Metuchen resident Patricia Willard has always understood how gender plays an important role in how people are treated. She details growing up in Somerset, New Jersey in the 1950s, as well as her careers in music education and her time as a deputy attorney general. Patricia has a transgender son, who is the light of her life. She talks about experiencing her son’s transition and how his experiences have helped shape her. 

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TRANSCRIPT

Interview conducted by John Keller

New Brunswick, New Jersey

September 7, 2019

Transcription by Chrissy Briskin

0:00

Great, so this is John Keller from Rutgers University and coLAB Arts. It is Friday September 7th at around 2:45 in the afternoon, and I am interviewing– please state your name. 

Patricia Willard.

Great, and where do you currently live Patricia?

Metuchen, New Jersey

Great, and then, with all that said, we’ll just start from the beginning.  Where were you born?

Cambridge, Massachusetts.

And, uh, were you– was that the place your family was based out of?

My father was born in Vienna and my mother was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania of Italian immigrants, so Massachusetts was not really the ancestral location for either of them, but Massachusetts was where my dad’s family ended up when they had to flee Europe in– for the usual reasons in, I guess, I can’t remember the year exactly when they all got here, but let’s say the end of the thirties, beginning of the forties, and they all had their own separate adventures, so, um, they all got to the United States at different times.  That’s why it’s kind of hard to pinpoint, but they– by the time I was born, I guess my dad’s side of the family had been in Massachusetts for, let’s say, eight years maybe. 

Is there any sort of family story around the day you were born?  Anything you would hear about?

No.  Well, actually yes.  Um, when I was born, I was supposed to be– my parents were living in Brookline, and I was supposed to be born in one of the hospitals in Boston.  But they had an epidemic of the German Measles, so my mom was sent across the Charles River to Cambridge, um, to a– what they used to call lying-in hospitals, and this one no longer exists, and so I was born in Cambridge instead of Boston.  So that’s the story that I– the only story I remember about the day I was born.

Would you mind sharing what year you were born in?

1947.

And did you have any siblings?

I have a half brother, who’s thirteen years younger than me, and two step brothers. 

Ok, so was this– had your parents been married previously or–

No, my mother and father were very young when they got married and had me shortly thereafter, um, then my mother got very ill.  And, by the time– she passed away just after I turned 14.  Um, this is not a good story.  My father married– my father married somebody else before my mother passed away, and it was that– his second wife whose child is my half brother and whose children from a previous marriage are my step brothers.  But I don’t know that that story of my early childhood is really relevant to what we’re here to discuss today.  It’s not a nice story.

4:15

It’s entirely up to you. Would you want to include it in your oral history or would you want to move on?

Maybe we could think about that, and maybe you could let me think about that, and if we have another session, um, maybe I’ll– I will have made up my mind.  It just doesn’t seem like it may be relevant to the reason why you invited me here.

I would say if that’s the only hesitation, I would say the goal of the project is whatever stories come up over time, but I think that’s a good idea.  We’ll come back, I would say whatever you feel comfortable, feels like, makes the most sense for the interview is what we’d like to hear.  Um, what– do you have any, kind of like, early childhood memories about growing up, what kind of neighborhood you lived in?

We lived in a number of different places.  After Boston, we– I guess moved to New York, we lived in, I do recall living in Queens, New York for some years, and then we moved, when I was about 8, we moved to New Jersey.  The idea at the time was that that might be better for my mother’s health.  My mother had Multiple Sclerosis, and in those days the medical community knew absolutely nothing about it.  And so they would make these suggestions, like, “Oh maybe the country would be better.”  Which was not based on science at all.  But, for that reason, we moved to New Jersey, and where we moved, actually, was not far from here.  Somerset.  But it was very rural.  You wouldn’t have recognized it.  I don’t know where you’re originally from, but depending on how long you’ve lived around here. 

New Brunswick.  Born and raised.

You’re from New Brunswick.  Okay, so you, well no, you’re not nearly as old as I am.  Um, it was very rural.  We would come to New Brunswick, New Brunswick was the city. You know, and Somerset was, there were still lots of farms, I went to school with a lot of farm kids.

Around what time was it that you moved here? Is that when you permanently settled in New Jersey?

That was 1950– around 1955.

And was that when the family stayed in New Jersey?

Yes, we’ve been in New Jersey ever since.

Great.  What was the kind of– you said that doctors suggested that that might be a good thing for your mother’s health and that you came– that was what brought you here.

So we moved to “the country” 'cause it was kind of rural here when we came. 

What kind of– were you living in a house at that time?

Yeah, we moved to a little house.  That was the first house we ever had.  We had been living in apartments in New York.

7:21

Do you remember what school life was like?

Well as a matter of fact, when I first came here, I was in third grade, and it was the middle of the year, and the– I was assigned to a school that no longer exists, uh, it was a very old, small school house.  And the teacher was a very old woman who, among other things, seated her students in order of their intelligence as she perceived it.  Um, because I had been– I was in my third school, I think it was, in the third grade, I had missed some, I guess some of the things she’d been teaching, so she considered me very unintelligent and I was third from the last.  So that was my first– that was my first experience with school in New Jersey.  Um, the following year, I was in a different school and I was tested to be the smartest girl in my grade.  So my experiences in the New Jersey schools when I first came here were wildly discrepant.  Um, and, uh, you know fourth grade was pretty good.  Then my parents got the bright idea to send me to Catholic school in fifth grade.  St. Peter’s, which is still here in New Brunswick.  I didn’t like that very  much.  Um, and then a new school opened up near where we lived in Somerset.  So in sixth grade I got to go there, and I finished in public school all the way through to high school in Somerset.  And you know, I had, I think, kind of run of the mill school experiences.  It– it was my personal life that was rough.  It wasn’t school.  But I can say some things about, in those times, even though Black children and white children were in the same school, it was segregated, and I know that because, um, my parents– a couple that my parents socialized the most with were an African-American couple, and they had twin daughters that were in my grade, and I would associate with them, and that was extremely unusual.  So, in those times, well–

Were you conscious of it at the time?

Well, yeah, it was hard not to be.  I mean I didn’t– I was conscious of it, but I wasn’t thinking politically about it, but I was conscious of it.  You know, my dad was from another country so neither he nor I grew up with the same kind of, uh, institutionalized racism that we had here.  There were other kinds of institutionalized discrimination in Europe, but not the kind that we had here.

What country was your dad from?

Austria.

He was from Austria. 

Yeah, he was born in Vienna and was in Vienna until he was sent to school at Westminster in England, which was when he was, I don’t know, 14 or 15.  And when the war broke out, when Germany invaded England, my father was– Westminster sent all the students to a country town near the coast to get out of London.  Unfortunately, my dad turned 16 and there was a rule in England then, that any alien, 16 and over had to be sent to, um, what do they call, internment camp on the Isle of Mann, which is one of the reasons he didn’t arrive in the United States until after his mother and his sister.  But I digress, um, so he was in Vienna until he was about 14, and then he was in school in England, and then the war broke out, and eventually he made it. I think he was 17 when he got to the United States. 

12:21

So, your younger brother was born right before high school, when you were thirteen years old?

He was born when I– yeah, yeah, I think I was in the eighth grade.

What was that like for you?  Having a new sibling?

It was okay, um, it was kind of overshadowed by the– my childhood was unhappy, and my stepmother was not a very good mother to me.  I had nothing against my little brother, I liked him, but, um, it was kind of overshadowed by other things.  As he got older, I’ve always had a great affection for my little brother, to this day, and his kids.  Um, but, I can’t– I can’t tell you much about my thoughts about him other than I like him and I did at the time as well.  I’m not sure I liked changing his diapers much, um, yeah, on the whole, I like him.

So when you entered into high school, uh, you were in the same school system from fifth or sixth grade through high school?

Sixth through high school.  That’s correct.

And then, at that time, do you kind of remember, kind of like, that change from kid to teenager, that kind of puberty phase, starting to develop interests as you get into high school?

Are you talking about sexual interests or any kind of interest?

My purpose in asking the question is usually puberty is a huge, kind of like, it’s a big moment in life, in anyone’s life.  It’s just a period where usually there’s– things are happening, we’re starting to understand who we are, so it could be sexual, it could be, you know, professional, it could be academic interests.

Well, there’s a lot of answers to that question.  One answer is, um, I was slower to develop than a lot of other people, and I remember being embarrassed because my friends all had developed bust lines and stuff, and I was still kind of just having some little points that I was trying to figure out what to do about.  Too small for bras, you know, but noticeable and embarrassing, so there was that going on.  There were, in retrospect, there were, you know, sexual awakening, insofar as after school we’d have these games where, you know, we’d kind of meet up at the school and the boys would chase the girls. You know, that kind of incipient sexuality.  Um, I remember that part, but one of the biggest things I remember about, that probably was getting very noticeable around the time of puberty, was not really sexual per se, but general, but I mean starting from a very young age, I experienced a lot of pain around gender issues and, you know, and around being a young woman, being a girl, because there were so many restrictions, and it seemed so– particularly with regard to how I was treated and how my brothers were treated when they arrived.  Not so much my baby brother. because he was still a baby, but my step brothers.  Especially the older one who was close in age to me.  And the difference in the way particularly their mother treated them, the privileges they got, and the– or the rules that were imposed upon me, that were not imposed upon them.  The clear value, not even implicit, the explicit value that was assigned to them.  And so, those are the kinds of things that started pretty early that chafed at me.  I knew I was smart, there was lots of evidence about that, but it didn’t seem to matter as much to people. 

17:32

Do you ever remember expressing that or trying to fight against it, or–

I don’t remember articulating it, I don’t think, I probably didn’t think there would be any point in judging who I was dealing with, um, look we’re talking about the ‘50’s here, and the early ‘60’s, and I don’t know when you were born, but the world was very different back then.  And, um, so I probably didn’t think I would get very far.  I probably did– I can’t remember, it’s a long time ago, I probably did mouth off from time to time.  I know that I rebelled in– I ran away from home once, um, and that triggered some very negative repercussions.

How old were you?

I was in high school.  Early high school, I can’t–

Did something prompt it?

