 
 
 
 
Kate Bornstein Narrator   Andrea Jenkins Interviewer 
    
The Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies University of Minnesota 
August 20, 2015 
 
 
 

   
 
  
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 1 
Kate Bornstein  -KB 2 
 3 
 4 
AJ: My name is Andrea Jenkins and I am the oral historian for the Transgender Oral History Project 5 at the University of Minnesota.  Today is August 20, 2015, and I have the great pleasure of 6 interviewing performance artist, academic, author, all-around amazing human being and 7 transgender outlaw, Kate Bornstein.  Kate can you just say your name, your preferred gender 8 pronouns, your current recognition of your gender identity, and what gender you were assigned 9 at birth? 10 
KB: Okeydokey.  Hi, Im Kate Bornstein.  Its a pleasure to be interviewed by Miss Andrea Jenkins, 11 the amazing oral historian and poet  Poet Laurette of United States trans.   12 
AJ: Thank you. 13 
KB: Lets see, I was assigned male at birth.  Preferred pronouns . . . I like they, but I accept she and 14 her with a smile.   15 
AJ: Great. 16 
KB: Thats sweet.  Im trying to figure out the best way to say my gender identity because at this 17 time and at this date, the language of transgender is shifting big time and I imagine it will 18 continue to shift the more closely we look at it, but right now I would call myself non-binary 19 transsexual . . . non-binary, femme-identified transsexual, or transgender . . . see, I dont know.  20 Non-binary says it but then, you know, theres my sexual identity, sexualized identity and I 21 would call that diesel-femme. 22 
AJ: Diesel-femme, OK. 23 
KB: Diesel-femme. Then theres the identity I live every day now and I would call that, little old 24 lady.  Really. 25 
AJ: Little old lady. 26 
KB: Little old lady  I am a little old lady. 27 
AJ: How did it feel coming to acceptance of that identity? 28 
KB: For me it was quite easy.  I was . . . I had just come through two years of fighting cancer, lung 29 cancer and leukemia.  I wouldnt have been able to afford it unless a whole bunch of friends and 30 supporters . . . they put a lot of money together for me and I was able to afford it, but as I 31 became alive I went from the identity of dying tranny, tranny is another part of my identity, to 32 alive and it was like, Oh my God.  And so, little old lady feels great  better than dead old 33 tranny.   34 
AJ: I love that.  I really want to make sure we get back to this word tranny and the use of the word 35 tranny.   36 
KB: Oh, Im sure we will. 1 
AJ: But I just want to say that Im so thrilled that you are feeling better health-wise and happy to say 2 that the cancer is . . .  3 
KB: Its in remission.  Its been a year and a half now.  I had two cancers.  I had lung cancer and 4 leukemia.  They worked on my lung cancer and by mistake they cured the leukemia as well. 5 
AJ: That is really good news. 6 
KB: Im happy as can be. 7 
AJ: Im so happy to hear that and happy to be able to call you a little old lady. 8 
KB: Thank you. 9 
AJ: Diesel-femme.  What is that? 10 
KB: Well femme  all right, femme, being a girly-girl.  Ive always liked that.  Im an old-school 11 transsexual, male to female transsexual.  That was my identity for a long, long time.  I went 12 through hormones, I went through surgery because thats what you did at my age in those days 13  there was very little option not to, and still be able to call yourself a woman which I was 14 interested in doing, I invested in doing.  But I never really got into pink or flowered skirts, 15 actually thats a lie  Ive got a couple, theyre really sweet.  But Im more like Starbuck in 16 Battlestar Galactica, the new Battlestar Galactica. Shes femme but watch out  watch the fuck 17 out.  18 
AJ: A tough femme. 19 
KB: Yeah, a tough femme. 20 
AJ: I think some people, in maybe cis gender terms, rocker chick. 21 
KB: Rocker chick works  rocker chick totally works, yes.  Girl with three arms works. 22 
AJ: Girl with three arms.   23 
KB: Riot girl works. 24 
AJ: Riot girl  yeah.  Lots of new language.  So language, the language in the trans community has 25 really gone through some very, what I would say contentious controversial gyrations.  One of 26 the most contentious words in the lexicon is the word tranny and the use of the word tranny.  27 Can you talk a little bit about your feelings on the word?  And maybe you might even through in 28 some other words that have seemingly changed over time.   29 
