﻿Aidan Kay Narrator
Andrea Jenkins Interviewer 
    
The Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies University of Minnesota 
January 23, 2016 
  
The Transgender Oral History Project of the Upper Midwest will empower individuals to tell their story, while providing students, historians, and the public with a more rich foundation of primary source material about the transgender community.  The project is part of the Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota.  The archive provides a record of GLBT thought, knowledge and culture for current and future generations and is available to students, researchers and members of the public. 
The Transgender Oral History Project will collect up to 400 hours of oral histories involving 200 to 300 individuals over the next three years.  Major efforts will be the recruitment of individuals of all ages and experiences, and documenting the work of The Program in Human Sexuality.  This project will be led by Andrea Jenkins, poet, writer, and trans-activist.  Andrea brings years of experience working in government, non-profits and LGBT organizations.  If you are interested in being involved in this exciting project, please contact Andrea. 
Andrea Jenkins jenki120@umn.edu (612) 625-4379 
 
Andrea Jenkins -AJ 
Aidan Kay -AK 
 
 
AJ: Well, hello. 
AK: Hey, hey. 
AJ: My name is Andrea Jenkins, and I am the oral historian for the Transgender Oral History Project. I’m here today with Aidan Key. Today is January 23, 2016, and we’re at the Creating Change Conference in Chicago, Illinois. So Aidan, if you don’t mind, please introduce yourself, spell your name, state your current gender identity, your preferred pronouns, and your gender assigned at birth. 
AK: OK, well. Aidan Key. You said spell it? 
AJ: Yeah, just so the transcriptionist . . . 
AK: A-i-d-a-n, which people forget the second a, A-i-d-a-n. Last name is K-e-y. My gender identity . . . 
AJ: Gender identity today. 
AK: Today, is layered. 
AJ: Layered. 
AK: I always love to say it’s strategic, so it depends on where I am and how I describe it. 
AJ: Wow, that’s interesting. 
AK: Absolutely – and to what end, that that matters a lot. So, but for me to people who really want to know, I identify as trans male, I identify as butch, I identify as gender fluid or gender queer, and all of that works pretty good for me – and I was once a little girl. 
AJ: Works for me. What is your earliest memory, Aidan? The first thing you remember in life? It could be around gender, it doesn’t have to be . . . just, you know. 
AK: I remember being at my great-grandparents house in the fall with my grandfather raking leaves into big piles and jumping in them. 
AJ: Really? 
AK: That was in Kalamazoo, Michigan, so the trees there – they dropped some leaves. Absolutely. 
AJ: I’ve never been to Kalamazoo, but I grew up in the Midwest so I know there’s a lot of leaves. Yeah. So, you were born in Kalamazoo, Michigan? 
AK: Yes. 
AJ: That’s fascinating. Did you grow up and go to school there and do all of that stuff? 
AK: No, no. My mom was raised by my great-grandparents and it wasn’t working for her. The generational gap between them, the time – the mid- s, she really was a free-spirit independent and she wanted to get unleashed. Well, she happened to get knocked up which doesn’t help a lot, but ultimately she did try to have a brief marriage with my father and that didn’t work – he was abusive, drinking problem, and all of that. So she cut out of there pretty quick, probably within the first year of that relationship and then, I believe, it was probably a couple years later she threw two little toddlers, because I have an identical twin sister . . . 
AJ: Is that right? 
AK: That’s right. 
AJ: Wow, identical twins. Any more siblings, or just the two of you? 
AK: I have half siblings that I don’t know, with the exception of one half-sibling from my biological father who has recently friended me on Facebook. 
AJ: Your biological father? 
AK: My biological half-sister. 
AJ: Half-sister – wow. 
AK: My biological father passed away, but my mom threw us in the car and we drove across the country to California, to the L.A. area, where she tried to do both . . . be a young independent free-spirited woman in the s and raise two kids. It was a juggling . . . she got some of it right on each side and some of it wrong on each side of that equation. 
AJ: Hey, she’s a human being, right? 
AK: Yes, she is. 
AJ: That’s kind of what happens. So you actually grew up, then, in California? Or parts of California? 
AK: No. 
AJ: OK, all right. 
AK: There’s more. 
AJ: I’m just going to keep following this story and I’m going to hand on, it sounds like it’s a ride. 
AK: Oh, let’s see. We lived in El Segundo, I think a few other places, but that’s the place I remember up until I was about seven. She met a fellow, a boyfriend, and he said, “Come with me to Hawaii,” so we zipped over to Hawaii. That was an interesting experience, I wasn’t there very long. One thing that was pretty exciting is that you could go to school in shorts and barefoot, so that was not something that could happen at our other school. 
AJ: Certainly not in Kalamazoo. 
AK: No, no. The other thing was that all the kids were the children of the plantation farmers, so my sister and I were the only white kids in the school. That was really . . . 
AJ: What was that experience like? 
AK: It wasn’t bad and it wasn’t good, it was silent. So, coming from L.A., a very racially diverse neighborhood and school and all of that, this was my first experience at that age, that young age, of seeing something different. I might have one other thing to say that will back me up a moment. 
AJ: Go ahead. 
AK: But let me just finish about Hawaii and that we, it’s not the royal we – we my sister . . . that’s my first pronoun preference. 