I can’t remember the triggering, but I just climbed out of my bedroom window and onto the garage roof and just left.  Um, I went to my girlfriend’s house, and it didn’t take my parents long to figure out where I probably went, and I was hauled back and got a lot of punishments as a result of that.  And, you know, I think that was for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was just my general sense of being unfairly treated, both because of my personal situation and because I was a female.  So that started, that’s part of the arc, I would think.

Was that– in high school did you have a large social network, did you have a group of friends?

For reasons that I don’t fully understand, I was popular, I was quiet, maybe because I was pretty, but I was quiet.  I don’t know, maybe it was because my boyfriend was popular.  I don’t know, for some reason I was popular.  It seems through no– I don’t know why, 'cause I was not much of an extrovert really.  I don’t know. 

So do you have memories of–

So I hung around with, first of all there were the people, I was in the upper academic, so there were all the people in the upper academic classes that kind of hung out.  Um, but hanging out where I lived was– it wasn’t like living in a city where you can get together with people easily, because Somerset was a large area, so that there were a lot of us lived far away from each other, so hanging out was at school or at school related events.  But there were some of us that lived fairly close to each other and we could get together, aside from school related stuff, but yeah, I think I had enough friends, um, in high school.  I don’t think I was lacking friends.  It’s funny.  Nobody ever asked me that question before.  So I’ve never thought about it, but yeah.

21:27

Did you have any specific academic interests by the time you were in high school?

Ah music.  I was pretty good at everything including math, but I think music, because I think music is how I dealt with my emotions.  I had a very unhappy childhood and I think music helped me deal with it.  I was particularly interested in music.  I thought that might be my career.

Did you play an instrument, or–

I did.  I played piano.  I still have a piano, um, I played guitar, I still have a guitar.  Much later I took up the oboe.  But I mean I have a degree in music so, um, I have spent a lot of time with music in my life.  I have two degrees in music actually. 

When you were in high school was it a given or was it assumed that you would move on to college or was it–

Yes, that was one thing that was, you know, it’s funny when you look back at it, in those days for somebody in my class, class meaning socioeconomic, it was common for a daughter to go to college, but I think the parents just expected that was where you would meet your husband.  I don’t know, see my father paid a lot of attention to career issues for the boys in the family but not for me.  There was no direction whatsoever, no guidance whatsoever for me.  For my brothers, yes.  So  it was, I believe, expected that I would go to college, but after that there was nothing, there was no talk of anything after that.

23:31

So where did you go to college?

The first time I went to Clark University in Massachusetts and at that point, I was majoring in–

I went to Holy Cross.

YOU DID?! Oh well no wonder you’re in theater, they have a fabulous– in fact the only thing I really loved about Clark University was that, in between semesters every year, there would be a special studies period, and every year I elected to do a theater, participate in a theater piece with Holy Cross.  But that was way before your time.  We did La Périchole, we did, um, Platée, it wasn’t a theater piece, it was always a musical.  Platée, La Périchole, the Bertolt Brecht thing–

Three Penny?

Three Penny Opera.  The fourth year, the other year, I was in Vienna, so I only got to do three.  I absolutely adored it.  And guess who was in my class? No, one year ahead of me?  John Heard. (laughter)  No, wait a minute. The one that’s not British. The one who passed away not too long ago.

Yes.

The one who was in Home Alone.

Yes, yes, I can’t think– John Hughes. 

Nope, John Heard, the actor.  He was in Home Alone. When you have time, look it up.  His name was very close to John Hurt the British actor but it was John Heard with a D, and he was one year ahead of me at Clark, and he was always one of the major roles in the theater pieces–

Yes, yes, I know who you’re talking about.  I can picture his face. 

He has a very pleasant looking face.  Yeah, those were good times.  Those are the only good times I remember from Clark.

Oh really?

Yeah, well I was still a very unhappy person.  Until I went to Vienna.  That was a good year.  I got away from everything.  Um, but I was majoring in Psychology at the time, and I think a lot of people who have had very unhappy childhoods major in Psychology.  But when I hit the courses where we were studying Freud, that’s where I hit the wall.  It made no sense to me whatsoever.  Um, Freud, I shouldn’t say he made no sense to me.  Freud was brilliant.  His whole introduction to the idea of dreams being significant, you know, but I mean his ideas that his penis envy idea is just absurd and, um, and a number of his other ideas are just absolutely absurd, and I just couldn’t– and a lot of the people who came after him, you know, there was just this mixture of genius and absurdity.  So eventually I switched my major to German when I came home from Vienna.  That seemed like the easy thing to do.

27:15

Um, you had mentioned that, um, one of the goals might be you send your daughters off to college to meet a husband, was that something that was in your mind?

Not really.

What was your goal? What was your focus while you were in school?

I– I don’t think I was very focused.  I don’t think I was thinking about the future. I think I was still too– I think it took me years to sort of manage and sort out my past and who I was, um, I think it took me a lot longer than it might some other people.  So no, I don’t think I had a gameplan at all the first time, and then when I got out, the job market was good, I moved to New York, um, I had a couple of different jobs, but I was a space cadet, just, I don’t know how to explain it.  Um, so, I went back to school and I thought I would get a degree in music education and that would be something useful.  So I was starting to think in terms of career.  So that’s what I did.

I think what I’m going to do, I’m going to stop the recording for a moment. 

[End of Recording One]

[Beginning of Recording Two]

0:00

I usually tell folks about two hours to, like, prep for two hours, and then if there’s more to be done, we can like start a new sessions, if they want to take a break, I’m always willing to go longer, but, um–

I’m feeling like we aren’t even close to talking about what I thought I was invited here to talk about. 

And I appreciate that, and I think it’s part of the thing, too. It’s like when you’re– when you’re doing a specific project and people know that, “Oh I’m going to be interviewed because I’m participating or part of the world of this specific project,” but the thing is always when you’re creating this, it’s always great to– it’s always great to have a wealth of stories, you know, 'cause you never know what’s going to kind of rise to the surface.  You never know what’s going to have an impact. 

Well gender has had a huge impact in my life from the get go, from the time that I was– I had the concept in my head to think about.

Is there anything more you want to say about that, or just kind of seeing the differences–

I guess I’ve already mentioned some about it.  What happened with my mother was, she got multiple sclerosis when I was or she presented with it, who knows when she got it, when I was very young, maybe 2 or 3, and, um, it progressively got worse, um, and by the time we moved to New Jersey she was in a wheelchair and, um, my father started an affair with his secretary.  He worked in New York, we lived in New Jersey, and I guess my mother kind of felt like something was going on. Unfortunately, my dad was also active in– became active in local politics in Somerset, so my mom got the idea that he was fooling around with, uh, one of the women who were also at– who was also active in local politics and, um, at that point my grand– my mother’s– dad’s mother was living with us, because my mom couldn’t manage, and between my dad and his mother, they kind of started putting a lot of restrictions on my mother.  They locked the phone, you know, they– they kind of treated her as though she were mentally ill, and in the meanwhile, you know, her MS was getting worse and doctors didn’t know– get all, you know, about what to do about it.  They knew nothing, they still know very little, and so, and at one point she was sent to Trenton State Hospital and given those shock treatments, and– and eventually my father just sent her back to live with her mother in Pennsylvania, divorced her, and married his secretary, and basically what my father did was just throw my mom out like a broken toy.  And that had a huge impact on my life.  Um, it had a huge impact in how I feel about men.  Even though there are men in my life I love, there’s like deep, deep, deep, deep down there’s this mistrust, um, and I think that’s had a huge effect on my entire life.  And it also has to do with gender, because I really don’t think that the same thing would’ve been done with, I mean, my best friend in grammar school’s father got MS and he wasn’t treated the way my mother was treated.  I really, really believe that the way my mother was treated had at least partially something to do with her gender.  Um, so I guess that’s part of the arc, and that’s part of when I tell you that, you know, at this age or at that age, I don’t think I was that focused, this was just a huge– my– there was a huge miasma over my childhood, a very painful feeling of injustice for so many reasons because of the way my mom was treated, because of the way I was treated.  And to make matters worse, what happens to you when you’re a child and things like that are going on?  I distanced myself from my mother, the one who was the victim and associated, how you say– what’s the word, not associated, I identified with my dad.  It was only when I became a mother that my whole orientation, that I just saw things so differently.  By that time, my dad had died of AIDS, another part of the arc of gender in my life.  Um, gender issues, I mean not gender issues, um, sexual orientation, I guess you might say there.  And so, just coming through that influence on my life just kind of took the attention away from other things. 

5:50

Thank you for sharing.  Um, the– around what was the time that your mom was sent back to live with your grandmother?

When I was about 12. 

And then things kind of rapidly changed?

And then my dad went to Nevada, um, and his secretary, who became my stepmother, went to Nevada for– I forget how many weeks you had to stay there to get a divorce, they got divorces, then they came back.  She came back to live with us, um, her two sons were still with their father.  Eventually over a number, I don’t know, by the time– by the time I was a junior in high school, the sons were living with us.  Took– took a while.

Um, so I guess one of the things we can do, we had talked a little about your time at Clark, too, um, your time at Clark, what was your major at Clark?

It started out being Psychology, then my junior year I went to Vienna and I studied at the University of Vienna, and I went around to, you know, met family, the relatives that were still there, um, saw the places my dad lived and went to school and, um, you know, and did my own thing, I went– I went skiing with Austrian students, and I joined a Austrian choir and traveled around Austria performing, and, you know, did learn German.  Um, and then actually, instead of going, then I thought I wasn’t gonna go back to Clark, so I went to Switzerland and worked in a hotel, then I ended up going back to Clark but late, you know, school– I didn’t get back to Clark ‘til the October of my senior year, but I don’t know, somehow or another, it got together and I graduated.

You had mentioned that going to Austria, going to Vienna was kind of a big change–

Yes because I got away, I got away.

Yeah.

 And, um, even though I was living in Massachusetts, I wasn’t living at home. Going to Vienna was an even further break with, you know, the home ruled by my stepmother and, um, it was, uh, a place for me to start fresh, meet all new people, do all different things, learn stuff that I never had exposure to before, architecture, art, you know, I was, I’m a very musical person, but I didn’t have very much exposure to architecture and art before.  And then everywhere you go in Europe, you’re in history.  So it was like osmosis history, learning history by osmosis.  Um, so it was like a fresh start for me.  It was good. 

