Kimberly Legregor enlisted in the Air Force after being drafted during her first year of college. She got a job in radio while in the Air Force, and stayed in that career after she left the military, retiring as an electrician and general foreman at Anheuser Busch. Kimberly describes her earliest memories of identifying as transgender and her journey as a transgender woman today. She helps at the PRIDE Center of New Jersey.
“I never really thought I’d find comfort in it like I do now. It’s, like I said, it’s a whole other thing, it’s like you walk around, and you feel normal. You don’t have to, I don’t know, I don’t know if you ever felt this way as a guy, you have to prove yourself. Not that you don’t have to as a woman, but the pressure isn’t there so much. I think the pressure with women is being allowed to prove themselves, really.”
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TRANSCRIPT
Interview conducted by John Keller
Highland Park, New Jersey
February 28, 2017
Transcription by Caroline Safreed
00:00:00
Great, so this is John Keller, and I'm here with–
Kimberly Legregor.
Great, and we are doing this interview at the Pride Center of New Jersey. It is February 28, 2017. Great so, why don't we just start where we always start, which is at the beginning. Where were you born?
Well, I was born at Beth-Israel hospital in Newark in 1946, and I lived in Hillside [New Jersey] until I was 7. We moved to Union, about two miles away, and my parents lived there until their death, until 2005, so they were there quite a while. I went to school in Hillside, actually at our parish elementary school, Christ the King, in Hillside to elementary school, and then to Union High School. And then I actually, this is just you know, nothing specific, just I went from there I went to Upsala College.
[Editor’s note: Upsala College was located in East Orange, New Jersey. It is no longer an operating college after closing its doors in 1995 due to declining enrollment and financial troubles.]
I was there a year [laughter]. It didn't work out too well. It was weird. I mean I was always a scientific-type person and I really had trouble in Union High [School]. It wasn't a gender issue, it might have been, but I didn't realize it. All through grammar school I was sort of in with the "in crowd" you know, the smart kids sort of "ruled the roost," you know, we had parties, boy-girl parties, and it was great. I got to Union High and I was an outcast basically, and my grades suffered. I managed to get into Upsala, but, like I said, I was always interested in science and math. But I had trouble with one of my algebra teachers. It was actually an advanced algebra teacher and I think she was anti-male [laughter]. I didn't do well in her class. It was the first time for me anyway. I actually had my guidance counselor say, "Well maybe, you know, you're not cut out for math and maybe should try something else." And I was always interested in writing as a hobby, really, but I said, "Well, okay." So I actually went to Upsala, I was an English major, which was weird because I had almost failed English one year, but this was in high school, but it was weird because, coming from a Catholic school, I could actually write sentences where the other kids actually had trouble [laughter]. And they were into grammar in elementary school, not creative writing or anything, or even literature, not so much. Just diagramming sentences, that type of thing, and Upsala was run by the Lutheran Church, and I was Catholic, but it wasn't like it was any kind of deal there, but there was a mandatory course that you had to take was Bible History. You had to take that and you had to pass it. Back in those days, they had, I believe this, every college had a "kill course" and you had to pass that course to get by, and I actually took it the first semester, failed it, and decided well it's all fresh in my mind, let me take it again, right? And the second semester, failed it again, and got drafted. [laughter] You know, basically, so instead of going into the army, I enlisted in the Air Force. I took the entrance exams and I was top in the upper 90th percentile in math and science.
00:04:48
So then I got a job in radio in the Air Force and when I got out I stayed in that field. Took technical jobs and went back to school to Middlesex County College under the G.I. Bill, and I got an Associates of Applied Science and Electrical Engineering Technology, so a lot of letters, but from there I went to NJIT.
[Editor’s Note: NJIT or New Jersey Institute of Technology is located in Newark, New Jersey]
I didn't graduate from NJIT. I was in my senior year and this was all nights by the way. I was working at RCA at the time, I was actually working as an engineer without a degree, and they pretty much closed that facility down, and eventually RCA is gone, GE bought it out. But that whole complex where I worked is a shopping center now. So I was out of work for five months, and I took a job as an electrician with Anheuser Busch because they wanted guys with an electronic background at the time, they were modernizing. I wound up staying there twenty-six years, got to be general foreman, and I'm living off their pension now [laughter]. And that was a major life choice there, for me anyway, because I really wanted to work as an engineer, and I really loved the job I had at RCA, and this job was sort of like a "lying in the mud" type of, you know, to prove yourself you had to do all of the regular work. Then I eventually just was doing electronics, and basically me and another guy modernized the place. They started what was PLC, and I had a good background in motor drives. I worked at Singer and that's what we designed there, was motor drives for sewing machines, and took all of the conveyor motors and everything and did it all, converted it all over to variable speed drives and PLC controlled systems and everything. It was fun, the last fifteen years and then I retired and here I am. That's the life everybody knew [laughter]. Okay? I think in my first experience under the transgender umbrella, I used to dress up. My mother– she never worked, but once a week she would go shopping in the afternoon to the ShopRite, and my father would pick her up after work because she never drove. She would take the bus, she would have all this stuff, and my father would pick her up after work, and they would come home, so she would be coming home late. My father got out of work at 4:00pm. I got out of school at 2:30pm, and whenever she went shopping like that I would come home and wear my sister's clothes, fool around with basically lipstick, stuff like that. And I did that for quite a while. I was thinking, pretty much like everybody else thinks, that this was this little perversion I had, and I got excited by it and I figured, well, that's what it is. Beats looking at the Playboy, I would rather look at myself [laughter]. How we doing?