AJ: We, OK. 
AK: That’s how I grew up – we. We’d go try to talk to another kid or go over by the swing set or engage some different way in the class, and the kids would just get up off the swings and walk away – just quietly. And so any place that we did, and that was a really . . . I don’t know what you’d call it, it was just a . . . 
AJ: Discomforting? 
AK: I understood it was about skin color, but I can’t tell you why I understood that except that we were the only white kids there. So while it wasn’t . . . like I said, it wasn’t awful, it was just kind of strange. We weren’t there very long so I suspect that over time, that would have changed. But, it definitely was a seed planted, like an observation – like the many information seedlets that we get over time informs the rest of my life. The other experience that was pretty pivotal for me was being at a friend of my mom’s house, or apartment, and we were playing with their kids in this girl’s room and we were probably . . . again probably or , and this was an African American family and the girl says, “Don’t stand close to the window.” “OK, why? Why?” “My cousin got shot at through that window.” 
AJ: Oh, wow. 
AK: So immediately I feel afraid because who wants to get shot. But what was also interesting to me was seeing how she just talked about it, it’s her bedroom – it’s where she sleeps, it’s where theoretically you’re supposed to have a great degree of safety, and she has to warn us to stay away from the window. 
AJ: Was this in Los Angeles or . . .? 
AK: Yes. 
AJ: OK, so it was in Los Angeles. Wow. In El Segundo. 
AK: Yes, exactly. Those two instances were my first experience of understanding some elements of racism. 
AJ: Racism . . . you also, I mean the experience you described in Hawaii gave you a sense of being the other and the sense of being in the minority. 
AK: Yeah. It was . . . I think one of the gifts that the universe, or God or whatever you want to call it, gave me, was my best friend in the womb with me. 
AJ: Yes. 
AK: And forward. That helped temper a lot of situations in life because I always had my best friend with me. So what those situations might have been like, just as a single kid – a solo kid, might have been different. But also, because there was no expressed animosity it was just more intriguing. What is this? What does this mean? What is this about? Yeah. And just at a surprisingly young age, I feel like I just understood some things that I would later give language to and broader context and all of that. But yeah, it was interesting. 
AJ: That’s quite an interesting upbringing so far and we’re still only at seven years old. Where did you go to high school? 
AK: Up in Alaska. 
AJ: Wow, so you went from one extreme to quite another one. 
AK: After a second grader in Hawaii was trying to sell me and my sister some pot, my mom said, “I can’t raise the kids here.” 
AJ: Wow. 
AK: He said, “Well, let’s go to Alaska, that’s another place that I like.” So we went up to Alaska. I will say that that was roughly around age seven then, because they were short jumps. And ultimately we had a lot of moves after that. When I think of home, where did I grow up, I think of Juneau, Alaska. 
AJ: Juneau, Alaska. 
AK: And I did ultimately graduate from high school there, in , and decided to . . . I was going to college and drove my little VW bug on to the ferry and had it all packed and tried to do my first year at college. 
AJ: Right. Before we start talking about your college experience, when was the first time you recognized your true gender identity? 
AK: I think the way I’ll answer that question is to just re-frame it a little bit and say, “When did I realize that other people did not see me in the way that I felt?” 
AJ: Got it – perfect. I love that. 
AK: And that’s . . . that’s those moments when different people – your parents, your teachers, or whoever says, “You need to do something different.” “No, you can’t wear that shirt to class because today is your school pictures day and even though that’s your favorite shirt, that’s a boy’s shirt.” Having a lunch box that, I’ll never forget it because it was the most terrible experience ever to have to carry this lunch box – it said “Beauty Queen” on it. Pink and gowns and . . . 
AJ: Sparkles and . . .? 
AK: Yeah. I don’t want a beauty queen . . . 
AJ: Did your sister have one just like it? 
AK: Yes, she did. 
AJ: Did she love hers? 
AK: I don’t remember. I’m sure she wasn’t distressed about it in the same way that I was. 
AJ: Right. 
AK: What’s wrong with Spiderman? I saw a Spiderman lunch box. Different things like that, but sometimes . . . what was interesting in my recognition of certain moments is that on one hand I had a mom who was a self-proclaimed feminist and empowerment and all of that. She just encouraged me in many, many ways that were not traditionally female ways. So it was always kind of a surprise when I would have to wear that outfit, but that outfit would be, “Oh, it’s because it’s a gift from your grandmother and we’re going to this special occasion or going to church or whatever.” So I had these kind of messages that said, “Well, if it was up to me as your parent, you could do whatever you want,” but there’s repercussions for choices made that will impact my mother more so. So that her choice . . . I could tell that she would insist, every once in a while, that I would wear a dress to church. But, not every time – but the important times. Mother’s Day, Easter – those special occasions where I recognized what was up . . . that she would get more shit than I would. 
AJ: Than you would. 
AK: Yeah. And she’s . . . the boyfriend came and went, she was a single parent and she’s a sexy woman – a young woman. And yeah, divorces happen, it’s not as stigmatized as it was then so she was suspect from day one. 
AJ: From the beginning – yes. 
