[Applause]
it is humbling to be up here today and
while I often have to speak in front of
people for my job I’m not the sort of
person who generally gives talks I am an
incredibly average human but I haven’t
lived a typical life and I hope that by
sharing some of my life with you today I
can also share a simple idea that is
part of how I’ve become who I’ve become
when I was a little girl I never thought
I would be Who I am today
never thought I’d be married never
thought I’d be a parent never thought
I’d be the sort of person who puts on
nice clothes and goes to a beautiful
building to work every day when I was a
little girl that’s what I said I said
when I was a little girl the thing is
that to tell you a story about my
childhood I have to make a lot of
decisions do I give you all the context
do I say I want to tell you a little bit
about myself I want to tell you a story
about my childhood and in order to
understand that story I have to tell you
some things about me you see when I was
a kid I was a girl and then I grew up
and I became a lesbian and kind of a
butch lesbian and some time around when
I was 40 I decided I would be happier
and healthier if I transitioned so here
I am
or do I lie a little lies of omission
and say well that was a little kid I or
do I lie a lot and say when I was a
little boy well there’s sometimes the
stories don’t make sense then or do I
just dive in when I was a little girl
and let you figure it out humans are
social animals we want to get to know
each other and so sometimes even the
simplest conversations can become
minefields of self-revelation
how do I connect to you how do I feel
like I’m part of a community scene and
safe when even starting a simple
conversation is so loaded
I got married a couple of years ago and
if you had seen me the next day after
that weekend that I got married you
would have and you didn’t really know me
and you said how was your weekend I
would have said it was great I got
married a couple of years ago and you
would probably say congratulations or
why you back at work so soon maybe it
should be away somewhere if you knew me
a little bit you probably would have
said I think I guys been married for a
long time I wonder what happened and you
walk away shaking your head or I could
tell the whole story I got married a
couple of years ago for the third time
to the same amazing woman
I married the first time in 1997 in
front of family and friends and God but
not so much the IRS because in 1997 I
was a lesbian and gay marriage wasn’t
legal I got married again a number of
years later early in the struggle for
marriage equality when Gavin Newsom who
was then the mayor of San Francisco open
City Hall and deputized a whole bunch of
people and married countless couples we
stood on line for hours that day with my
in-laws and my toddler kids and in a
line with the happiest hundreds of
people who have ever stood for hours in
line for anything that marriage was
vacated by the state soon after finally
on my 18th anniversary I got married
again again in front of my family and
friends in the backyard of a good friend
of mine because even though I’ve got a
beard and a tie I’m still legally female
and marriage equality had finally passed
and we could finally marry marry legally
a lot of people who said to me over the
years that I’m lucky because unlike a
lot of my trans peers I pass when you
look at me when most people look at me
they see kind of an average middle-aged
guy with thinning hair and well that
probably makes my life easier I don’t
think that it’s necessarily my good luck
because passing becomes hiding and
hiding erases my history not all trans
folks think that way we don’t all have
the same story and we don’t all have the
story that maybe you know I never felt
like a man trapped in a woman’s body I
just didn’t really understand how gender
bonus or girl nests really applied to me
I don’t think it’s an either/or question
I’m not sure that I feel any more like a
man today then I felt like a woman then
and it’s a struggle in my whole life to
be able to say that on any day
throughout all of the things that I’ve
been that I can feel proud of those
things and then I can feel and honor
myself that little girl the butch
lesbian the person that my kids used to
call mama 40 year old woman a fifty year
old man and on my best days I feel like
I was exactly the right person every
place along the way and on my worst days
my worst days I questioned and I wonder
and I regret part of every decision that
I ever made my story my coming-of-age
story is one of a process of
self-revelation
of learning of my identity just like
every one of you my story sets me apart
I didn’t live a typical life but I’m
pretty sure that none of you have either
when people ask me to tell my story I
usually start with the places that I’m
different
I’ve come to think that maybe that’s not
the best idea not because I want to hide
but because I want to connect the places
of the things that we have in common are
the things that bring us together and
together we thrive I read the other day
somewhere that the primary indicator for
longevity for people is social
connection the data even says that
together we thrive but there’s a quirk
of human nature that subverts our
ability to be our best selves to live
our best lives when we meet people when
we try and find common ground sometimes
we find difference when we find that
difference difference is all we can see
a difference makes us afraid it’s
probably a survival instinct of some
kind and that instinct the cost of that
instinct is fear and the cost of that
instinct is hatred and the cost of that
instinct is violence violence against
trans people and gender non-conforming
people has increased every year between
2014 and 2015 the rates of murder among
trans people particularly trans women of
color doubled and it’s increased every
year since then
it’s mothers and sisters murdered sons
and brothers beaten people who love to
cook people who drive to work people who
are trying to save just enough money
maybe to be able to retire someday just
like me just like you what brings us
together are the things that we have in
