I was like maybe like in seventh, eighth grade and stuff. That's when I was just like, I really do have a limp. No one ever treated me different. So I wanted to play sports, I got to play sports and I just appreciated that even at Fullerton. Like it wasn't like, they didn't treat me any different. I got to -- I got to play in and stuff. I was a linebacker and they just let me do my thing. And it was great times. Great times. MF: Well, tell me about some of those great time. What was your circle of friends like? KJ: My circle of friends are my neighborhood kids. I lived in the townhouses and then there was a apartment building in Maryland Circle down the street and everyone just knew everyone. And I was a kid who had a pool in their backyard. So, so we all at night swimming and stuff would get together then. And we weren't -- We weren't ad kids. I mean, we were kids. We drank when we weren't supposed to. I remember getting caught doing that, and my mom was extremely upset, but we played manhunt, and kickball was a big one. And football, we used to play the townhouses versus Maryland Circle. Maryland Circle always won because they had the best players. They always had the best players. But we still did it, and it was still fun. And even today, a lot of those people that I hung out with as a kid, we're still friends to this day. Actually, the one, my one friend Dashawn, he's actually going to be my best man at my wedding. And so, yeah, like my, my best friend. And my best friend Diamond and stuff. She, I literally -- She was always the friend who did everything first. She used to. She used to make me upset about that, like, "Can I do something first"? She got her driver's license first. I mean, the permit first, the car first, the job first. And I seen her grow up to an independent woman. She's a single mom, but she has three beautiful girls, just bought a house and, and she's doing it. And I'm proud to see my friend succeed. Even my friend Dashawn, he runs a successful YouTube channel and stuff. And I just love to see my friends doing great and that that honestly helps motivate me to do more like maybe I'm slacking a little bit, but we keep each other on our toes. And to look back on another great time, we're always like Halloween trick or treating nights when we would all go trick or treating. God knows till like, we were like 15, 16 still going trick or treating but then we would all go to someone's house and watch a scary movie and stuff. And again, none of my friends ever treated me different. So, it was just a -- it was just a long process to realize, "Hey, you like guys", it was a long process that "Hey you got a limp". But I wouldn't change any of it. I felt like I was respected by the ones who loved me straight, and I felt like I was respected by them gay. Yeah. And there were some friends who dropped throughout the years and stuff, but it's the ones who are still there that matter. So I don't really focus on who's not here. MF: You said it was a long process to come into your gayness. Can you describe that process? KJ: Which is sad because I shared a room with my older sister. Well, first she tricked my mom into giving my room to pay rent, and I think she paid rent once. But whatever, I shared with my older sister, eventually. She's a lesbian stud. And there was a gay flag on the wall and stuff. I had a girlfriend for about five years, and at the time ; I don't know if this is TMI, but at the time, that's all I knew. So of course, I was, like, faithful and I really cared for her. I really did. I mean, I'm glad to know now, like, I like guys now, but I feel like because I was always in a relationship when I was a kid, I never really got to experiment and see until I was actually single a year. And like, "Hey, he's kind of cute," so. But when you think that, you have to know it's for sure, that's what you want. Because once you've gone down that route, which is sad, society labels you as gay or like you can never just be experimenting. So I just wanted to make sure that once I started talking to the same sex,.I just wanted to make sure that it was something that I wanted, and it was. I'm engaged -- I'm engaged now. So it's definitely something that I wanted. And I just felt like, "Man Kevin", and he just was like, if you just knew back then, cause there was just so many opportunities. No I'm joking, but I just feel like it took me a slower process. Like my sister, she knew from the beginning, like "I like girls, I like to dress up masculine. This is what I'm comfortable in" and stuff. Whereas it took Kevin, like 12 years. I think I finally realized that I liked guys in 2011, I want to say, and that's when I actually like took that step into going down that path and like, "Hey, let me see what this is like". And so in that sense, when I say, like a long process, it was just a long process for me to decide, like, is this what you want? I'm really an indecisive person to begin with. But once my mom started making jokes like she would always call my partner now Justan. She would always call him my boyfriend, even when we were friends. Like they don't believe that we were friends at one point. But we were, we were best friends. I remember even hooking him up with guys. I was talking to another guy at the time. But I'm definitely happy I found him. We met at a young age, so it took us a little bit of growing up and stuff. But we did it. We're definitely not who we were four years ago, not even a year ago and stuff. And I wouldn't trade him for anyone. And I'm gay and I'm a proud gay black man, you know. MF: You talk about -- so you kind of made this decision. Well then what? Where did you go in the Lehigh Valley to meet people or was there a process for you sort of like, I'm going to the Stonewall or I'm going-- KJ: You know what's sad and I hate to say this cause I was supposed to go there like when they were about to close, but I never been to Stonewall. I've been to, I've been to other gay bars in the Lehigh Valley, but I never experience like Diamonz or Stonewall, never got to experience that. But I've gone to Philly to gay clubs and stuff. And when I first came out of the closet and I knew, like, this is what I want, I don't know who I want and when, but this is what I want. I went into a gay bar and it did take some adjustment of like getting hit on. I was always the one like doing that. That was me and initiating and stuff and it took you used to but one once I got out there and I met the community and stuff, I actually got to see how beautiful our gay community is. And people, some people don't they don't feel like it exists out here and stuff. But if you open up your eyes and go places, it does and you'll meet great friends. You'll be great friends. I met Justan's best friend. He's who I think of his name as all the world's great, great, great talent. And he was actually part of our nonprofit Change Now team, and he passed away last year. But before he passed away, I do think God, because we were we were just at the pride in New York. It was my first time out there, as well as I believe it was his first time out there and out of all of Justan's friends, like I'll tell you, I told him like that. That is that's a friend right there. And he was just free spirited. And you could just always call on him. And I just remember him being there for me when my mom passed away and stuff. He would literally just come in and sit on the couch, say if like Justan wasn't there and stuff just to make sure someone was in the house with me during that rough time and stuff. And I'll cherish his relationship forever. And I was he was truly, truly one of the most beautiful people you would ever meet from our community, I feel like. And he just comes to mind when I think about jumping out