Was this college years or, um, was this period of time a period of time where you were exploring romantic relationships or–

Yeah, but awkwardly, not good ones.  When I was working in the hotel in Switzerland, the concierge was a guy who had escaped from East Berlin because it was still behind the Iron Curtain in those days.  That was way before the wall came down, and he asked me to marry him, but I’m ninety percent sure that was because he just wanted a way to get to America, so no, my romantic life has not been, it’s been rocky.

10:29

So you spent this time in Vienna, and you came back to Clark and finished your degree, and finished your time at Clark–

Correct.

And graduated on time?

On time.

And then you said that you then moved to Manhattan–

Correct.

And were you living in Manhattan?

I was.

And you were working various kinds of jobs.  What kind of jobs were you–

Well, I worked for Olivetti for a while, um, I’m trying to remember what order I worked in things.  I can’t remember.  I remember two jobs, one was working for Olivetti and the other was working for a small import export firm, you know, where some knowledge of German was required, but I was still a space cadet, and I remember making a terrible mistake once that ended up with a shipment of goods going to the wrong country.

(laughter)

So needless to say, I was let go, the guy was very nice, the owner of the company was surprisingly nice to me when he fired me, um, (laughter) but that was a very justifiable firing, and I can’t remember if I went from there to Olivetti or if it was the reverse, but then I decided to get a more practical degree and I came back to New Jersey.

And did you– was there– what was your planning just in terms of were you looking at different programs or did you just have that–

No, no I thought I love music, so maybe I’ll try and make money at it, so I came back for a degree in music education and I got it at Douglass, they didn’t make me retake basic college courses, I was allowed to just take what I needed to take in the music department and the education department, so in, um, about, I think it took five semesters for me to get my, um, my degree in music education, and, um, state certification. 

What was that time like?

That was interesting. I was living with my parents, and at that point my younger brother was old enough to have fun with, you know, he was, I don’t know, 9 or something, I can’t remember. And so you know, I taught him how to play the guitar and it was nice, um, and then I, um, was having adventures with– I was singing in, um, I hooked up with this small ensemble and we sang at a couple of nightclubs and it was pretty good, um, but then I– it didn’t last. I– I moved out and moved in with a man that became my first husband.  Um, so when I started teaching music, I was married.  That marriage didn’t last very long.  He was a nice guy, but we were ill-suited.  He was a nice man.  He eventually went to Indiana, he was a labor guy, um, labor organizer, he eventually went to Indiana and ended up marrying, um, a farmer’s daughter, and the father died, and he ended up actually working on the farm, becoming a farmer himself!  This is a guy from Hackensack, New Jersey. (laughter)

(laughter)

It amuses me to think about it, you know, um, but, um, he’s a nice man.

14:26

So you were completing your music education degree, and then when you– did you have a plan for when you graduated, were you looking for–

I got a job.  I taught in Manville for a year.

What was that like?

Hard.  I had 700 kids and also, for no extra pay, had to put on two concerts a year, with somebody else.  It was not easy.

This was a public school?  Was it a high school?

No, I was teaching kindergarten through fifth. 

Wow, that’s a big span.

It was, I mean I liked it in the sense that it was challenging.  I love music and I was making– I was creating my own lesson plans, which I still have.  Even though this was something like forty years ago.  I still have them somewhere in the attic, um, I used to just make them up.  I mean we had textbooks and stuff but I liked to make my own lessons and, um, so that was good, but it was hard, it was hard.

So you were only there for a year?

A year.

What was the– what was the–

Then I went to– what happened after that?  I went to graduate school.  That’s when I started graduate school in music, and then it’s a little bit of a blur. I started graduate school, and I was working at the Y, and then my husband and I separated, and he went to Pennsylvania, and eventually to Indiana. We got divorced and, not too long after that, I was introduced to a professor at Rutgers, and I eventually married him, and I’m not going to name his name, 'cause he’s still at Rutgers.  You might know him.  Ha!  Not in your department, and, uh, but then things didn’t go so well with him either, so what I did was I got a job in New York at a classical recording company, and I worked there for several years while I finished my Master’s.  Then what happened?  And then I went to law school.

What was the– what was that shift?

Well, in the meanwhile, while I was working at– while I was finishing my Master’s and working at the recording company in New York, I was also very active with NOW, the National Organization of Women, and, um, I was doing things like going around giving speeches about the equal rights amendment and so on.  I organized– in 1979, I organized all the buses, there was a march on Washington and I organized all the New Jersey buses for that march.  Um, and, uh, so I was becoming very interested in legal matters through that work.  And um, also realizing that there wasn’t really a good path for me in the music industry.  There wasn’t really that much leeway in progressing, um, so and then I started, I met through NOW, believe it or not, I met a lawyer, a guy, um, and, you know, between having a boyfriend that was a lawyer and being really interested in legal matters in my spare time, you know, social work, political work, and, uh, needing, feeling like I needed– I was finally thinking in terms of career paths at that time in my life.  I was in my early thirties, and, uh, so it just came together. 

18:42

Where did you do your law degree?

Rutgers.

In Newark, the law school is in Newark.

Uh-huh.  At that time, Rutgers Newark was considered the better school, it was considered better than Camden, it was also considered better than Seton Hall.  I got accepted to Seton Hall with a scholarship, but Rutgers was considered a better school and was cheaper, I think, even with the scholarship, so I picked Rutgers Newark.

Great, what did you, uh, what was your time in law school like?

That was also rough because, um, you know, I was commuting from New Brunswick and, uh, law school’s not easy (laughter) so–

So you were, I’m sorry, you were married at this time to your husband or–

No, I was–

Split?

Separated from my Rutgers professor husband and I was dating, um, a lawyer.  And then I eventually moved in with him, and at one point, we thought we were gonna get married, but I chickened out. 

And so you were finished up, commuting back and forth, you were finishing up your law degree, were you specializing in any specific field, was there anything you were interested in?

No, well, when I went into the law, I thought that I was going to be a social justice lawyer.  But, when I– shortly after I– when I graduated, I clerked for a prestigious judge and, um, that judge got me a job, or helped me get a job, in a private law firm in Somerville.  But that private law firm had, um, uh, a schism, it had a very acrimonious schism, and I didn’t quite know what to do, because the people that I worked with the most were the ones that left, so I ended up, um, joining– becoming a deputy attorney general. You don’t– you don’t really specialize, well it depends on the agency you work for.  I ended up working for New Jersey Transit, representing New Jersey Transit, and when you are a deputy attorney general representing New Jersey Transit, you, in most cases, will have a huge variety of law that you’re involved with.  One of the people that– one of my colleagues did mostly tax stuff, but that did not appeal to me, so I ended up doing lots of things, some of my biggest, and the cases that I am most proud of were in environmental law.  And, um, but I, you know, I did, appeared before the department of– Division of Civil Rights, did labor law, did some contract law, construction litigation, just lots of different types of things, so what I ended up doing with my legal career didn’t have much to do with what I was thinking as I was applying to law school.  Plus, shortly after I joined the private law firm, I got married to my son’s father and, um, and then, a couple years later, that marriage broke up, and so I was, you know, that priorities shifted and it was no longer, what do I feel like doing, it was how can I keep my child and, you know, keep a job, keep my child, you know, and have everything work.  So, the priorities shifted. 

So then this would have been the early ‘80’s, when you started working for that private law firm and then–

No, I graduated law school in ‘85.  So I was working in the law firm until ‘86 or ‘87.  And then I became a deputy attorney general in ‘88.

And then when were you married?

‘88.  Yeah, I think it was ‘88.

And then when was your child born?

‘88. 

‘88.  It was a busy year.

Busy year. 

Um, you had mentioned previously that, when you became a mother, that’s when things kind of shifted in your understanding about your own early childhood.  What was that time like when you became pregnant and you knew that you were going to have a child?

It was really after I had Wiley that it, um, it sank in.  I don’t know what, I don’t know precisely what triggered it other than being a mother, but I started seeing my mom in a totally different way.  I think it was just shoved to the background for, for many years, you know, it wasn’t– I wasn’t concentrating on thinking of my parents for many years, I was just doing what young people do, make their way, you know, um, not reflecting that much about my parents. But having a kid, it’s just one of those things that flip a switch and you start– when you start thinking about your own role as a parent, it kind of naturally connects to thinking about your own parents.  Um, so I think that’s what happened.

25:21

Were you excited at the prospect of being a mom or–

I was surprised, 'cause I was, I had, um, Wiley when I was 41, so I was a little surprised, um, prior to that I had– when– when I was in my twenties and thirties I wasn’t really sure I wanted to have kids, and I think somewhere in my thirties, middle or late, I started thinking, “Gee, maybe,” but there didn’t seem to be any, um, it just didn’t, I couldn’t see how it was going to happen, but, you know, I got married when I was 40 or 41, I can’t remember, and I thought I was too old, but I wasn’t.  Now that’s not so unusual.

So this was the late eighties, you were working as a deputy attorney general and you had just gotten married, what was kind of early childhood like for Wiley?

His?  Well I was in love from the first moment I laid eyes on him.  And that was actually, selfishly, that was a huge thing for me, because I had spent a fair amount of time thinking I didn’t know what love was and I never would.  And the minute I laid eyes on him, I was in love and I knew it.  So, and I’ve told him that, that he gave me that incredible gift.  Um, so, I just wanted to be the best mother I could possibly be.  I just spent a lot of time thinking about how I could do that.  You know, (laughter) here comes gender again.  When Wiley was– I thought Wiley was a girl.  Wiley’s given name was Frances, given name was  Frances at birth.  Frances Amelia, and so I raised Wiley as a girl, but I didn’t want all this baggage, I wanted to avoid for her– 'cause I thought she was she at the time, I didn’t want Wiley to go through all the stuff I went through, so I did whatever I could think of to avoid gender stereotyping. For example,my husband, Wiley’s father, wanted to– Wiley was very beautiful and he wanted to enter Wiley into, um, Frances, what should I say, Frances or Wiley, I don’t know,  um, into a beauty contest.  And I said, “Absolutely not!” (laughter).  And you know, I tried not to, you know, go for the dressing in pink all the time, and, you know, everything pink or, you know, I tried to use all kinds of clothes that could be anybody and, uh, I– I don’t know, I just did whatever I could, like the toys that I bought and the– I bought building blocks and– and dolls, but also trucks and everything I could think of to not box my kid in.