00:09:40
Great. So you yourself felt like it was–
Yes, it was on and off for years, even after I was married. My wife was small, but she was large-breasted, so I could wear her bras and tops and stuff. So that was cool, and on and off forever. I never really knew anything about really what was going on until along came the internet. I was at work and I had just gotten internet access for work. Not everybody was allowed to have that. Internet Explorer we can search the internet and stuff and I was just googling shit, and I typed in "cross-dresser" figuring I would see pictures of women, or men really, and because I really sort of identified– not identified, but I was attracted to transexual men. And I actually knew a few who were– they were really prostitutes and I got friendly with one of them. Anyway, we got to be really close friends, but I didn't really see myself that way, but then, looking at this site, I saw crossdressers.com and it showed a bunch of "guys" like me who were doing the same thing, and they weren't perverted, they actually liked being and they were regular people. They weren't drag queens or over-the-top hookers and all of this other stuff that I saw as a negative, but it was actually a positive, that sense that I got out of it. I read more and more about it and, in the beginning, it just sort of grew. It got more and more into my everyday thinking. I was married at the time of course, and eventually my wife found out about it, and caused conflict, and she says, "Don't do it anymore." It was one of these things. When girls like me first start out, it's like a purge– a dress– purge, dress– purge, type of thing. You say, "I'm not doing anymore," and you throw all of your clothes out, and I only threw it out a couple of times, until finally decided to seek professional help, and that wasn't really that easy. I actually went through four therapists before I found the right one. One, I was teaching one and he was a psychiatrist, he was a doctor, and I was teaching him about it as we went along. But that didn't work out with my ex and we are now divorced. Because every time I went to go to the therapist she would accuse me of not going, or going and fooling around, so she was very paranoid about the whole thing. She thought I was a sexual deviant and I said, "Well listen, if you think that's what's happening, you pick a therapist, and you have control over it." And she did. She found this organization, or a doctor actually, that had a clinic in Philadelphia called the STAR Clinic.
[Editor’s Note: STAR clinic is located just outside of Philadelphia in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania and caters to treating sexual addiction.]
It's based on this one doctor's, I forget his name, theories about sexual addiction, and she figured that I was sexually addicted because of all of the past– all this came out because I told her everything. And I went there, and that's where I pretty much found that I really didn't fit in. Everybody else was talking about how they were compelled, did this– their parents beat them up and tortured them, and they were abused as kids, and this and that, and I said, "That never happened to me." I had basically had a normal childhood other than I was picked on in high school. And you had the group session, pretty much the group session says, "You know the reason you do this stuff with the prostitutes is because you're trying to hide what you are." That was coming from the other people in the group, it was like a group session, then you had an individual therapist, it was like a two-prong thing. And I talked about it and I said, "Listen." And finally, I was driving to Philadelphia once a week, and that was a hassle. So I said, "Listen, this isn't for me." And my wife was, "You've got to do something." So I said, “Listen, have you heard of the Institute for Personal Growth? IPG? I called them up because I saw one of their ads, and they mentioned transgender and everything else, and I emailed Marge Nichols.” And she said, "Yeah this is the plan, come in." I did. We actually both went.
[Editor’s Note: Institute for Personal Growth currently has offices in Highland Park, Jersey City, and Freehold, New Jersey. When it first opened in 1983, it was one of the first counseling centers to offer gay positive therapy.]
00:16:58
You and your wife?
Yes. I started going there once a week, and it was great. We delved into stuff right from the beginning, we talked about stuff I never even thought about.
What was the change in tone that you felt that they had? That they just had a deeper understanding?
Yes and of course my wife said, "Well, they're just telling you what you want to hear." And I said, "I don't think so because they have a standard of care to go by and everything like that." I went back and thought about certain things, like I said, in grammar school, we had the posse, or the group of kids, and one of the leaders was this one guy, this really good looking guy, and who I was basically in love with. But I said, “I'm not really gay.” Even to the point of thinking about him during sex, with someone else. That's one of those things you push down, I don't know if you can relate to that. And it turns out, I wasn't gay, I was hetero, but I was a woman, I didn't realize and this all came out in therapy. The more I realized it, the more the conflict with my ex became, and she said, "Well, you've been going there so long now, what have you found?" I said, "Well, I've definitely concluded, and it's obvious to me and my therapist, that I'm transgender, and I want to live as a woman." And she said, "Well, now that you know that, fine, now that you don't have to go anymore, that's it." And I said, "No, that's not the way it works [laughter], I'm still going to go there." And she said, "Well, we can't have that, we can only have one woman in this house." And I said, "Well, let's try and work it out.” And that went for a few weeks, but finally I moved out, and she filed for divorce, and here we are [laughter]. It's amazing, once I got to that point, how different everything is. How you feel, it's like a weight taken off your shoulders. Even when I came out to my sister a year after that, and she had no clue I'm not going to say she did or anything, but she did remark about how much happier I sounded, and she said she didn't know what it was, but she always sensed some sort of tension. She always thought it was my marriage was in trouble, which it probably was. In the process I met Nicole, and we became good friends, and we pretty much went through that whole thing together. She's a little ahead of me, but she's a good source of information. After I met Nicole, IPG sent me here to the Pride Center, and I started going to TrueSelves, and I was going there a few months and I told Nicole about it, and Nicole being Nicole, she eventually took the place over. How we doing battery wise?