into the gay scene and stuff. And he would be shade -- he would be shady, but it was like a good sh -- His nickname with us was NeNe, we called him NeNe and he wasn't judgmental and stuff. Like he was one of Justan's friends that actually let me take the steps with Justan to see if I actually liked him, where his other friends -- I can always tell when Justan was hanging out with his friends cause whenever I saw him again he would have an attitude it's like "Well yeah you don't, you don't want to show me around". And I'm like "Oh, I you were with your friends" and stuff. Whereas Greg said, "Boy let him take his time cause he's a keeper". And I just remember him saying that, and he was just a great friend and never chose sides, even though he was Justan's best friend. He was just the best. And I could call him for anything. Anything. He comes to mind when I think about stepping out into the gay scene back then. I believe I was 21, 21, 22 around that time. Before then, I would always talk to guys on like dating apps and stuff not Grindr. I wasn't aware of the history of Grindr at that time, but just like Facebook, Instagram and a lot of the guys who I actually talked to, they were all like in New York, New Jersey, but I just had to make sure that it was what I wanted. And I just felt more secure with talking to someone who didn't live around me at the time. Maybe that was just so that I wasn't a labeled gay just right away. But I met some good guys and stuff, but little did I know the love of my life lived in the same town as me, it just took a little while. MF: How did you meet? KJ: Oh, we met on an app called Badoo. I don't even know if the app still works now. And, I mean I'll let him tell you what --, I can tell you from my perspective, he like, he didn't know if I -- because there were straight people on there, as well as lesbian, gay, and transgender. So he never knew what it was about. So you could always see who checks your profile every day. He would check my profile like multiple times a day. And I finally messaged him one day and I was like, "Are you even gonna say hi," and that's how it started. And we met. We met up one time to get to know each other in person and at the time he had a little situation, I had a situation. So we were like, honestly, best friends. You can say, I wasn't looking for a relationship. I guess I was looking more for a friend at that time, but it slowly developed into a relationship. And I hate to say this cause, it sounds prude of me and stuff, but he did ask me out about three times and I said no. And what made me finally say "Yes let me do this. Before I lose it", was he asked me out on Valentine's Day and I was like, "Oh, I don't know, I don't want to mess up our friendship". So he's like, "All right, I'm in than Valentine's Day with this guy in New York". I even took him to the bus stop to go. But I will say I was supposed to pick him up the end of that week, and I didn't do it because I was mad. He really went to New York. But it was like I delivered you. I took you to the thing. But, boy, did I make him walk home in the cold. It was so cold that night. And I literally he got off that bus and walked home. And then later on I saw him that night and he was like, "Well, what do you want to do"? And I was like, "Okay, we, we can try this out". And we then made it official. So yeah. And that's how that started, off a dating app. Uh huh, yeah. I'm trying to think what else? MF: We talked a little bit about -- I mean, I'm sure we'll talk more about Justan in quite a bit. But we talked about education. What happens to you sort of after you're sort of moving through school? What is your work life like? We talked a little bit about your dating life, like what's happening in terms of your work life. And then I'm hoping we could kind of move towards your organizational... KJ: Oh, yes. Okay. So my work life started when I was 16. I would help my mom, as well as my older sister, as we would all help with the bills and stuff. And I had a under-the-table, full time job, and then I had a part time job and I worked my butt off. I was 17, 16, turned 17, and I felt like working and stuff that helped ground me. I had to work for everything that I wanted down to like my car, my clothes on, my back and stuff. My mom did her best and she would make it happen, but it just felt better. Achieving it myself. So once I started working, I never stopped working. And honestly, I think the job that I'm currently at now, I just started there about almost seven years ago. That was like the first job where I only had one job. Because I was always working two jobs and I just always want to make sure my mom was good and she had a lot of health problems. Medicine's expensive. So if there was a way I can help, I helped. Until she was ready to sell the house, move into something smaller and stuff. And then that's when I moved on and got my own and stuff. But I always liked to make sure she was okay first. So I did -- I worked a lot. And then one of my jobs I'm thinking about, is it was actually with the school, well it was with Career Force? But what we would do is we would go up to the high school and do a lot and paint the walls and things of that sort. So it got me, it got me into realizing, "Hey, I really do like to garden," even though I grew up with a garden and all this is I really do eventually hope to have a big garden and stuff. And I learned lessons. I have a scar right here from a box cutter. And I remember telling my mom, she thought I was so weird, I wanted this to scar up. And I was just like, "I hope this scars up, I hope it scars". So when it did, it was awesome. Now I tell the kids, I got cut by a pirate and stuff. She came up the story, and I just ran with it. So but I would say I was a hard worker. Definitely a hard worker. And she instilled that in me. She was a hard worker. She worked until she shouldn't have been working and stuff. My mom was a hard worker. MF: So you worked at Career Force. But you had multiple jobs. KJ: Career Force. I worked for a carnival business. So I was one of those people who tried to get you to the play, their games and stuff. So I did that the summer going into my junior year. And now that I think about it, they were both full time jobs. I'm like, now that I think about it. Yeah. They were both full time jobs because it was everywhere in Pennsylvania. We would travel and do shows and stuff. And after that, after graduation, I had gotten a part time job at McDonald's and then a full time job at Sodexo in the hospital. And I did I did both of those jobs for a long time. A long time. I was just used to working, I guess. So it really didn't bother me. Plus, you got paid every week, so, even better. But usually any job that I start, I'm there for a good while. I would love to grow, and eventually. Once I left McDonald's, it's because I was moving up at Sodexo and stuff and then I just try and keep growing until there's no more growth. And then I try to just find more and try to find just -- I like to stay busy, I love to learn, I love to read. I just don't take that for granted. Stuff like that. I lost my train of thought. MF: I have a question. Did you move from Sodexo to the Hartford? Yes. KJ: Okay. Yeah. So how that worked was I was going for a promotion for supervisor at Sodexo, and they graciously gave it to someone else. But like the reasons for it, like, I didn't agree with it. It wasn't more towards like, work ethic and stuff, it was more towards like this person went for the position more times than you. So we're just going to give it to them, and we're gonna change their duties because they don't know how to work a computer. And I just --, well, one thing my mom always taught me was my worth, and I was just like, "I'm going