Morganville resident Nicole Brownstein details the many successes of her happy and complete life. She explains the differences of growing up trans in 1950s America, and charts the process of her transition.
“...today they call it living a lie. Where you just, you just portray yourself as people want to see you because it’s too painful to come out and speak the truth.”
Annotations
Transcript
In collaboration with Rutgers Oral History Archive, World War II * Vietnam War * Cold War
First Interview conducted by Molly Graham and John Keller
Highland Park, NJ
May 22, 2016
Transcription by Caroline Safreed and Jesse Braddell
Annotations by Samantha Resnick
Track 1
Molly Graham: This is an oral history interview with Nicole Brownstein for both coLAB and the Rutgers Oral History Archive. The interview is taking place on May 22, 2016 in Highland Park, New Jersey and the interviewers are Molly Graham and I am joined by. [Editor’s Note: coLAB Arts is an organization that provides programs and exhibits in the New Brunswick area. John Keller is the Director of Education and Molly Graham is a curator.]
John Keller: John Keller.
MG: Nicole, let’s start at the beginning if you could say when and where you were born.
Nicole Brownstein: When, 1946 in Manhattan in New York City.
MG: Did you grow up there?
NB: I grew up in New York City, initially in a section of the Bronx known as Kingsbridge and then another section of the Bronx known as Riverdale.
MG: Well tell me a little bit about that neighborhood.
NB: Well, if you’re familiar with the Donna Reed Show or Leave it to Beaver, it was that kind of a neighborhood. White picket fences and we’re talking back in the 1950s and kids ran up and down the street and everyone was friendly and you didn’t have the issues and problems that you faced today. So, it was truly a different generation. [Editor’s Note: The Donna Reed Show was a sitcom that aired from 1958 to 1966. Leave it to Beaver was a sitcom that aired from 1957 to 1963.]
MG: Tell me a little bit about your family, maybe start with your family history on your father’s side.
NB: My father, two of his brothers, his father, and his mother owned a hardware and houseware department store in the Bronx. … Let’s see, lived in that area until I was about twelve years old. I was always very close to my father. Used to go out and do a lot of typically male oriented things with him while trying to compensate for feelings that I had, and lost him a number of years ago and sad time.
MG: Yes. Where does his family come from? Did they immigrate to the United States at some point?
NB: Both sides of my family came from, one came from Minsk and one came from Pinsk, and one is in Russia and one is in Poland. … Honestly, I don’t remember which is which but this was two generations before my parents and they were already established in New York, both in the Bronx and on Long Island.
MG: Do you know their reasons for immigrating? Were they facing the pogroms?
NB: The freedom, the typical reason most people immigrated to the United States, to escape persecution and yes, there was especially bad things happening to Jewish families back then so they came here for a new start.
MG: In Riverdale, there were a lot of Jewish families in that neighborhood.
NB: Back then there were, yes. It was a, I won’t say predominantly Jewish but it was a fair good population, enough to support three or four synagogues, so yes.
MG: Do you know how your parents met?
NB: I should but I don’t recall.
MG: Did your father serve in World War II?
NB: No, he was never in the military.
MG: Do you know how the Depression and then the war affected their lives before you were born?
NB: Well, I know early in his life my father had taken a job as a travelling salesman and he worked for. It’s funny I remember this, he worked for a company called Kirsch which made, and I think they’re still in business but they made hardware for hanging curtains and curtain rods and he travelled up and down the New England coast trying to sell the products and at some point in time he met my mother and he gave up the job as a salesman and settled down and went into the family business so that he could be with her. [Editor’s Note: Kirsch was founded in 1907 by Charles Kirsch.]
MG: When did they start their family? Were you the first born?
NB: I was the first, I said that was back in 1946. … Yes, we lived in a little two bedroom apartment in the Bronx. It was a very family oriented neighborhood, used to be out all the time running the streets which was not something I wanted to do. I always wanted to be inside with the girls, and play with the Easy Bake Ovens and the dolls.
MG: Well, talk a little bit more about that and kind of how you negotiated that at such a young age.
NB: Okay, I basically can remember back to a time prior to when my brother was born, so I have to be two or three at the time wanting to stay indoors and as I said, play with the girls, play with the dolls and being told go outside and play with the boys and I was never happy about it; always thought that there was something wrong with me, that I was crazy. I mean, you know that’s true now but I held it inside after the second time I got the hell beat out of me and today they call it living a lie. Where you just, you just portray yourself as people want to see you because it’s too painful to come out and speak the truth. So I was born in, like I said, 1946 and it wasn’t until December of 1953 that I found out that I wasn’t the only lunatic in the world that was born male and wanted to be a woman. There was a gentleman named George Jorgensen who was in the armed forces and somewhere around 1951, I believe it was, he left the United States and went to Scandinavia. … When he came back he returned as a Christine Jorgensen and she was the first internationally known transgender individual. … I saw this on television and I was, my reaction was, “Oh my god, there are two of us. I’m not the only lunatic in the world.” … That’s when life became a little easier because I knew I wasn’t totally alone that I wasn’t the only one. [Editor’s Note: Christine Jorgensen lived from 1926 to 1989. Born George Jorgensen, she served in the Army during World War II after being drafted. She then travelled to Denmark after the war and underwent sex reassignment surgery. She was made famous as a transgender individual when her story made the New York Daily News.]
MG: And how old were you when that happened?
NB: About seven, about seven years old.
MG: What was the public’s reaction to her?
NB: If I remember correctly it was questioning, “Why would you do such a thing?” She tried initially to keep a low profile and I remember her words. When she got off the plane and there was a mob of people standing, waiting for her and she said, “Thank you so much for coming but you’re really making too big a deal out of this,” and then quietly walked away. Well that, all these years later when I started going through my transition, I had decided that that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to keep a low profile and fly under the radar and maybe someday get married and retire off somewhere. Well, strange how that didn’t work out that way.
[ Annotation 1 ]
MG: Did you think the feelings would go away on their own?
NB: I never thought about them going away. They were a part of me. They were there. It was just a desire. Yet I knew I couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t advertise it or publicize it unless I wanted to get beat up again. I did have the intelligence to know I didn’t want to do that.
MG: When was the first time you were beaten up?
NB: Oh probably around five years old, by all my good friends.
MG: Was it because you were doing something a girl would do?
NB: Oh, it’s because I had made a comment about I’d rather be inside playing with the girls and started getting called sissy and faggot and then one of them said, “Oh, we don’t need him.” They all jumped in and beat on me, so. Yes, that happened once or twice and you learned. You don’t talk about it. You keep your mouth shut.
MG: Would you force yourself to participate in sports and male activities?
NB: Well, in high school I was on the swimming team. I played junior varsity football. At one point in time I bench pressed three hundred pounds. I was over six feet tall. So yes, I lived in denial. I tried to overcompensate for it which is what most of the transgender individuals that I’ve encountered and met with did. I tried being overly macho.
MG: Did you have areas in your life where you felt you could be yourself completely?
NB: Not for many, many years. Not my entire youth, not growing up, not until I was well into my twenties and I started working. I moved out and got my own place and started doing a little travelling on business and then I was able to go out and buy some clothes and some makeup. … While I was away I was able to comfortably live out my, back then I used to think of them as fantasies. Now I think of them as living as my true self.
MG: What was that like when you would put on the makeup? Was there a stronger recognition like, “Yes, this is a better fit?”
NB: Well, in the very early days I would put on the makeup and I’d look like a clown because I didn’t know what I was doing. We didn’t have the internet that we have today and you didn’t have ready access to YouTube and all of the instructional sites that are available today. But yes, it felt normal. It felt right. It wasn’t. Back then I always thought that I was crossdressing and I never realized that I was not crossdressing. I was normalizing. I look back today and I think that I spent sixty five years of my life crossdressing as a man. So, it’s been a long interesting road of discovery and self-identification.
Track 2
MG: I am also curious just about regular childhood things. What things did you do for fun? What was school like for you?
NB: Elementary school I don’t have any vivid recollections of. Junior high school I got involved with the student orchestra and it was decided that my hands were too large to play the violin. So, I was allowed to try the viola which was an instrument I loved and studied it for six, seven years. Made my way into the Bronx Borough Senior Orchestra and performed a number of times with them. High school I went to an all-male high school which was less than fun. As I said, I got involved in sports and took all the math and science courses I could, avoided the English and history like the plague but that’s where I always found that I excelled was in the maths and the sciences.
MG: What high school did you go to?
NB: Oh, do I have to say?
MG: No, you do not have to say.
NB: No, let’s just leave it at the fact that I went to an all-male high school in the Bronx.
MG: Okay.
NB: Which kind of spells it out anyway.
MG: So your family stayed in New York?
NB: Yes, for a good number of years. My parents retired, went to Florida about thirty five years ago. My father passed away over twenty years ago. My mother, I understand, is still living somewhere in Florida and is rapidly approaching a hundred years of age but I got out of New York as quickly as I could.
MG: Before we talk about getting out, is there anything we are missing from your childhood? Or do you have questions about growing up? I was curious about your grandparents and if you had a relationship with them while you were young?