00:22:09
Fine.
And sort of dragged me along with her, and it's funny. I had a lot of friends, and I've had friends in my life, but never ones that I can really, really confide in, count. Between Nicole and my other friend Jill, you know Jill? We share everything, go through boyfriends together, and all that other stuff, and it's been really good. Then, 2016 was a banner year for me. Well, 2015 my divorce was finalized and we got all that out of the way. I was able to get my finances in order and I had a part-time job. I quit that. I was "full-time" except for a couple hours a day at the part-time job, but then, even there,I had long hair and earrings.
Full-time? As in living full time as a woman?
Yes. So, that was maybe eighty, ninety percent of the time I was a woman, and that's not a good place to be. That fifty/fifty business, on again/off again it really messes with your mind. I dreaded Monday mornings going in, and it was only for three days a week, four days a week sometimes, but still, four hours a day just for extra money. Then I got to the point where I didn't need that anymore. I quit the job, took money out of the bank, scheduled my surgery. I was already on hormones for two years. Scheduled my surgery, and in May of last year, I had my surgery. Pretty much at the same time, I had my name legally changed and met someone special in July. In September I had my boobs done, I'll just throw that out there. My relationship with my boyfriend grew and we're very close now. He didn't know the first three months/four months of our dating process, eventually, I sort of, you know, you slip up. I wanted to tell him, I didn't want to tell him, it's a big conflict with us, as far as coming out, it's sort of painful, and coming out to your lover, your boyfriend etcetera is probably the hardest because there's so many different scenarios that can happen, but it really worked out really nicely. He said he sensed something, he didn't know quite what it was, but he said, "In the last week or two, you've," and I hadn't even realized, "You referred to your ex as her a couple of times." And he actually wrote me a couple of letters saying, "I know you've had trouble, but you can tell me anything and I won't judge you." And it really, really meant alot to me and pretty much told him exactly what I'm telling you today. It's been a really nice experience. Obviously I've dated before as a guy and it's totally different, so much more special. I guess maybe because it relates better, I don't know, but just the– having someone strong that cares for you so much and it's not like you have to prove anything. Like before you have to show you can provide, I don't know what it is, but it's the mystique, the male mystique. It's different, it's like being taken care of, it's nice, and he's very good to me, extremely good. He's not Rock Hudson or anything, but it's amazing he's probably the best friend I've ever had, along with Nicole and Jill, and it's amazing, the stuff that we talk about.
[Editor’s Note: Rock Hudson was a Hollywood heartthrob during the 1950s and 1960s, often appearing beside Doris Day in romantic comedies. As a gay man, he kept his personal life a secret for the majority of his film career. He passed away from AIDS-related complications in 1985.]
I mean there's differences, don't get me wrong.
00:27:39
How did you meet?
match.com. [laughter]
Nice.
It started out before my surgery. It's one of those things not to find a guy, but to prove I'm who I am. The big thing in the community is people outside the community think, "Oh we're trying to trick men." In a sense, maybe I was, but what advantage would I have of doing that? Just to prove to myself that I could actually be attracted to a man and it seemed to work out. I had a couple of dates. I did it for a while, and I started dating Roger steady, and it's been a hell of a ride. That's about it, really, that's where we are now. Are there any-
Can I ask you a few questions?
Yes.
So, going back to your early childhood you said you were born in Hillside originally?
Right.
And then you said we moved to Union, so who was part of the family at that time?
Oh okay, well my mom and dad, Pete and Helen, and my sister Pat.
00:29:31
So, it was the four of you?
Four of us, yes. Pat was five years older than me.
So, she was with you at that time. And what were your parents like?
Oh okay, well my father was Italian-American. He was probably the smartest guy you ever knew that never graduated from high school.
How so?
He was amazing. He spoke maybe three or four languages fluently. Spoke English, of course, and Italian, and he just picked up Polish from my mother, who was Polish. And a lot of the people that worked for him where he worked, workers were Polish, and pretty much picked it up there, and that's the way he was. He was a tool and die maker. He could make anything. Give him a block of iron or steel and he can turn it into anything. He made parts for our lawn mower [laughter]. That type of thing. The screen door in the back, the door knob broke off, he made a new, entirely new door knob for the [door], that type of thing. He built the house we lived in.
In Union?
In Union. Back then they used to make warehouses, they used to make these pre-fab houses, and it was just the skeleton, and he did everything inside. Him and his friends and his brothers built the thing. My mother was a housewife, she was smart in her own way.
How did they meet?
Gee, to tell you the truth, I don't know. I think my mother might have worked where my father worked for a short time, either that, or my aunt worked there. I'm not really sure, but he started where he worked back in I guess the early ‘30s, when he was 17. He started working at a place called the Yale Hook and Eye, they made, you know what a hook and eye is right? The things that go on the backs of bras that hook together.