KB: Tranny.  Many people dont know the history of the word, they assume it was an assigned hate 30 term or slur along the lines of the n word.  Thats not how it happened.  Tranny was invented 31 by us in Sydney, Australia in the 1970s where drag was a big deal, and still the best drag shows 32 ever are in Sydney, Australia  theyre amazing.  So a lot of trans-identified women who were 33 assigned male at birth did drag, thats how you made your living.  And so they were 34 transsexuals, transvestites, drag queens, and they were all doing drag to make money.  They all 35 bickered amongst each other who is better than who, Well the drag queens are better, No, 36 
the transsexuals are better. You are all freaks, were better.  And on and on and on.  But they 1 worked together and they were family together, so they came up with a word that would say 2 family and that was tranny.  In Australia they do the diminutive, thats how they come up with 3 words.  So tranny.  I learned the word in the mid-1980s, late 1980s from my drag mom in San 4 Francisco, Doris Fish, who was the citys preeminent drag queen and shed come from Sydney.  5 And she schooled me in this word tranny, she said, This way it means were family, darling.  6 Thank you mama.   7 
AJ: Dawling. 8 
KB: Dawling.  So we used it and we were trannies together.  And F to M was just beginning to start, 9 the trans men were just beginning to become visible, Lou Sullivan was a neighbor of mine 10 around the corner, and he was the first big out trans man, wrote his book.  So trans men and 11 cross dressers . . . cross dressers were also family.  Transsexuals, we were all trannies and that 12 felt good.  That got into the sex industry and became a genre  there was tranny porn, there 13 were tranny sex workers  chicks with dicks, she-males.   14 
AJ: Lady boys. 15 
KB: Lady boys was more from Thailand  that was later in my knowledge.  And, my only guess is that 16 people who . . . because the only way they would have found out about the word is if they were 17 watching tranny porn or having been with a tranny sex worker and then hated themselves so 18 much that they turned it into a curse word.  So its not really technically correct to say were 19 reclaiming a word  it was always ours.  So, many people mistake the word for the hatred 20 behind the word and, in my generation, and Im sure in future generations of trans people, 21 tranny is going to be a radicalized, sexualized identity of trans in the same way that faggot is a 22 prideful identity in the gay male community  not all gay men are faggots, but those who are are 23 proudly fags and those who are dykes are proudly dykes within the lesbian community, trannies 24 are proudly tranny within the transgender community.  Does that mean we cant call ourselves 25 that because some trans woman does not want to be called a tranny?  No.  Im going to keep 26 calling myself a tranny.  To the trans woman who gets called tranny, Im sorry  as soon as . . . 27 youve got to look at why youre getting called tranny and if you dont pass, youre going to be 28 read as a transgender person and then you fall back on the cultural view of trans folk which is 29 freak, disgusting, not worth living, we can hurt you.  It has nothing to do with the word, it has 30 everything to do with the cultural attitude.  So the word has stirred up a shit storm, but its not 31 the word. 32 
AJ: Yeah, its the societal baggage that comes with the word. 33 
KB: Bingo.   34 
AJ: Freaks.  You were recently featured on episodes of I am Cait, the reality show about Caitlyn 35 Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner, the word famous Olympian and athlete and motivational speaker 36 and member of the Kardashian family.  On the show you sort of . . . I think gently and sweetly 37 admonished Cait, that, you know, after you welcomed her to the club said, Now get ready for 38 the freak factor and how are you dealing with the freak factor?   39 
KB: I was genuinely curious to see how a celebrity of that magnitude was going to deal with the fact 1 that so many people in the word consider trans people to be freaks.  I was genuinely curious 2 how do you handle it with so many people probably saying that to you and if you look at her 3 Instagram or Twitter feed or YouTube, I dont read the comments on those anymore  theyre 4 just so hateful and full of the word freak.  She asked me how to deal with it best and I dont 5 know, thats up for every one of us.  Some people who its possible to go stealth, go stealth  6 and thats great.  I am not down on that at all.  