NB: I had a relationship with my father’s mother who as I said previously, she and my grandfather who I barely got to know, he passed away when I was four years old so I don’t have a lot of vivid memories of him but my grandmother had an apartment above the department store and this is a woman who every day of her life, Monday through Saturday was up there making lunch for the boys. There were four brothers and one sister, and three of the brothers, my father and my two uncles were partners with my grandfather in the store. Every single day at the store, and the store was open at least six days a week. She was up there making lunch for them. Every day after school, Monday through Friday, I would come down to the store and go up to her apartment and sit there and do my homework. She taught me how to cook and I miss her. She was a wonderful woman. Of my four grandparents, she’s the one that stands out in my mind. Of course they’re all gone now but she’s the one that I had the most history and the most time with.
MG: It sounds like you could be more of yourself with her too.
NB: Yes, definitely. She was totally accepting, understanding. I’m not a religious or a spiritual person but somehow I know that my father and grandmother know who I’ve become and are at peace with it and are happy for me.
MG: That is a nice feeling.
NB: It’s a very nice feeling, so.
MG: You mentioned you had a brother. Do you have any other siblings?
NB: No, just a brother.
MG: And what was your relationship with him?
NB: We fought like cats and dogs. We never saw eye to eye; never really got along. Had differences of opinion, had different interests. As a matter of fact, I have not seen nor heard from him since my father’s funeral. So, which is probably all the better.
MG: Did you pay attention to the news growing up? So many things happened in the 1950s and 1960s. The Cold War, McCarthyism, Civil Rights Movement.
NB: Yes, of course I know all about all of them but they all played second fiddle to what I was going through and trying to survive. It was not easy to go through all the years of trying to hide the truth; everything around me was more or less a blur. Well, I lived it and I experienced it. I know about it. It was there, it happened, it was history but it, yes.
MG: Yes, I understand.
NB: It didn’t ring big.
MG: As you were in your senior year of high school, what was your plan for after high school? What did you want to do?
NB: Well, I had for many years, held several FCC radio licenses. I had a hand radio license and I had a couple of commercial FM radio licenses. So I knew I was going to go into electronics. As I said earlier, I was never great with history and English and the humanities and I was too immature to do anything along those lines. So, I went to a technical school. A school named RCA Institutes and graduated from there with a degree in electronics and the one thing that that did for me, the one thing that that gave me was an interview with IBM and I, along with about 250 other people, applied to IBM and of that class, there were two of us who were hired. So I went to work for IBM and as my favorite T-shirt claims, I survived IBM for forty three years.
MG: How did you first get into ham radio operation?
NB: A friend of mine was a ham radio operator and it just seemed to be a normal direction for me to go in and started studying, took the test, learned the Morse Code, got my license. Got involved with a couple of civil defense nets and used to participate back in the mid-‘60s with, when there was civil defense, air raids. I used to participate in them and provide communications. It was interesting. It was fun.
MG: It must have connected you with people all over the country maybe even the world?
NB: Predominantly northeast. I worked the upper bands which had limited distant communications. I didn’t love Morse Code. I learned it and I could do it because it was a requirement but I’d rather sit and talk with somebody. So, stayed with the upper bands where you could use voice communications. We used to speak regularly with people up to two, three, four hundred miles away. I used to speak up into Maine and Vermont all the time and down into Washington D.C. and Virginia. It was a different era then. It was, everything was so innocent back then, so.
MG: Were these radio communications ever an opportunity to try on your true self because there is anonymity with the radio.
NB: No, no. Back then, hand radio was a very male oriented hobby and electronics and communications in general were very male oriented, so no, never did.
MG: Was the RCA Institute in Camden?
NB: No, actually this one was in Manhattan. It started out, down in the Village and then it moved up to West 13th Street I think; 13th or 23rd, it was more down the Westside.
MG: Would you commute from home to the Institute?
NB: Yes.
MG: Tell me a little bit about the training you got there and the things you learned.
NB: Oh, well the things I learned there are by today’s standards, totally obsolete, antiquated and forgotten. Most of the stuff that I learned is now in the Smithsonian. Back in those days, electronics revolved around vacuum tubes and transistors were just the up and coming thing. Little transistor radio was very expensive because of the technology that went into it. As I graduated from there and went to work for IBM and started learning about the integrated circuits that had by then become the standard of the computing industry, it was amazing. The first computers I worked on would not fit in this room. Today, I have more technology and more power in this little Fitbit than I had in the mainframe computers I used to work on. So it’s a totally different world.
MG: Where was the IBM job that you got after RCA?
NB: Midtown Manhattan. I started working as a field engineer and that entailed going around to customer accounts, servicing the mainframe computers, upgrading them, installing them, whatever needed to be done.
MG: What year did you start there?
NB: 1968.
MG: At this time, were you dating or getting into relationships?
NB: Yes, I had met a young lady and we were dating seriously and I guess it was in
Track 3
NB: October or November of ‘68. I was up in Endicott, New York for four months for training on the mainframe computers and she came up for a weekend to visit rather than my driving down. Her father bought her a ticket to fly up and she flew up to Endicott and we spent the weekend together and yes, before she left I asked her to marry me. I don’t know why but she said yes. We got married about seven to eight months later.
MG: How come you asked her to marry you?
NB: Because I had fallen in love with her and I was in total denial and I was overcompensating, so yes it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
MG: In 1968, were you fearful of being drafted?
NB: No, I already had achieved a 4-F classification so there was no chance I was going to be going into the armed services.
MG: How did you feel about the Vietnam War at the time? Was that just another thing that just was not on your radar?
NB: I wasn’t involved with it. I had a number of friends who were involved with it who came back from the war and were never the same, a couple of them committed suicide. Most of them suffered from, what is it? Post-traumatic stress?
MG: PTSD.
NB: PTSD, thank you. It was not a good time. It really was not. I was thankful and grateful for the fact that I had been cast away and they didn’t want me. At the same time I guess I felt a little guilty that all my friends were over there and some of them didn’t come back. Some of them that did come back, as I said, were never the same. So, it was a difficult time.
MG: What year were you married?
NB: 1969.
MG: What was that day like?
NB: I was living in a garden apartment in Queens and this was the apartment that we were going to live in together once we were married and I had already moved in to start setting it up and so the morning of the wedding I got up and got dressed, and grabbed the marriage license and put it into my jacket pocket and went outside and at the time I had a little British sports car. I had a MGB. It was a gorgeous day in June and I said, “Okay.” I put the top down. I got into the car and took off and drive out to Long Island where the wedding was going to be. About halfway out there, I reach into my pocket and no wedding license. Turn around and drive all the way back and as I pull up in front of the apartment, and I look across the street to where the car was, there’s the envelope lying in the street with tire marks on it. So I stopped, I got out, made sure that was it, put it in my pocket, drove out, and got there a little late but. Yes, I made quite an impact on people when I showed up with a marriage license in an envelope that had tire marks on it. It was a beautiful wedding and it was the start of many, many years, so.
MG: Tell me a little bit more about your married and family life.
NB: Well, we moved into that apartment and stayed there for a couple of years until we decided we couldn’t take it there any longer and we moved out to Garden City, Long Island. By this time my wife was pregnant with our first child and we decided we didn’t want to stay on Long Island. We were young and newly married and I wasn’t making a ton of money, and in order to get a house we would’ve had to gone halfway out or better into Suffolk County which meant a two or two and a half hour commute each way into Manhattan. So we came down to Jersey and started looking in Jersey. We were coming down here two or three weekends a month looking at houses, staying overnight, eating all our meals here and it was costing me a fortune. So, instead we decided let’s find a garden apartment, move into a garden apartment, have the baby and then we’ll start looking again and that’s what we did. We found a beautiful little garden apartment and we moved in there and my daughter was born and shortly thereafter we found our first home down in Jackson and we moved in there and funny how it happened but two years later my son was born. We stayed in that house and brought the kids up for five years and in 1977 I had an incident with a neighbor which was, no let’s just say he took objection to my religion and we decided to move. I had gone over to pick my daughter up at nursery school and there was a, the builder of this other community had a resale office located there and I went in and spoke with them to see if there was a house for sale. Basically I was told about a development further north and that there was a model home that had gone up for sale and it had just been put on the market. As it turns out it’s very familiar with that house. We had been in it a couple of times and I picked my daughter up. I went home. I called the sales office. I spoke with the sales manager and I bought the house over the phone. We moved in there the Labor Day weekend in 1977 and there we stayed for forty, no, yes, forty some odd years, and then from ‘77 to ‘13, so.
MG: Your neighbor previously, he was an Anti-Semite?
NB: It wasn’t my next door neighbor. It was someone up the street and yes, he was Anti-Semitic. There was not a whole big Jewish population in Jackson at the time to begin with and I did not need the hassle of it all, so.
MG: Where was the house you moved to?
NB: It was located in Freehold.
MG: When you said, “Funny how it happened my son was born.” Why was it funny how it happened?
NB: Oh no, that. Just that the second child came along, yes. I can be a smart alec and say I don’t understand how it happened but it’s just that we hadn’t planned on him but he came along, good thing he did.
MG: Talk to me a little bit about how you negotiated being a parent with what you were feeling at the time?
NB: Actually I think it worked very well for the children because I viewed myself as pretty nurturing to them and back at this time we’re talking about the early to mid ‘70s. Johnny Carson was the big thing on television and both of my kids grew up on Johnny Carson because each of them would get their last bottle at eleven, eleven thirty at night and my wife would always have gone to sleep and I would stay up till one in the morning, giving them a bottle, watching Johnny Carson and then get up at six in the morning to go to work. I don’t think the feelings that I had inside me hurt them in any way. I mean. [Editor’s Note: Johnny Carson lived from 1925 to 2005. He was the host of The Tonight Show from 1962 to 1992.]