00:32:47
Oh, yes.
They formed the metal and then sewed them to the tape that sewed them in the tape that in turn is sewn into whatever garment it's going to be on. Their customer, back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, they basically had, it was a small company, maybe 150, 200 people. But they had like ninety percent of the hook and eye market in the country. This is before the Chinese and the Japanese and all those. And they made other things, too. They started with zippers and stuff like that, but he started out there. Back in the depression they had thing was called "home work." Companies would make up these little boxes of stuff and people would come and pick it up, take it home, and do things, assemble something. And what they would do, they had what they called the tape and the eyes. The tape had like a little pocket, and the eye had to be put in there, this is before they had an automatic machine to do it. They would take the eye or the hook and slide it in this little slot that was sewn into the tape that was like a little pocket, and they'd get a whole bunch of this tape and a whole bunch of the hooks and eyes and they would sit around the table, the whole family would be, and they would get paid by the piece. And my father would take them to the plant on his bicycle. He would ride over there and deliver them. And one day, one of the owners [said], "Hey kid you need a job?" One of those things, and he started sweeping up and learning.
00:34:51
That's great.
And he was there well over fifty five years, started when he was 17, and he worked until his 70s. [The] last few years that he worked, he worked three days a week, and he would just go in, and he would spend the whole summer down the shore, because they bought a house down there. Yeah, fifty-five years. There was the owner who had three sons that ran the place. And there was those four, and my father was the highest ranking non-family member in the business [laughter]. Got to be manager of the machine shop and the repair facility. And, yeah, no formal training, just learned it all on the job and he knew the math involved and all that, but he could probably do without it. And my mother, she was Polish, or her parents were Polish, she's Polish-American, she was born here, and same thing. I think she might have, I'm not really certain,I think she might have finished high school. I'm not certain, but all the while, from when my sister was born until she died, she never worked. She was a housewife the whole time. You could do it back then, you know. My sister Pat was, she was, like I said, five years older than me, and she was like my second mother. She, like, doted over me, is what they tell me when I was a little kid. I would– it's funny, we were pretty poor, when I was younger anyway, I guess my father didn't start doing well until I was 10 or 11, around there. I would wear my sister's clothes. I mean not dresses, but boots, mittens, wool hats and stuff. That's just the way it was in those days, but yeah, Pat went through high school, she went to business school, Katherine Gibbs. You've heard of Katherine Gibbs, right?
[Editor’s Note: Katherine Gibbs College was founded in 1911 for women to have access to career education. It had campuses in Providence, Boston, New York and Montclair, New Jersey before closing in 2009.]
She became a secretary. Still the fastest typist I've ever seen [laughter]. Because I am limited, typing is a lost art, I guess. Nobody types anymore, well word processors I guess, you still see people type.
You said your parents had eventually bought a house down the shore, did you spend time down the shore as a family, growing up?
Oh yes! Oh sure. It was on one of those lagoon lots in Manahawkin, right on the mainland by Long Beach Island, called Beach Haven West. It was a bunch of houses. My aunt and uncle bought a house down there and we went down and visited them. My mother and father bought the house across the street
00:39:01
Nice.
So that was really nice while it lasted, but after I came back from the Air Force it was really different. My cousin Mike, like I said, he was across the street, and I worked after high school. I worked summers in the lumber yard, I worked for my other uncle [who] worked for the warehouser on the docks and he got me a job there loading trucks. So, my summers were pretty, well, weekends were fine. I would go down there and my cousin Mike, we hung out together, and then the last– the third year I worked at the lumber yard, half way through the summer, they laid off all the temporary guys. They said that the business was, I don't know, something. It was a business decision. So, I went down there and got a job down there at the ShopRite and that was a really good summer, the summer of '66. And that was the year I went in the Air Force.
You talked a little bit about, kind of, being a science and math kid throughout elementary and middle school and then into high school.
Oh yeah, sure, especially, like, astronomy.
Right from the beginning?
Yes, I was crazy about astronomy. I have a telescope now, which I never use because around here it's impossible to use it.
Yes, light pollution.
Light pollution, pollution pollution [laughter]. I often thought that's the one thing I never pursued as much as I would have wanted to, but maybe someday, I don't know. And I got a ham radio license, still have that.
00:41:13
How old were you when you got that?
I was actually working at Bud when I got that. I was old. [I] couldn't afford to buy stuff, you know. I still have that transistor and I renew my license every ten years, but I'm actually thinking of selling my radio stuff. My other hobby is photography, which sort of intertwines with astronomy. It's funny, I always did "guy stuff," I was a big Yankee fan, Giant football fan, I played football in high school, which I think Nicole did, too, to tell you the truth. I'm a Ranger fan, you can ask Roger, he thinks I'm nuts. But, you know, yeah. I don't know. There's a lot of girls that are sports fans, it doesn't make any– I always thought that a lot of, "Oh yeah, I like to cook and stuff." I like to cook too, but I never felt it defined me as a woman, wanting to cook. I own an ironing board and an iron. I don't iron everyday, but I have one. But I don't think that makes a difference. I'm sure there's a lot of sloppy girls out there, who like to drink beer and sit around, stereotypical male things.
