ABOUT ME

In addition to what I've already told you, I have much more to share if you have time to read. I prepared a speech for the June 2001 10th Anniversary of Knoxville Pride and delivered the address on Heritage Night. This article was also included as a feature article in the June 2001 issue of "Our SOFFA Voice" published in Nashville, Tennessee, for national distribution. I include it here as it will tell you a great deal more about my journey.

FEMME TRANSITIONS

While I don't want to make myself sound *too* ancient, I will say that I was born over on the river at "The Baptist" in the early fifties. ( For our out of town visitors, "The Baptist" is the Baptist Regional Health Center where my son is now employed as a Critical care nurse.) I was the first born child of a couple, both of whom were firstborn children...and as a result, I was a very outspoken female from the very start, I suppose. From the day I was born, then, I guess I've always spoken my mind...sometimes that works well for me...sometimes it doesn't, but at least I've always had a certain inner peace because of it. Get ready, I'm about to do it again. <smile>

When I came out at the ripe old age of 26 years, I found myself in the Pacific Northwest in what some have called the "liberal mecca of Montana", a moderate sized town in Western Montana - Missoula. The site of the University of Montana, it had much more to offer than the population of 30,000 would imply. It was the service hub for five valleys, and as a result, there were lots of things there that one might not expect in such a small place. There were good restaurants, decent shopping, live music from the West Coast...and...several gay and lesbian organizations including some specifically for lesbians including a majority with a radical feminist bent. Now, remember...this is the late 70s.

Having come from a background that included being the daughter of a battering victim fatally injured in the final episode of what I still consider a 13 year hate crime, the feminist path was one I adopted easily. I absolutely inhaled the writings of the day from Susan Brownmiller to Sheri Hite to Mary Daly. I had truly come home in the sense that I was able to garner a lot of strength from these women and their view of a world that had been none too kind to a little girl from East Tennessee. I grew stronger in body and spirit as a result of my interactions with them, both in print and in real time. There was bustling activity within the women's movement, and I very much wanted to be a part of that in any way I could...and I was.

But...and this is a big "but"...having emerged from a heterosexual marriage, I found that I was suspect from day one. While it is somewhat understandable seeing things as I do now from a totally different perspective, it was very difficult to "prove myself" as a lesbian in the beginning. Having never been much of an athlete, more inclined to music and the textile arts, I found myself the object of doubt by both friends and lovers. They were just sure I was going back to the "straight life" at any time... and so...with great determination, I set out to prove them wrong.

I took a good look in the mirror and asked myself what I saw. I did indeed see a traditionally feminine biologically female person. Apparently, this was *not* the sort of person who in their opinion was a lesbian...so...I looked at those I had met in the community...and it didn't take me long to see the differences...and there were many. Gradually, my wardrobe became the androgynous attire that was the order of the day...jeans, flannel shirts, down jackets, hiking boots. All makeup was discarded, and my long, curly hair was shorn to a fashionable politically-correct length of about 1". Dyke Beth was born! There was an immediate reaction to the change in my appearace...suddenly I was visible! Suddenly, I didn't have to make long explanations about who my last lover was or where I came out...I was simply accepted as a dyke! I was in heaven!

Of course, they *still* liked my skills in the kitchen...that was one traditional activity I was encouraged to continue. <smile> Yes, I'll never forget it...I snagged my first lover with homemade egg rolls!

Then after two years of settling into a new lifestyle, disaster struck. My ex-husband abducted my two young children and ran to Florida from Montana leaving me distraught and terrified. But, after many frantic phone calls, he was finally convinced to meet here in Knoxville to live at opposite ends of the same apartment complex so that we could co-parent the kids...and so...I packed up all my things in a U-Haul, towed by a Subaru Brat occupied by two lesbians and two dogs...and we made our way to the Tennessee Valley, my homeland.

We arrived on December 15, 1980. Not too long after that, we went to a party in West Knoxville. It was certainly different from the politically charged climate in the Missoula community. But, I was in for a real surprise the first time we went to the bar...one of two in town at the time - The Carousel. (By the way, I forgot to mention, that in Missoula the nearest gay bar was six HOURS away over a terrible mountain pass in Spokane, Washington.) So, I was hardly prepared for the scenario that greeted me the first New Year's Eve I spent in Knoxville at the Carousel, what with only having seen a couple of drag queens in my entire life and *never* having seen the penultimate sight for sore eyes...their counterparts...the drag kings!