29:29

What was your hope or kind of your aspiration that if you thought you could do that, what were you hoping to achieve for Wiley’s life?

Opportunity.  I mean I actually had a baby book and I actually wrote down my hopes and, you know, there were things like being a good person, um, you know, being able to develop her talents, um, you know I had a whole list of– but, you know, the idea was not to be boxed in.  Not to be prevented from being the– developing to the fullest whatever qualities or talents or interests, um, that she had.  To not be prevented by stupid conventions from pursuing them, you know, giving it a crack.

When did you and your husband separate?  How old was Wiley?

Uh, very young.  Um, 3?

And Wiley lived with you full time?

Yeah.  There was– there was more– there were more stories.  It was a very, very contentious divorce.  And although– before I had Wiley his father said he would never fight me for custody, he did.  And I don’t know whether that was– well I have my suspicions about why it was, but it was really awful.  It was years and years of draining, nasty, expensive litigation.  And, um, that relates to questions I asked myself later when, um, you know, when the issues of Wiley’s sexuality and gender identification came up. 

32:13

Just the, the, the stress of that time, or?

Well, when– I’m in a family support group, and one thing that I’ve noticed that comes up for almost all of us parents is that when the concept first comes to our attention, that either because our child is saying that they identify other than what we thought they were or if it– if it comes to our attention in some other way, it seems as though every parent that I’ve come across so far has, as one of their first questions or thoughts, “Is this real or is this another issue?”  That’s a question that seems to come up so frequently, from almost every person I’ve run into in my support group.  And, um, so, not so, see with Wiley it was, um, it– it– it– the– the trans issue didn’t come up until after many years of Wiley identifying as a lesbian.  So, I– I wasn’t terribly surprised when Wiley came out as gay, as a lesbian.  For a lot of reasons.  One of which was observing that Wiley got– went to Girl Scout Camp every year and invariably got crushes on the female counselors.  You know, there was just a lot of things in his childhood that made me not surprised when he came out in high school, or was it before high school?  I don’t know, middle school or high school as gay, as in being a female gay person, being a lesbian.  So– so that, I don’t know, didn’t seem so unnatural or anything to me.  But then, it was in college that Wiley– the transition must have happened in college, and I think Wiley was, Wiley had wanted me to come to certain presentations that he was doing in this club that he was in at Smith, not a club, an organization that he had helped found at Smith.  But, I didn’t get it.  I thought what he was talking about in his presentations was different gradations, or different expressions of, um, you know, like, some lesbians express in a very masculine type way with their dress, and the way they walk, and hairdo and stuff like that.  As opposed to others that express in a femme way.  Uh, what is the term that is the opposite of femme? 

35:58

Butch.

Butch.  That’s what I was looking for.  So, Wiley was giving these presentations, and I thought these presentations were more, like, about expression, style expression, you know.  It’s more than style, it’s sort of your personality, you know, are you a butch personality?  I guess that would mean more forward, um, less passive maybe.  I don’t know.  Anyway, that’s what I thought these presentations were about.  Now, I’m thinking, “Well maybe he was trying to transition me into the idea that he was trans.”  I don’t know when exactly, hopefully you will be able to interview him and you will learn from him if he even knows himself.  Where the point was where he, you know, the A-ha! Moment.  That he– because it wasn’t in high school.  Wait a minute, how did I get on to this?  What was your question?

Uh, ah, I think it was really just a general question about, uh, ah, one of the follow up questions about the–

Oh! The divorce.  So, when, um, when I– I don’t remember exactly precisely when it was when I was– became aware that– oh! I know when it was.  It was after he got married.  And he was living in D.C., and I remember I was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer and, um, I had to have surgery in December of 2010.  And when I recovered from my surgery he contacted me and said he wanted top surgery.  So it was in January, somewhere around January of 2011 that I became aware that he identified as a trans man. 

And he had already been out of college.

He was already out of college and he had married a woman.  And, um, so that was the point where I was trying to think, “Well is this real, or is this somehow a manifestation of all the confusion he went through as a child?” All the Sturm und Drang that he went through as a child and the other things, I mean he had been in counseling for various things as a kid, such as , ADHD.  Other things that I don’t feel like it’s my story to tell.  So, I think one of the first things that most parents has in their minds is the question, “Is this real or is this the manifestation of something else?”  And you know, it’s a little bit like trying to hold water in your hand.  Who knows?  But, what matters is how they feel and what, you know, it’s their life, and what matters is how they feel, what they think is gonna make them happy, what makes them comfortable, you know.  So you just have to trust that, you know, we may have questions in our minds, like is this real, or like what has  led to this, or is this, um, organic, or has this been influenced by, you know– it almost doesn’t matter, you know, but this is the process that I went through and that everybody else I’ve– most other parents in the support group  goes through.  You know, to one extent or another, you know, and some people, some parents really have a hard time letting go of it and moving on.  And other parents seem to have an easier time with it, but I think that’s the response to your question, so what did I– that was my initial reaction, “Oh is this real?”

40:55

When did you have– was the experience similar when, um, Wiley, I think you said before, in middle school or high school, when Wiley came out as lesbian?  Was there a conversation around that? Was there– was that a different, kind of, experience?

No, I don’t remember there being a, like, a time when Wiley said, “Ma, sit down, I want to have a conversation with you.”  You know, I don’t think it was that formal.  Um, and I probably did have a similar question in my mind, but I don’t think it lasted very long, 'cause there were just things about, that I had noticed over the years that kind of fit in with that statement.  Things that I remember from before that seem to make sense.

Did you have any concerns about that?

Of course I had concerns because, particularly, being the parent of a trans person, it’s scary because trans persons are beaten up and killed.  I think it’s a little easier on, I mean I don’t think easier is the right word, I think there might be a tad less hostility towards trans men than trans women, but either way, you know, yeah I’m scared.  I’m scared that my kid is going to get beaten up or killed.  But, you know, Wiley is not an idiot.  He knows which places in the United States are safer for somebody like him to live in than– I don’t think he’s going to make a decision to move some place where the hostility is high.  I think he’s always going to be smart enough to choose places where there’s a fairly solid community, um, but yeah I’m still concerned.  Metuchen was– Wiley had no problems being gay in Metuchen.  So I wasn’t really all that concerned at that point.  And then when I– and then he went to Smith, and Smith is a pretty good place to go if you’re gay.  Um, so I wasn’t concerned when he was in college, but yeah, when I found out that he was trans, I was– that’s when the heat went up, you know, in terms of my concern about it. 

44:19

So when Wiley was in college, you mentioned the experience of going to see the presentation and kind of putting it in the lens or framing it as Wiley is a lesbian woman, and that’s kind of the articulation of what that presentation was like. I was wondering at that time were you– oh, I know what I wanted to talk about.  You had mentioned that Wiley had gotten married, um, was that around the same time?

Within a few weeks of graduating from Smith, in fact he got married at Smith in their chapel.

And were you part of that?

Yes I was. 

And what was that day like?

It was a lovely day, um, it was a very– they put together a very, um, a very nice ceremony, um, a minister that– the minister from Metuchen that confirmed Wiley went up to Massachusetts to do the ceremony.  He’s originally from Massachusetts and his mother went to Smith, um, and you know I gave them some money to help them.  They did the plans and everything, I gave them some money to do the plans, and we had a– we had a pizza rehearsal dinner, pizza rehearsal dinner, um, and the day was, it was a pretty day.  And all my brothers came from Texas and, um, Maryland and their families.  They honored us by coming those long distances, and, um, my nieces and nephews were in the ceremony and, um, my brother’s– this is going to sound so crazy.  My middle brother, um, and his wife have six dogs.  They’re really crazy about dogs and they have no kids, these are their kids, I guess, and they, one of their dogs was the ring bearer (laughter)

(laughter) It doesn’t sound too crazy. 

He did a pretty good job.

I’ve been part of two weddings in which that has been true.

You’re kidding! 

One was a Golden Retriever, one was a Schnauzer.

This was a German Shepard.

Comin’ down the aisle with a ring attached to their–

Yes!  Oh my goodness!  You must tell Wiley.  (laughter) When he comes.  So it was lovely, you now, we were honored by all my, well unfortunately Wiley’s father died a week before he graduated from– he was in a bicycle accident, so it was while Wiley was taking his exams, so that was pretty bad.  But we had a wedding anyway.  The wedding was, I don’t know, like three weeks after, two weeks after the graduation.  And, um, nobody from his family came.  But, um, a lot of people from my family came and, um, so the weather was beautiful and the chapel was lovely and Bridget looked gorgeous.  Her parents came from the state of Washington, uh, so it was– Wiley’s absolute best friend that they’ve known since first grade, they’ve known each other since first grade, she’s now a doctor in Rhode Island, she gave a wonderful best man speech, um, so it was a fantastic day.

48:32

And– and were you kind of close with your daughter-in-law?

I think about as close as I could be with her.  She was a bit of a prickly person, but I think probably as close as we might have been, I don’t, I mean I tried.  I’ve always tried to be close with Wiley’s, people that are close to Wiley.  Wiley knows that anytime he wants to bring somebody home is fine.  I’m glad to know who he hangs out with and who he loves.

And so, what year was the wedding?

2010.

Ok, so then it was just a year later after you had recovered from your surgery that Wiley called you and told you his intentions, and what was that time like?

Nerve wracking 'cause it was like out of the blue.  I had no preparation for this.  And I was, I even asked him, “Could you please delay it for a year?  Think about it?”  But he had gone ahead and made all these arrangements and everything, and the thing is he needed my financial help in order to do it. So, and I thought about withholding it, but I decided against it because I thought that would just create resentment between us, but I was really worried about what seemed to me like a very precipitous move.  It may not have been, but it was news to me, you know?  So it was nerve wracking.

Did you ask him a lot of questions or try to get inside?