AK: Also, while we lived in Alaska, that relationship came and went. We were living in this tiny little mobile home that’s rotting, it’s got two planks down the little narrow hallway because the floor is all rotted out, and it’s cold – there’s thick ice on the inside of the windows, not just the outside. So she’s a single parent with . . . how do you raise these two kids? Who scooped her up? Her gave her support and community? It was the fundamentalist Christians, so that was her entry and, of course, my entry into that Bible church environment and community. When I’m out in the world talking to reporters and stuff like that, they ask that question, “When did you know?” Well, OK – I’m not going to go into some of the things I’m talking about right now, but . . . 
AJ: I appreciate that, yeah. 
AK: I share one story with them pretty regularly because it was really pivotal. It was at age , there was a time between Sunday School and church where there’s roughly minutes and we kids would run around and play and whatever, and adults talk, and then you file in and sit down and listen to the sermon. This was one of those days I had to wear the dress and it’s . . . I will never forget it because it felt like you may as well have put me in that room naked – in the foyer of the church naked and put a spotlight on me. That’s how strange and exposing it felt to wear that. So I don’t do my usual – I’m not engaging with my friends, I’m not running around, I want the wall to open up and suck me in so I’m not visible. I’m trying to just hold really still, I don’t want anybody to talk to me, but also as I’m standing there . . . because the last thing I want to hear is, “Oh, you look so pretty in that dress.” 
AJ: Exactly. 
AK: I’m looking around though, and I see this couple with a couple of young kids and I realize that that’s what they expect me to do – I’m supposed to grow up, get married, have a family . . . that’s the future. It’s the first time I could contemplate that in a forward way and go, “That’s so wrong, that’s so wrong.” And I also, at the same time, said, “I want to get married and I want to have a family – but I want to be a husband and I want to be the dad.” 
AJ: You said that at nine years old? To yourself? 
AK: Yes. And, of course, it’s coupled with that despair because that’s impossible. That memory is really a powerful one that has served me well even to this day because when families who have trans kids that are nine years old, “Aren’t they too young to know?” Or they’ll say, “Well, some kids just say, ‘I wish I was born a boy so I could do all these other things, but they don’t really want to be a boy.’” Well, you know what? In that moment, that was all I could possibly imagine: I wish I was a boy. Instead of saying, “I am a boy.” These kids today, they say, “I am,” and that shocks me. 
AJ: I am, right. Yes. 
AK: The boldness, because for me – at nine, no way. Why don’t you sprinkle some fairy dust on me? It’s absolutely impossible. 
AJ: You knew who you were, but you also knew who you wanted to be. 
AK: Yes. I knew in my heart who I was and the packaging wasn’t there. 
AJ: Yes. 
AK: And when my body started changing in puberty, again despair and this strange sense of shame that actually has nothing to do with gender in a weird way that I’m not sure that I’ll be able to articulate. But, it wasn’t about, “I don’t like being a girl, I think boys are better. I want to be a boy.” It wasn’t about valuation, it wasn’t about internalized misogyny, whatever some of the things that people speculate, it was - my body is changing in ways that I know it’s not supposed to. And it’s that simple. 
AJ: It’s just that simple, yeah. 
AK: So what do you do with that? I say, “Oh well, I’m going to make the best of it.” Fast forwarding, one thing that my mother still was pretty good at was she was so very encouraging of anything non-traditionally female. 
AJ: OK. 
AK: She told both of us, “You can be anything you want to be, but do not be a nurse or a secretary.” She had a real handle on those two because she didn’t want us to get trapped, she wanted . . . 
AJ: In those traditional sort of . . . 
AK: . . . possibility, yeah. I should never have dropped that typing class though because computers came along. 
AJ: Yeah. You’re the one-finger . . . 
AK: Oh, I finally took a class. I’ve got more fingers involved these days – thank God. 
AJ: So when you introduced yourself, you talked about these sort of layered terms that you use to identify yourself. Do you want to say more about that? 
AK: I do, I absolutely do. Labels are interesting – we hate them and we love them, we want them and we don’t want them. 
AJ: Right. 
AK: My first label, besides girl, is twin. 
AJ: Right. 
AK: And twin ranked up high – the highest probably, because of how it impacted my experience. Moving forward in life, I finally . . . I started distinguishing myself from my sister and not intentionally but just because I’m me and she’s her. So when I’m thinking about . . . I’m hitting junior high school and I watched this cool dude walk by in the hallway, the way he’s walking, so I start walking a certain way – my sister, no – not at all. As a matter of fact, when we both hit puberty, I will absolutely never forget I’m standing there talking to her at school, in the hallway, and some boy walks by and says something to her and she turns to say whatever and her face just goes beat red and she cannot get a word out of her mouth. 
AJ: Right. 
AK: I just looked at her like, “What is wrong with you?” And I went home and I told my mom, “Something is wrong with Brenda.” 
AJ: Oh boy. 