to find another job". And they didn't believe me at first. But when I put that two weeks in, they were upset. But I learned a lot from them. I learned my customer service from them. I know I learned how to have a conversation with different people. I saw different people throughout the day. I walked all around the hospital and stuff. So I definitely and I make sure that each place that I go, I really don't have anything bad to say about them because they taught me something and I appreciate Sodexo for that time. And then I moved on to the Hartford doing auto insurance. And that's a great it's a great job. It's rewarding and stuff. I do see myself eventually going other places and stuff, but I'm happy with my life. I'm definitely happy with my life now. It took me a second to realize that, especially after losing my mom, Losing my mom just taught me because it was like so sudden. It just taught me that not, everything's promised and just be happy. And I think -- and I know we don't speak about it yet, but I think that's why we went official with Change Now. Instead of "Hey, we're going to go do a Thanksgiving meal at the men's shelter and stuff or we're going to drop [presents] off at the shelter". We started something I feel that is beautiful, Change Now, and it's just the beginning and I see us doing really big things with that. We have an awesome team and I see the change that we're making in the community. It may be small to other people, but those accomplishments are big to us. Really big. MF: Tell me the story of Change Now. I mean, it's so clear that your mother is an inspiration. KJ: Yes. MF: You know, for that work. But tell me how it came to be. What is its origin story? KJ: So with Change Now it just made sense after Justan did the protest -- And I'm probably jumping around here, but after Justan to the protests in June of 2020, about because of George Floyd. Later that night, it was like, "What are you going to do now?" Like, "Yeah, we can go on the streets, we can do these peaceful protests and stuff, but what's next?" And that's how we came about with the Black Lives Matter to Lehigh Valley page and then and then from that like to two weeks later we went official with Change Now and stuff because it was like we're already doing it out of our own pocket. Let's see if we can get help from the city to help us help these people. And it's just amazing what we accomplished so far with our team again. They're great. There's about eight of us. But we all work together. We have weekly meetings and stuff. We feed off of ideas and stuff. Everyone has a voice in our team. My partner and I like, yeah, we're the executive director and stuff. But that's a really -- that's just the title like we're a team. We can only keep this going and it's just about we and but with Change Now it seemed a little -- it feels sometimes a little competitive because there's a lot of other nonprofits in this community and a lot of great nonprofits in this community. But when -- or at least I feel, with great work sometimes comes drama and unnecessary drama. So I don't feel -- I really don't feel-- I'm trying to say this in a nice way. I don't feel like we're appreciated by other nonprofits besides the ones we collaborated with, like SELF!, they're a women's reentry program. And I just like, we're here to help people. That's what it's about. It's not about who's doing what or whose name or whose names. We're like, -- excuse my language, but I can give a damn if you know about Kevin Jefferson. Just know about Change and all of that. That's what I love. You don't have to put my name, just see my work. And but Change Now is our baby now. We had Change Now for about two years, I want to say. Yeah, Justan can quote me on that, but I want to say we had it officially for two years. Now, our last event that we just did was Humankind Day last month. And where we provide it like toys, summer toys and stuff to the community, they didn't even have to get out their cars. You literally just stayed in your car and went stations and station and you were provided with -- We would just ask how many kids? And we had buckets, bubbles, chalk, games. And I love doing that -- working on Change Now, is something that I can do around the clock, and I feel like I kind of never get tired from it because it's honestly something I enjoy doing. And at these events with speaking with members of the community and stuff, or even one of our programs. One of our big programs that we do is our Mercy Hotel stay, whether it be a domestic violence situation or someone homeless on the street, and it's going to snow and stuff. When 2020 happened, there was like maybe one warming station open. There wasn't a lot of places for homeless people to go. And we saw all that and we wanted to do something about it. And I would say that main program is one of our successful programs and it's still going to this day. We get calls when we're on vacation and stuff. Our job is never done. And we don't mind. We don't mind. I want to say, just in March, as we were driving to Atlanta for our sister's graduation, there was a situation of domestic violence situation. And we had to get that person into a room and stuff. And luckily everything can be done electronically. So even though we weren't here, we were still able to help. MF: Not everyone who will listen to this will know, like the mission of Change Now. So beyond that kind of origin story, could you say like what your primary mission is like? KJ: Yeah, right now, I would say I would say a big mission that we've been focusing on and have been and still are, are the unsheltered and getting them off the street and getting them into a program. So it's not like, "Hey, we're providing you with this three day room stay, but then you have to go out on the street". It's like, "No, let's try and get you into a shelter. And then from the shelter gets you into a program. I mean, I lived -- I lived there. So it can be done. It's just, it's something that you can't make people do. They have to want to do it. And it's sad. We have those cases where they're just looking for that stay for the three days and they're okay with going back on the street and stuff. But we want to -- our mission is to stop that and get as much people we can into shelters and then eventually some stable living. We also do resumé prep and job prep and stuff, where we meet with people and we help them work on their resumé and interview prep and stuff and down to even a thing, clothes. Even if we had to come out of our pocket and -- I wouldn't mind -- you're paying it forward, you're helping your neighbor, your community and stuff. it's just with having a united community and stuff. You have you have a family outside of family. And it's like when one struggles, we all struggle. And when I think about Change Now, I think about our mission and stuff. I, I just. I just want -- If it's just if it's just two people. Three people. It doesn't have to be a bunch, but just a handful of people to know that we actually helped get off the streets and changed their life. One girl I can think of right now, we got her into a hotel room, and she overheard the staff talking about hiring. So, she put it an application at just the hotel that she was staying at, she found down with her working for the hotel, they provided free room stay. So she works for the for the hotel doing the front desk, and her husband does maintenance. And literally, like when I go into the hotel, to get other people a room and stuff and I run into them and stuff. Just seeing how great they look, their spirit, their eyes, they're vibe. You can tell -- you can feel when someone's really down and out, and just to see how great they look, that lets me know like, "Hey, Change Now is really