common I don’t think of myself as an
activist but I feel like I lived
something of an activist life and what
that means is that while I’ve been to my
share of marches and I’ve been to my
share of meetings and actions the most
important thing that I’ve done to do
good work in this world is to live
authentically never hiding a long time
ago before I transitioned I used to have
a job as a as a speech therapist and one
of the things I did in that role because
I supervised a lot of different nursing
homes was to do trainings
training’s of really boring stuff like
Medicare regulations me traveled around
the country doing those trainings I was
sent one time to Arkansas to do that
training just outside of Little Rock and
I went and I did my training and I met
my peers and things went really well and
we went out to dinner and we had drinks
and I met with the director of the
program and then I came back to my home
in California and I met with my
supervisor who said I heard amazing
things about your trainings in Arkansas
but the director of the program reached
out to me and she said if she wants to
come back to Arkansas
she probably better carry a purse it’s
not always easy to be deliver your
authentic life it’s not always safe to
be out to be queer to be a father who
was once a mother a man who was never a
boy human and common formed in the image
of the divine just like all of you
sometimes when I talk about myself I
start by talking about the ways that I’m
different
start from difference because I think
that’s what makes me interesting but
I’ve actually come to believe that
that’s probably really not right that I
should start from common ground from
where were the same because being I
knowing where we’re the same is the
thing that brings us together sometimes
I think that we spent a lot of time just
talking about who we are and why and we
forget that we can all come together
that we have power when we’re together
and in order to do that I kind of have a
little practice that I do and I practice
is kind of a phrase that I hate so I’m
gonna say it a different way there’s a
thing that I do that helps remind me how
to be in the moment how to be together
how to be
what do you do is when I meet people I
tried to assume that we’re all exactly
alike that were human that were
completely human and that were
interesting and I think to myself what
is it that I would want somebody to know
about me what questions what I ask
and so I ponder that and I say what are
you proud of and then I think what did
you have for lunch today and did you
pack it yourself or did you buy it when
you got to work who loves you and what
would they say to me if I asked them why
I don’t think that doing this thing will
change government policy but I know we
need to do that
I don’t think doing this thing will end
violence what I do think is that it
could help me feel like you like you
think that I count and that you can
count on me and that I can count on you
if we can do that we can be strong
enough to make that change thank you
[Applause]
you
it is humbling to be up here today and
while I often have to speak in front of
people for my job I’m not the sort of
person who generally gives talks I am an
incredibly average human but I haven’t
lived a typical life and I hope that by
sharing some of my life with you today I
can also share a simple idea that is
part of how I’ve become who I’ve become
when I was a little girl I never thought
I would be Who I am today
never thought I’d be married never
thought I’d be a parent never thought
I’d be the sort of person who puts on
nice clothes and goes to a beautiful
building to work every day when I was a
little girl that’s what I said I said
when I was a little girl the thing is
that to tell you a story about my
childhood I have to make a lot of
decisions do I give you all the context
do I say I want to tell you a little bit
about myself I want to tell you a story
about my childhood and in order to
understand that story I have to tell you
some things about me you see when I was
a kid I was a girl and then I grew up
and I became a lesbian and kind of a
butch lesbian and some time around when
I was 40 I decided I would be happier
and healthier if I transitioned so here
I am
or do I lie a little lies of omission
and say well that was a little kid I or
do I lie a lot and say when I was a
little boy well there’s sometimes the
stories don’t make sense then or do I
just dive in when I was a little girl
and let you figure it out humans are
social animals we want to get to know
each other and so sometimes even the
simplest conversations can become
minefields of self-revelation
how do I connect to you how do I feel
like I’m part of a community scene and
safe when even starting a simple
conversation is so loaded
I got married a couple of years ago and
if you had seen me the next day after
that weekend that I got married you
would have and you didn’t really know me
and you said how was your weekend I
would have said it was great I got
married a couple of years ago and you
would probably say congratulations or
why you back at work so soon maybe it
should be away somewhere if you knew me
a little bit you probably would have
said I think I guys been married for a
long time I wonder what happened and you
walk away shaking your head or I could
tell the whole story I got married a
couple of years ago for the third time
to the same amazing woman
I married the first time in 1997 in
front of family and friends and God but
not so much the IRS because in 1997 I
was a lesbian and gay marriage wasn’t
legal I got married again a number of
years later early in the struggle for
marriage equality when Gavin Newsom who
was then the mayor of San Francisco open
City Hall and deputized a whole bunch of
people and married countless couples we
stood on line for hours that day with my
in-laws and my toddler kids and in a
line with the happiest hundreds of
people who have ever stood for hours in
line for anything that marriage was
vacated by the state soon after finally
on my 18th anniversary I got married
again again in front of my family and
friends in the backyard of a good friend