AK: And I told her what happened and she just got this smile and said, “Nope, just wait, within six months you’ll be doing the same thing.” That was kind of her recipe for whatever and I’m like, “Hm-hmm, nope, not going to happen.” So ultimately that stupid blushing and articulateness did show up when I turned and had some type of Epiphanes moment that, “Oh, I’m actually attracted to girls, not boys.” That’s when I got stupid. I had a brief time in the lesbian community and really was just happy and celebrating and feeling like I found a fit for stuff. It wasn’t all there, it was just part there – it was like that’s part of the story but I didn’t have enough awareness to think about the rest of it. But then, I started noticing some of the dykes in my community and there was kind of this little posse of folks that I would see at a regular point in time and they had the black leather on and I was like, “Ohhh, what’s that?” Just like a moth to a flame. They were, most of them, older than me – or years older, and so I was just a little baby and they just scooped me up. I remember actually going to a conference and the discussion was about butch or whatever, and I remember standing outside that door just going, “Oh, I want to go in there, I can’t go in there.” And finally a friend said, “What are you doing? Are you coming in?” I said, “I don’t know if people consider me butch enough.” “Get in here.” Drug me in there, and that was that. That is still, to this day, one of my most dear labels because it was finally somebody that said, “I see who you are and I value who you are and this is not . . . masculinity is a beautiful thing and it doesn’t matter who is wearing it – you’re wearing it and you’re wearing it well.” That was fantastic. So that’s a label that when I started contemplating gender and the possibility of transitioning, I’ll never forget some younger dyke coming to me and saying, “So, what? You still identify as butch?” Like that was the most ludicrous thing possible. I remember in that moment just thinking, “Do I let this young person take this away from me?” No. And I just said, “Yeah, yeah, that’s mine.” 
AJ: That’s my identity. 
AK: And I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense. So, yeah. 
AJ: So you’ve been through twin and I’m sure you’re still twin. 
AK: Yes. 
AJ: We, lesbian, butch. 
AK: I never used the word lesbian. 
AJ: Never? 
AK: No, that time frame for us . . . we felt a little edgier to say dyke, so we always used dyke. 
AJ: Got it. 
AK: And yeah, then I came out into the leather scene and that was really an amazing wonderful experience. I learned so much about power, who has it when, shared, when you gift it, when you receive it – that kind of thing. I had a tight community. This was a subset in this broader lesbian community and I actually felt like I got some family back, a community family. Because of the loss of the Christian contingent, right. 
AJ: OK, wow. 
AK: You come out as a lesbian and there’s no room in fundamentalist Christianity for that. So, yeah. 
AJ: So your relationship with your mom, is it . . .? 
AK: It’s good – absolutely. 
AJ: All right, so you didn’t lose your mom. 
AK: No, nope. She said, “I suspected.” And I said, “Why didn’t you tell me?” She said, “Well, I was just kind of hoping I was wrong.” That was hard, now it’s not so bad. She’s not there now, she celebrates my life. 
AJ: And your twin, I happen to have had the honor and pleasure to meet your twin, so I know you guys are still very close. 
AK: Yeah. But, I tell you what, me sharing with her any of these . . . well, actually I didn’t talk to her much about the leather community. 
AJ: Right. 
AK: That’s my private business, but as far as coming out as a dyke and then coming out as trans, the first one I told her . . . I was in Seattle and she was up in Alaska and we talked on the phone and I told her on the phone. She was really blown out of the water because the person that she knows the most and is closest to and we know theoretically our most intimate details of our lives and thoughts and all that, here is this big huge thing that she didn’t know. But what she didn’t understand is that I didn’t know either. I just told her as soon as I could. So the gender piece I decided that I wasn’t going to wait until I had any solid foundation on it, I was just going to take her with me and tell her I was contemplating this and thinking about it, I didn’t know what I was going to do, if anything, or what it meant. Poor thing, she’s got no frame of reference for it. She says, “Does this mean that you are a man trapped in a women’s body?” And I said, “Not exactly.” And with hindsight, the kind thing might have been to say yes so that she would have . . . 
AJ: It would give her something to hold on to. 
AK: But I didn’t do that because I wasn’t ready to make it . . . it wasn’t simple. I liked the layeredness. But when I was talking to her about it, probably within the space of just a few seconds I saw fear, rage, confusion, hilarity, all these emotions just whoosh, whoosh, whoosh – through this crazy weird morphing thing that I just wish I could have filmed that. 
AJ: Wow. 
AK: That would be the world’s shortest, most powerful movie about emotional experience ever. 
AJ: Right. 
AK: Oh God, I’ll never forget it. 
AJ: So your sister rode that train with you from the beginning. 
AK: Yeah. 
AJ: The journey to . . . 
AK: You know, at this point, I had been in a relationship for a number of years – this is a number of years later, I’m in my early s by the time I’m really digging into gender, or looking at gender. While I had become aware of the possibility of transition, I sort of said, “Well, they’re kind of like us.” Meaning us in the dyke community – the butches. “They’re like us.” But I still didn’t bring it that close to home yet – it was probably another . . . I don’t know, maybe even decade before I did that. 
AJ: I want to go back to the leather community for a minute. What identity do you sort of hold in that space? 
AK: Well, the primary identity that I had was as a butch bottom and definitely more . . . I really loved the physicality of the leather community, so more of the role playing and stuff like that was not so much for me, but the physical aspect of it. I’m not going to elaborate a whole lot. 
AJ: No, that’s fine, but that’s where you were. 