doing something," and I just appreciate moments like that. But as of our mission, it's just to get people off the streets right now, just to give people jobs right now. Let them know like, "Hey, yeah, you did these things in your past, but that's your past. Let's move forward. Let's change now". So that's just the mission that -- the legacy I hope to leave for my kids and stuff. MF: When you and Justan were talking about that, is that what you were imagining in that original conversation, this kind of organization with these wonderful, incredible gifts to our community, or has it passed, surpassed? KJ: Surpassed by far. I honestly couldn't imagine like it -- us accomplishing so much with Change Now, and just the friends that we've made with Change Now and stuff. I couldn't imagine not knowing them though. Enid and Luna come to mind, they're the one that's run SELF! Women's Reentry and they're our sisters we have gone to Puerto Rico with them. We have cried with them. We failed with them, we've succeeded with them and stuff. And I just couldn't imagine my life without them. And I couldn't imagine my life without Change Now. Even though my mom has humbled me, Change Now, also keeps me humble because it's like, you know, you don't see right away the things that are actually going on in the community until you actually get out there, day or night, and actually see what's really going on in the community and Change Now has helped humble me, my family, my sisters. My family, they're blown away with how much we have accomplished with Change Now, down to our toy drives. Before, I think I can only afford a present for a boy, a present for a girl, and I would give that to a shelter every year, whereas now it's -- my living room looks like Santa just threw up everywhere and stuff, everywhere. So it's just amazing to see that. And then to just have people who are like you, who run nonprofits, even if they don't run it, they're still in the community. It's nice to see people just like you still doing the work. It lets you know, like, hey, there are still decent people out here. And that just keeps us going. But I couldn't imagine, I -- it's not that I couldn't I just wouldn't have thought Change Now would be even as big as it is today. But it just makes me more excited to see how big it will be later down the line. Because these are just the job prep, the resume building, the Mercy Hotel stay. Those are just our programs right now. Eventually, I want to start a grant project where we provide grants to LGBTQ students, brown students, Latino students, white students. I just I would love to do that. Help these students out with these grants. And so that's a program that eventually down the line I would like to start as well as, like awareness, awareness to addiction. I have lost a lot of people to addiction, a lot of close family members ; my mom's best friends she's like my aunt, her son, he overdosed and passed away and that was about two years ago and still that phone call of her crying plays in my head and stuff. And she's going to retreat, she's going to program, she's getting better. But I just wish there were more programs out here that was more acknowledged that, hey, you have an addiction, hey, it's unhealthy, but let's get ypu healthy. Let's don't just forget about you, or knock you, or not trust you, because of your past actions. Let's get you better. And I just hope to have -- when I say all of this, I just hope to have more programs, more programs out there and stuff. And we'll all keep working for it. We won't stop. We won't stop. MF: Can I ask you a little bit about the structure Change Now, because I know you work a full time job and Justan works a full time job. How does the organization operate? Is it all volunteer or how do you keep it so successful, even when you're working full time? KJ: We have -- and I have to thank our team, we have a tight circle. A lot of our volunteers are actually people that I've been personally work with. So sometimes that's a hard time because it's like, you're working when I'm working, so I can't really utilize you. But I would say my partner, Justan, he's definitely, or has been way more flexible. Whereas he can jump on these phone calls and schedule these rooms, help these people and stuff. But we all work together and stuff. Where someone can't be, someone will be and stuff. And I even remember when I lost my mom, that was unexpected and stuff. And I wasn't in my right mind, but I still went out and delivered the Christmas presents to the kids. And I remember me and Justan crying because he's thinking about his grandma through this time. Because that was like his mother and all. I'm crying about my mom and stuff, but then we start laughing because they're like, Wow, we're delivering these presents and we're crying and stuff. But I remember my team through all of that, they picked up where I left off after I got that news and they got the job done. And it's challenging. It definitely is. There are times where I'm working and I'm talking with the customer and my cell phone's blowing up. The Change Now line is blowing up because someone needs help and stuff, but we make it work. Whether if I have to step away for like 5 minutes or, Justan has to take a quick run to the hotel or even to pick them up. We'll get it done. We get it done. And I'm not going to say it's easy, but it's definitely something that we get done. This is Change -- Chane Now is our baby, one of our babies. So yeah, it's a challenge. But having a great team who believes in the work that you're doing, they see -- sometimes I feel like they see more of the success than we do. But just having them by our side and just helping us with our baby and stuff, we're trusting them with our baby and stuff. And I couldn't ask for any anyone else. And the fact that like they're volunteers, like they're not looking for -- none of us, but they're not looking for a payment or nothing. They just see it. They just see our passion and they just help us with it. I couldn't ask for a better team. I couldn't. MF: Well, your baby is beautiful KJ: Thank you, but. MF: Can I ask -- so what is the relationship or is there a relationship between Change Now and then your work with Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley, putting up the page--? KJ: We kept that separate, just because with nonprofits, you really don't want to get into politics and stuff and so we separated the two, but that didn't change our focus with the two. With the Black Lives Matters Lehigh Valley page, that page, like we do have a Change Now Facebook page, but the Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley page is the page that is really active. There are families in the community reaching out, whether it be question for assistance or, hey, did you see this article and stuff, and you want to stay on top of it. You don't want to keep these people leaving this page. The page was developed to let our brown and Black community members know like, you're not alone, your voices do matter. We would deftly make sure to respond to every message just so whether they liked it or not and just so that they got a response like we hear you, and stuff. I will say with Black Lives Matter page, it was a little challenging at first, but you just gotta look past the arrogance of people. My partner has got death threats and stuff. People talking about his family. I mean, I've been called a cripple n****r and stuff, and. But we're not -- we don't have that page for that stuff. So I'm not even going to focus on what you're saying, I'm going to make sure that these articles go out. What's not in the news, what are -- what's going on in our community that's not talked about. That's why we developed the Black Lives Matter to Lehigh