Most male to female trans folk have a hard time 7 going stealth if they transitioned too far after puberty, lets say  when our voice is deep and our 8 Adams apple goes or we dont have enough money to pass well, whatever.  We have to deal 9 with being seen as trans and that equaling freak.  And so we all have to deal with it differently.  10 Me, I embrace it.  I go, Fuck it, yes, I am a freak  hello.  Not that Im a scary freak, Im not  11 Im cute.  Im too cute to be scary.  And that, embodying that kind of paradox, to me, is 12 delightful.  I like the paradox of not man, not woman  thats how I call myself.  And the paradox 13 of lovable freak  oh, thats great too.  Im fine.  Smart blonde  theres another paradox that I 14 like to embody.  I said that to Caitlyn, I said, I embody it, thats how I do it and you have to if 15 youre going to do that  then please with love not with self-hatred.  Oh dear, Im a freak.  16 No, youre not.  Nobody is inherently a freak, there is no identity  circus geek I suppose would 17 be technically.   18 
AJ: Technically, but Im not sure if they necessarily . . . theres all sorts of expressions of being 19 human in our world and our society and our culture.  This identity is one of them, absolutely.  20 You know, Caitlyn Jenner represents this really new level of visibility that I, as a person who has 21 been out for the past 23-plus years, and I suspect you have been out longer than that. 22 
KB: Thirty years now. 23 
AJ: Yeah.  I have never seen this level of visibility from trans people starring on television shows, like 24 LaVerne Cox writing New York Times best seller books, like Janet Mock, the President of the 25 United States acknowledging the rights of transgender people and by creating a bathroom in the 26 White House that is welcoming to trans and gender non-conforming folks.  These are big 27 symbols and symbolism is not everything but what are your ideas around this increased visibility 28 and what it means for the community?  29 
KB: The genie is out of the bottle, you cant get it back in now.  Trans is here to stay, its not going to 30 go away now.  Thats what this particular level of visibility is doing and so many people . . . stars, 31 celebrities are modeling the celebration of trans, which I think is going to do amazing work 32 generations from now.  I dont think its going to happen overnight, its not going to happen 33 within years.  The degree to which this American brand of fundamentalist Christianity is 34 transphobic, misogynist and homophobic  to that degree, whats going on is not going to touch 35 them and thats going to be an ongoing battle.  But when youve got stuff like Keanu Reaves, 36 movie star, dating Jamie Clayton and being out and very happy about it, thats a big deal, thats 37 a great big deal because heres a big old star saying, Yeah, Im really hooked on this trans girl, I 38 love her.  And you go, Good, finally some guy is coming out and saying, You know, part of my 39 sexual orientation includes her.  And you go, Yay, oh good, good, good.  So to me, thats now 40 made room for, and it never has been here before, the gender-queer, non-binary side of trans 41 that Ive been writing about for a long time now  the rest of us, the people who arent men and 42 the people who arent women.  Without the visibility of women like Caitlyn and Jen Richards 1 and Candis Cayne who are on that show, and Shandi . . . whats Shandis last name?   2 
AJ: Boy, I cant recall.   3 
KB: Anyway . . .  4 
AJ: Its an S I believe, is it Schmidt?  Smith?  Sorry Shandi. 5 
KB: Sorry Shandi.  What theyre doing is not normalizing trans.  I think that would be a mistake to 6 think that thats what is going on.  But the very first step in celebration is learning acceptance 7 and I think thats what is being modeled, thats what is happening with that level of visibility.  8 Now beyond acceptance, there is welcoming.  Beyond welcoming, there is celebrating and thats 9 where we need to be eventually.  I dont know what trans identities are coming up beyond non-10 binary or gender non-conforming and gender-queer, but that will be interesting to see too. 11 
AJ: That will be interesting  and I do believe thats going to be more identities beyond that. 12 
KB: Theres got to be  got to be.  Were blind to something right now. 13 
AJ: So let me ask you about your thoughts, I mean you were . . . you were certainly alive and I think 14 maybe active or had some awareness during the Stonewall uprisings.  And if not directly 15 involved, certainly have had some awareness and understanding of it since.  Do you have any 16 thoughts on the new movie that is being released in Hollywood and this controversy that the 17 movie is being whitewashed and trans women of color are being written out of the narrative of 18 that whole movement, if we can call it that  starting this gay rights movement?  Whats your 19 thoughts on those?  20 