AK: Yeah, and I really loved that. It tied in with the athletics that I had done in high school. I trained as a power lifter for a while, and that’s an intense mental and physical, obviously, sport that requires one’s mind to really align well to navigate it. So when you train really heavy, for heavy lifts, and compete, there’s times where you’ve got wraps around your knees when you’re about ready to do a squat. The weight is so heavy you have to wrap them so tightly that you don’t blow your knees out by squatting down once and coming back up. You can’t bend your leg at all – like you’re walking stiff legged, and then at some point you’re dropping down with your weight and you’re coming back up and it’s excruciating – just the wraps digging into your legs, but you’re doing it because you want to accomplish something, you want to achieve this, you want to say, “I can do this.” And so in a very similar way, my experience in the leather community was like that too. 
AJ: It replicates that. 
AK: Yeah. And I wanted to get in my body and that was a way that I could just really kind of experiment and push myself and, “How does this feel? How does that feel?” And think about physical pain – what is physical pain? It hurts a lot more if you’re scared of it. If you’re not afraid of it, it’s just a sensation that can be moved through with some good . . . I don’t know what? Concentration or contemplation or focus, all of that kind of stuff. 
AJ: You bring me to an interesting question and one that I don’t think I’ve asked to date. What percentage, would you say, the transgender experience, for you, is about body and physicality versus emotionality and sort of internal feelings? 
AK: That is an excellent question and I would say that . . . there is a much higher percentage that is about the physical. Like, what do I expect my body to feel like? What do I expect to see when I look in the mirror? And it’s so much less about man and woman, it’s about I want to see me. 
AJ: Right. 
AK: Yeah. Additionally, I don’t hear much about this from people within the trans community, although I think that’s changing more and more, which is when I would be around a group of people discussing gender, they would talk about, “Oh, I always felt myself to be a boy,” or, “I wanted to do this or I wanted to do that.” Just these different things – or, “Everybody made me wear a dress.” Oh God, so traumatizing. But . . . where was I going with that? 
AJ: The question was around physicality versus sort of emotional and . . . 
AK: There’s something I wanted to say – anyway, it will come back. Oh, I know – when I actually decided to move forward and take a step towards transition, let’s try some hormones, let’s see what do I feel about that, what do I think about that. And I started progressing and I thought, “Well this is good.” A relief, like this is how I’m supposed to feel, this is how my body should respond in this situation and that could be in the bed, sexually. 
AJ: Right, right. 
AK: I had a very difficult time – it’s one thing to please a partner but then to receive was outrageously difficult. I’m like, “OK, so you had seven orgasms, where’s my one – I just want one, OK.” 
AJ: Just one. 
AK: Stuff like that. 
AJ: But I don’t want you to touch this part and you can’t touch that part. 
AK: But I would try, I pushed myself – because I wanted to find out. Honestly, if she’s having so much fun, I want that fun too. 
AJ: Sure. 
AK: And why can’t I have that fun? There’s no reason that I could identify. I don’t have a history of sexual abuse – what, what, what is it? Having no name for it and just being frustrated with the fact that I don’t want to be there, I’d like to be proactive and move through that. And the leather community and other situations, I would work it and actually going to places of really physical discomfort. Like, “Yeah, no I don’t want you to touch me there but I actually do want you to because I want to see if I can move through some things.” So I did a lot of work there and ultimately that’s what led me to transition. 
AJ: Hmmm. 
AK: Because that’s what changed. So again, not about identity as a man or a woman in the world. I had a lot of empowerment as I grew up, with the cards I was dealt. I was out and proud and all of that. I had good friends, good community, wasn’t interested in losing any of that. I just wanted my body to be more like I expected. And what was also interesting is that my community, that butch femme community especially, they all got it. Maybe they didn’t talk about it, but they got it. 
AJ: They got it. 
AK: I’ll never forget going to a store, I was going to get a few shirts and I was trying some on. I would try it on in the dressing room and then step out. My girlfriend would look and say, “Yeah, I like that one,” or, “No, I don’t.” Every time I looked in the mirror, they were different . . . sort of stripes or things like that. Some of them the stripes or the way it was cut would show the curve of the breast and some made me look more . . . 
AJ: Sort of straight on . . . 
AK: Flat and straight, yeah. So I noticed, I paid attention. I knew I didn’t want this shirt because it emphasized my breasts more, so every time I’d step out and she was like, “No, not that one.” One that flattened or didn’t emphasize that, “Oh yeah, that one looks great.” Shirt after shirt after shirt, right on the mark. Did we talk to each other about that that’s the detail that we’re paying attention to? I never did talk to her about it. 
AJ: But she picked up on it. 
AK: I think there was a lot going on in the community. I remember one person saying, “Well why do you want to transition?” This is somebody else in the dyke community. “Why do you want to transition? I get it about the phantom penis and the this and the that . . .” - naming all these things that she had experienced with other butch partners and then she’s telling me she doesn’t get it. What don’t you get? You just named it all? 
AJ: Right, exactly. 
AK: It’s this weird thing. Anyway, what I feel like, and I think my age plays into this pretty significantly, is that I’m hitting this older dyke community that has a different sense of man and woman, of masculinity and femininity, of sexuality and all of that, and I’m just the kid soaking it up. I’m like, “OK, yeah.” I tell them, if they are open to listening, that you led me there – you led me straight to this door and then you said, “Don’t go through it.” 
AJ: Right. 