Valley page, and to let people know that like -- I feel like with the Black Lives Matter page, a lot of people get confused with the like, it gets decided like Justan is the black voice in the community and when he's actually not, we are all our voices matter. And it took a little while for some leaders in the community to understand that. But I still feel like they don't understand that. But, I will say, the Black Lives Matter page -- I don't know if you're aware of this, but we don't actually run that page anymore. Ashleigh Strange has been running the page for us and it didn't have to do with giving up. I have seen people write on Facebook about my partner Justan giving up on the page and stuff. And it wasn't that he gave up. He passed it along to the next generation, to our next young people who have more time, who's now running a full time job in a nonprofit and stuff. And we still do check in and stuff like hey, like, how's it going and stuff? But it gives us more free time of working with Change Now and just and just being a family at the same time. Juggling Change Now and Black Lives Matter was getting tough, even when we were in Allentown. There were like protest going on about Black lives and stuff and people just getting upset that Justan wasn't at these protests and stuff and they feel like because he ran the Black Lives Matter page, he should be there. And I could see where they're coming from when they're saying, but I want people to know that there are more Black people out here than the Black leaders who are known. And Justan will even say that, too. It's humbling to see he's honored for these things and stuff, but we're not the only black gay people out here. And I feel like it's more -- it's really important not only to get like Justan's view, my view, but get other people's view on these topics and stuff. Let's stop being scared, scared to say other people's names. Let's stop being scared to say what we want to say. But, Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley, that was our baby. And that will always be our baby and stuff. But it was time to pass the baton, and I feel confident with the person who has been controlling it and she has been doing a wonderful job with it. And I know it's being taken care of and it's not turning into a for-profit page or something like that. MF: I know you've passed the baton on, but I have a question about that origin story for Black Lives Matter, Lehigh Valley. I guess my question comes from, you know, it's a national movement. I mean, we can hear about organizations in different sort of major cities. Why was it important to start Black Lives Matter in Lehigh Valley here in Allentown? Like, you know, what is the important for you of having a local organization that's also sort of connected to the national conversation? KJ: I feel like to better answer that question. I would say, to make sure that we're heard. I feel like there wasn't a place for us to really go to, whether as a Black man, let alone a Black gay man and stuff. There were these things happened in our community. I mean, like I told you earlier, I always fit the description starting at ten years old and stuff and I wasn't educated that that was wrong and stuff. I just knew. Just sit on the curb and listen to those and answer those questions that those police officers were asking me and stuff, whereas that's not okay. And there was nowhere, there was really nowhere to go like a website or a hall or something to go to and talk with people who were like minded just like you, who look like you and go through the same struggles and stuff and say like that, that's not right, that's not cool. There was another time -- and I always think about this time because this happened when I was an adult. But I'm -- and I'm gonna say their name, but I went to Ross over on Airport Road one time, me and my partner, and I like to wear jewelry and stuff. And I had this watch on. And I remember when we walked in the store, the cashiers and the security guards were looking at us and the security guard comes up to me and he's like, "Oh, I like your watch". So you're not thinking. I'm like, "Oh, yeah". So I show it to him and then he bring it here. He talks about how someone stole a watch from Ross, and they feel I met the description. And it was just like, if I had a Black Lives Matter page to bring that to, I think I would have got more stories that were like mine, something I can relate to. Hey, that shouldn't have been handled like that. They need to be educated and stuff, that not all black people look alike. And I just always -- that was one situation where it was like, I really wish I said something. Like, I didn't think about it when I was going through it. Once we got out of the store, it was like, no, that wasn't right, that that shouldn't have happened. And I feel with bringing Black Lives Matter to Lehigh Valley to their valley, that really taught some store owners and a lot of people, "Let me watch what I say," because we were getting messages where people were exposing -- A dentist got exposed, the doctor in the Lehigh Valley got exposed and we're getting messages from these doctors and stuff, these dentists, to please take this down because this is affecting their job. And it's like, well, maybe you shouldn't be racist. Maybe this would teach you. And I felt like the Black Lives Matter to the Lehigh Valley page gave us that voice, that courage to know that that's not okay. And I just I just hope down the line, that even after Ashleigh Strange, I just hope that it gets taken care of. And it's used for what it's for. It's not used to collect any money from anybody. It's mainly used to just let our brown and Black families know, like, you're not alone. Voice your opinion here. Tell us what happened here. And I just feel like taught a lot of people, especially in 2020, "Let me watch what I say, because words do matter". MF: Thank you for sharing about those two babies that you and Justan bore together. Can I ask, so you're working full time, you're building two organizations, you're in love. Are you engaged yet, when does the engagement happen? KJ: Yeah, I got engaged officially, last year in Puerto Rico -- in April of, we're in 20 --, in '21. We went to a rainforest -- now, when we were young, I'm not gonna lie, when we were younger, we did get engaged. But I'll tell you, we were young. I wasn't thinking about marriage at that time. So it kinda didn't feel right, if you ask me. Whereas when he proposed last year, we were in a rain forest, and it just felt right then. Like it was like, okay, I'm going to get married. So we're engaged. We hope to be married after buying a house at the end of this year, fingers crossed. And the wedding, you should see an invitation in October of next year. So kind of save the date for me. But yes, so we have been planning that. I'm realizing that opposites do attract, because I can have a small wedding and be fine with that. Whereas my partner, he looks like acrobats falling from the ceiling and stuff. And I'm just like I'd rather keep the money and save it for a travel trailer. I'm like, but I have to wait till we buy the house and after the wedding to get the travel trailer. So I'm waiting patiently, patiently. But I love to travel, and I want to do it while I'm still young. And I don't want to wait until I'm old to travel around the States and stuff. I want to do it now while I'm young. So yeah. MF: Do you have visions for the future? You have the marriage, the house, but are there other things that you're imagining, you know, for your life? KJ: For our life? I definitely imagine to eventually -- and I pray that one day Change Now is something so big that I can dedicate all of my time to.Instead of working a full time job and running