Do you think there's a difference now between how you perceive those cultural gender roles? You know, the difference between when you were growing up and now?
Oh, yes. I don't know, lately, it sort of seems like it's swinging back, but I always got kidded about watching movies. I would always cry at certain– the movies you're supposed to cry at. I used to, I don't know who said it, but "You're so bad you'd cry at supermarket openings." But I don't see why that should define me as a woman because I'm emotional, I mean a lot of men are emotional. I'm who I am because that's who I am, not how I act. It's kind of a weird thing, I guess.
00:44:27
Did you feel a lot of pressure growing up to hide certain aspects of your personality?
No. Actually no, not until the light came on, which was really about, maybe fifteen years ago. Before then, it was just this thing that I liked to do and then it was, to be honest, it was something to do to masturbate, really. And that's how I perceived it in the beginning. I never really thought I'd find comfort in it like I do now. It's, like I said, it's a whole other thing, it's like you walk around, and you feel normal. You don't have to, I don't know, I don't know if you ever felt this way as a guy, you have to prove yourself. Not that you don't have to as a woman, but the pressure isn't there so much. I think the pressure with women is being allowed to prove themselves, really.
Do you have a sense of what the difference is like. Having lived as a man, and having lived as a woman, how the outside world kind of–
Yes, it's strictly anecdotal, but just– take standing in line at the supermarket, and waiting to check out. The woman in front of you has a shopping cart with her little kid in the seat, if you were a guy and you, she would like push the kid ahead and get between you and the– and now I can like talk to the kid and say, "Hi, what's your name and the–”
[End of Recording 1]
[Beginning of Recording 2]
00:00:00
Great, so we're back again. Let's go again, we were talking about the Air Force, we were talking about how you spent a year at Upsala and then you had been drafted, but not drafted into the Air Force–
Yeah, I knew my time was– back in those days it was different, you used to, if you were in school you got a deferment. I was 2S or whatever it was.
[Editor’s Note: II-S was a classification for deferment for the draft due to being a student.]
There was no lottery that, you got deferments for certain things, school being one of them. Soon as I flunked out, basically, I got a letter within a week or two saying my status had been changed, and then two weeks later, I had to come in for a physical. And I knew what was coming next, so I went to the Air Force. The Navy wasn't taking guys, I probably would have went into the Navy. But, me and my other friend who had been in the same situation, joined up together. Actually went to basic training together and, like I said, that's where I got my first real exposure to electronics. Basic Ohm's law type stuff and yeah, it was good.
[Editor’s Note: Ohm's law states that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage across the two points.]
I pretty much excelled at it, as much as–
Where did you spend most of your time while you were in the air force?
Okay, all in the States. And that was in Vietnam, you've heard of the Tet Offensive?
[Editor’s Note: Named after the Vietnamese holiday, the Tet Offensive was a series of orchestrated military attacks by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against United State forces and the South Vietnamese in 1968.]
You're not that old, right? That was right when I was in, that happened right while I was in. Basic training for two months and then I went to tech school for nine months. That was electronics training, basic electronics training. And then I was stationed in Illinois, a place called Scott Air Force Base. Southern Illinois, right outside St. Louis, so that was pretty neat. I was there almost two years. I went there in August and, a year and a half I left. I got reassigned the following April. So, I got there '67, August '67, and April of '69 I got reassigned. Everybody in my career field was pretty much going to Vietnam at the time, so I volunteered for Alaska. I mean, I don't make any qualms about it, I didn't want to go to Vietnam. Even if they weren't fighting there, I didn't want to go to a place that had jungles and bugs and stuff. I got an assignment for Alaska, and remote, for a year, prior to that I went six weeks to a special radio school, because it was this one system that the only one they had was in Alaska, right. So, they sent me to training for it. Which actually turned out to be a pretty good deal, for a number of reasons. I went to school in Nebraska of all places, right outside of Omaha, and hooked up with a bunch of guys there. We had the best six weeks I had in the Air Force, we had so much fun. We had a bunch of girls, guys, bars, the whole thing. The only time in my life– I was always an outsider, pretty much, but the only time in my life where I had a bunch of people together where we had so much fun. Like, dated three different girls while I was there in six months. Which was amazing for me because I really wasn't that much of a "ladies man." Actually not at all, but it was fun.
00:05:21
Did you feel like you connected with the other guys that were a part of that you were all similar?
Yes, I mean okay. We had all different personalities, and one guy was a pain in the ass, and that was good, we just seemed to– You know, some guys seemed to attract the girls and guys like me had a car, that type of thing, you know [laughter]. And it worked out. And that's where I got my lucky number from. There was a receiver system, and I can't tell you anything more about it, because I'd have to kill you. [laughter] But I think it's declassified now, but it was a top secret thing. They were only found in Minuteman sites. Okay? And this one site up in Alaska. It was like a world-wide communication system that was supposed to still operate after Armageddon, you know, after an atomic attack. It was a signal to all the Minuteman sites for retaliation came through this if it had to, if all other communications were knocked out by nuclear blasts and stuff.
[Editor’s Note: Minutemen Sites were established during the Cold War as a form of nuclear war deterrence. Set up underground, these sites held a retinue of nuclear missiles.]