AK: And for me it’s just this little . . . one more step, for them it was, “You crossed the line from us to them, from good to bad, from amazing women to bad men.” 
AJ: Did you lose lesbian community? 
AK: That’s a really good question. I was part of many conversations where this issue was discussed, “We’re creating women-only space, so what does that look like?” Dyke space, leather dyke space. Creating a conference – what’s that about? Who gets to go? And I watched this line being made over and over that did this and snaked over here to grab this person and then got that person but not them. “Oh yeah, not the drag queens,” which was their term for trans women. 
AJ: Right. And to be fair, trans women referred to themselves as drag queens at some point in time. 
AK: Right, but a number of . . . yeah, yeah. 
AJ: Not today, but . . . 
AK: I felt in this particular case it was being disrespectful and just . . . they’re not women, they’re not women. It was hard for me as a younger person to be in on those conversations because I would think, you know what? If someone goes to such huge lengths to become who they are and risk ostracism from everyone, who am I to say they’re not a woman? Who am I to say that? So I want, myself and a few other people would say, “Well why don’t we just let people self- define?” And always in the minority and the majority were trying to find these fancy ways, again chromosomes and body parts and this and that, and I watched the hypocrisy because some of the people in the leadership were trans men or a part of our community and women come in all shapes and sizes and you’ll see some women that don’t really look like you’d expect a woman to look because they want their friends and fuck buddies, or whatever, to go. And then, “Oops, they break up,” and now it’s like, “No, no trans men, they want their cake and eat it too, they have to make up their mind, privilege, blah, blah, blah.” And just this personal break-up that didn’t go well turns into a political statement. That’s bullshit, don’t go there. 
AJ: Wow, you are giving me everything right now, Aidan. 
AK: I got lots. 
AJ: Yes, you do. You touched a little bit on sort of hormones. To the extent that you feel comfortable can you talk about any medical transition-related stuff? 
AK: Absolutely. Testosterone didn’t scare me, it seemed I was ready for it and I wanted to. The part that scared me was what does it mean to transition and what will my life look like. But when I started with testosterone, it just felt like the missing piece. My body changes, my emotional responses to situations were more like I felt like I wanted them to be. And not that my emotions themselves were any different, but my physiological response to them was different. And I really was grateful for that and ultimately it led to a recognition that cis men are such bull shitters about their physical supremacy because, I’m sorry, there’s just an advantage. Testosterone builds muscle, it makes you stronger, you can have more energy. Estrogen is laden with gravity. 
AJ: Yes. 
AK: It makes your body heavier and it pushes your emotions all the way to the surface, every single one. So, yeah – anyway. But also, as somebody who’d had this really wonderful . . . I had an encouraging upbringing, be who you want to be kind of thing. And then I had this mentoring from these bulldaggers and femme dykes that really just showed me love for quite a number of years. But that needle in the butt is the crossing the line, it was very difficult for them and I understood all the debates because I’d been part of them – and the discussion about butch flight was present, and here’s where my age comes into it. I’m naïve. I think, “Well if they’re just worried about that, I’m not going anywhere.” Oh my God, how naïve I was. So I thought, “If that’s one of the complaints, I’m just going to stay.” And so I did, and what I did day-by-day was continue to show up. I showed up at the dyke bar, I showed up at the women’s play parties, I showed up at our social events. I just continued to say, “I’m here, I’m here.” It was uncomfortable. I would grab a friend and I’d say, “Please, will you go with me to the Wild Rose?” the Seattle lesbian bar, “Will you go with me, I just need to be there?” They need to see me because if I don’t go for six months or a year or whatever, and my physical changes . . . I could be standing right in front of me and they’ll say, “You’re gone,” because of the bigger effects. So I viewed it as going to work, “I’m going to work.” And I’d sit at the bar . . . whatever, I’d sit there chit-chatting with my friend and then the drinks flow and as soon as everybody has enough booze in them, they’re coming over asking questions. So, that was my first activist act as a trans person. 
AJ: Wow, just showing up in women’s space. 
AK: Not leaving. 
AJ: And not leaving, yeah. Any other surgical things or . . .? 
AK: I didn’t really get to your question actually. I had chest reconstructive surgery, I wanted that really bad and I also was terrified because that was a . . . you know, they’re gone, they’re gone. I didn’t have the crystal ball. 
AJ: But you can stop testosterone. 
AK: Right. And that’s the only way I could start was by telling myself, “You can stop any time you want.” 
AJ: Right. 
AK: So you don’t have to look at this in a big picture and if it’s too much for you, you can take your dose way down. You can stop, you can start again – whatever. But surgery, not that there wouldn’t be things I could do if I decided I wanted them back, but I couldn’t imagine that. So, yeah, I went and had chest surgery. And as far as any kind of lower surgery, I’ve not been interested in that. I’ve been curious about it, but ultimately the thing that I talked about . . . the challenge that I had sexually in bed, especially orgasming, was gone and I did not want to fuck with that. It’s like, “It’s working, it’s working.” 
AJ: As soon as the T started flowing. 
AK: That’s right. And I wanted that because, you know, the partners that I’ve had have been very amazing and generous with their bodies and we did some beautiful things together, so they gave me a gift that I just couldn’t give back. That mattered to me. Not only do I want to have some good feelings, but what a beautiful experience and I can’t show up to it – and not because I’m not trying. 