of mine because even though I’ve got a
beard and a tie I’m still legally female
and marriage equality had finally passed
and we could finally marry marry legally
a lot of people who said to me over the
years that I’m lucky because unlike a
lot of my trans peers I pass when you
look at me when most people look at me
they see kind of an average middle-aged
guy with thinning hair and well that
probably makes my life easier I don’t
think that it’s necessarily my good luck
because passing becomes hiding and
hiding erases my history not all trans
folks think that way we don’t all have
the same story and we don’t all have the
story that maybe you know I never felt
like a man trapped in a woman’s body I
just didn’t really understand how gender
bonus or girl nests really applied to me
I don’t think it’s an either/or question
I’m not sure that I feel any more like a
man today then I felt like a woman then
and it’s a struggle in my whole life to
be able to say that on any day
throughout all of the things that I’ve
been that I can feel proud of those
things and then I can feel and honor
myself that little girl the butch
lesbian the person that my kids used to
call mama 40 year old woman a fifty year
old man and on my best days I feel like
I was exactly the right person every
place along the way and on my worst days
my worst days I questioned and I wonder
and I regret part of every decision that
I ever made my story my coming-of-age
story is one of a process of
self-revelation
of learning of my identity just like
every one of you my story sets me apart
I didn’t live a typical life but I’m
pretty sure that none of you have either
when people ask me to tell my story I
usually start with the places that I’m
different
I’ve come to think that maybe that’s not
the best idea not because I want to hide
but because I want to connect the places
of the things that we have in common are
the things that bring us together and
together we thrive I read the other day
somewhere that the primary indicator for
longevity for people is social
connection the data even says that
together we thrive but there’s a quirk
of human nature that subverts our
ability to be our best selves to live
our best lives when we meet people when
we try and find common ground sometimes
we find difference when we find that
difference difference is all we can see
a difference makes us afraid it’s
probably a survival instinct of some
kind and that instinct the cost of that
instinct is fear and the cost of that
instinct is hatred and the cost of that
instinct is violence violence against
trans people and gender non-conforming
people has increased every year between
2014 and 2015 the rates of murder among
trans people particularly trans women of
color doubled and it’s increased every
year since then
it’s mothers and sisters murdered sons
and brothers beaten people who love to
cook people who drive to work people who
are trying to save just enough money
maybe to be able to retire someday just
like me just like you what brings us
together are the things that we have in
common I don’t think of myself as an
activist but I feel like I lived
something of an activist life and what
that means is that while I’ve been to my
share of marches and I’ve been to my
share of meetings and actions the most
important thing that I’ve done to do
good work in this world is to live
authentically never hiding a long time
ago before I transitioned I used to have
a job as a as a speech therapist and one
of the things I did in that role because
I supervised a lot of different nursing
homes was to do trainings
training’s of really boring stuff like
Medicare regulations me traveled around
the country doing those trainings I was
sent one time to Arkansas to do that
training just outside of Little Rock and
I went and I did my training and I met
my peers and things went really well and
we went out to dinner and we had drinks
and I met with the director of the
program and then I came back to my home
in California and I met with my
supervisor who said I heard amazing
things about your trainings in Arkansas
but the director of the program reached
out to me and she said if she wants to
come back to Arkansas
she probably better carry a purse it’s
not always easy to be deliver your
authentic life it’s not always safe to
be out to be queer to be a father who
was once a mother a man who was never a
boy human and common formed in the image
of the divine just like all of you
sometimes when I talk about myself I
start by talking about the ways that I’m
different
start from difference because I think
that’s what makes me interesting but
I’ve actually come to believe that
that’s probably really not right that I
should start from common ground from
where were the same because being I
knowing where we’re the same is the
thing that brings us together sometimes
I think that we spent a lot of time just
talking about who we are and why and we
forget that we can all come together
that we have power when we’re together
and in order to do that I kind of have a
little practice that I do and I practice
is kind of a phrase that I hate so I’m
gonna say it a different way there’s a
thing that I do that helps remind me how
to be in the moment how to be together
how to be
what do you do is when I meet people I
tried to assume that we’re all exactly
alike that were human that were
completely human and that were
interesting and I think to myself what
is it that I would want somebody to know
about me what questions what I ask
and so I ponder that and I say what are
you proud of and then I think what did
you have for lunch today and did you
pack it yourself or did you buy it when
you got to work who loves you and what
would they say to me if I asked them why
I don’t think that doing this thing will
change government policy but I know we
need to do that
I don’t think doing this thing will end
violence what I do think is that it
could help me feel like you like you
think that I count and that you can
count on me and that I can count on you
if we can do that we can be strong
enough to make that change thank you
[Applause]
you
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