So, it was called the 487L system. It was cool, "L" for my initial and 487. I got that school, number one it got me out of Vietnam, sent me up to Alaska, and after that it's funny too because at work at Anheuser Busch, they had a pool, it was like a three-number pool, like the pick-it. And it was a recurring– nobody hit it, it piled up every week, and I hit that four times with 487. And it was like 5,000 dollars total. So it's my lucky number, that's why you see my email has 487 in it, I don't know if you noticed that.
That's funny
After Illinois, I went to Nebraska, went to Alaska for a year and that worked out really well because I was set to be discharged in September. Now this is– I left Alaska in June. June to June. So, if you're coming off remote like that, it was a rule, if you weren't re-upping and you were set for discharge, they couldn't reassign you. So, I got a three-month early out, so I got out of the Air Force and they paid you. So, it was cool. And from there I did, like I said, I took a job as a tech, and then worked my way up. Went to school to be an engineer, and became an electrician instead because it paid well. I mean, I was doing a job as an engineer in RCA and after I got laid off and started working at Bud, with the overtime and everything else, I was working three times as much. I mean it was a big difference in pay, huge difference. The base pay was maybe ten thousand dollars more a year, but in reality, it was like thirty thousand dollars a year, it was more than doubled.
When did you meet your ex wife?
In like '73. I was doing the bar scene then.
00:09:47
So you were already out of the Air Force?
Yes, I was out of the Air Force maybe three years. Yes, coming out of the Air Force. I was out of the Air Force and all my friends were either away at school, or married, so I was sort of, like, on my own. All my regular friends, my best friend, Vince, he was away at school in New Hampshire because he was the same as me. He went to Seton Hall the same time I went to Upsala. He flunked out of there the same time I flunked out, but for some reason Seton Hall never changed his status and he never got drafted. And, after he worked a couple years, then went back to school up in New Hampshire, a place called Belknap College. Small, small school, he was an accountant and now I think he sells cars [laughter] in Florida somewhere. But, getting back I did the bar scene. Thursday night it was Dod's, Wednesday night it was, The Old Straw Hat, Friday night it was this place, you know, that was the way it was. I pretty much went alone all those times. And one of those times I went to a place called the Hook, Line, and Sinker in Roselle Park, and I ran into my friend who I had joined up with, and he was already engaged to this girl, and one of her girlfriends started chatting up with her, and she was really cute. I guess she was attracted to me and put the full press on. Less than a year later, we were married.
So that was around 1974.
Yes, 1974 we were married. Met her in '73, Memorial Day weekend, and February we were married. Whirlwind romance. Looking back, I probably would have been better off– at that point I was thinking, like I said, I had terrible luck with women, well now I know why, but I don't know, it just didn't work out. For one reason or another, I was kidding myself. In retrospect, I probably felt well, this is it. Now or never, and I was happy. Just wasn't like it was when we first met, you know, people change. I had two really great sons. My oldest son was born in 1980, and he's still very close, he accepts me. Him and his wife both do. My other son, who's six years younger than him, he was born in '86, the first one was Pete, my father's name was Pete, his name was Pete. I was in the middle, same thing. There was five Petes in my family.
00:13:50
Oh, wow.
Vince, I always thought we were pretty close, it was always me and him against my ex, but near the end there, things got a little crazy and he sort of turned against me a little. I really don't have too much contact with him now. It's the only disappointment I have right now. I send him birthday and Christmas presents and cards saying, "When can we get together?" and he never answers, so– maybe someday. But Pete, we still do stuff together. Him and his wife were over my place for Christmas, which is sort of natural, because my ex and her never got along [laughter], well my ex never got along with her. I guess she didn't follow the rules. In other words, the "do what I say" rule.
Do they have any children?
Not yet. [laughter] Yeah, that's another disappointment, I don't have any grandchildren, and I always thought that. Well my oldest son Pete, he's a lawyer, he's eighty hours a week type of thing. Jennifer, his wife is a teacher.
Where does she teach?
I think in Hamilton. Teaches seventh grade math. ‘How's that working out?’ That's got to be horrible, but yeah middle school. That's got to be the worst, right? Middle school?
It's a rough age, it's a rough age. [laughter]
It really is. [laughter] [Redacted] I never had any problem with her, my wife was always saying this and that. She's very close to her mother. I guess she didn't "kiss the ring," you know? My ex's ring.
And you said you're still close with your sister as well?
Yes. She lives in Florida. So, I really don't see them, I've already visited them twice in the last two years.
00:17:04
She's married?
Yes, she's married, she's married fifty years to Walt, they had two kids, Karen and Michael. Karen has three daughters, so they're my grandchildren. Pretty much three grown daughters, the youngest one is graduating high school this year I think. The oldest, Caitlyn s a social worker, specializing in transgender–
You're kidding!
Yeah, well not really, she actually specializes, she knows about it. She studied it, but she actually works with little kids getting, like, orphan kids, helping them get parents, and get adoptions and stuff.
Are you close with them?