MG: I would not think they would. I was curious if you felt. You felt you were a woman. Did you feel like you were a mother is what I mean?
NB: No, I couldn’t, no, because they had a mother and it would’ve been problematic at best to have two mothers, so no. No, just the father who thought a little differently.
MG: Earlier you said you survived IBM, so it does not sound like it was a very pleasant work experience.
NB: No, IBM has a reputation for eating people up, wearing them out, beating them down, and then they leave. I said I survived it because I kept reinventing myself and I kept changing jobs there. I went through, I don’t know, eight or ten different careers with them. It’s the only reason why I survived so long. You know what they say, “A moving target is harder to hit.” So, I just kept finding things that interested me. Things that were challenging that offered advancement and promotion and just kept taking them as they came along. If I had stayed where I started I never would have lasted that long, yes. I would’ve gotten eaten up and spit out.
MG: Were there moments in your life or in your marriage where you came close to opening up about what you were feeling?
NB: No, I got caught once but other than that, no it was not something that I wanted to share. It was something that was, well you know
Track 4
NB: When you feel and know that something about you would not be accepted and it would cause problems and hurt, you kind of tend to leave it buried and I guess that at the time that my kids were growing up, I had found a balance that was sustainable and livable and I didn’t want to rock the boat so I just went with it as it was.
MG: Were you feeling any impacts of having buried these feelings, anxiety or health problems, things like that?
NB: No, not for many years later until when gender dysphoria truly reared its ugly head and started feeling suicidal but that was many years later. It was when I had retired and I had time to sit and think and reflect on myself that it became a problem. All the years that I was working, when I said earlier, they eat you up and spit you out. I used to, on a regular basis, worked sixteen, eighteen hour days and when you’re working that many hours and trying to get a few hours of sleep, you don’t have time to think about yourself. So, it was after I retired that I truly started having problems.
MG: What was happening?
NB: I started thinking about myself and I had more time to focus on myself. My wife was working and she would get up and leave the house every day and go to work. Fifteen minutes after she was out of the house I would be changing and getting dressed and doing my makeup and putting my wig on and deciding what I was going to do for the day. That’s when it became a problem, when the flip-flopping from boy to girl every day. Get up in the morning and all excited and looking forward to becoming yourself for a few hours and then four o’clock the depression would hit when you knew you had to take off the make-up and the clothes and go back to being him. It got to be a problem. It got to be a major problem.
MG: How long did that period last?
NB: Maybe a year, I was seeing a therapist and reached a point where the therapist said, “I can’t do anymore for you. You need a specialist. You need a gender specialist.” I started seeing her and not very long after I started seeing her it was decided that I was suffering from a severe case of the newly developed term, gender dysphoria, and that I had to go on hormones.
[ Annotation 2]
MG: Can you say a little bit more about what that is and what that means?
NB: Okay. Up until the past six or seven years, anybody who was considered transgender and who was considering transition, going either from male to female or female to male was identified with a condition called gender identity disorder or GID, which in the medical books and the coding was listed as a mental disorder. So it was treated with psychiatric drugs. It was treated with electroshock therapy. It wasn’t until about, I guess, six, seven years ago that they began to realize it’s not the brain that’s wrong. It’s the body and the body doesn’t match the mind, and that’s when they changed the diagnosis to more of a physical disorder and came up with the definition gender dysphoria which means a mismatch between the brain and the body and you can’t change the brain but you can introduce hormones into the body and do surgeries to alter the body so that the body aligns with the mind. That’s the procedure. That’s done today to resolve the problem, if it’s a problem. I never viewed it as a problem myself. It’s just something biological that happens before birth and there are several theories on what actually causes someone to suffer from gender dysphoria but it’s basically thought of as now, by the experts, biological.
[ Annotation 3 ]
MG: Would you pinpoint this time period as the beginning of the transition?
NB: I would say the beginning of the transition truly came when my specialist said, “You’re suffering from gender dysphoria and you have to go on hormones.” I mean, up to that point, I knew I wanted to be a girl and I guess I’ve known that my whole life but it’s only in the last six years or so that it became an issue. Yes, it’s been about six years that it’s been an issue.
MG: When was the first time you said that out loud, “I want to be a girl?”
NB: I was about two years old.
MG: But to someone else, was it to the therapist?
NB: Probably ten years ago or more when I was seeing a therapist and my feelings were a part of the reason I was seeing him. There were other issues but I guess it was probably ten, twelve years ago was the first time I told him, made some reference to thinking I was or wanted to be a girl.
MG: What was that like to share a secret you had held your entire life up to that point?
NB: Scared the hell out of me. I didn’t know how he would react to it. Thank heavens he, “Oh, that explains a lot of things.” So yes, went on seeing him for years with that as kind of a sideline discussion and over the years it became more and more the focus of the sessions, and eventually they took over and they became the whole session and that’s when he said, “You’ve gone beyond me. You’ve gone beyond my abilities.” I went out and found somebody else and started working with her. Very shortly thereafter went on hormones.
MG: Did you have to tell your wife first?
NB: No, she didn’t know at first. I was unsure of where it was going to lead to and I was on hormones for at least a year before I breached the subject with her. I mean, it’s not as if she didn’t know. She knew there was something cooking. She knew that I cross dressed and it was like the military, “Don’t ask, Don’t tell.” She denied it. She was in self-denial over it but it finally reached a point where my body was starting to change from a year of hormones and my thinking was starting to change. It finally reached a point where reluctantly, I said, “I’m going to change. I have to change.” She did not want to be married to a woman. So, reluctantly we got a divorce and I went on my way. She went on her way. We’re still friends. We still talk but my knees lied along a different path than hers.
MG: What was that year of taking hormones like? What were the changes that took place?
NB: You’re talking to someone here who prior to starting hormones cried three times in their life. I cried when my grandfather died. I cried when my grandmother died. I cried when my father died. Four times I cried when my daughter was born from happiness. A year on hormones and all you had to do was look at me and go, “Cry,” and I’m crying. So, emotionally my.
MG: Do you want to pause? [A phone is vibrating.]
NB: No. Emotionally, my thought patterns had changed. My emotions were totally different and continued to evolve. I started to see differences in my body. I started taking on more of a feminine shape. There was growth up in the chest and some of the belly fat was reshifting around to hips and to the butt, and I didn’t look as nauseating to myself as originally I used to think I looked.
Track 5
NB: It was a time where I was starting to feel better about myself and being a little bit happy with myself, so yes.
MG: How was it for the people around you?
NB: Devastating. My daughter took it best. My son broke down crying hysterically. My wife initially hated me. It made that part of my life totally upset and miserable but as I evolved and continued to grow more and more into who I am today I started feeling better about myself. At the time I was spending as much time as I possibly could as me. My life completely turned around a little over three years ago when I moved out and started living as myself full-time.
MG: I am surprised this was not such a long time ago. Your confidence and activism made me think this must have been decades ago.
NB: It started in 1948 and it’s been there all the time but just under the surface. I mean, I can’t give you specifics but I can’t think of a time when it wasn’t there. Raising a family, being married, being the breadwinner, and having a job that demands the hours that it demands of you. There wasn’t a lot of time for me. There really wasn’t and my time came when I got into bed at night and laid down just before I fell asleep where I could be me. I could think about being me. I could think of myself and envision myself the way I wanted to be. When I retired from IBM I started having the time to think about and focus on myself and that’s when Nicole came out and took over like gangbusters. I mean, so often my ex and I have joked about the fact that if it were not for some bitch named Nicole we would still be married but this evil woman came in and took over and in essence it’s true. I mean, who I used to be, the knowledge, the thoughts, the memories, are all there but they’re not in control. I mean, they’re just a part of the past.
MG: Does that feel like a different person?
NB: No, I’m not a different person. I’m the same person. I just feel like I came over to the softer side of Sears. I still enjoy a lot of the same things I used to enjoy. A couple I’m embarrassed to say but I still enjoy football and NASCAR and that will never change but now I also enjoy being taken out and treated like a lady and having the door opened for me and having my seat pulled out for me and it’s nice.
MG: Between those hours of eight and four, were you also finding community online or in person? People to connect with?
NB: At what stage? At what period of time?
MG: When your wife would go to work, after retirement.
NB: Oh yes, there were online chat boards that I was involved with, not to a great extent. There’s a difference between being a cross dresser and being transsexual. A crossdresser does it primarily as a hobby for the kicks and a transsexual is someone who has a mind-body issue, the gender dysphoria. On the boards mostly you find crossdressers and, yes, I used to be on there but how many days can you sit online and talk with people who all they’re interested in is, “So what color panties are you wearing?” And, “What color did you do your toe nails?” I mean for about twelve minutes it was fun but I went past that very quickly and as soon as I moved into my current home and had the freedom to come and go as I pleased and the day I moved in there I jokingly say was my birth date because that’s the day I went full-time and no one has ever seen or heard of him again. Now I was able to start going out and going to gatherings, meetings that brought me more in touch and face to face with other transgendered people. That led to the Pride Center and that led to the whirlwind that has become my life today.
[ Annotation 4 ]
MG: Yes, talk about all the things you are involved in.
JK: Yes.
