wearing a costume you don’t have to
raise your hands I don’t see anyone in
the audience wearing a clown costume
that’s probably a good thing but there
are costumes that make us blend in with
okay so humans have worn costumes for
thousands of years actors wear costumes
for performances on stage and on the
screen people wear costumes and parades
sporting events to celebrate their
cultural and historic heritage for
religious ceremonies and of course
children and adults love to wear
costumes on Halloween now when we put on
a costume it can give us this Vic arias
thrill of temporarily being someone or
something other than our true selves but
we can put a costume on as a front to
keep our true selves hidden from those
around us and if we leave this costume
on for too long we can lose touch with
who we really are so that’s the story of
most of my life until I underwent gender
transition two years ago so going back
as far as I can remember I was told that
I was a boy no one asked me no one asked
me what I felt inside and when when I
was very young I was more comfortable in
the company of girls new boys were
aggressive and competitive and that just
was not my nature I was more comfortable
wearing girls clothes i would take my
sisters and my mother’s clothes and wear
them but I learned early on that for a
boy to do that it was shameful and
people would make fun of you so I
learned the kind of behavior that was
expected of me what I was supposed to
say and and do and be so for my
childhood I wore the costume of a boy
and as I matured in in adolescence and I
started reading articles about as they
were called back then transsexual women
and and I saw these pictures of
beautiful women who were identified as
having been born as boys and I thought
is that what I am and I graduated from
college I didn’t know where I was going
to go who I was what I was going to be
so I took the most logical step for a
confused young transgender person I
joined the Navy yes I came to newport
rhode island I went to Officer Candidate
School I was commissioned as an officer
in the Navy and for many people a
military uniform is an authentic
expression of their ideas and values and
aspirations but for me that uniform was
a costume an ill-fitting costume at that
I mean my hats crooked and I served on a
ship with several hundred men the most
hyper masculine environment you can
imagine and so I was absolutely
miserable so after four years of hell I
got out of the Navy and a few years
later I met a met a wonderful woman and
[Music]
it works now who fell in love and got
married and we had one daughter and then
another daughter
and you know I I had this wonderful
family a big house a really nice
lifestyle you know it was perfect it was
everybody’s dream so I should have been
happy right but I was miserable and at
one point I fell into the abyss I sank
into this deep depression and I became
suicidal when I was finally so morose
that I was intolerable to be around my
wife made me get help I went to a
psychiatrist she wasn’t a very good
therapist and the talk didn’t really do
anything for me but she did prescribe
antidepressants and that probably saved
my life but I was on any depressants for
a few years I was in a fog much of the
time in a few years later my life took a
dramatic turn I early on was on the
internet I’ve always been a geek so
originally I got on these Usenet groups
and found out about people with gender
identity issues and then in the early
days of the web or phone before Facebook
and Instagram and Twitter there were the
precursor social media sites like geo
cities and Firefly where you could I
establish an online presence and connect
in a community with other people like
yourself although I wasn’t really sure
what like myself meant back then and
most of the people I was connecting with
identified as cross vessels men but who
like to wear women’s clothing and as I
got more and more involved in this I
connected with someone who invited me to
come out though to Denver for a weekend
and and she took me clothes shopping and
we went to this salon that specialized
in doing male to female transformations
and we spent this weekend you know
shopping and clubbing and makeovers and
it was wonderful and a week later I mean
I could not keep this to myself I came
out
my wife told her that I didn’t go on a
business trip where I told her why
really was and she was of course not
very happy but after we talked about
this she agreed to tolerated as long as
I kept this away from the children and
our friends and neighbors didn’t know
about it so I got a really obsessed with
this and I joined a support group and
every time I would travel for work I
would know take clothes with me and go
out dressed up and went to all these
gender events and gender event is like a
Kiwanis convention except everyone is
transgendered and so this this is a
photo of me at one of those i’m i’m the
person in the middle there in the blonde
wig and the leather miniskirt I don’t
wear leather miniskirts anymore although
if I still had legs like that I might
and about a year into this I had this
epiphany you know i was i was around all
these cross dressed and say I’m they
were wonderful people but I really
wasn’t like them for me it was not about
getting dressed up I didn’t get any kind
of you know I wasn’t turned on by
wearing a dress any more than any other
woman for me it was taking off the
costume when I took off that male
costume that I was wearing I experienced
a Norfolk appealing of authenticity and
I explored my gender identity I went to
a therapist and and I realized that I