I tried to get information, um, I was, um, I was feeling insecure because Wiley had this letter from a– a therapist saying that– in different states, you have to go through different hoops to get surgery, um, and all Wiley did was go to this therapist, like, once or twice and he got this letter permitting him, you know, that he could give to a surgeon, and that would allow the surgeon to perform the, you know, I didn’t know who this doctor was, if he was a quack or somebody out to make money, and I couldn’t figure out how a therapist could make this, write this kind of a letter after seeing Wiley once or twice.  I was worried, yeah, it was nerve wracking, and I thought a lot about it, and my sister-in-law is begging me not to allow it you know and–

What was her concern?

Oh, she thought in her mind it was irreversible and, what if some time in the future, Wiley wanted to have a kid and nurse the kid, you know, that was in her mind.  I didn’t think that was too likely, but you asked what my sister-in-law’s thinking was and I think that’s what her thinking was.  Plus, she’s a lot more, she’s a very devout Catholic, she’s a lot more conservative than I am and Wiley is.  Um, so I was– I was very nervous because it was news to me, it was very sudden, and because I know nothing about the doctor and I– I couldn’t believe that this therapist would do something so significant after such little contact with– so I was very nervous.  Thankfully, and I went down for the surgery, and stayed a few days, and thankfully it went okay.  The surgeon did a good job. 

53:01

Where was Wiley living at this time?

D.C.

D.C. gotcha.

So, thankfully, from a medical standpoint, it went okay, but yeah.  How did I feel?  I felt very nervous. 

Um what was the–

Oh and my good friend, oh I’ve never mentioned him before, or did I?  I have a friend who I met in Hyacinth.  He’s a Turk, he’s HIV positive.  And he’s been my friend for– did I tell you that I joined Hyacinth?

I think where we got in terms of–

Do you know what Hyacinth is?

The Hyacinth Foundation, yeah, I mean I’m familiar with it generally, but why don’t you kind of rearticulate it?

Hyacinth, my father had AIDS, and we found out about that in 1984, at the height of the AIDS hysteria when they just started noticing AIDS and didn’t quite know what it was, and they just noticed it was in the gay community and that’s pretty much all they knew, so, um, and the Haitian community, and that’s pretty much all they knew. And, um, so my dad died in 1985 a week before I graduated from law school, and a few months later, I think three therapists in the New Brunswick area got together and started the first organization in New Jersey meant to deal with AIDS issues.  And so, there were fifteen of us clients, we were the first of Hyacinth’s clients, and there were fifteen of us, and we were all together in one group at that point.  So there were people mourning like I was, people who were caregivers, people who had AIDS, people who were HIV positive, and we were all in one group.  And then over time, the group got bigger and bigger, and gradually– eventually we divided into bereavement group, caregiver group, but in the beginning we were all together, and I met this guy, this Turkish guy, and I’m not going to say his name either because it’s his story not– but we’ve  been friends ever since.  So we’ve been friends for about almost forty years and he’s gay.  So when I– I got this request from Wiley for top surgery and I was so nervous, you know, my friend from Hyacinth was one of the people I discussed it with (laughter) and he said in typical fashion, “Well it’s not really irreversible, if he wants boobs later, he can get boobs.” (laughter)  Oh my God maybe that’s something I should cut out of the archives, but anyway.  So, that kind of, as ridiculous a statement as that was, that kind of calmed me down a little bit because, actually, it’s true.  Um, it’s true and it’s not true.  You know, you can get a fake bust line, you can’t get the milk ducts and everything replaced, so it was kind of a ridiculous comment,  but not a hundred percent ridiculous, and it sort of calmed me down a little bit.  Really the bottom line was that if this was something that my kid was adamant, that he had been thinking about for a long time, and wanted to do, and had gone through all the steps that you have to go through to do it, like, if I was going to withhold that from him, that would do us both damage, so I took the plunge, and it was probably, in retrospect, I’m not sorry, but it was a big. Also having been diagnosed– one of the things about people who have ADHD is that they’re impulsive, so that was another worry of mine, when this request for top surgery came was that all his life he’s been kind of an impulsive person, so you can’t help but worry about that. 

58:08

Did the, uh, conversations then evolve in terms of name changing or pronoun changes or–

Yeah.

Was it top surgery first?  Was that the first conversation?

Top surgery was first actually in his case, which is not at all the way most of the people in my support group progress.  Um, he did eventually change his name from Frances Amelia to Wiley Frances, and the pronoun thing is tricky because he wants to be referred to, I thought he wanted to be referred to as he, but when he’s writing things, he refers to himself as they or their.  And I know that he– he has said to me on more than one occasion, he doesn’t feel completely male.  He doesn’t– he feels somewhere in between but more male than female. And, you know, to tell you the truth, for many, many, many years when I’ve thought about both sexual orientation and gender, I’ve always secretly thought to myself that it’s more of a spectrum than anything else, and that was way before the term binary started being thrown about by people who write, um, but ever since I was– as way far back as in my twenties, I really have kind of come to that conclusion instinctively that– first, I mean I didn’t really think about– most of my life I’ve thought about gender, it’s been within the context of how I’ve been treated because of my gender.  It hasn’t been gender identity because I’ve always been cis, but it, you know, so most of my life the gender issues that I had were how restricted I was because of my gender, and in some– and– and also acknowledging that men are restricted in many ways, also because of their gender.  It’s just that from a socioeconomic perspective, you know, I think the restrictions on women are more damaging.  But there are totally unhealthy restrictions on men as well, so I understand that.  But, so that was my thinking about gender up until my son came out as trans was, didn’t really have to do with gender identity, but gender has always been a big issue for me.  And it’s ironic, too, because in conversing with the people who I know who are trans, like for instance, the trans women that I know, things like clothes and makeup and jewelry and stuff are so important to them, and that’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve been fighting all my life.  I don’t want to have to wear a skirt, I don’t want to have to wear makeup, I don’t want to have to be judged on, you know, how beautiful my hair looks and stuff like that.  So there’s a certain, for me, there’s a certain irony, um, as a person who’s spent a certain amount of time and energy trying to resist gender-related trappings.  Now I have a son who is part of a community where those things have importance, so it’s like, sometimes it’s mind bending, um, but when Wiley is writing, he uses the pronouns they, which as a writing instructor is very weird for me.  Um, 'cause obviously he is referring to a singular person, but that’s what– obviously that is what people who don’t feel entirely comfortable being a she, being described as she or he use.  So it’s actually, Wiley is actually confusing me because he wants me to use the pronoun he when I’m referring to him, but when he’s writing, when I see him writing a piece for himself, he uses they.  That’s confusing.  I should actually directly ask him that, it hadn’t occurred to me.  When I see him in a few weeks, I’ll try and remember to ask him that question.  But, um, he is very, very, he told me it’s very important to him that I use the right pronouns.  He says it’s not even as important that I remember to call him Wiley, which I’m better at now, having called somebody Frances for twenty-one, twenty-two years, it’s difficult, when a baby comes out of your body, and you’ve been thinking that it’s Frances even before it came out, and you watch this person develop from an infant, to a child, to a teenager, to an adult as Frances, it’s very weird and disorienting to, and it takes time to get used to.  I’m used to calling him Wiley now, I hardly ever slip into Frances, except when I’m talking to my friends who also saw him grow up as Frances.  And then it gets more confusing, and then I find, that’s when I may find myself using Frances because they know him as Frances so it gets kind of confusing.  But, um, and switching about talking from the past and the present, like when I was talking to you about when he was an infant and didn’t know whether to say Frances or Wiley, 'cause that can be, it can get confusing.  Um, that takes time.  That takes time.  It’s not like you’ve just met the person.  You’ve suckled the person.  You know, it’s just a whole different–

66:17

How do you think you’ve done with it?

Probably didn’t evolve as fast as he would’ve liked, but I think I’m, well, I don’t know whether I can say I’ve done the best I can.  Maybe I could’ve done better, but, um, I think I’m doing pretty well based on my experiences with the family support group.  Because I’m a little further along than most of the people in the group so by looking, by listening to them I can see that I’ve made some progress, I’ve made progress by listening to them. 

How so? How do you find yourself in comparison to some of the– to some of those other participants?

Some of them can’t even bring themselves to refer to their kids with the correct pronoun.  Which is too bad.  Um, some of the people cry and say they just don’t want their son to be a daughter, you know, they can’t– having– it’s so painful to them.  And I can, I feel somewhere between the moderators of the group, which are both trans women, and the clients of the group, or whatever you want to call us, because it is– the moderators don’t like to hear somebody say I want to keep pictures of my kid when my kid was 5.  You know, “I want those pictures, I want to keep them,” because the trans person doesn’t want them.  So that’s a big issue, believe it or not.  The trans people don’t want those pictures around because they don’t feel like that’s who they truly are.  But, we parents, this is all we have of the growing up of our child, so we want them.  So my compromise is all those pictures are in the bedroom, but they’re not in the living room, you know, but so I understand where the parents are coming from, and I’m more okay with it than they are.  But I don’t– I intellectually understand where the trans people are but I know how it feels to not want to get rid of those.  So I feel like I’m somewhere in the middle between the trans moderators and the parents, um, so that’s a small way in which I can monitor my progress.  I feel like I do understand both sides, and I know how it feels to be that parent, and I’ve been able to work something out.  I don’t know whether Wiley, I haven’t specifically asked Wiley if he’s okay with that compromise that I’ve come up with, but I haven’t heard any complaints either, um, or the– I remember the day I had such a hard time referring to Wiley as he, but now I’m getting much better at it, and now I’m feeling like I’m feeling comfortable with it, so those are, if your question is how do I know what my progress is, that’s two examples.  Um–

70:55

What brought you to the support group initially, 'cause how long has that support group been around?

It’s been around longer than I’ve been with it.  I’ve been with it for about a year and I believe it started before, but I just didn’t know about it.  I was actually looking for a support group and I went to PFLAG in Princeton 'cause they had, like, a side group for trans, but I didn’t like that group.  I didn’t feel comfortable.  That group was run by a couple of parents and I didn’t feel like they really had a good understanding about how to run the group, um.

You’re doing great.  Not to interrupt you, but I realize I didn’t really give you time to take break in case you wanted to take one–

The only, I could use a trip to the ladies room– all that water you gave me.