Well they live all over the country. Karen, their mother, and Glen, they've met me, they're fine with it, but they're– they live in Toms River, or actually Bayville, and I don't really see them at all. I do some corresponding with Caitlyn, that stuff, this and that. But that's the way kids are, they have their lives, Caitlyn is engaged, just got engaged this Christmas. That should be interesting. I'm wondering if I'm going to be invited to the wedding or not. I should talk to Pat about that.
Pat's your sister?
And, you know, I'll go anywhere, I don't care where it is.
You like weddings?
They're okay. Weddings and wakes, it's good to see people you don't see a lot, you know, family. It would be nice, you know, it's relatively new. I've known maybe fifteen years, and I've been out full time for a little over three, maybe. So it's still pretty new, and I just like getting out there. That's why I really enjoy the Pride Center, I get to do something constructive as myself. You saw the TrueSelves meetings, they've always been great, but even more than that we facilitate that family at the college. Nicole, Jackie Barris, and myself and they are a little more actual transgender individuals who come, and they're pretty much focused on themselves and their lives, but the parents when they come in and get the help from us. They're so demonstrative in their appreciation, and they have so much feedback ,and it's really rewarding. It's really– I've never experienced something like that before where someone– I mean they actually, they gave us all Christmas presents this year. I was amazed, I was really– I mean, you know, little things, but it was nice.
00:21:25
Did you ever have a conversation with yourself, I mean the decision to be an "out" advocate, versus just quietly living your life? And do you still have that conversation, or did you just come to a decision about that?
Yes, I know Nicole talks about this, she really wanted to go "stealth," you know the term stealth? She got involved here, and made the decision, "Well this is it, I'm out for the world to see." I never really made that conscious decision. I just sort of take it as it comes, work within the community. I mean you've got to live. You've got to be out in the world, like I said. I like to get into situations, like I said, go to weddings, or this, that, or go shopping, or to the movies, and these restaurants, that type of thing. You've got to be yourself. You hear a lot of stories on chat rooms and even people who come into TrueSelves, they're terrified of going out as themselves, you know, dressed– terrified. I never really had that. I was almost compelled, it was like a relief, it was–
When was the first time you went out in public dressed as yourself?
[laughter] It's funny. I decided one day, I had pretty much gotten a wig, I had never had a wig before. This was quite a while ago. And I had some decent clothes, and I had to realize– I had a mustache as a guy, and I'm talking about [gestures]. And I slowly trimmed it back, and what I would do is I would go on these sights and I would photoshop the mustache out. But I got to the point where my ex was going crazy and saying, [Ms. Legregor mocks whining], but anyway, got to where it was fairly thin, and actually, got all dressed up, makeup, the whole thing. You know, eye make up, lipstick, the wig, breast forms, and I got into the car and I drove and got gas. My hand in front of my mouth when the guy came to the window, "Oh can I have a– fill it up to regular please, cash." And that was my first experience. I didn't do that again for months until the mustache was gone [laughter]. That was traumatic, not for me, because that was an outward sign that everybody could see. It was time. I was tired of it.
Your mustache, your mustache was traumatic, getting rid of it?
Yes, my mustache. Just getting the reactions from everyone. And it just goes back to the whole thing, you're living a lie, and it's just another lie, and you get tired of it. Well, some people are– seem compelled to lie. I mean, I didn't really enjoy lying. I've been lying to myself my whole life, that's different.
00:26:08
You had mentioned something that comes up in other stories, the change that the internet brought. And do you think without the internet–
Oh, sure, I think without it I'd still be floundering around.
And do you think that it would just be–
I probably would be divorced, because I would still be visiting trans hookers, that type of thing. It was the only way I knew of where that existed, that was my image of it. I was attracted to it.
So before the internet, you kind of found more a common experience. And then before then when you had had experiences, where would you meet people, or where would you find community, you know, you talked about meeting up with other kind of, you know, sex workers, or–
Oh, you mean before?
Before the internet.
It was strictly, it was like you said, a sex– and obviously I had a lot of dealings with straight women, but I seemed to enjoy, or get more out of the– and there was less of that, there was, like, you go to these novelty stores, you know, the "dirty book stores."
Adult boutiques?
Adult boutiques, that's the word [laughter]. And they had all the newspapers, they had the New York City, that's where I did everything was in the city, it was only later on that everything– when Guiliani attacked New York, everything moved into Jersey, they had massage parlors, this and that, and everything.
[Editor’s Note: In 1998 new zoning laws were passed in New York City that mandated adult entertainment stores and bars be moved to areas that experienced less foot traffic.]
I think there was a newspaper called Screw, and they had ads in the back for hookers, or there was one section called the "TV guide" [laughter]. They were bad, it was bad. So, yeah, I answered a couple of those ads. It was like anybody else, some were nice, some were not so nice. I'm not talking about appearance, but I mean personality-wise.
00:29:13
Personality, character, yeah.