KB: It pisses me off.  The movie that youre referring to, I think, is simply called, Stonewall.  Not 21 many people outside LGBTQ land know the significance of Stonewall so people going to see that 22 movie, if indeed it makes it out into release with all the furor against it now, but whoever sees 23 that movie is going to believe thats the history of Stonewall  that it was all about a white man 24 brave enough to throw the first bottle at the police and that is just not the case, they werent. 25 
AJ: They were not. 26 
KB: In the same way that this movie is whitewashing and invisibilizing trans, whats happening now 27 in the new trans movement, trans activism, is that theyre invisibilizing anyone who is not 28 properly transgender.  Again, back to drag queens, back to chicks with dicks, back to she-males, 29 self-identifying and trannies  nope, thats not part of our movement.  These are the same 30 people who were kicked out of womens rights.  So maybe in the next iteration, like once trans 31 has kind of got its seat at the table, or at least binary-identified trans has its seat at the table, 32 then maybe the next up and coming part of sex and gender revolution will be sex-positive 33 gender anarchists and I look forward to that.   34 
AJ: Wow, so do I. I love that you keep referencing these future generations, I think thats really 35 critical.  But I also see a trend . . . Ive been watching the show I am Jazz with love and 36 fascination  deep love and fascination.  Jazz is a young trans woman who came out very early in 37 life. 38 
KB: Six or something. 1 
AJ: Six or seven and was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show and really has been in the public eye 2 but now with a reality series.  One of the things that struck me is that people are coming out 3 younger and younger, theyre having access to medical interventions that are able to . . . at the 4 very minimum, delay secondary sex characteristics of the opposite gender and help to boost the 5 desired secondary sex characteristics such as breast development in young girls or facial hair 6 development in young boys and those kinds of things, which sort of creates this bypass from the 7 transgender journey that most trans-identified people have been on up to this point in human 8 history.  And so, consequently, those young people are going to represent a new class, if you 9 will, of transgender. 10 
KB: Exactly  a new social class of transgender, if, in fact, they identify as transgender  they may 11 not.  Some may, some may not.  I think thats wonderful and I think that the transgender 12 movement is still going to be populated by trans men and trans women who go through that 13 terrible time of not one/not the other, walking down the street and people turning, What the 14 fuck are you?  That sort of thing.  All of us these days these days go through that and there is 15 this new identity  my fear for that identity is its a ticking time bomb . . . not a time bomb but a 16 bomb that could go off, more like a land mine.  If someone finds out, if someone is in a hospital, 17 for example, who has been a woman or a boy or a man all their life and then they go to a 18 hospital and all of a sudden the doctor says, Wait a minute, I dont see a uterus here, did you 19 have a hysterectomy?  No.  And so then theyre outed.  Thats a whole new kind of problem, I 20 have no idea how that is going to be dealt with.   21 
AJ: Yeah, which brings up an issue around resiliency.  What do you think the role of resiliency plays 22 in transgender lives? 23 
KB: Everything.  Youre going to get shit, youre going to get shit from people who are cis gender, 24 people who are transgender because youre not doing transgender right.  Youve got to bounce 25 back, youve got to let that stuff slide off.  Im not good at letting stuff slide off.  I live with 26 borderline personality so Im mentally fucked up.  I have no control over my emotions, I have 27 none.  Ive been in very intense therapy called dialectic behavior therapy which helps me deal 28 with emotions and deal with being triggered because pretty much anything triggers a person 29 with borderline personality - what is resilience but moving forward in the face of triggering 30 circumstances.   31 
AJ: Has there been a specific moment or person or organization that has had a significant impact on 32 you related to your gender identity?   33 