Great why don’t we take one.

[End of Recording Two]

[Beginning of Recording Three]

0:00

So here are things parents think about, typical parents think about.  Number one, what I mentioned before, um, is this real.  Number two, did I do something wrong (laughter), you know, did I do something in my pregnancy, you know, that made a switch go the wrong way.

Yeah.

You know, um–

Do you ever look back and, like, specific things or–

Well, no, I mean I haven’t had that. I had that, um, I questioned myself when I found out that– that Wiley was diagnosed with ADHD.  You know, what did I do?  What might I have done, you know, one time we went on a vacation, and I allowed Wiley to jump around on this trampoline outside, and he jumped right off it and fell on his face and I– I think– it seemed to me passed out for– and I was frantic.  And now he tells me he didn’t but I think he did, but anyway.  But things like that come to mind, oh my God is it my fault that he has H– ADHD?  Stuff like that, you know, so I don’t really think that I went down that road when I found out that he was trans or he identified as trans, but other people in my group have mentioned questioning themselves, “Was there something when I was pregnant with my child, or was it something that I did that ended up with this situation?” So that’s a thing a parent thinks about. Parents get very concerned about how their kids are going to be perceived and treated within the family, within the community, and different people, depending on where they live or what kind of relatives they have, have a very good reason to have concerns about that. I was a little bit concerned, I fortunately didn’t have– there were two of my brothers I wasn’t worried about, but the third one I had some trepidations, um, as I said my one sister-in -law is fairly conservative.  I wasn’t, you know, she wasn’t exactly, even to this day, um, when I gave my brother a copy of this book that Wiley has a piece in, my sister-in-law was looking at it as though it was a cockroach (laughter).  So a typical worry that a parent will have is how is the family going to react to this.  And that’s important.  People’s families are important.  Family is where you look for, I mean not everybody gets it from their family, but family is a place that you would hope you would get support and succor.  So it’s important to a parent how the family is going to react and whether the family is going to support one’s child and– and continue to be, you know, a warm and loving aunt or uncle or whatever, or cousin or whatever. And then what’s going to happen in school depending on the– I mean a lot of people have kids who identify as trans at a fairly early age and they’re still in high school or maybe even middle school.  And how is that school going to deal with it?  That’s a biggie.  Now I personally– I did not have to deal with that, but a lot of parents do, so there are parents in my group that have to deal with that.  There are parents in my group that have to deal with all kinds of things that I never had to deal with because, by the time my kid got top surgery, he was an adult, so I didn’t have to worry about studying up on hormones and, um, you know, finding the right doctors for my child to go to and that sort of thing.  My child took it upon himself to do that because he was old enough to do that.  So parents– I can’t speak from personal experience for a lot of the worries that parents have because I didn’t have to deal with many of the issues that they have to deal with, but it’s a worry, and I worried about hormones.  At first, Wiley said he wasn’t going to do them, but then he decided to do them.  So then I started worrying about hormones.  What effect does hormones going to have on his body, his health, etc. etc. Well his body– not his body in terms of the secondary sex characteristics, 'cause everybody knows what that– what’s going to happen there, but just are there any general detrimental, medical effects of taking testosterone.  I didn’t know, you know?  I’m no doctor.  So yeah, that was a worry.  I tried to find out. Luckily for me, the one meeting I went to in Princeton, to PFLAG, there happened to be, um, a trans woman who was a physician and who ironically had MS.  But she told me that there weren’t that many long term effects of taking testosterone.  But I don’t know whether that’s the gospel truth, but that’s what that particular physician told me.  So I was comforted by that, but, so that’s a worry.  Parents worry about the effect that hormones are going to have.  Parents worry about– anybody would worry about surgery no matter what surgery you have.  You know, there’s always risks with surgery.  Fortunately for top surgery, you don’t have to have, I mean, did he have general anesthesia?  I think he did, but it’s a one– it’s a– you don’t have to stay overnight in the hospital.  I mean, I don’t know how much you know about the medical aspects of this, but top surgery is, is not as serious a surgery as–

7:44

I didn’t realize it wouldn’t require hospitalization for a period of time–

It doesn’t.  It does not, I mean unless you’ve got some underlying medical condition or something, but for an average, young, healthy person, um, you can get top surgery at a clinic and, um, go home the same day.

Wow.

Which is what happened with Wiley.  So then I stayed.  But it is extremely painful and debilitating for a while. 

Sure.

Um, so, so parents worry about medical things, about acceptance by the family, by the community, what’s going to happen in school, um, you know, even living in a place like New Jersey, which is pretty progressive with LGBTQ rights, you still worry about the safety of your child.  Um, so those are all the things that parents just universally worry about, and then in terms of the emotional effect it has on you like I said, there’s the questions, “Oops!  Did I do something wrong?”  There’s the question, “Is this real?”  And, you know, human beings are not just made up of their sexual preference or their gender identification.  We all have multiple issues, so it’s very– sometimes very difficult to parse out where one issue ends and the next one starts.  So a lot of people in the group have kids who have had other issues as they were growing up.  Maybe learning disabilities, maybe depression, maybe, I don’t know, bipolar, maybe a lot of parents come worried about whether this is real, because their kids have had other rather significant emotional or mental issues in their lives.

10:07

Do you ever give advice to the other parents?

Yeah. The biggest piece of advice is that– that I say is that it takes time. (laughter). You know, um, that’s my biggest piece of advice.

I think we had also, before we took a break, on how you got to the group itself.  You said you went to the Princeton PFLAG group, and then how did you find out about the group, or what brought you to it?

I can’t remember.

Yeah. 

The group I go to is in Somerville.  I can’t remember how I found out about it. 

Okay.

Isn’t that weird?

It magically appeared one day?

I don’t remember.

And I was just curious, you had mentioned some of the differences between those two groups.  What is about this group that speaks more to you or what is it–

Well first of all, the group that was in Princeton, it was run, as I said, by a couple of parents, and they, number one, didn’t have, to me, didn’t have facilitator skills at all.  Um, I remember there was this one woman in the group that was just crying the entire– the entire session.  And the people running the group didn’t seem to know what to do about it.  And, you know, I felt bad for that woman, but I think that if I were the facilitator of a group, I would have wanted to try and exercise some technique to, on the one hand, comfort the woman, but, on the other hand, allow the group to progress to inclusion of everybody’s concerns.  So on the– one thing that I was uncomfortable with was that I didn’t feel like the people in charge of the group were able to handle it, and another really nice thing about this particular support group is that it is very– it’s supported very well.  It’s supported by the hospital in Somerville.  So there is interplay between the support group and the clinic, you know, the doctors.  There is a lot of cross-pollination between the people who run the group, the doctors who run the clinic, the, um, the administration, you know, it’s very supported.  And it’s educational, the people who run this and the people that they invite from time to time to talk to us are very knowledgeable, very knowledgeable, and, um, so it’s educational, it’s well supported, it’s run well, um, I don’t know whether the two trans women who facilitate the group have had training, but they act like they have had training in how to run a group.  Either that or they have just had so much experience that they do it well, but, um, and there is something to be said about the moderators being trans people.  Um, when I first started going there I was thinking, “There really needs to be one not-trans person on this. There really needs to be one plain-old-family member as a moderator, 'cause I was feeling that the– a lot of the talk was coming from one perspective, and that the moderators– there was one subject that I think the moderators were– had a hard time with.  And it relates to, it’s a little related to that photograph thing.  And that is that for many of us, when our children come out as trans, there’s something akin to a mourning period.  I had a daughter, I thought, and I had a daughter named Frances, and we had a lot of experiences together, we have history together, and now Frances doesn’t exist.  Sort of.  It’s a very mysterious and a very confusing thing emotionally.  I have– I still have the same– I have my child and there is much about my child that is the same.  Fantastic sense of humor, artistic abilities, beautiful blue eyes, there is much about my child that is the same.  But I don’t have a daughter anymore.  I thought I had a daughter.  But I don’t. I have a son. This is confusing emotionally.  Um, in a theoretical world, it shouldn’t be because my child is a sum of many characteristics and it shouldn’t matter whether we call my child a female or a male.  In a way, you know, in a perfect world, we would just think of a human being as a sum of all their personal characteristics.  But that’s not how the world is, so.  And we live in this world, and twenty-two years passed with me living with what I thought was my daughter.  So it’s confusing.  And there is a mourning.  A feeling of mourning.  There is a feeling that you’ve lost something even though maybe you haven’t.  You know, even though maybe you think you’ve lost something that you never had.  But the feeling is there and this is something that I didn’t think the moderators recognized.  But it’s real. 

17:36

Mm-hmm.  Sure. 

Whether it’s correct or not, whether it’s unnecessary or not, whether it’s the fault of the kind of world we live in or not, whatever the source, it’s real.  There’s a feeling of loss that parents, in particular, I don’t know about siblings, yeah, I think siblings too.  I think I’ve heard that too.  And it’s there and all the parents feel it.  Pretty much everybody that I’ve encountered in the support group has mentioned it in some words or another.  In one degree or another. And I think at first, when I first started going to the group, I think the two moderators, actually there were three moderators at the time.  One of them is a dynamo, she’s a nurse. She’s a trans woman, she’s a nurse, she got, um, oh, you know who she is!  Anyway, she’s one hell of a woman and she was a moderator when I was first there too.  And none of the three of them, I think, really could grasp that, and I was a little impatient with them for a while.  Um, I think they’re a little more understanding now.  They don’t, like, get defensive, like, they used to get a little bit defensive when things like that were mentioned, they’re not doing, I don’t notice them doing that anymore.  'Cause the fact is, whether it’s politically correct or not, it exists.  It’s a feeling that’s pretty universal and it exists.  And maybe it shouldn’t.  Maybe the stupid social world that we live in has created something that doesn’t need to be, but it is.  (laughter).

19:48

It’s still there. 

It’s there.  Um, so and I felt it.  And I know that other parents have felt it and I try to talk to myself about it.  And remind myself that I am ironically missing something that maybe never existed to begin with.  But, the outward trappings have existed for twenty-two years.  So even if you have  wart on your nose for twenty-two years and then you get rid of it when you’re twenty-two years old, sometimes you still have this funny feeling of missing it. (laughter).  When it’s not there.  Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah.  Where do you– are now in all of this?