NB: You have two years? [laughter] Well, a very dear friend of mine named Kim, someone I had been friends with, actually eight, nine years ago on the chat boards is where I actually first met her was going through similar things to me, paralleling what I was experiencing and we got to be good friends and one night she asked me, she said, “What are you doing?” It actually wasn’t one night. It was one day. “Nothing, why?” She goes, “I’m going to the Pride Center, do you want to come with me?” I said, “Okay.” That was two years ago and came and attended my first True Selves meeting, and came on and off for the next three, four months and then started coming regularly. By November of, what was that? I guess September, October of 2014, the then facilitator of the group had announced that she was going to have to step down because of commitments and she asked me to take the group over which surprised the hell out of me because I don’t know. But I agreed to do it and November, December of 2014 I took the group over and I’ve been running the group ever since. Increased it to two meetings a month from the original one meeting a month, eliminated the stop time on the Sunday meeting because the girls seemed to want to sit and talk more. Then in I guess it was October, September, October of last year, they started talking with me about joining the board of directors here. Had discussions with the President and with a very dear friend of mine who I actually wound up replacing, it’s David. They told me they thought I could do a great job so I agreed and in January I was elected to the Board of Directors and further made a trustee. That has been very rewarding, being involved here with this organization and it has led me to so many other things. Of course it led me to meeting John and starting to work with him on several projects for coLAB Arts because of my. Well, let me go back even further in history. There’s a woman who is a nurse at Robert Wood Johnson and she started attending the meetings and then came out and said that she needed support of the transgender community for an initiative that was being started at Robert Wood Johnson and I got interested in what she was talking about. That led to my joining a committee at Robert Wood Johnson as a volunteer and being a keynote speaker at the kickoff of one of their business resource groups. That led to my getting involved with some additional transgender activities there and I’m now part of a task force which is considering and looking at a possibility of opening a transgender clinic at Robert Wood Johnson. I mentioned Kim earlier. Kim and I partnered with Jackie who is the nurse from Robert Wood and we created a second support group which is intended for the families of transgender individuals. You know, there’s support everywhere in many different fashions for a transgender individual. There’s what we run here, the support group here. There’s several other support groups that I know of in Jersey. There are a bunch of social groups and a bunch of party groups. There isn’t much in the way of support for the families and they go through as much as the transgender individual. They go through a transition also.
[ Annotation 5 ]
Track 6
NB: So we started three months ago, a group with the support of Robert Wood Johnson and we have been, in my humble opinion, wonderfully successful. We’ve gotten some very nice praise by the people that are coming to our meetings. So that’s rewarding. About four months ago I received an invitation to attend a discussion group in Manhattan which was thrown by the Department of Justice, the United States Department of Justice to focus on issues and problems facing the transgender community. … They focused on four areas. They focused on employment, housing, education, and health. I attended the meeting. It was in lower Manhattan and got to meet the woman who was a representative of the Department of Justice who was running the entire round table, and made an impression on her when I said, “Why the hell am I here?” I said, “I’m from New Jersey. I feel like an outsider. This is all New York City and New York-centric, New York City and New York State centric, and why am I here?” She explained to me why I was invited and then she said, “Well, what do you want me to do about this? Do you want me to bring this whole round table to New Jersey.” I said, “Yes, that’s exactly what I want you to do. I want this entire round table brought to New Jersey and to focus on New Jersey.” On July 13th, it’s going to happen. We’ve got the Department of Justice. We’ve got the Social Security Administration, the Health and Human Services Administration, a couple of the federal agencies, a bunch of state agencies, some very prominent doctors, Lambda Legal, are all coming to spend a day out at Robert Wood Johnson in Somerset, where we’re going to be hosting the first ever Department of Justice, transgender roundtable. That’s something I’m very excited about because we need it here. We truly need it here so that people will focus on it. Other than that, I just became a member of the sexual violence prevention coalition of Middlesex County. So I am now a member of that group and sometime in the next month or two I am hosting one of their bi-monthly meetings, actually right here at the Pride Center so. Yes, one of the things I’ve enjoyed doing is brining relationships between organizations and the Pride Center where it can mutually benefit each of them. What’s his name over here? John and I have built a beautiful relationship bringing the Pride Center and coLAB Arts together. The family support group that we run is co-hosted by the Pride Center and Robert Wood Johnson, now bringing the prevention coalition and the Pride Center together. So yes, it’s kind of rewarding. It kind of makes me feel like I am accomplishing something.
MG: So many things.
NB: A couple. [laughter]
MG: It is really very impressive in such a short period of time how many connections you have made and how much work you have done and how many people you have brought together.
NB: It feels good because it’s not for me. I mean, I’m an old lady. I’m a done deal, right? But there are so many kids and I mean, I consider anybody a kid. All the kids that come to my meetings and the people that come to the family support group meetings, they have nowhere else to go, and if with what I’m doing I can help them and make their lives better, easier, excuse me. I feel like I’ve accomplished something. I feel like I’ve done something worthwhile.
NB: Yes, I was impressed last week with how many wonderful examples there were of people living authentically and the impact that must have made on newcomers in the group. Yes, it’s true. It’s great that I have a core group of people who come to the meetings, if not to every meeting, at least to all the Sunday meetings. Monday night meetings are more difficult because people work but it was the only alternative and they asked for it. So okay, you asked for it, you got it. To see the constant influx of new people coming to get the text messages, the e-mails, the phone calls from people asking for information about the groups and coming to the groups and meeting them for the first time, and having them see, it’s not a fly by night operation that they come in here and it isn’t two or three people sitting around a table having a drink. I mean, you both have seen the average meeting, it’s twenty to thirty people on a Sunday and I don’t know if any other group that has such a draw and it’s because it’s the corps people who come back because they truly enjoy and get something out of it and being able to help the newer attendees.
MG: It is such a safe place.
NB: Oh it’s safer than you’d believe. I have thrown people out. I have banned people from coming because they were hostile and because they caused problems. You want to have problems, go to a bar, go drink and you’ll have problems. This is, when you’re taking yourself seriously and you’ll realize that maybe I’m not a cross dresser, maybe I really have crossed the line and maybe I really am transsexual and maybe I do need to consider where I’m going to go. Oh my god, how do I do that? Let me find a place where I can go and get some serious help. That’s what we are here.
MG: I want to ask you a couple more questions about your experience in transition. Were there any surprises or things that, I do not know, that you did not expect?
NB: I didn’t expect my emotions to come on like gang busters. I didn’t expect myself to start feeling things as strongly as I do now. I didn’t expect to cry as much as I cry. I didn’t expect the acceptance that I’ve gotten from almost everybody who was really important to me. I lost some friends, okay, that happens. I just ended a relationship with a couple that I was friendly with for well over thirty years because they were in denial of what they did. We’d go out and they’d mis-gender me and that is a dangerous thing. I mean, it’s like my kids. They still call me dad and fine, on the phone, at home, at their home, in private. I always have been their father, still am their father and as long as I live I will be their father. So that’s fine but they understand that out in public you don’t call me dad because there are homophobes and transphobic people out there who are just looking to start something and especially with the idiotic things that are happening in Mississippi and North Carolina. All over something that for the last fifty years was never a problem, was never an issue, and it’s making a problem out of something that doesn’t exist but it’s bringing a lot of attention and a lot of focus to the community and I was out to dinner, maybe a month ago, and we had gone to a steak house which is kind of red neck joint. There were six of us at the table and there was a table of younger, rowdy, people sitting directly behind us. This one particular friend of mine came out with the statement, “Yes, Nicole, he did this.” And, “Yes, you remember his this or his that.” Then made a joke of it when I said, “Would you watch that please?” He goes, “Hehehe.” Well, shortly thereafter we finished eating and four of the people got up and left and the friend I was with had to go and use the ladies room and we went up to the front and I was accosted by one of these, should we be sarcastic and say, gentleman or should I be honest and say Neanderthals who came up and verbally accosted me. It was not fun. It was very uncomfortable. Waited for my friend to come out of the ladies’ room and then we walked out together because there’s strength in numbers but when I called my friends up and I said, “Hey, you don’t know what happened and what I was subjected to because of this.” They went on the defensive rather than understanding my fears rather than understanding the danger that they potentially put me in. It has only taken me three years to realize that I am more vulnerable now and part of that is your fault. At the performance in New Brunswick and afterwards we went over to the restaurant. Well, you weren’t there that night, okay. So Kim and I got some bad scoop from Stephanie.
JK: Uh-oh.
NB: We both came in nice dresses and heels. It was bad enough walking in heels through New Brunswick three blocks over to the restaurant. We left just before midnight and we had a four block walk back to the garage where the car was.
Track 7
NB: I have never felt so vulnerable in my entire life. Every time we’re approaching an intersection or there were a group of guys, I looked to Kim, I said, “Let’s cross the street. Let’s get over there.” That’s another big mindset now, that I have to be more cognizant of my surroundings than I ever was before.
MG: Well you are a woman.
NB: Well thank heavens, yes, it’s something that has I think that’s about the third time that I have felt so uncomfortable and so vulnerable by my surroundings but that’s something else I’ve had to learn to live with and to deal with. Is it legal for a lady to carry pepper spray in this state?
JK: One of my follow up questions was actually concerning that. I was wondering if there was any other ways that you sensed a difference between the way the world treated you as a man and the way the world treats you now as a woman.