Somewhere, you know– It's funny that desire, I almost felt compelled to do all of that stuff. It was an addiction, when you're alone, you say, “I"ll try this once,” that type of thing. It gets to be habit-forming and you get addicted to it. It's just like anything else. You get addicted to drugs, to cigarettes, to alcohol, it's a learned thing, I think. You get dependent on it. Once I realized this is me, all that went away. It was like a cure almost. [I had] no desire to do anything like that. Not that it's inherently wrong, but it's not really a healthy lifestyle. I was very lucky, I guess. I mean so many bad things can happen when you get into that scene over there in New York City, or anywhere. From getting mugged, to contracting some sort of disease, or whatever. And I was very lucky that none of that ever happened. I've been lucky in a lot of ways, it's amazing. You think, “Why me? Why me?” But hey, this is the way it is, who knows what might have happened had I not discovered what was going on. I'd probably be dead. I mean, I never I could say the closest I ever came to suicide, was one day, my wife had already moved into the other room, and we had the empty other bedroom because Pete had moved out a couple years before he got married, so we didn't sleep together for years. And I had a problem with my shoulders. At work I had injured my shoulders. I had rotator cuff tears in both shoulders, it was not serious. And they said it really wasn't bad enough for surgery, and I went through therapy, physical therapy, and I did it pretty good, but he prescribed me Percocets.
[Editor’s Note: Percocet is a name brand version of oxycodone. It is highly addictive, but commonly prescribed for pain.]
Now, I took them once and I said, “I'm never going to take these again.” So I had this whole vile, a whole thing of Percocets sitting in the medicine cabinet. One night in the middle of the night, I got up and I said, "You know what, I'm going to swallow all of those Percocets." Right? And I get in there, I open the cabinet up, they're not there, they're gone. Went back to bed. A couple days later, I said, "What ever happened to those Percocets?" "Oh, I threw them out." One thing I can be thankful to her about, she saved my life in that respect, but it would have happened again. Right after that pretty much, I started with the therapy and stuff, and that all went away. When they say, forty, fifty percent of all transgender individuals contemplate suicide, I definitely contemplated it. There's contemplation, attempting, and actually doing it, and all three are equally serious. I had contemplated it for months and I attempted it once. It was really like a sign, I think, that the pills weren't there. I guess, if I was really intent on it, I could have slashed my wrists. I have a feeling even if they really were there, I might not have done it. Some people are a little more intent on it than others. I mean there was a full jar of aspirin there, I could have just as easily swallowed [laughter], right? That'll kill you just as easy as the Percocets, maybe not as easy. When I had my operation in May, they prescribed me them. I didn't take one of them. I didn't have to, really. The pain wasn't that bad and what there was I took care of with Advil. When I had my second operation, I had the prescription for them, but I didn't even fill it out. I didn't even fill it. I didn't even need the Advil for that, so much. So I can say that actually, this saved my life, in many respects. Not just in the suicide part, but just getting out of that rut lifestyle that I was in. It's funny too, before that I had already stopped cold turkey with the hooker thing, because it came out, she found out about it and I disclosed everything. We actually went through counseling together on it and everything, but I still had that urge and actually, I had the opportunity and I did do it. Well, I really regret doing it, but I still had the urge. It wasn't until I was able to stop it, but I still was fighting it, after discovering my true self, as it were, that even that urge is gone. I guess all of that pent-up whatever it is, is released, I don't know. Yes it's definitely life saving, I firmly believe that. Now with the way things are right today, with what little I do at The PRIDE Center, what small part I have in that and my relationship with my friends, Nicole and Jill, and now with my relationship with Roger, life is good. I mean, yesterday, we made [laughter] it's funny; months ago, before I even met Roger, Nicole and I wanted to go on a cruise in April, but she was worried about her surgery and what was gonna happen, so we postponed it until December, so we're scheduled to go this -
00:38:52
This December.
This coming December and that was like over a year ago. I mean before– it would have been over a year, wait. We did that in I think, October/November, and I don't know it might have even been before that. It was like last summer, we already had decided to do it. It was warm out when we made– when we made the reservations. Then I got involved with Roger and we're set to go on a cruise, Nicole and I, in December and just yesterday, Roger and I made reservations, he's a Disney World freak. So we made reservations for Disney World for September, so we're going with another couple, friends of his. He's an I.T. guy and there's nothing about computers he doesn't know, but he has everything all set up, he prints out schedules, and this and that, we're gonna– reservations and he has everything all set up. "Okay, you do it, it's fine, whatever you do is fine with me." Don't get upset if it doesn't quite work out that way, he says, "I know, I know, it's built to fail." [laughter] He's funny. So, other than visiting my sister, not having a vacation in like twelve years–
You get two!
Two in one year, now I have to figure out when I'm gonna see my sister, maybe I'll see her soon. I don't know, so, but life is good.
Is there anything that I haven't asked or any thoughts you have in summation?
I don't know. Actually, I think my biggest point I just said is that people don't realize that it's actually lifesaving. It's a matter of life and death, you know, it's nothing. They say, "Oh, some guy is gonna dress up like a girl and invade the ladies room." Well, you don't have to dress up like a girl to invade the ladies room. If you want to do it– first of all, you're not going to attack somebody in a ladies room [laughter], you're gonna do it in a dark alley somewhere and push your way into her apartment or whatever. It's probably someone you know anyway. It's such a fallacy– that they put against it. It's definitely a life or death situation. That's it, that's my opinion anyway.
Great.
Born out of my experience, and I mean there's other girls that have had it far worse than me. Stuff you read, and I actually personally know someone who was beat up everyday of the school year for years, and I said, "How did you live like that?" I don't know. That's all.
Okay. That's pretty good.
[End of Interview]