What do I think I am–

Where do you think you are?

Where do I think I am?  In process.  Aren’t we always?

Yeah.

Yeah because sometimes I catch myself with new weird questions, like, for instance, did I mention that I’m taking Wiley to Chicago for his birthday? So, um, his birthday is the end of October, so I said, “Gosh you’re going to be 30 this year.  How ‘bout I take you somewhere?”  So guess where he picks?  Chicago.  This is not what I would have thought.  I would have thought Aruba, or something. (laughter).  Okay, but we’re not waiting until the end of October to go to Chicago, we’re going at the beginning of October, so on September 30th we’re flying to Chicago for a few days.  And I bought us those Chicago explore passes so we can go to the museum and the skywalk and the architectural boat tour and all that stuff.  Have you been to Chicago?

Mm-hmm.

Anyway, it’s a pretty cool place, but the climate kind of sucks.  So, um, I, um, I took him to Puerto Rico, not last Christmas, but the Christmas before, and, you know, I didn’t have much money when he was growing up, but every year I tried to take him on a vacation.  And, you know, we’d go to some cheap motel and share a room and do stuff.  Well when we went to Puerto Rico, I booked the flights for us, and I booked a room and then now, I booked flights for us and I booked a room, and then I realized a couple of weeks ago, I booked one room for us.  Now, that worked when we were mother and daughter, now we’re like old lady and son.  And like, what are the people in the hotel going to think? (laughter). And for some reason it never occurred to me when we went to Puerto Rico.  I didn’t even think about it.  But a few weeks ago it hit me. So these are weird things that happen.  I’m used to– for all those years I had a daughter, and it was like a lot of things we did, I didn’t think twice about it.  No big deal.  And now, because I have a son instead of a daughter, it makes some things different.  I don’t necessarily notice until it hits me.  So I don’t know what they’re going to think in the hotel.  I’m not about to book a second room, can’t afford it, you would not believe how much the hotel rooms cost in– well maybe you would.  So I don’t know, things crop up.  But some things never change.  So, like, it wasn’t until maybe a year and a half, two years ago that he started going into the men’s room. 'Cause I remember one time I visited in Vermont and he was still using– we went to the movies and he was still using the ladies room, so, you know, just like a million things that you don’t realize that you take for granted in society until a change like this happens.  And some of them are innocuous and some of them are not so innocuous.  Some people think that it’s a sin.

25:44

What do you think about that?

I think it’s ridiculous.  Plain and simple.  But the fact that they think it’s a sin makes them do stuff, so that’s the worry.  I may think it’s ridiculous, but it has– it can have some very damaging ramifications. 

Is there anything we haven’t touched on that you were expecting to talk about or any questions you would have expected me to ask, or?

Have you done other interviews with family members?

I have done other interviews with family members that have been kind of incidental, they haven’t been specific, like, “Let’s sit down as a family member of someone who identifies as transgender.”  Um, so we’re now– I’m now easing into that, kind of, more specific-style of interview.  So I have several planned this weekend as well. 

Because I was going to ask you if there was anything you wanted to know that we haven’t talked about. 

And what’s interesting about that is that where we are in that part of the process, I don’t know yet.  And I think that’s part of the learning curve.  Whenever you’re working with a group that is based on a specific subject area, it’s like suddenly you’re twenty interviews in and you go, “Oh gosh, that’s a whole other side of it, I wish that I had been asking that all along.”

Well you can always call me back–

And that is what happens.  And what’s also interesting is, because these kind of projects, this project specifically, I mean you talk about being in process, that is a through line of everyone’s journey.  Everyone is in process, specifically interviews with individuals who we do oral histories.  They may be in their twenties and they have just begun their transition, and then three years later, they’re like, “Let’s sit down and do a follow up because the last three years, unreal amounts of change have happened.” Um, so that’s always part of it.  And the reason why I like this format too is that it’s open ended until it is done.  It’s open ended until it is deemed complete by everyone. 

Well I think another thing about one of my reactions as a parent is that–

Knock on the door

I am so sorry, hold on.

[End of Recording Three]

[Beginning of Recording Four]

0:00

Um, one of the other things about– I’m retired now, and so because Wiley has been a member of the LGBTQ community for a very long time, even before coming out as trans, um, I’ve decided that I want– I’ve always known that I wanted to do volunteer work, now that I’m retired, well mostly retired, and I have more time.  Um, but it kind of guides you in the direction of trying to do something to help life get better for the LGBTQ community, so I think I am probably not alone as a parent who is trying to do that.  I took a training, a GLSEN training, a couple of weeks ago and so I plan to be a trainer that goes into schools and helps teachers and others learn how to make welcoming environments for LGBTQ students. So would I be doing that particular kind of volunteer work had it not been for Wiley?  I don’t know but I think another typical reaction of family members, if they’re in a position as I am, to have the time to do volunteer work, is they will probably many of them will try and do something to improve conditions, improve the situation. I mean some can’t because they’re working full time and they’ve got their hands full with just, to help their own child through the schools or through the medical community, but I know one of the other women who came to the group a lot and who says she’s not going to be, 'cause she’s too busy with other things, I know she’s done a tremendous amount of work in New Jersey in probably with regard to what happens in the schools.  And like writing guidelines for how LGBTQ kids should be treated in the education system, and so I think that’s another commonality I think with parents of trans people.  And we want to support each other.  I feel so bad when parents come to the group and, you know, they’re kind of new to the whole thing, and they cry and cry, there’s a lot of that with new people.  Or they’re angry, very angry.  So we want to– you want to help 'cause you, you may be, I mean sometimes I get angry at the parents who can’t accept and I have to say, “Whoa, cool it.” Just let them mourn or whatever they have to do, and just try and gently encourage them and remind them that, no matter what they’re going through, their kid is going through something harder.  Yeah, that’s something that I don’t know whether I mentioned it before, that’s something that always has to be on your mind, you know, no matter what we’re going through, whatever it is, our kids are going through something more difficult.  They’re the ones who are identifying in a way that is– has traditionally not been considered normal by society.  So they’re the ones that encounter hostility, they’re the ones that encounter disdain for who they are, they’re the ones who encounter the barriers.  We suffer because it’s our children we see being treated like this, but they’re suffering more.  They’re the objects of this behavior and sentiment.  Yeah that’s another piece of advice.  You asked me what advice– do I give advice?  Not very much, but one piece of advice is that time is helpful, that over time things fall into place and feel more normal.  That’s one piece of advice.  And another piece of advice is just trying to urge people to look at it from their child’s point of view, you know.  How– how– what kind of experience it is for their child.  And the thing is, the whole reason why we’re in a support group is, we have all these feelings, but it’s not for us to dump these feelings on our kids, 'cause our kids are dealing with their own stuff, you know?  We have a genuine need to express our feelings about what’s going on, but it’s not appropriate to vent it at our kids, so I encourage the people, the other people in the group to keep talking to each– us, to us, um, because we need support too, but we can’t be supported by our kids.  We have to be supported by each other.  And our friends, you know, our personal friends, whichever ones are progressive enough to be supportive. 

7:20

That’s pretty good advice, I mean just in terms of what the dynamic of the– or the purpose of the support group is, in essence, to be that space so they get support in the right venue as opposed to trying to seek support from someone else who needs to get it instead of give it.

Right.  And another thing that comes up, now that you said, you reminded me.  A lot of parents come and they’re impatient, like this one guy he says, “That’s great.  My daughter identifies as a guy.  That’s fine.  But–”  No actually it’s the reverse, “My son identifies as a girl.  But he still wears short hair and t-shirts and jeans.  Why doesn’t he start growing his hair, why doesn’t he start wearing more feminine clothing?”  So he’s impatient now that his son has said he identifies as a daughter, he wants his son to hurry up and, you know, turn into a daughter overnight. (laughter).  And doesn’t stop to think that it’s a long confusing process and journey for the child.  You know, or for the– in my case it wasn’t really a child, it was an adult, um, well my child, so, um, that’s another issue that comes up with parents.  Again, I didn’t have to go through that, it was sort of a fait accompli, because all this identification as trans for my child came when he was an adult, but many of the people in the group are dealing with children are not 18 yet, so the parents have all the responsibility for consent for medical treatment and all that stuff.  So they’re, like, really impatient.  They want their kids to get it over with, you know.  Identify as a girl?  Okay, start wearing skirts or whatever, I don’t know.  So that’s another issue that comes up with parents.  Not me, 'cause I guess I’m lucky that I was not having to deal with a whole bunch of things other people in the group were having to deal with.  But there’s that impatience with their children.  Like, even for the parents that say, “Alright.”  Even for the parents who aren’t crying, and crying because they don’t want their child to be a trans boy or girl or whatever, nonetheless, now they’re impatient.  They’re accepting the idea but now they’re impatient because they want the process to get it over with.  I guess they don’t want to go through this long, drawn out–

10:59

Rip the band aid off fast–

Yeah, rip the band aid off.  Right, I guess maybe they think they’re going to be avoiding pain or something getting it over with.  That’s not how things work, but that is a very common thing that happens in the support group. 

That’s great.  So just to be cognizant of time. I’ve kept you beyond what I originally asked you to prepare so–

Well I’m fine.  I’m retired.  You’re the busy guy. 

What I was thinking we could do at this point is perhaps stop the recording here, sort of at two and half hours right now, um, but I would love using this time to get the juices flowing a little bit, and if you have other ideas, or if there are other things, you might start thinking about it over the next week or so, and be like, “I wish I had talked about that,” or “This is a story I want to make sure that I tell,” that we could come back and kind of like recapture those.  And I think let me stop the recorder.

[End of Recording Four]

[Beginning of Recording Five]

0:00

Another thing I think that prepared me for Wiley being gay was that my– I learned shortly before his death that my father was bisexual, um, he had contracted AIDS, but he had kept it a secret from the family.  He was, you know, starting in, I can’t remember, I think it was either 1983, he had all these weird illness and he wasn’t letting anybody know what he knew, but he wasn’t letting anybody– even his doctor, his personal doctor, he didn’t tell, which seems to me to be outrageous, um, considering the fact that God only knows what kind of procedures his doctor may have been doing with my father and the danger– I don’t know, it just seems to be outrageous to me.  But in any event, I started suspecting because of the symptoms. I was aware of this new disease that was coming to the attention of the medical community, and I thought– I flat out asked my dad at one point, “Do you think you have AIDS?”  And he flatly denied it, so in other words he was lying to my face.