AJ: The body just was not functioning the way you needed it to. Can I just give you a fist bump of love on camera? Pow. 
AK: Absolutely. 
AJ: Yeah, no – that’s incredible. One of the reasons why I’m so thrilled that you are here for this interview and willing to sit and share, is I believe you’re the founder of this amazing conference that happens in Seattle called, “Gender Odyssey.” 
AK: That’s right, Gender Odyssey. 
AJ: When did you start that? 
AK: Well, there’s a hint in the name. The conference started in , so we called it . . . it started actually as a trans male conference. We called it FTM : A Gender Odyssey, after : A Space Odyssey. It was this playful sort of insert name until we find the real name, and it just never went away. We did drop the FTM, the desire was that there were a few conferences that were more heavily attended by trans women, trans feminine people. 
AJ: Southern Comfort, Fantasia . . . 
AK: Yup, yup, yup. That was what I had heard is that people who had gone said, “You know, but there’s just no programming, we need more programming, or whatever.” And so I thought well why not establish that foundation and so that was the first year, . It drew about people, which was fantastic. 
AJ: That’s significant, yeah. 
AK: Ultimately the stuff that I learned early through my transition, and with my dyke community, was that if I could sit down with them and have a conversation and we’d just lay it out, they say what makes them angry, what they’re afraid of, ask questions, whatever – just put it all on the table. We laugh, we cry, we get angry. Three hours later, we were back together in our connection, in our close way. The difference that they had felt was happening, this huge chasm, was now actually not that big of a deal and they understood more . . . they’re like, “Oh, it is a smaller choice rather than a bigger choice.” And I decided also that it was impossible to have the number of conversations I needed because they’re exhausting – three hours of emotional turmoil for everybody and getting to the other side. I wanted to see what could be done if we bring more people together. I started a workshop, I went to that same bar, and I made up little flyers that said all the things that . . . oh, you’re just jumping on the bandwagon, or this is trendy, or you just want male privilege. I put all the most audacious statements that are out there on the flyer, “Come have a conversation.” One of the scariest things I’ve ever done, just taking those flyers and handing them to people. They would take it and they would look at me, look me up and down, and have interesting looks on their faces. But ultimately people showed up. I did another one, people showed up. There was so much to talk about that our couple hour session just got nowhere near it, so I created a six-part series and broke it down – let’s talk about our gender in relation to our age, our class, our race, just a number of different things like that – or our ability. It was over a three-month period, every other week, and each one got bigger and bigger and bigger until we had . . . I don’t know, maybe people in the room, in Seattle. I didn’t even know there would be that many people remotely interested. 
AJ: Interested – sure. 
AK: And then Gender Odyssey pulling people together. I’m only two years into my transition at this point – so two years, I’m still figuring up from down, I’ve got a little scruff on my face. I’m kind of looking like instead of , I’m looking like I’m and all the fun that goes with that – probably younger than that actually. But, I needed to hear from more people and that’s why I started it. Now what I would recommend to you or anybody ever who says, “I want to put something together because I want to have these important conversations,” it doesn’t work. 
AJ: Run, should I run? 
AK: No. If you’re putting the conference together you’re not in those rooms having those conversations. 
AJ: Got it. 
AK: Because you’re busy mopping the floor or troubleshooting different things. 
AJ: You’re not having the conversation. 
AK: I get to sneak off every once in a while and dive into a workshop, which I just love, love, love – and also one of the reasons why it’s awesome to come to Creating Change. 
AJ: Tell me about your Creating Change experience. How has that been this weekend? 
AK: I have been coming to this conference . . . I’ve been probably four or five times. This weekend has been short, but it’s the first time . . . my visit has been short, I’ll only be able to take in about two-and-a-half days, but it’s the first time I had a workshop approved, which is awesome. 
AJ: What’s your workshop? 
AK: I did one called, “Navigating the Human Barrier: Doing Education on Trans Inclusion in K- Schools.” And more specifically elementary schools and for very, very specific reasons. So I got to talk to a packed room of people who want to know how to navigate questions, how to advocate for kids, how to handle all that stuff that comes. “What about the bathroom?” That should not be a statement, it’s always put forth as a statement – nobody wants to stop and say, “OK, let’s talk about the bathroom.” So I wanted to share with people lessons learned over the past decade of how I get in the door. I’m an out trans person – how is it possible that I’m going to elementary schools? How is that possible? My mind says there is no way that will ever happen and yet that’s all I’m doing. 
AJ: Wow. 
AK: Pretty intense. And, I’m talking to those people that I already discarded because they already discarded me – meaning cis gender, heterosexual populations. I never thought that I would be where I am, talking to them about how they can receive these children. And what it’s done for me in this really amazing way that I’m so so happy and amazed, is that I could come in and make the world a different place for those kids so that they actually have some room to find their gender without the panic that goes with it and my little -year-old gets to see the possibility, the amazing beauty – and my little -year-old feels pretty damn fucking happy right now because I didn’t know how much I turned off at that time, how much I pushed down and just said, “It’s not possible.” And now I get to have my little -year-old show up and I didn’t know. I’m really passionate and excited about sharing what I’m learning with my queer community, my adult queer community, because as much as I didn’t see it before I see that many of my peers, my mentors and all of that, they don’t see what I see about what this means for the queer community. My parents of these little kids, these little trans babies, are not . . . they are not cis allies, that’s not working for me. They are trans, they are my trans community, they are the ones holding me and moving a queer movement forward without even knowing it in ways that are not just going to help that trans kid, but it’s going to help that little boy that’s going to grow up to be gay, the young gal that’s going to be lesbian, bisexual, pansexual. All these things, there’s a . . . the iceberg is not visible and I want to show everybody what I’m seeing. 