KB: So many people.  I keep coming back to Doris Fish, my drag mom.  She made it OK to have fun, 34 she made it OK to not be serious all the fucking time.  Its a very serious situation when youre a 35 trans person trying to navigate a cis world.  Its hard and it takes all of your strength.  But, my 36 God, if you cant sit and laugh, if you cant just celebrate every now and then  and celebrate 37 most of the time, frankly . . . most of the time, then its big trouble.  Then its harder to be 38 resilient.  So Im going to give my drag mom that  yeah. 39 
AJ: Thats wonderful.  Tell me about this concept of moms and fathers in the trans community.  I 1 know some of that grows out of the ball culture, but whats your take on it.  How did that come 2 about for you? 3 
KB: We all need family.  I was fortunate enough to grow up in a nuclear family  mom, dad, and I 4 had an older brother.  They were, for the most part, loving people.  My father expressed it very 5 hard  he was an abusive, angry man.  Actually one of the main reasons, I think, I never wanted 6 to be a man was him as my example of manhood.  But, we search for family  we want mom, 7 dont you? 8 
AJ: Yes, absolutely.   9 
KB: Mama.  And so we find moms, we find sisters and brothers and cousins and uncles and aunts 10 and we own identities.  Now that Im older, Im owning grandma. 11 
AJ: Yes. 12 
KB: And I get to be grandma with a lot of trans youth and I like to spoil my grandkids.  For a long 13 time and in another generation, in your time, your auntie. 14 
AJ: Absolutely.  And I bow down to you as that.   15 
KB: Im your big sister, more of your big sister. 16 
AJ: Big sister, mama  all of that.   17 
KB: I love you  my baby girl.   18 
AJ: Yes.   19 
KB: And so that makes us feel . . . that reminds us that we are loved.  Again, that notion of family is 20 so necessary or we are bone-lonely and suicidal if were that lonesome.  And what helped, what 21 always helped, was a word for family  tranny was one, and now were not allowed to say it.  22 Another was, for a long time, transgender.  But now  no, because there was a transgender 23 tipping point, people in popular culture are examining the word transgender for those who 24 made the tipping and those are binary-identified trans people.  Trans men, trans women  there 25 are men and there are women, great.  But now thats . . . they own the word transgender.  26 Whats really great about this tipping point is that people acknowledge that it has nothing to do 27 with genitalia or hormones . . . what genitals you have as a man or a woman, not important.  28 What hormones youre on as a man or woman, not important.  Its a matter of individual 29 preference and ability to go forward in that.  But what its done has taken another family word 30 away from us  transgender.  When we were starting to use it in the 1980s, well Virginia Prince 31 coined the term.  She was a cross dresser who wanted to live full time as a woman without 32 hormones or surgery so she called herself transgender and we stole the word from her for which 33 we never got forgiven  me and Jamison Green and Lou Sullivan and Les Feinberg.  We started 34 using transgender as anybody who fucks with gender  your family.  So no matter the fights and 35 the struggles, look  were all transgender together.  Now that word has now shifted to a family 36 term of trans and that still, to some degree, leaves out people who are non-binary or gender 37 queer.  Without invisibilizing those folks, I think trans . . . I say those folks, I mean me, trans 38 includes, for the time being, non-binary and gender queer.  So the degree we police our own 39 language and say, You get out of here, thats my word, we have to be careful that were not 1 destroying family relationships, that we are chosen family.  I would just caution going down that 2 path and policing words like that.  3 
AJ: So much wisdom right there.  Where did you grow up, Kate? 4 
KB: All right, this is the northern Midwest right here, right? 5 
AJ: Yes. 6 
KB: So I grew up just outside of Fargo and my father was a Lutheran minister, my mom was Miss 7 Betty Crocker 1938.  My brother tends the goats . . . actually tended the goats until the day he 8 died.  See now thats a bio I put up on the web about myself because I always wanted to be a 9 corn-fed Midwestern girl, right?  I was a Jew-boy from New Jersey. I grew up on the Jersey shore 10 just like the television show pretty much.  But I always wanted to be from the Midwest so I gave 11 myself that fantasy childhood. 12 