Had he been diagnosed?

Yeah.

Had he had an AIDS test and he knew?

Well, I don’t know the details of it, but I know that he knew, because after he died, the– not his regular doctor, but an infectious disease doctor in the hospital confirmed it to the family, but I had suspected it.  No actually, not after he died, shortly before he died.  Um, because, you know, when a patient tells you you’re not allowed– the doctor can’t tell the family if the patient has forbidden it.  But I think– I think there was a– a– a LGBTQ nurse in the hospital that worked with AIDS patients and persuaded my father to come clean. So shortly before he died the family knew.  But then of course the question was how the hell did he get it?  And so he, I think it was my older brother that he, um, disclosed to bath houses and he had contracted it somebody he had sex with in a bath house and, um, that made me very angry, and I remember in one of the sessions at Hyacinth, I said that– I asked the group as a whole, you know, since I was one of the few straight, cis people in the group, I said, “Why couldn’t he have just come out, and just then not have to have sex in a bath house on the sly?  Why couldn’t he just come out as bi or gay or whatever he was and live in the open and have a healthy relationship?”  And the other people in the group, the gay people in the group, looked at me and said, they were very nice to me, they were kind, they weren’t sarcastic or anything, they said, “Look, it’s a cost benefit analysis. Apparently his job and his family were really, really important to him, and he didn’t want to give them up, and he probably felt that if he came out, he would lose them all.”  Now he wouldn’t have lost me, I don’t know, I can’t speak for my brothers.  Maybe he would have lost his wife, but I guess he would have lost his wife, and I guess he was probably worried about what would happen to her, 'cause she– she hadn’t worked for decades and what would she do at age sixty- whatever she was?  Um, he was probably worried about what would happen to her, um, so that was another rather significant.

4:51

How do you think that affected you in terms of the– when it came to your time with your child?

Which one?  When I found out he was gay or when I found out–

I mean, yeah, that experience in general–

Well, I– I didn’t have a problem, I mean, I had lots of relationships with people who were gay, so it wasn’t– It wasn’t a problem for me to have a child who is gay, so that wasn’t really an issue.  The only problem would, for me, would be if they experienced problems because they were gay.  And, you know, would they be discriminated. When I found out Wiley was gay, will Wiley be discriminated against?  Is that going to get in the way of Wiley being happy?  Having a happy life?  Having a career?  A nice relationship?  A family if he wants?  That would be the only thing that would bother me.  Um, did it prepare me for the trans issue?  Not one way or another I think, except the only– I guess what I could say is that I’ve had so many personal issues crop up in my life that a lot of people don’t encounter, that maybe I wasn’t as shocked, or maybe it didn’t leave me flabbergasted and immobilized, like it didn’t knock me off my feet.

6:52

Yeah.

'Cause it wasn’t the first time in my life that I had the experience of learning somebody close to me was gay or bi or some– had some kind of identification or characteristic that was not considered average by society, and that some aspects, some sections of society were hostile to.  Does that answer your question?

Yeah.

And in terms of me personally, I don’t have–  even if I had had animus to people who are gay or who are bi or who are– how could I possibly, by the time I learned my father was– was bi and that my child was– how could I possibly maintain that position when the people that I love most dearly are in the LGBTQ community.  I don’t know, maybe some people do but I don’t see how.  I mean not maybe, yes some people totally reject their loved ones, although one wonders if that was really love to begin with, doesn’t one?  I don’t know, I just don’t see how you can do it, your child is your child.  I know a lot of people reject, throw out their kids.  I know it, but I don’t understand it, I don’t think it was a matter of finding out my dad was bi and that’s how he got AIDS, I don’t think that was, uh, I don’t think that changed my feelings about LGBTQ people, because I don’t remember feeling animus to begin with. But I think it– it just was kind of an event that demonstrated that this is not theoretical, this is not out somewhere else in the world, it’s in your life.  And it can be again, you know.  So, (laughter)

[End of Recording Five]

[Beginning of Recording Six]

0:00

So this is John Keller it is um, Friday November 23, 2018, at around 12:30 in the afternoon and I’m here with–

Patricia Willard. 

And we’re just doing kind of an addendum story for Patricia’s full oral history.  So what was the– what were you thinking of?

Well I know you just finished speaking with my son and, um, you may or may not have discussed how he was not one of those children that, at the age of 4, just announced that he is um, well a boy.  He’s not one of those kids at the age of 4 says, “Mommy, I’m a boy.”  Um, it was a later evolution, or at least, and he has told me that, um, when he was a young child he just didn’t have the mental vocabulary, so that his evolution and transition was later.  So in thinking about that, I started thinking about his childhood and I remembered that, by the time he was in high school, he was identifying as a gay young woman, in other words a lesbian, and it wasn’t until college until he was at least coming out to the rest of us as a trans man.  So for him, at least outside looking in, it seemed to be a gradual transition into gay woman to trans man.  So, anyway I was looking back at his very young childhood, which he may or may not recall.  I know I don’t recall much before I was at least 4 years old, and there was a period of time when he was very young when he insisted to everybody that he was a horse named Neon.  And he literally would go around on the floor on all fours.  A lot.  And I remember us visiting my mother’s relatives and, um, in Pennsylvania, and they’re not very urbane, and I had one particular uncle, you know, Wiley would insist to my uncle that he was a horse named Neon, and my uncle was just totally disoriented.  I mean he couldn’t– he didn’t know what to do, and he finally– but he finally relented and started calling Wiley “Neon”.  Um, and– and there were other phases of Wiley’s young, um, childhood in which he spent a lot of time, I think more than the average child, pretending he was a wolf or, you know, in other words imagining himself as other that what he was.  So I sometimes wonder whether that was some kind of early expression of feeling somehow different than what he was identified as by others. 

4:03

Do you think it was different specifically  because of your son’s eventual, kind of like, gender–

That’s what I’m wondering about.

I don’t have, uh, I don’t have children of my own, so I haven’t had that experience of sometimes kids fantasize a whole wide range of things–

Oh sure.

Do you think it happened more frequently in your son’s case?

I think he was pretty well known as having a– an outsized imagination.  I think among teachers and friends and stuff he was kind of known for his imagination, so I don’t know whether this has anything to do with his eventual transition, but, to me, when I look back, it was an early expression of, and maybe– maybe at that young age, imagining himself to be a horse or a wolf was the vocabulary, the mental vocabulary he had at the time to express feelings of feeling different.  So it’s just a thought, but I thought it was interesting enough to add to the–

So we did your original interview four or five months ago, I guess.

Was it already four months?

I was just curious if there was anything, any– any– any new pieces– you had mentioned before we started the recording the idea of Monday morning quarterbacking, but also having time to reflect.  Any things come up over the last couple of months?

No.

Any experiences or thoughts?

No.  I, um, I think we talked a lot last time and, um, this was just something that came to my mind, um, actually it came to my mind during a support group meeting a couple of months ago.  It was one of those a-ha! moments.  Oh wait a minute, you know, this was always a colorful story about Wiley, about him spending a good chunk of time on the floor, walking around on the floor telling everybody he was a horse, so–

I was curious–

I just wondered–

Yeah, I was going to actually email you, too, to ask you your thoughts of any of kind of the workshops that have been happening through Jackie’s group at Robert Wood Johnson, if–

I’ve only been to one.

7:10

Just the one on hormones, on hormones primarily?

Yes, it’s the only one I’ve been to because, at first, I didn’t even realize that non-trans people were invited, so, um, I was going to go to the last one, which was a service of remembrance, but I had a conflict so I couldn’t go. 

Any thoughts about that hormone workshop?

No, in my case, because Wiley transitioned later than a lot of people do, well not later than Nicole, I was– he was doing a lot of this transitioning up in Massachusetts.  He went to Smith, and I was back in New Jersey, so I wasn’t really– and– and he was already 18, so I wasn’t responsible for medical things that, um, like, well actually he didn’t do hormones until– the first thing that happened in terms of the medical side of thing was that, after he graduated from college, he asked me to help him financially getting top surgery.  And that was a bit of a shock for me.  And, I just didn’t, I didn’t have any preparation for that so I was, you know, kind of hemming and hawing and consulting family to see what opinions might supplement my thinking.  And then I asked him, “Could you please delay this for a year?”  But he had already made all these arrangements, so I decided to help him financially.  He wouldn’t have been able to do it.  But that was the only kind of assistance, since he was already a legal adult, I was not in the same position that a lot of parents are in, having to be a part of, um, studying up on procedures, studying up on hormones, studying up on other medical issues in order to guide my child, um, he was all about making his own research, making his own decisions, making, you know, and only asking me for help if he needed, if he couldn’t do something by himself, like the financial part.  But after that, he’s done everything on his own, 'cause he’d already graduated from college and he’s, you know, had various jobs, so he’s always had some income of his own, so anything else that he had to do such as hormones, which he did not do immediately, has been independent of me.  So, I was interested in going to the meeting about– where the doctor was discussing hormones and stuff, but it’s not because– it’s because I just want to be informed, not because I need to be informed in order to guide my son.

10:54

Yeah.  Do you think that the information presented there– I guess if you had had the opportunity to access that information during the whole process, would it have been helpful to participate in that workshop?

It would have been helpful for me to be able to have a conversation with my son, except that, um, Wiley has gotten to the point where he’s tired of talking about it, so he doesn’t really want to talk about it with me, so we might talk about certain issues, 'cause they come up for some reason, not necessarily with regard to him, but maybe something happens in the news or something happens in our community, and so it, um, it– it triggers a conversation, it precipitates a conversation, but, um, Wiley has told me that he’s tired of talking about it.  So, even though I try to keep myself informed, it may or may not lead to conversation with him. 

Any other thoughts?

No.

Ok, great.  I’ll stop the recording.

[End of Recording Six]