a nonprofit. I would one day want to just focus on my nonprofit. But I know there's a lot of work to do before even that happens. But I hope we have an office one day, and I hope -- I would love a community center for kids to come to and play sports, learn how to swim, learn. Let's get some reading programs in here and stuff. That's one thing I feel like you don't see a lot, is these kids out here reading and stuff and even -- you don't even have to be a kid, you can be an adult. We'll teach you how to read. I just -- I want a lot and I know it's going to take time, but I hope within a few years Change Now has an office, a little community center and all of my attention. And like anyone else, to have the big, beautiful house, the marriage, I don't know -- we do go back and forth about either adopting or having another child. But right now, we have one going into 10th grade and we just had a graduate. So it's just like, okay, we're almost there, then it's us time. So we do go back and forth with it, but it's not something that I wouldn't say no to. I love family, and I had a big family, so I wouldn't mind adding another addition later down the line. I just want to make sure it feels right and it is right. This is someone who would look up to me as their protector, their teacher and stuff. And I definitely feel like my partner today would be the best father. And there's things that even he teaches me and it's just like, Wow. Did you just say that, it was so sexy? Can you say it again? But all jokes aside, I just -- he's a great father. And him and his children's mother, they're great at parenting, she's the best. I call her my baby mom. And she -- it's just a nice blended family, a nice, blended, educated family and even our kids they were, I feel like they were more excited that we got engaged than I was. And so it definitely felt right when we got engaged. MF: So can I ask you, what's it like to be, as you are right now, a dad with Justan and with--. KJ:. And I will say, our son, even though is a small case, he has autism. And I think when I first met him, I was like 21, 22, 22, became a stepdad and he had autism. And I only asked that question like, "do you have kids?" just to make conversation, I didn't expect him to say yes. But honestly, being a step-parent I felt like is what I was meant to do and stuff. That -- just as Justan's my best friend, my partner, the person I trust, it's the same for his daughter and son. That's my family right there, I give them my heart. They're always there to pick us up, even when they know that we're not 100%. It's nice that we can come home to them and stuff and them tell us their crazy stories, and they'll bring me back to when I was 18. And honestly, I honestly think that they're kind of better. At least what I know, like my step-daughter, she's really good at hiding things, I guess. But from what I've seen, though, they're great kids. My stepdaughter is -- she's going to go to college this upcoming year. She's going to be a freshman. And even their mom, their mom, she dropped out at early age because she had she was pregnant. I want to say it was 15. But she got her G.E.D. She moved up in her career and she bought a house. Just to see her do that and to see that is possible, you just, you just kind of want to -- you just got to work for it. I wouldn't trade them for the world. I wouldn't -- even my baby mom, I wouldn't trade her for the world. MF: Well, we're nearing the end of the interviews, but I want to ask you, is there anything that we missed that you thought, oh, I really want to talk about that. Anything that you wanted to sort of talk about at the end? KJ: I would just say, let's -- it's nice that we talked how Black Lives Matter, I'm a Black man. But let's talk about more LGBTQ issues going on in the community and let's just talk more about it. I feel like in our community, especially in the Black community, I really don't feel like our community is accepted. I feel like we're frowned upon in a lot of situations. It's like, if you're not a LGBTQ leader speaking about it, then it's not being spoke about, and you don't have to be gay, and transgender, or lesbian to stick up for someone in our community. So let's stop being afraid of having these conversations and let's just help one another. We have of a lot of transgenders even last year -- and I'm just going to say and I know that it was more than 20, but I can think of off of my head in 20 transgenders. It was even more than that died last year, and it wasn't really discussed. And that's also something that I want to bring to Change Now, just more just ways of helping those issues more and in our queer community and stuff. And another thing too is respecting pronouns. I think it's just not a conversation, it'ss just not for fun. It's for 2022, let's respect people's pronouns. And that's just what I would say. MF: I feel so grateful to have had the opportunity to talk with you. Thank you so much Kevin for taking the time. KJ: Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. Honestly, I was excited. I could talk to you all day. Honestly. MF: Okay. All right. Let's do another around. Thank you again. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Kevin Jefferson, June 21, 2022
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Kevin Jefferson describes their early life in the Lehigh Valley, personal relationships and coming to terms with their sexuality, and their pivotal non-profit work with Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley and Change Now.
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2022-06-21
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Mary Foltz
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Justan Parker-Fields
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5.4 June 23, 2022 Justan Parker-Fields, June 23, 2022 LGBT-35 2:21:05 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Justan Parker-Fields Mary Foltz video/mp4 ParkerFieldsJustan_20220623_video_trimmed.mp4 0 https://youtu.be/_HsSmG1HVfM YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Justin Parker to talk about his life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Oral History Project. This year, our project has funding from ACLS and Justin and I are meeting at Muhlenberg College in their Rare Books room on June 23rd, 2022. And I just want to start by saying thank you so, so much for being here with me today. 
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 ; JUSTAN FIELDS: Thank you for having me here. I'm excited to do this and looking forward to it. 0 110 Early Years of Life/Relationship with Grandmother MF: Okay. All right. Business out of the way. I would like to start the interview today by asking you to tell me a little bit about the early years of your life. 
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 ; JF: Yeah. So I was born in Scranton, P.A. We don't pronouce the ‘T’ the Scranton, but I was born there and into a big family. We have a huge part of our family. My great grandfather was one of 12 children and they started from Alabama and made their way up to Scranton P.A., where they finally settled. We moved to Allentown when I was five. My mom got a promotion at the post office and so, you know, moved out of small Scranton over to Allentown. And yeah, that's where I grew up. I went through the Allentown School District, Central Elementary School, Raub Middle School. I'm a 2002 Canary. But yeah, we grew up with that. My two sisters in Allentown, my mom was a homeowner, a single mom. And, you know, it was -- she was strict, but she left us. You know, we have rules. We had a curfew. 0 453 Relationship with Mother MF: You also mentioned your mom. What kinds of characteristics of your mom did you want to emulate? 