AJ: Yeah. One of the highlights of , for me, and was kind of a big deal year for me. I was the grand marshal of the Pride Parade in Minneapolis, but one of the biggest highlights was I had the honor of being the keynote speaker, one of the keynote speakers, for the th Gender Odyssey. 
AK: That’s right. 
AJ: And it amazed me how many young trans people, and their families – as you noted, they’re moving the trans community, the queer community forward in ways that allies never could. And so, that was one of the biggest highlights for me, so my question for you is what is the new, I guess, edge that you see in this transgender movement. Can you put a name on it? Can you put some vision to it? 
AK: What I see is a complete and utter reframing of what we think of as LGBT community, and additional letters – however many you want to put after that. 
AJ: QIA. 
AK: AAPD, there’s lots of letters, right? 
AJ: Sure. 
AK: There’s a million Qs and all of that. In that . . . every one of my generation talks about the ability to express femininity or masculinity but that’s in the binary, right? Masculinity in men, masculinity in women – the range that you can do as a woman is quite broad, less so for men, but ultimately we all just believe that there was some magic dividing line and end of story. So these younger generations are not trapped by that framework and it is so difficult for people who are walking side by side in these hallways and creating change, to recognize the huge chasm between their understanding. And that’s the metamorphosis that we’re going through right now and what it’s also going to do, these younger generations are saying, “My gender is expansive, the way I want to express it is expansive, my orientation is more than just sex – it’s my romantic attractions, it’s who do I want to be romantic with, who do I want to have sex with, and who do I want for a long-term partner?” They can all be different. 
AJ: Yeah. 
AK: And people of different genders and/or expressions. So the expansiveness is so significant and then many of us are trapped by our generational trappings in that, that we can’t see how revolutionary it is and what I believe it will do is absolutely erode away at the boundaries between LGBTIQQAPD, etc., alphabet and them, the het’s, the cis folk, because heterosexual people and cis people are just as hungry for that freedom. 
AJ: Absolutely. 
AK: And those younger generations also are having exposure to expanded concepts and there will be a couple walking down the street that you or I might look at and go, “Oh, look at the young heterosexual couple.” And they’re not, they’re using . . . I know these people, they’re out there, they exist right now. They’re using they and them pronouns, they are talking about their differing identities in relation to gender and that they don’t have just one. But it kind of depends on the context. And so, I’m quite excited about what that might mean and I see that . . . I guess what it means for me is that I don’t want to sit and vilify in our political conversations, our conversations around faith, whatever it is I don’t want to vilify the heterosexual people, the cis people, as being the bad guys because they’re not. We’ve got that . . . if we can’t figure out how to say we with them, then we’re not going to be able to do we within this conference. 
AJ: Wow. Aidan, I am just so blown away by your generosity, by your insights, which come from experience, and your willingness to share that with me – and us, today. So, I know I’ve got to get you on a flight. 
AK: Ah, yes. 
AJ: So you can head back to the west coast. Thank you so much for sharing – until we meet again, my friend. 
AK: Absolutely. Thank you. 
AJ: Any last . . . maybe I should do this, any last thing you want to say that I may have missed? 
AK: There’s so much to say. I can’t do that, but I guess I would love to just share . . . yesterday was my birthday. 
AJ: Happy birthday. 
AK: And I’m also at Creating Change and I got to be around so many people that I love. I did this, I did that, I did my workshop, I got to hang with these folks, I got to hang out with some buddies that I never get to hang out with – all in one group. 
AJ: I heard you were hanging out with the magnificent Kylar Broadus. 
AK: Right, and Willie Wilkinson and Theo Cotton and just so rich and what an amazing conversation we had. One of them forewent an opportunity to go have some fun, other types of fun, just to stay because our conversation was so good. But then I came back and I stopped in the lobby on my floor before going into my room, I didn’t want to wake up my hotel mate, and I was looking at something and a person was sitting there, this had to have been almost am, a conference goer – young African American, shy. I could tell he was a very shy person, but he said hello. And so I said hello and the conversation that we had was so amazing and we got to go to this really great, hugely powerful place, and intimate at the same time. And he told me this experience he’d had in a workshop where he said . . . I said, “Well, how did that workshop go?” And he said, “Well, actually I didn’t engage in it very much because I recognized that my presence, or my participation, in it could be triggering for other people.” And we moved the conversation on from there and then at the end, after we’d had this amazing conversation, I just said, “You know what? Don’t ever do that again – you get in that circle and you let your light shine. If your existence, if you check out because it triggers somebody else, that’s not your responsibility – they need to manage that for themselves, you need to show up and let your beauty come out.” And that is the highlight of my conference. 
AJ: On that note, no more questions – we’re gone, peace. 
AK: Thank you. 