Well, after swooning a while, I began to notice that these drag kings went 'round with girls...girls in dresses, girls in high heels...girls like the girl I had been all my life until the PC police of the Missoula community had gotten hold of me. I was enthralled...I was relieved...I was looking at women who *looked like ME*!!!! I was simply amazed...and slowly as the full realization of what I was seeing dawned on me...something happened...something for which I am now very grateful...from that first night when I saw the Volunteer Kings, four good-lookin' butches onstage in their tuxedos...I was determined that from that day forward I was going to be true to myself...in every way possible. The closet door was flung wide open for this femme grrl!

And I'll tell you what...I never looked back. My lover was absolutely appalled, of course. I swear, I think she thought there was something sacred and holy about flannel shirts and sandals. Not that there's anything wrong with flannel shirts...my sweetheart wears them all the time...OR sandals...why, honey, I must have fifteen pairs! But, in all seriousness, it was a fork in the road for me. Thank goodness Knoxville was twenty years behind Missoula...let's see...that put us right at circa 1960 when all this happened in December of '80.

Well, a few years passed, and I was really tired of waiting for the next lesbian event. People were still talking about the Meg Christian concert that had happened five years before! Never being one to wait for something to be handed to me, I got to work at something that the feminists in Missoula had taught me quite a bit about - community organizing. First, we had to have something to draw the women...I was a student at the time at UT and used to spend part of my day hanging out at the Women's Center on the second floor of the Carolyn P. Brown Student Center. I was loudly complaining about the lack of lesbian cultural events in this area one day, when the director politely handed me a flier announcing the availability of a comic...a lesbian comic named Kate Clinton! Well, to make a long story short, we produced Kate Clinton in the Turnkey Center on Summitt Dr. not too awfully long after that. We had a great turnout with about 300 women packed into that building. It was wonderful!

So, with that in my back pocket, I waited just a little while...then with the mailing list from the defunct East Tennessee Alliance of Lesbian Activists (ETALA - a splinter group from NOW in the late 70s), I began a telephone campaign. I was on the phone for a week, calling every queer woman I could find. Every spare moment was spent asking one simple question: if there were a lesbian organization here locally would you be interested in participating? I got a powerful YES from nearly everyone I spoke with. Shortly after, we had the first meeting of the Mountain Womyn's Coalition in the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA in East Knoxville. 100 women showed up for the first meeting! That organization was in existence for seven years and served it's members well while it lasted.

Fast forward through the years...past the sad story of the Europa closed by the World's Fair and a criminal tragedy...past the Factory with its' elevated dance floor and uncomfortable high stools...on to the Point, that bastion of local lesbian herstory, the only all women's bar in Knoxville other than it's illustrious predecessor, the Huddle, which was before my time, I'm afraid. It was here that I really experienced the butch-femme bar culture so vividly described in the classic "Stonebutch Blues" by Leslie Feinberg and in "Restricted Country" by Joan Nestle. It was here that I truly came home.

While the particulars will remain somewhat under wraps due to the fact that many of my cohorts are still alive and well here in River City, and not everyone is "out" due to legitimate job, housing, and child custody considerations. Let's just say that when my first relationship ended after nearly nine years, I was at last free to pursue and be pursued by someone who appreciated a "girlie-girl". Believe me, they weren't hard to find. While I'll spare you the details, it was fun to be young, know who you are and where you're going while having the time of your life getting there.

In the meantime, (I really don't want to leave the impression that my life was spent in the bars, because it most decidedly wasn't) I was busy raising two children, completing my degree in nursing at the University of Tennessee, then launching a new career in that field. It was an exciting busy time in my life. As the years crept by, I found myself withdrawing more and more from the community, first for reasons that had to do with work and family, then later because I fell ill with an autoimmune disease that most people have never heard of: Wegener's Granulomatosis. The most difficult part of the disease progression involved a radical loss of vision necessitating 14 eye surgeries, numerous hospitalizations, and treatment with immunosuppressant drugs normally used in organ transplant or cancer treatment. From the depths of severe illness, I made my way back aided by the right combination of medications, medical support, and the kind, gentle person who has now been a part of my life for ten years - LB (or Sam as he is now known.)