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 ; JF: My mom didn't take any mess. She was a strong willed, single Black mother raising her three children in Allentown, and was a homeowner. And that wasn't really like a normal thing. You know, it was, you know, she did it without assistance, you know, and she knew what she wanted to do and she didn't take no for an answer. And, you know, she was somebody who had -- she's an entrepreneur. You know, she eventually, you know, retired and left the post office. But she's always somebody who is like, you have to just be your own boss. Because she just knew her path that she was going to pave. 0 574 School Days in Harrisburg & ; Allentown MF: Well, tell me a little bit about going to school in Allentown after your family moved here. You said you were a Canary. 
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 ; JF: Yeah. 
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 ; MF: Tell me a little bit about what it was like to go to school in Allentown. 
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 ; JF: So I always loved school. I was a big nerd. And I think that I would sometimes, like, you know, be a class clown, probably because I was bored right on the surface of life, you know. But I went to Central Elementary School and my first grade teacher’s was Mrs. Shankwell. I know, like all my teachers’ names. That's how much of a nerd I was in school. But I just love school. I loved, you know, reading and learning. 0 1270 Safe Space in Church/Art's Alive MF: Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that story. I was really struck by you talking about how safe spaces were so important for navigating microaggressions, even if you couldn't name them at the time. And you talk about two different safe spaces, your friends. But also, I mean, those elders at the church that came to stand for you. Was that also a safe space that maybe you could just talk a little bit more about the spaces that fueled you and supported you? 
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 ; JF: Yeah, definitely. So the Black church was always part of my identity growing up. And, you know, even now, the Pastor was looked at as, you know, the head of the church. The old church ladies, you know, who you know, you couldn't talk back to, whatever they say goes, you know, and then just all of us church kids who are just funny as adults, we share funny church stories as church kids that we went to and whatnot. But that was always a safe space because, you know, we go to church every Sunday. You know, the church family was your extended family. 0 1438 Relationship with Stepfather MF: You mentioned your stepfather a few times. Do you want to talk about the relationship with your with your stepfather? 
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 ; JF: Yeah I can. So my relationship then and now, two different things. So my relationship with my stepfather. When I -- it was always abusive. Since I was very young and it was abusive to the point where like, you know, my mom – it would happen when my mom was at work. And it would be anything like whether it's my fault or not my fault, I'll would get beat, you know. I would -- And it's not just like a regular spanking, I would get beat and then sent to bed. Now me and my two sisters, we have different fathers, so they have the same father, my sister, [Cherise and Maria?]. 0 1763 Time at Allen High School MF: And that made think about what else was happening besides school when you returned to Allen High School. You're living with your mom. What's happening in your school life? Are you dating? Like what -- what's happening around your education and family? 
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 ; JF: So I dated a lot in middle school, but I didn’t date in high school. And I think it's because I was so busy like I -- when I was in Scranton in ninth grade, I started working at McDonald's at 14. So I transferred to McDonalds when I came back to Allentown, 11th and 12th grade. 0 1976 Life After High School
 ; JF: And so work -- you know, to get that offer from management, I was just like, okay, forget college I'm liking in the fast money now and I didn't have any kids at the time. Like, let's just do it. And that's kind of how I put school on hold, and became a manager McDonald's, but if I didn’t continue to work there, I wouldn’t have, you know, met the mother of Samir and Sheileen and I kind of -- how that worked out. 
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 ; MF: Tell me that story. 0 2366 Co-Parenting MF: How did you figure out that co-parenting in the beginning? Because you're in your early twenties. 
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 ; JF: Yeah. 
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 ; MF: You're being a parent to her first child. Your first child, she gets pregnant. How did you navigate what parenting together would look like? 
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 ; JF: So even before Shamir, we learned so much with Sheileen. I was excited, you know, just to take on that role of responsibility, because I love her so much and I love your daughter and I want us to be a family. 0 2581 Post-Break Up / Living Unsheltered MF: Can you tell me a little bit about the time around the breakup and then what happened after that as you were coming to terms with your identity? 
 ; 
 ; JF: Yeah. So around the time of the breakup, I became unsheltered because, you know, I wasn't really welcome in the house anymore and I didn't really have anywhere to go. So I was kind of couch surfing and, you know, not realizing that I was really like, a statistic LGBTQ who was homeless or sheltered, you know, that was kind of the way it went. I didn’t really have a support system that much. 0 2787 First Boyfriend / Work Life MF: How did you meet John? 
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 ; JF: I met John on a dating app. So before there was, like, Grindr or stuff like that, there's an app called Adam for Adam. I can’t believe I‘m talking about this. But I met John on Adam for Adam. And it's funny because, you know, we started talking and we didn't really even exchange, pictures, but we're like, oh, you know, let's go, let's hang out. And I remember I went to go, I went to go meet him. But of course, you know, we didn't know each other – what we looked like at the time and he thought I was somebody else and he almost like retreated was like, I'm not going to meet you because like, I’m not attracted to you. 0 3098 Coming Out JF: So I told Jahmira at work. I was like, yeah, I got to tell you something, because, you know, me and you are cool. And I really consider you as friend, not just coworker. John, is not my best friend, he's my boyfriend. She said I knew it. What do you mean? She was like, I knew it I was waiting for you to say something, you know? And then I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I was so -- I felt so comfortable to be able to talk about John as my boyfriend at work, still not out or open, you know, but I was able to confide in and my friend Jahmira, who I always, you know. Just like, if it wasn't for her, you know, or me, you know, even coming out to her, you know, how long would I still be closeted for? It was just felt -- it was like. It was such a sigh of relief. 0 3645 Community Organizing / Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley MF: So I want to make sure that -- I want to kind of turn a corner to…You're working full time, but you're also when do you start to get involved in organizing, community organizing? I want to definitely talk about your city council run, but we're not quite there yet. Tell me when that started to become really important for you in your life? 