NB: Definitely, definitely. One thing that I know, for a fact, is that in spite of how much happier I am and how much more normal my life is now, I gave up male privilege. The impression I get, the feelings I get, are that I am in many instances now thought of as just a woman, excuse me, which is not something that makes me real happy. I see it when I go into a Lowe’s or a Home Depot and I ask a question and I’m treated like I don’t know what I’m talking about when in most probability I know more than that salesperson knows. Oh, shortly after I moved into my condo I decided I needed a new car. You can’t envision this but have you ever gone and bought a new car?
MG: No.
NB: No? You have to do it. I walked into a dealership and I was interested in a specific car and they had one on the showroom floor so I was looking at it and a salesman comes over, “Hi, can I help you?” I said, “Yes, do you have a booklet, a brochure on this model?” “Oh yes, I‘ll get one,” and he goes and gets it and he comes back. He says, “Can I answer any questions for you?” I said, “Yes, how much horse power does the car have? And how much torque does it develop? And how much horsepower does it have? And what is the final gear ratios in each of its gears?” And I get, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, little lady, those are awful big questions. Maybe you should have your boyfriend or your husband come in and we’ll pick a car out for you.” I looked at him and I smiled and I said, “Are you married?” And he said, “Yes.” And I said, “Well, can you call your wife up and ask her to come in so I can speak to someone with intelligence rather than an idiot like you?” I then went into the general manager and filed an official complaint but if I had done this four months prior to when I did it and I had not gone full-time yet I would have gotten my questions answered. I wouldn’t have had the issue. I mean, I wonder what would happen if Janet Guthrie or Danica Patrick, one of the famous female race car drivers walked in and asked the same question, if they would get treated the same way, and I found it offensive but it’s worth an experience sometimes to see just. Okay, for me it was cultural shock to know how I used to be treated and how I am treated now.
MG: Have you experienced other incidents like that?
NB: Yes, Lowe’s is good for that. Home Depot is good for that. Walk into a lumber yard. Now I walked into a lumber yard to pick up, I decided I had to put some shelves up in my office. It was just overrun and I just needed some more storage, so I just went in to get a couple pieces of wood. I’m standing talking to the guy behind the counter and I’m telling him what I’m looking for and what I want. All of a sudden I go, “Excuse me, my eyes are up here.” You wouldn’t appreciate that but I mean. It’s so different. When you spend sixty five, sixty six years of your life bring treated one way and then all of a sudden in the past three, four years, you find yourself being treated so differently. It’s a bit of a culture shock.
MG: Have you ever enjoyed being checked out or what is that feeling like?
NB: When I want to be. When I dress in such a way that I’m looking to be checked out. For the most part I don’t do that anymore. I did that for a while and I used to go out and go into a bar and order a drink and look to see if I could find someone to spend some time with but I don’t know. I so quickly outgrew that and outgrowing that, I don’t know. I know at one point in time I, and I think many cross dressers and younger transsexuals want to be noticed by the opposite sex. I’m a girl now or I’m a guy now and hey look at me. Yes, early out I used to dress a little more provocatively than I do now and now I just dress to be comfortable and very rarely do I, I really don’t even want to be noticed. I think I am totally successful when I walk down the street and no one looks at me. No one even bothers to try to figure me out. That means I’m really blending in and that I’ve gotten where I want to be.
MG: Can you talk about all the paperwork that’s involved in transitioning?
NB: Ha.
MG: I am talking about the name change and the licenses.
NB: Oh my goodness. Do you have another week or two? [laughter] Well, the name change is pretty straightforward. You go online to NJCourts.Gov I believe is the website and you do a search on name change and they provide you with about a fifteen or sixteen page PDF file which is an amendable PDF file, so you can sit and type right into it and fill it out right there on the computer and then print it out and have your completed forms. You fill it out and you send it in to your county courthouse along with a check for 250 dollars and within a week or two you will receive communication from the court house giving you a date for your appearance. You must appear before a judge and at the same time they will send you a request, actually it’s an order, that you have to put a legal notice in a newspaper of their choice. In that it must state that you are going to be changing your name and whatever other details they want. It’s normally fifty to sixty dollars to run that add and they will send you an affidavit that it has been run and you must return the affidavit to the courts and then you show up in court on the date that you’re scheduled to be there and the judge will ask you a series of questions and intended primarily to make sure you’re not changing your name to avoid a debt or to get out of going to jail or anything like that. That you’re doing it for honest reasons and if you meet the judge’s criteria they will grant you a name change which isn’t good for thirty days. Within that thirty days you need to run another legal ad, usually in the same newspaper, giving everyone notice that your name has been changed on such and such a date. You have to send the confirmation from that into the courthouse and then your name is finally legally changed. Driver’s license, that one’s easy. You go online to NJMCV.Gov and you get the gender change form and with this form you fill out the top and then you go to your doctor or your therapist and have them fill out the bottom and you take that form along with eleven dollars and six points of identification to any motor vehicle office and they will take a new picture of you and they will change the gender marker on your driver’s license. If at the same time you have your name change document, the raised seal from the judge, they’ll change your name at the same time. Start to finish, name change usually takes about two months and to have the changes made at Motor Vehicle, takes about ten, fifteen minutes. What else? Birth certificates?
[ Annotation 6 ]
MG: Sure.
NB: Are a biggie.
MG: Yes.
NB: They are different by state and normally the state capital has a Bureau of Vital Statistics and you have to petition them to change your birth certificate. They do require that you have the court order and if you are going to change your gender, that you have a certified raised seal letter from the surgeon who performed your surgery, attesting to the fact that your gender was changed.
MG: So surgery is a prerequisite for that?
NB: In most cases, yes. As I said earlier, I was born in New York City and New York is the only state in the country that has two Bureaus of Vital Statistics. They have the state office up in Albany and they have a city office in Manhattan.
[ Annotation 7 ]
Track 8
NB: I had to go through the city office and at the time I did they had just made some changes to the requirements and I was dealing with this absolutely lovely older woman who I got to be friends with. She said, “You sound like a nice girl. Send me this, this, this, this, and this, and a check for fifty dollars and I’ll take care of it for you.” Basically what I had to send her was a raised seal copy of the judge’s order, a raised seal copy of the surgeon’s letter, a copy of my New Jersey Driver’s License. I think there was one or two other things that she wanted and the money, and I sent them into her and three weeks later I get an envelope from New York City Office of Vital Statistics and I’ll be damned, there’s a birth certificate that says Nicole was born as a female in 1946. So I’ve got my birth certificate. I’ve got all my documentation, so, but it took so much time. Passport is time consuming but it takes, if you do them chronologically, it might take you six or eight months to accomplish all of it.
JK: What is the value, or the meaning, or the power behind having that documentation?
NB: I can go to North Carolina and use the ladies’ room. [laughter] Okay. In order to be able to travel internationally you need a birth certificate, and in order to get a, I’m sorry, you need a passport. In order to get a passport, you need evidence of the fact that you were born and what your name is, so I went on a cruise last July. I spent two weeks cruising the Baltic Sea and Russia and I needed a passport for that. I had to make sure that I had all of the necessary and all of the documentation so that. I went to what they call a passport acceptance bureau which is normally held at a post office where they’ve been certified and they’ve had training and they know what to do. I went to one and met this absolutely lovely woman who had never done a passport for a transgender individual who was changing their name and their gender and she said, “Oh well, I think this is how you do it.” And I said, “No, this is not how you do it. I spoke to so and so at the office in Philadelphia and this is what they told me has to be done.” “Oh really? Let me call her.” She got on the phone and she comes back, she goes, “Son of a gun, you’re right.” So, got everything filled out. She took all my paperwork and sent it off express mail and less than a month later I had a brand new passport which, and the importance of a passport is I could get in and out of any country that allows United States citizens in. So that’s why you need the passport. If you’ve never had a passport, that’s why you need the birth certificate, and if you need to go to the bathroom in North Carolina. 99 percent of the time, unless you do a lot of international travel, driver’s license is all you need.
MG: Well that also must be some sort of recognition or validation for yes I did spend my whole life as a woman and now I have something that recognizes that fact.
NB: Yes, well I carry that in my wallet, it’s called a driver’s license. I mean, I know who I am and I know who I’ve always been and.
MG: But you are catching everybody up to speed.
NB: In the support group?
MG: And in the world, they are recognizing.
NB: Well, they’re starting too. They’re starting too. I’m lucky, I mean, I’m not delusionary. I don’t think I’m beautiful or gorgeous. I mean I’m, I pass. I blend in. I look enough like a woman that I don’t get questioned very often and I’m lucky in that respect. There are many, many, people who come to my meetings who do not, they have not yet learned how to do make-up. They have not yet learned that less is more and a few of them look like clowns and I can associate with that because there was a time when I looked like a clown until I had some friends teach me how to do my make-up properly and there’s so much to learn. There really is. It’s not that you unlearn anything because everything you’ve known up to this point is still there and you can still use it and it’s still valuable but there’s so many more things that you have to learn, like going through puberty at sixty five years old.
MG: Is that how it feels?
NB: That’s what it was for me. I went through it at the normal age and then when I first went on hormones, and the endocrinologist I was using put me on what they call a cocktail which is two medications. One of them is to block the testosterone from being absorbed and the other is pretty much like HRT, Hormone Replacement Therapy. They give you a high enough dosage to first counteract the testosterone and then to motivate your body to achieve the secondary female characteristics and as you go through that it’s like going through puberty. If you think going through puberty is bad, try it at sixty five years old. It’s a bitch.
JK: Once is enough. [laughter]
MG: You mention the cruise that you went on and I read that you have travelled the world and has this been in your later life?