was on this inevitable path toward
transitioning and then the 2001 I had
this crisis I i realized i was about to
lose my wife my children my my job my
friends everything that meant anything
to me and I got scared and after a
series of anxiety attacks I told myself
I was not going to do this anymore that
I could live a normal life that I could
be a husband and father a guy to all my
friends to do the things that were
expected to me that I could wear the
costume
at first it was I had this enormous
feeling of relief that and you know that
I was going to be able to do this but
then the anxiety and the depression
returned and I found solace in in
playing music I was a bass player in a
band and in 2011 we were hired to do
this gig at a Halloween party and I was
wondering what I was going to wear for a
costume and then it hit me my band used
to do a song that I wrote called Sarah
Palin and I said I’m gonna go with Sarah
Palin so I went to a thrift store and
found a sarah palin outfit and I found a
sarah palin wig on ebay and this was the
first time i had put on female clothing
in 10 years now the the guys in my band
sensed that I was a little bit too
comfortable and it made them
uncomfortable but that night on the
stage I had this feeling of just you
know it was it was such a wonderful
feeling I felt like I was myself I mean
I don’t mean Sarah Palin but I you know
that I I was wearing a costume it was a
silly costume for Halloween but at the
same time I was taking off a costume so
I started dressing up again I was only
doing it occasionally but this was the
first time I had done this in 10 years
and the damn had had broken the decade
long period of repression that I live
drew was is coming to an end so two
years after that my friend and I were
going to this halloween party halloween
again and at Brown University and we
were thinking about what kind of costume
we were going to wear so a few weeks
before Halloween we go to one of those
pop-up Halloween stores and I pick up
this wig and this really cool long black
wig with green and purple sparkly
strands and
and I said to my friend I’m going to get
this wig and she said so what are you
going to be and I said well I’ll be a
witch so we had a mutual friend coming
up from New York and she told our friend
about our plans and told her that I was
going to be a witch so our friend said
oh I’ll get up there early so I can help
him with this makeup so by the time she
got to her house she comes in the
bathroom and finds me with my makeup
already perfectly applied and she looked
at me kind of suspicious so the next
morning we’re the breakfast table and my
two girlfriends they’re not going to to
let me off the hook and they insisted on
knowing where I learned to put on makeup
so I told them my life story as I’ve
been telling it to you and as he’s words
were coming out of me and tears were
flowing down my face and I said to them
no I have been living a lie my entire
life I cannot go on one more day doing
this that was november first 2013 the
day i began my transition so i began a
year-long process of taking all the
steps to transition medically and
socially professionally legally and one
year later this picture was taken
October thirty-first 2014 this is the
last day that I went to work as my old
self now it just happened to be
Halloween I did not choose that day it’s
just I I work for the government and my
transition had to be very carefully
orchestrated around changing you know
email addresses and all this kind of
stuff and it always was orchestrated
around the day of my legal name change
so it just happened to be Halloween but
it was very appropriate because here I
am going to work wearing a mask a
costume I went to work dressed as a guy
on casual Friday but it was not me
when I returned to work I finally came
as my real self and my transition has
been very it’s it’s gone exceedingly
well I’m very fortunate because many
transgender people have problems with
employment and discrimination and I’ve
been very very lucky I did lose a few
people along the way some friends and
family members who were not able to
accept me and that happens because when
we transition we don’t transition alone
the people close to us also transition
and they did not sign up for this and
not everyone can go along with Metro but
my my daughters who are both in college
now they love me and they support me and
that’s what’s really most important so
you know you might be listening to the
story and thinking well that’s that’s a
really nice story I hope you are anyway
but but you know what does it have to do
with me well many of us wear costumes
many of us hide our authentic selves or
mothers now you know being a grown-up
means sometimes you have to make in
sessions you have to sometimes take away
a bit of your own individuality and in
order to you know to be a person in the
world but you have to balance that and
if you live too much to meet the
expectations of others and you’re not
being your authentic self if you’re
living behind a costume then you can’t
be a happy and engaged person and you’re
doing this a disservice not just
yourself but all the people that are
important to you so to get back to my
original question who is wearing a
costume now I still like to wear
costumes sometimes and this is from
Halloween of this year and once again I
went as a famous female political figure
this time 1 i’m hoping get selected
but now when I put on a costume it’s
just for fun but I stand before you on
the stage and in my in my daily life as
my authentic self no costume thank you [Applause]