 ; 
 ; JF: I thought that it was always important because I grew up in Allentown. So when you're Allentown, we always say, you know, we are Allentown, you know? But I was just always -- just was like a member of community, like I didn't do organizing, I didn't do any of that. All of that happened by accident, happened with the Black Lives Matter protest. I didn't plan on it, on doing anything with community organizing until Kevin put the idea in my head, really. Prior to the Black Lives Matter of protest, two years prior to that, I put on Facebook that I was going to do a silent protest for Philando Castile, who was murdered by police officers. 0 4588 Chain of Nonviolent Protests
 ; MF: So BLM Lehigh Valley started. You had the meeting with the police. You made the -- you suggested. And then at your suggestion, they made their use of force policy publicly. What happened next for the organization? 
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 ; JF: So, there was this group formed. It was like this, Lehigh Valley coalition right, and it was a group of like minded individuals who got together like a cohort. And that's when the chain of protest started. Cause a lot of protest -- some of the protests were like BLM protests, but other ones like it was BLM and other protests. But it was all of us together as a collective. It was myself, Darian Colbert, it was Rodney Ibene, who was Pastor A. Edwards’ son, Ashley Strange, Yamelisa Taveras, who's head of Lehigh Valley -- Ashley Strange, Lehigh Valley Stands Up, Yamelisa Taveras from Unidos, Arthur. It was just a group of us and it was so grassroots, organic and we’re just like okay we’re just going to meet. And we're going to just start planning out, you know, things in in protest. It was a big leap away. And from there, you know. We showed up in protest in meetings with different organizations like groups wanted to talk to us.
 ; 0 4865 Election Season / BLM Endorsements MF: What happened after that summer? Did you continue through the fall? And how? Tell me a little bit about that process. After an incredible period of energy, what occurs after? 
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 ; JF: Yeah. So we started brainstorming because, we’re like election season is coming and we have to start putting people in positions of power. People haven't seen the table or voting for candidates that are already out there, you know, supporting them and backing them. At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in the Lehigh Valley, especially in Allentown, we were big supporters of Ce-Ce Gerlach and Josh Siegel and even Cynthia Mota, you know, because they were their allies, they understood it. 0 5284 Becoming a City Council Candidate MF: So how did you become a candidate, if you weren’t supposed to do be? How did that happen? 
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 ; JF: So we were meeting, the cohort was meeting one night and they had threw the idea out that, you know, -- it was supposed to be Arthur, Arthur Benson was going to run for city council and Rodney was going to run for school board. And so we sort of started plotting a plan, like we're going to start like infiltrating city council and the school board, and, you know, we Lehigh County. And, you know, we thought that time, you know, we had Amy Zanelli, and Zakiya Smalls, and you know, Geoff Brace. So they were like, okay, county’s good, like, you know, we can show up and assist and help them. It's the city level that we really need to get, the school board. 0 6155 Change Now MF: I will -- I know -- I want to acknowledge that. But you also have this incredible nonprofit that is something that you and Kevin have been working on. So could you tell me a little bit about Change Now and how you're putting your energy toward that organization in just 1/2? Okay. So could you tell me a little bit about change now? 
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 ; JF: Yeah. So we had co-founded Change Now, me and Kevin, because we knew that Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley was like our group, but it wasn't ours. It was already like a national group. We had no ownership to it. It was just something that we did locally and had a huge following. Like, remember, we have like five or 4000 followers and we were like, wow, like this is something. 0 6617 Doreen's Christmas Baskets / Kevin Jefferson's Mother KJ: And so then we put the groups of presents together and we were have a Post-it note with the mom's name and the kid's name and their ages. And so then when -- we would be messaging the families back, hey, you're your order number this. This is -- your number 15, your number 16, or if they forgot the number, we look up their name and they're like, okay, you know, so-and-so's here, okay, that's number 12. And then we get the Post-it note and take the presents downstairs. And that's how we did our Christmas toy giveaway. We did Doreen's Christmas Baskets ; Kevin's mom passed away -- in memory of her five children.
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 ; And to keep her memory alive, we wanted to do that cause she was such a big supporter and Kevin was the only, you know, he’s the only son out of all – he has four sisters, he’s the only son. And he had a really – like he was super close to his mom. He was a mama's boy, you know. And, you know, she passed away a week before Christmas and it was hard for him. And I just remember, like, I remember just – and even people say to him, but like, wow. 0 6828 Meeting Kevin Jefferson / Relationship with Kevin MF: Do you want to share that your -- how you met Kevin, who has been your partner with Change Now and your partner in [inaudible]. 
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 ; JF: Yeah. So, I met Kevin on a dating app called Badoo and really, I wasn't even sure Kevin was gay because on Badoo, you get -- when you look at someone’s profile it says that they're interested in men or women or nothing at all. And Kevin's, either said nothing or it said women. And I was just like, I’d never been on the app before, maybe people want this app to find friends. I make I mean, as an adult, how do you make friends? 0 7749 The Color Purple at the Civic Theater MF: We didn't talk about the Color Purple. 
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 ; JF: Oh, my gosh. We didn't. Wow. 
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 ; MF: Do you want to talk about…? 
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 ; JF: Life changing? Can we real quick? 0 8443 Closing Remarks MF: I just want to close by saying I am just so grateful that you took the time to sit down today and to share some of your life story. And I'm also just grateful to live in a community with you and to know you. So thank you so much. 0 MovingImage Justan Parker Fields describes his early years of life in Scranton, Harrisburg, and the Lehigh Valley, personal relationships, and work with the organization Change Now and in the play The Color Purple. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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02:21:06
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Justan Parker-Fields, June 23, 2022
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Justan Parker Fields describes his early years of life in Scranton, Harrisburg, and the Lehigh Valley, personal relationships, and work with the organization Change Now and in the play The Color Purple.
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LGBT-35
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2022-06-23
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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