NB: No, it’s been my whole life. As part of my married life we used to enjoy traveling and during the marriage I think we visited most, every European country just for fun. Been to Hawaii a few times and then on business I’ve been around the world six or seven times, into Australia a few times, and into China and Japan, Singapore, blah. Not Singapore, Singapore is a beautiful country. I’m just saying yuck at all the traveling I did. The Philippines, so. It was part of the job and now my friend and I booked ourselves on, where did we go? The Royal Caribbean I think, and we flew to England, spent a couple days in London then went down and got on the ship and cruised the Baltic for two weeks. Got to spend two days and two nights in Russia, in Saint Petersburg. Almost got to see the Bolshoi and if it wasn’t for some ignorant tour guide, we’d taken a two day tour and the guy, the tour guide decided he was going to give us our money’s worth so he kept us out a little too long and by the time we got back to the ship, the busses were departing to go into Saint Petersburg to see the Bolshoi, so we would have gotten to see them live and missed out on it. It’s an unbelievably beautiful city, spent half the day at The Hermitage which is their equivalent of the Louvre. Absolutely magnificent, it’s gorgeous, so that was nice. Russia is the one place I had never been before, so it was nice to get there. [Editor’s Note: The Bolshoi is a Theatre in Moscow. Opera and ballet performances occur there. It opened in 1776. The Hermitage Museum was founded in 1764 and remains open today.]
MG: Good. Well the last thing I want to ask you about and then we can see if there is anything else I am missing. You had started this conversation by talking about that when you were seven you saw a transgender woman on television and now there is a lot more visibility in the news and on television and I am curious what impact that has had.
NB: Good and bad, honestly. I think certain individuals are phenomenal representatives of the community, Kate Bornstein, Janet Mock, Miss Cox, Jennifer Boylan. I think they are absolutely phenomenal representatives and they know what they are talking about. They present a proper image of what it is to be transgender. Unfortunately, there are a couple of very well-known individuals who have come out as being transgender who I think they have the potential of being a phenomenal spokesperson for the community. Unfortunately, I don’t think she ever achieved that. I think the way she went about it was too scripted. [Editor’s Note: Kate Bornstein, Janet Mock, and Jennifer Boylan are all transgender authors and advocates. Laverne Cox is a transgender actress who stars in the Netflix series Orange is the New Black.]
MG: Are you talking about Caitlyn Jenner? Okay. [Editor’s Note: Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner, had a reality show titled I am Cait.]
NB: I have a very funny habit and a manager of mine made an observation that some of the most damming things I say about people is when I will say nothing and I will not identify who I am talking about. Yes, I don’t think it was proper the way she handled a lot of it. I think the interview she did with Diane Sawyer was magnificent. I think it was done beautifully. I thought it was done tastefully. I thought it told a story honestly. I had hopes for the docudrama that she was going to do.
[ Annotation 8 ]
Track 9
NB: Maybe part of it is me. That I am transgender, that I have transitioned, that I have walked a mile in those shoes and I know what transition is. The first season of her show I did not enjoy in the least. I thought what little bits of it did make a point was too little and the fluff that was around it, that a lot of the time could’ve been spent to providing education to the general public about what it is to be transgender. The second season she had Jenny Boylan on there, she had Kate Bornstein on there and as I said before, these are two woman who I have all the respect and admiration in the world for. I think they had an influence on her and I think they had an influence on her and got her to realize that there’s more to being transgender. There’s more to being, not being. There’s more to becoming a woman than just running around with long hair and makeup. I mean, I can do my make-up, I wonder if she can do hers without that hundred thousand dollar a year make-up artist that goes everywhere with her. So it’s not a real accurate picture of what life is. I mean, how many women have a makeup person at their beck and call?
MG: None that I know.
NB: No. I mean I know where to find a couple if I really need them but I didn’t do what I have done. I haven’t gone through what I’ve gone through to be a show. I haven’t done it so that I can go and have my hair styled every day and have my makeup done professionally every day. That’s not real life. I mean, I’m like any other seventy year old woman. I go have my hair done every six to eight weeks, whenever the roots start to show and that’s fine but the extensions that she has, come on. That’s not really life but then I guess I’m just being picky and fussy and unappreciative of what she’s trying to present but I don’t think its real life.
MG: These interviews will eventually end up in the public domain and eventually be used by the general public and scholars, what would you want them to know I guess, about the transgender experience, your life, what do you think is important for the public to realize?
NB: HB2 is a joke. With my involvement, I’ve already been interviewed by Fios 1 news and I’ve already appeared on their news programs. I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a well-known individual in the community here in central Jersey, a lot of people know me and they know what I’m trying to accomplish and trying to do. I hope I’m around long enough to see when being transgender is nothing new. It’s nothing that requires laws or votes of Congress, or, that okay, you’re transgender, that’s how you are. It just becomes another checked box. I just want to see we’re not different.
MG: Well is there anything I forgot to ask you about or things we did not cover? John, if you have questions.
JK: I was just going to say, I keep coming back to the RCA story and you were talking how there were 250 graduates and all of you applied or so many that applied to IBM.
NB: Not just from RCA, IBM that year.
JK: Your recruiting year?
NB: Yes, had 250 applicants.
JK: And you were one of two chosen to work for the company and I was wondering if you could try to be as un-humble as you possibly can and talk about. I mean, kind of looking at your entire life, of course that was one example of the kind of grit it takes to make it through all of that and I was wondering if you could be as un-humble as you possibly can to talk about what got you through. What do you think are your strengths that made all of that successful?
NB: Are you talking strictly within IBM or just in life?
JK: I mean, all of the successes you had there. The successes you had raising your children and the successes you had in making the transition and developing these programs.
MG: Yes, what got you through all that?
NB: Making as few mistakes as I could and when I did make a mistake and heaven knows, I made my fair share of mistakes, and not making the same mistake a second time. I mean, we’re all humans. We all have limits. We all have abilities. We all have skills and if you’re going to expand and grow, you have to try new things. If you try something new, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get it right. What I have always tried to do is to learn from my experiences and when I do make a mistake, learn from it and not make the same mistake twice. One of the most valuable lessons, actually two of the most valuable lessons that I ever learned. One of them, and they were both from former managers of mine while working at IBM. One of them told me very simply, think twice and talk once. Anytime you’ve got something to say, before you say it, think about it again and make sure you really want to say it. The other thing, that another very good friend of mine, a gentleman I’m still friendly with today all these years later, he said, “Always be positive. Always be positive about things. Always try to find a positive slant on whatever you’re going to say.” My response to him was, “Okay, I’m positive you’re wrong.” Yes, those are two things I’ve lived by and I’m not going to say that everything I’ve ever done is right because heaven knows a lot of it wasn’t but I’ve always tried to do the right thing and be a good person and not hurt anybody else. That’s something I’ve always tried to live by.
MG: Well I have gotten to the end of my questions but if there’s anything you would like to add to the record feel free.
NB: I’d play a song if I had my radio with me. [laughter] No, it’s the smart ass in me coming out.
JK: What would be your exit music?
NB: Oh gosh, damn you. Something by ABBA, definitely something by ABBA.
MG: That is fun.
NB: I love them. When I was on that cruise and we stopped for a day in Stockholm while wandering through the streets, I stumbled across the Stockholm Rock and Roll Museum and the home of the ABBA Museum. That was a phenomenal three hours. I’ve always loved their music. I’m probably one of their biggest fans. I’m still upset that they broke up but that would have to be it, any one of them. [Editor’s Note: ABBA were a Swedish pop group. They were active from 1972 to 1982.]
MG: Well I will send you a CD copy of this conversation and I will listen back to it myself and if there are things you want to add, even just five or ten more minutes, I am more than happy to get back together and finish the conversation.
NB: Okay, sure.
MG: But this has really been enormous treat. I love talking to you and I am so happy we are getting to know each other.
NB: And I’ve got that on the record. [laughter] You can’t go back and deny it now because I’ve got it here also.
MG: Uh-oh. Alright, well I will turn this off unless there is anything else.
NB: No.
MG: Well, thank you so much for the time you spent.
JK: Thank you very much.
NB: Oh, this has been delightful. It has been an absolute pleasure.
MG: Oh good.
----------------------------------------END OF FIRST INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT-----------------------------------------------
Second Interview conducted by John Keller
Morganville, NJ
May 21, 2019
Transcription by Christina Briskin
JK: This is John Keller with coLAB Arts and the Rutgers Oral History Archive. It is May 21, 2019. And we are located in
NB: Morganville.
JK: Morganville, New Jersey. Um, at the home of Nicole Brownstein and Nicole if you would introduce yourself.
NB: Hi, my name is Nicole Brownstein and we are in Morganville, New Jersey.
JK: Fantastic. This is a follow up interview from an original interview, oral history that was conducted May 22, 2019, so almost.
NB: Not the nineteenth, sixteen.
JK: 2016, May 22, 2016 so it’s almost three years to the date, um, so what was your interest or motivation for wanting to do a follow up interview?
NB: Well, three years has passed and many, many things have changed in my life since the original interview and if, if, if, the interview is to be complete for the archive, there are things that need be said, to, to complete what we originally intended to accomplish.