But, after years in near total isolation, my social skills were a bit rusty, my courage and self-confidence almost nonexistent, and what with my vision and hearing impairments, I just could not bring myself to venture out into the community. Then I got my first Personal Computer. Then...I learned to use it to get on the Internet. Then...I found the wide world of cyberspace, and I found out that there were queers like me out there! Waddaya know!! I didn't have to leave the house after all to start participating in that world again. I could do it from the privacy and comfort of my own home!

So in the fall of '99, I went online and found a community that is not local, but in my case was regional...a community of folks more nearly like me than even my lesbian sisters were. I discovered the online butch-femme community. Boy, talk about feelin' like you just went home! After a couple of false starts having a LOT to do with regional prejudices...I finally found some folks that were butch and femme SOUTHERNERS!!! Imagine that! Some of my closest and best friends came from that source, but once again...the Goddess of Community Organizing beckoned me...with the help of Her Daughter, Hope McCubbin, I've been at it again. This time with older womyn in my age group...and hopefully in the near
future there will be a local butch-femme group for those of us who live that dynamic. We have already begun a mailing list that will hopefully soon translate into a real time community.

There are other communities I better understand after some online study...the transgender community in particular. Even as this community is becoming in some ways my own even more than the butch-femme community is, I am learning and growing in ways that I never thought possible. As the partner to a transitioning FTM, I am now moving forward and becoming an integral part of a community that I barely knew existed just a few years ago. It is an exciting time of change and challenges, but on the arm of my loving partner of ten years, I feel hopeful and encouraged that next year will be even better than those that I have lived before. The knowledge that I am honored to be a part of such a wonderful person's life never ceases to amaze me. I am grateful in many ways for the beautiful unconditional love that I receive every day from Sam, the love of my life.

23 years after that first introduction to the lesbian community, I think I can legitimately say that I feel a case of culture shock coming on whenever I think that I may no longer be seen by others as "lesbian". I was told by my one and only female-ID''d lover that I wasn't a lesbian...that really, really hurt at the time because I was trying desperately to hone out an identity for myself...and at the time, I thought my only choices were lesbian, straight, or bisexual. So of those three, I chose lesbian because I was not and am still not open to relationships with bio-males.

While the significant others in my life have been decidedly masculine for the last 19 years, the reality of dealing with transgendered issues only really emerged in my current relationship. I had been warned about LB (Sam) by others for many years. I was told he was "crazy"...why...they said he believed he was a man!!! (Said in horror-stricken hushed tones by some...with sly grins by others.) For some reason, I just didn't *think* about what they meant when they said that. I just shrugged it off because I was involved with someone else at the time...a drag king stonebutch who was really nothing more than a butch gigolo. But the very *real* nature of what they said did come back to me many years later...when Sam handed me literature from the Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta...although we had no money to go, he was saying that this is something he was interested in attending

In spite of being very sick at the time, so much so that I couldn't even walk across the room without assistance...blind and gasping for air...I remembered him telling me about the conference...and the implication was crystal clear to me. So clear that it gave me shivers even as I said, "Honey, I'm sorry, but I'm just too sick to deal with this right now." And he accepted that, poor patient guy that he is. He accepted that for several years.

So, now it is his turn...and even as we emerge from the intense research we have been doing on the Internet since '99 when we first went online, we are stronger as a couple for it. He was able to put his needs second for several years as he helped me gradually struggle back to a level of health that could support the dramatic changes that transition will create in our life together. I am now and will always be grateful to him for being so patient, for not giving up on me, for knowing that when I was *able* I would give to him...or at least try to give to him a fraction of what he gave to me - support, love, and guidance in making life altering choices. He is the great love of my life, and I am so very fortunate to get to spend my life with him.

I don't know exactly where my journey will lead...no one truly knows that, but as I go into the future with only a dim view of what may lie ahead, I am reassured that I have a rich heritage here in Knoxville...richer than I realized for a very long time.

 

 

 

 

 

  

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