JK: So, in the first interview we talked quite a bit about where you were born, and your childhood, and your early life, and I was wondering if you’ve had any recent experiences where you have reflected back on things, on the early part of your life. Stories or ideas, relationships, that have come back to you
NB: Um, interestingly enough, not really. Um, I discovered last year that my mother had passed away two years ago and I’m not in contact with anybody from back earlier in life that even reached out to me to let me know. Um, my, my, my desire in life now is to redo as much of what I had done in the first sixty five years of my life and to do it again now as Nicole. So I guess that means I have to live another sixty five years [laughter] to allow myself sufficient time. It, it, it is truly interesting to go back and redo things that you have previously done but like Sears says, “do them from the softer side.” And I have managed and accomplished to do a little bit of that.
JK: Like what?
NB: I went and applied for a job and interviewed for a job and um, did it as Nicole and a, a, a very good friend of mine, a woman who I will be co-facilitating some support groups with, works part time at a...I, I, I hate to use the term mental health, but basically that’s what it is. It’s a mental health facility and they were looking to start a support group for some of their patients and I went down, my friend had arranged for an interview for me and I went down, this was in Ocean County, and applied for a job, interviewed for a job. Um, now I have not interviewed for a job since 1968. That was when I got the job with IBM, I applied for a job, um, I never had to apply for another job. So this was the first time in all those years that I applied for a job. It was interesting applying for a job as a woman. I went dressed kind of conservatively, I did find myself saying to the interviewer more than once, “ ‘scuse me, my eyes are up here,” and I found it was demeaning. So, but at least I got to do that: to apply for a job, to be offered a job, and to refuse the job. So three things off my bucket list.
JK: Um, what was your motivation for applying for the job?
NB: I like to help and there is a terrible, terrible shortage of support groups for the transgender community, for the families and allies of the transgender community and I found that I have a talent for running support groups and for helping people through those groups. Um, so this was to be a support group in a private facility for, I, I believe they told me there were five or six patients who came in on an out patient basis and they had requested a support group, they thought it would be helpful, and ah, they got in touch with me because of my background in running these type of support groups, but um, it was ridiculous. I would have had to travel from up here where I live all the way down to Ocean County on the Parkway, what they offered me salary wise would not even pay my gas and tolls, and they would not let me volunteer. If they would have let me volunteer, I could have taken my expenses as a tax deduction, but their philosophy was if you work here, we pay you, and insult you. (Laughter) So…
JK: You’re the, the, when we kind of last spoke with you three years ago you were very active in a couple of different organizations and I was curious, what has, what has your, you talked about being able to volunteer, what has been the evolution of that volunteer work and that support group since we last…
NB: Well, the main involvement I had at that time, was with The Pride Center of New Jersey and I was running the Trueselves support group two nights a month, um, at the time we last spoke I was on the board of directors, I was the group trustee for the center at the end of that term, I was asked if I would consider accepting the post of president of The Pride Center and after I spoke with the two Vice Preside- well one of the Vice Presidents and the current, at the time current president, um, I told them what I would need to happen in order for me to accept that position and eventually I accepted the position and served as president for a term and a half. At the same time I was equally involved at Robert Wood Johnson Somerset with the PROUD Family Health Clinic that was just getting started up there and the aforementioned PROUD Family Support Group that I was running up there. Um, yeah, um….
JK: What’s the difference between facilitating a support group for the transgender community versus facilitating a support group for the family members?
NB: Oh, you’re good. That’s actually a wonderful question. Um, when a transgender individual transitions they go through a- they go to a therapist. They work with a therapist, they go to an endocrinologist, they start taking hormones, they continue with the therapist, and eventually, if they are going to have any kind of surgeries, they need letters to authorize the surgery. That’s all pretty well spelled out. The road map, the journey of a transgender individual be it either male to female or female to male is documented. Family members don’t have a road map. They don’t have a guide, set of guidance or tools to help them um, with the transition and they do transition. Just totally differently. They uh, family, family being parents, siblings, spouses, aunts, uncles, allies, they go through a transition but it’s totally different than the transgender individual goes through. And unfortunately there are not, there are not many support groups, there are not many facilities set up to assist them. I mean, I have to give credit to my daughter who, shortly after I began transitioning, she called me up and said, “um, you know it’s all well and good that you’re transitioning and you have therapists and doctors and endocrinologists, you’ve got everyone working for you. Who the hell do I have to help me?” No one, in reality, she had no one. And that got me to thinking, and that got me to realize that she could go to a therapist, social worker, uh, who had experience with transgender individuals and get help from them, but short of going to a professional, there was no facilities or very, very limited facilities for her to go to to get help. And well at that time, they were starting the gender uh, center, clinic up in Robert Wood Johnson, and through a friend of mine who is an employee there, we were able to set up a support group for families. We have currently just under a hundred members on our roster, uh, I’m not going to say we have a hundred people coming to every meeting, but we do average between twenty and thirty people every meeting. We meet once a month and I’ve yet to meet one person there who did not feel that they got some kind of benefit or help out of the group. It, it, it’s necessary, um, you can’t just focus completely on the transgender community. You have to consider everyone immediately around them.
JK: How would you describe, what’s the, what’s kind of like the energetic difference between those two different kinds of support groups? What’s the kind of feel of the room? Do they have a similar kind of energy, or…
NB: Um, actually, no. No, they’re not similar at all. Because the transgender community will come to a support group with questions about their journey. With questions about hormones, with questions about referrals for doctors, and everything is focused in on me and how do I go upon my journey. How do I transition. Um, it’s very self focused. The family group focuses more on the support structure: the people who live with and love the transgender individual and learning how to help them. Learning how to support them and learning how to keep them healthy. The transgender community has a ridiculously high suicide rate. Suicide rate in general for cisgendered people in the United States is like 1.3 percent. The suicide rate for transgender community is upwards of 43 percent. It will hit 43 percent if the transgender individual does not have support, does not have care, does not have understanding. Um, that number drops by twenty points or more if the family supports them. If the family is agreeable to call them by their chosen name, to use proper pronouns, to uh, identify them properly by gender. So those are the kinds of things we talk about in the family group to try to get people to understand and accept their transgendered loved one and to understand that this is not a choice that this is a condition. A legitimate condition that can be cured through medication and surgeries. So we try to get the families thinking along the lines of support and helping the individual.
[ Annotation 9 ]
JK: Are there any, are there any kind of common experiences that come up in those spaces?
NB: Ah, in the family group, yah. If you’re a mother or a father, you’re going to have the same questions as every other mother and father. If you’re a spouse, cuz don’t forget it is not uncommon for a man or a woman to at some point in their life decide, “I’m a woman or a man,” and currently I have uh, a young lady in my support group who just recently had a child and after the child was born, her husband came out and said, “I’m a woman, I’m going to transition.” Now what she’s going through is different than what the parents are going through. Parents in general are dealing with younger individuals, um, but in each given category, parents, siblings, spouses, the questions that they have, the issues that they have are pretty similar and common. There is no such thing as one size fits all, because let’s face it, we’re all different and our levels of acceptance are all different and even down to the age of the transgender individual, but category for category, questions are all pretty much the same. Same concerns, and same questions.
JK: Um, where, where, what have you, where has your personal journey taken you in the last three years?
NB: Well, I am one of these individuals who to feel complete, to be happy and satisfied with myself, I have to go whole hog. I went on hormones and I’ve had five surgeries, so today I am a woman. Physically, legally, and socially. Um, I spent, I spend the majority of my life now living as a woman as opposed to a transgender woman. I only identify as a transgender woman when I am at a support group meeting, when I am lecturing, when I am serving on a gender panel, um, other than that, uh, I, I just like any other woman, and very happy. Very happy with it.
JK: What’s the, what’s the difference between identity, between transgender woman and woman?
NB: There’s a- depending which book you read, they will tell you there is no difference. Today you hear activists running around saying black lives matter, trans lives matter, gay lives matter, uh, personally I think the proper outcry would be lives matter. I don’t think it matters how you identify. Unfortunately there are people in this world who were brought up by parents who had prejudices and as soon as you identify as or come out and admit to being a transgender woman, “oh, you’re really just a guy in a dress,” which I hate that expression, but you know I could have saved myself a hell of a lot of money in surgeries and in medication if that’s all I wanted to be. It wasn’t a matter of who I wanted to be, it’s who I am and you know throughout my whole life, when I cross dressed, uh, it wasn’t, when I cross dressed I was a transgender woman. Now in every single respect that you can measure, I am a woman, so why should I take a step back? My friends here, most of them just know me as Nikki, they know me as that crazy bitch up on the top floor and ah, yeah sure some people here know my history but here where I live it’s almost never a topic of discussion.
JK: What does that mean for you?
NB: Acceptance. Total, complete acceptance. As who I am. I mean, years ago I used to go out with the girls and we went out and we were trying to blend in with society and trying to just be seen as and accepted as women. Now when I go out with the girls, it’s just a bunch of women going out for a good time. So, yeah, similarities? We go out for wine, we go out to laugh, go out to see a show or a comedy club. There’s no difference there. But back then it was always, “I’m getting away with something. I’m pretending to be someone I’m really not.” Now I don’t do that anymore. I’m just me. What you see is what you get.
JK: Um, what’s it been like, kind of over the last three years seeing some of the political climate change or…..
NB: Hate is a very strong word and hate is a very strong emotion. And I try never to hate anybody or anything. I find that I can’t help myself. I do hate people who hate. And I feel that too many small minded, narrow minded individuals are ah, creating problems and hate where there should be none. You read about these bathroom bills, well, I had a job where I traveled across the country for many years, and every time I traveled I would take two suitcases with me. The suitcase I used for clothing and work and the suitcase I used for clothing I used when I went out in the evening as Nicole. I went into the ladies room, I went into a stall, I closed the door, I took care of business, I came out, I combed my hair, I put on fresh lipstick and I went on my merry way. And I never hurt a person. Neither did any other transgender individual. So for something that existed for, I don’t know, pick a number, thirty, forty, fifty years and there was never a problem, all of a sudden you, you, you’ve got these people who hate, who are causing problems and uproars with things that have existed for forty, fifty years and never been an issue or a problem. It makes you stop and wonder, um, personally, I, I, I think that the entire LGBTQ community has been pushed back ten, twenty years because of stupidity, hatred, especially hatred. You listen to some of uh, you listen to some of our politicians talk, and they talk with a prejudice and a hatred and a tremendous lack of knowledge of the topic that they’re talking about. So, a politician hates me becauseI am honest to myself, I, I, I want to have a normal, happy life and he’s going to stand up there and say, “you can’t do that because it’s against my religion.” I, I, I thought we had settled the question of religion and politics years and years and years ago. I thought we had things set down with the ah riots back in the sixties and we had more or less started on a road to acceptance, and now we’ve got these people who are going out and attacking women and saying, “women are not in control of their own lives, of their own bodies. We the government know what a woman should do.” There’s a big problem with the leadership in this country. It’s driven us back decades. Not decades, yeah decades.
[ Annotation 10 ]
JK: What kinds of adventures or moments have happened between you and your family in the last couple years?
NB: Oh, um, my daughter got married two years ago and um, I was thrilled cuz she asked me to walk her down the aisle and that, that, that was phenomenal. That was one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever encountered. It made me feel truly loved and accepted when she asked me to do that. Um, my grandson is getting older, he’ll be six in a couple of months and I continue to love to do things with him now that he’s not a baby anymore, he’s older and it’s getting interesting. My ex who I am still very close friends with has found someone new and has ah built a relationship with him and they’re happy and um, now we’re approaching the topic, or I’m approaching the topic with my family about um, “so listen, ah, Thanksgiving when we have a family get together, ah, how’s everyone going to feel if I bring someone with me?” And that got a couple of raised eyebrows, cuz universally they all told me, “yeah, it’s fine,” but the look on their face was “ahhhhh…...who are you going to bring with you? A puppy dog?” No...so um, yeah, after a long time of searching and looking, I think I may have finally found someone and hopefully I can introduce him into the family and get everyone to understand and accept. It is, it is an interesting concept.
JK: How so?
NB: Well, as I had said previously, and it’s a simple fact, to my children, I’m their father. Um, I’m also a woman, and there is a difference between gender orientation and sexual attraction and I guess my family always knew me as a person who was attracted to women and now they’re having to come to terms with the fact that I’m a woman who’s attracted to men. And that when I come to family functions I will be coming with a gentleman, and slowly they’re getting their mind around that. It’s a, for me it seemed quite normal. During my earlier life, I found that I was always heterosexual, and I find that in my new life I continue to be heterosexual, so I don’t know, there’s something nice about it. So they’re having to deal with that and work it out. Probably Thanksgiving will be the big reveal.
JK: What um, what kinds of, do you have any goals set up for yourself for your personal life, we talked a bit about your professional work with support groups, do you have any personal goals that you’re working on right now?
NB: Um, that’s a good question. I find that I think I’ve accomplished most of what I wanted to accomplish. Um, I was at a support group recently and it was a fairly well attended meeting and the facilitator at the end of the meeting said, “I’m going to ask one question and I’m going to ask everyone the question, what do you need to make you complete?” And she went around the room and she was asking everybody and there were three, this was a transgender support group meeting, and there were three women in there, three of us who were fully transitioned and everyone else was identifying things that they needed to be complete. And one of the three women was asked and she said, “a bowl of chocolate ice cream.” And I was asked and I said, “not a goddamn thing.” And the facilitator, same category said, “to see my husband more often,” and everyone else who was somewhere in their journey from people who still present as male and have not even begun their transition, they’re inquiring, they’re questioning, through the people who present in their target gender through people who have started transitioning, only three of us felt complete. Everyone else, “I need to get my hormones started, I need to get my surgery, I need this I need that.” What do I want? Ok, I want to find someone who falls madly in love with me and wants to take me on a Caribbean cruise or back to Zermatt Switzerland , or both.
JK: I was wondering if you would be interested in sharing the story about your grandson.
NB: My munchkin? Uh, I, I assume you are talking about this story: my son came to me and said that my grandson had been questioning why mommy has a mommy and a daddy and daddy only has a mommy. Because he never knew me as his grandfather, he knew me as Nikki. Uh, I actually started living full time as Nicole the week after he was born so jokingly we say that my grandson is one week older than I am. Ok, so he asked my son and my son said, “we’ll talk about that.” And he came to me and he said, “my son asked me about my not having a father,” I said, “look you have a father, I was your father the day you were born, I’m your father today, I’ll be your father until the day I drop dead. I’m just a woman.” He says, “what can I tell my son?” He said, “you’re the expert on this, you run the support groups.” I said, “ok, when you feel he’s old enough to understand, tell him the truth. Tell him that I’m your father.” I said, “but one thing: let me know when that happens so I know how to react to it.” So I figure in a few years this will come to be and uh, I think it was about two weeks later I was going over there for dinner and spend some time and my son tells me, “well he asked again,” I said, “really…” He said, “yeah,” and I said, “and?” He says, “well, we told him that you’re my daddy.” And I said, “and what was the response?” He said, “oh, ok,” and went back to play with his Legos. Well a day or two later, I arrive, two big bags of subs, I brought them dinner and I ring the bell and I hear pitter, patter, pitter, patter, and I know that’s my grandson running up to the door and the door gets flung open and there he is, and he goes, “NIKKI! Hi!” And he goes, “I know who you really are,” I said, “ok can I come in and put the bags down?” I said, “ok, who am I?” He says, “you’re my daddy’s daddy.” I said, “that’s right, I am.” He says, “but you’re a girl.” I said, “that’s right, I am, but I wasn’t always.” And he looks up at me and he goes, “oh, ok. Wanna play Legos with me?” He accepted it, he knows who I am, so children are adaptable. Children react to things the way their parents teach them to react to things. If your parents are open and honest and accepting, you’re going to be open and honest and accepting, if that’s how you’re brought up. If you’re brought up in an environment where you don’t accept people, you have hatred, you have homophobic or transphobic conditions, that’s how you’re going to grow up. This little guy, he’s happy with who I am as long as I’ll get down on the floor and play Legos with him, he’s happy.
JK: Were there any other stories, or thoughts or questions that you were hoping to be asked?
NB: Oh, hmmmm, I don’t know [Laughter] You’re trying to make this easy on yourself. Uh, you know I um, as much as I love who I am and being accepted for who I am, uh, I am sincerely hoping to be able to get those two new support groups up and running this year, there’s a need in the community and I feel unless I am doing something to help make things better, I am not contributing. So I’m looking for in most aspects I’m looking for things to do to keep busy, to make life better for people, make life easier for people. There’s not enough of that going on, there are too many people in this world trying to make life hard for people and life is hard enough. So other than that, I don’t know. What else do you want me to say John?
JK: Have you felt like over the last couple of years your, the group of friends, as you articulated, the group of girls who kind of went through, it’s almost as if you all went through that transition period together, um, have you reflected back on what that experience was like with that group? Have you all either helped each other, helped motivate each other?
NB: Well, my home has artificially been nicknamed the recovery center cuz I’ve had three or four girls after their surgery stay here with me for a week or two until the doctor released them. It, it, it’s sad that two of these girls relocated and uh, more or less lost touch with each other, two of the other girls, my closest friends, well let’s just say, we’ve all evolved and one of them is engaged to be married, one of them relocated to another part of the country, so the friends that were a very important, integral part of my life during my transition, during their transitions are still very important to me, but our fact time has been greatly diminished. We, we, we still burn up the microwaves talking on the phone, but the day to day close friends that I have now are cisgendered women who accept me as just one of the girls, so it’s evolved. It’s definitely evolved and now um, you know the interesting part is starting to come to terms with possibly double dating with both friends from the transgender community who are fully transitioned and the girls from around here, so, it’s a different world.
JK: Are you happy?
NB: There is only one thing missing from my life right now and that would be a boyfriend, companion. If I’m lucky enough to find that, then I can very easily say yes I am 110% happy. If I’m not fortunate enough for that and I spend the rest of my life as I am right now, then I’m only a hundred percent happy. I, when I finished my transition two years ago, I was happy. I was ecstatic, um, everything above and beyond that is gravy. So short answer, I’m very happy, but I’m never satisfied, I want to be happier.
JK: Any other thoughts?
NB: Just that I have changed so much in the past three years since we did the original interview and three years ago I thought I was hot stuff. I thought I was pretty damned cool and pretty damned happy. Three years ago I was so goddamned incomplete and didn’t, didn’t realize what these last three years would lead me to.
JK: Do you mean, did your perspective change at all during that time or do you just mean the fulfillment of new adventures, new projects?
NB: Becoming a whole person being able to wake up in the morning walk in front of the mirror and look at yourself from head to toe and go, “yup, that’s the way I should look,” um, like I said that’s only been possible in the last couple of years so….me happy! [Laughter]
JK: What I think I’ll do is I’ll stop the recording now.