AJ: That little Lake Wobegan moment, huh? 13 
KB: Exactly.  It was funny because I put it up as a joke and the last sentence of that bio always read, 14 I grew up in a log cabin that I helped my parents build.  I was born in a log cabin that I helped 15 my parents build.  Nobody quite got that, but people write reviews of my books occasionally, 16 Oh, you can see Kate Bornsteins warm Midwestern heart in every page.  I go, Not really, but 17 thank you.   18 
AJ: Oh boy.  What was your relationship like with your biological mom? 19 
KB: Theres a thing between moms and sons thats wonderful.  Moms love their sons, its just terrific 20 and we had that.  When I came out she said, Dont bother coming back to this house.  And we 21 were out of touch for like six months and . . . she lived on the Jersey shore and there was a bad 22 hurricane and I called to find out how she was doing.  She was OK and she asked me how I was 23 doing and I said OK.  She called me Albert, which was my name.  She said, How are you doing, 24 Albert?  Id stopped correcting her at that point  what are you doing to do?  I said, Well its 25 hard.  I just started crying.  People at work were giving me a hard time at that moment, on that 26 day.  I said, I cant talk, and I hung up on her.  She called back in 15 minutes or so and she said, 27 Baby, Kate?  That was the first time shed called me Kate and we had seven good years of 28 mother/adult daughter time, which never really happens.  So I was very fortunate to have a 29 good mom, both as a boy and as a woman.  Yeah. 30 
AJ: Thank you.  What do you think the relationship is between the L, the G, the B and the T?   31 
KB: I think its very dangerous to continue using letters like that.  I Googled it, I used the Google 32 machine and I was looking up sexuality and gender identity and in 20 minutes I found close to 33 700 very specific identities for sexualities, for gender identities, for things that combined both. 34 
AJ: 700? 35 
KB: Yes maam. 36 
AJ: You mean theres not just two? 37 
KB: So even saying LGBT and if youre going to be nice and say Q, that leaves a lot of people out and 1 as people come out as more visible people, the Caitlyn Jenners who come out, the guys who 2 come out on football teams as gay  brave, brave.  To a child that means, Oh, OK thats how to 3 be a gay man, thats how to be a trans woman and they go, I dont know if I can live up to that.  4 Very few people can.  What I would like to see is a name for this overlapping community of 5 identities that are based in sexuality and gender.  Right?   6 
AJ: Right. 7 
KB: In such a way as these are consciously lived genders, consciously lived sexualities  so conscious 8 gender would be . . . thats oxymoronic in a culture that believes theres only two.  So just by 9 saying Im conscious of my gender and living it this way, whether youre cis or trans, which 10 are both made-up words, conscious gender means youre breaking the laws of gender already 11 because gender is supposed to be, Oh, you never take that into account, you just know what 12 you are.  No  you dont know what you are.  So theres gender anarchy.  In terms of sexuality, 13 conscious sexuality is a . . . thats very rare that people get to be really conscious of what they I 14 like in sex.  What do you like in sex? Do you know the Top 10 ways you like to be touched?  15 Where?  Maybe not, in which case learn baby learn.   16 
AJ: Learn your desire. 17 
KB: So weve got gender anarchy on one hand, weve got sex positivity on the other hand and 18 instead of LGBT I would go gender anarchy GA, sex positivity SP, GASP.  Its way too cute to be 19 used but thats the kind of thing Ive been looking for.  One thing we could use thats a known 20 acronym  theres Gay Straight Alliance in high school, GSA.  I think thats a misnomer because I 21 dont think gay . . . there are too many straight gay people and there are a lot of queer 22 heterosexual people, but GSA could really stand for Gender Sexuality Alliance.   23 
AJ: I like that. 24 
KB: Now that would be good, I think that could replace LGBT.  25 
AJ: I heard another one.   26 
KB: Go for it.   27 
AJ: I call it SOGI  Sexual Orientation Gender Identity.    28 
KB: SOGI.  Its kind of like GASP, it wont work. 29 
AJ: It wont work. 30 
KB: Nah.  It sounds like a little animated creature.  Im a SOGI.  LGBT are lesbi-gators.   31 
AJ: Oh boy. 32 
KB: Of course thats good and thats the kind of thing we need to go towards.  I dont know.  Thats 33 not going to be for you or me to decide.   34 
AJ: Has your gender identity or your expression of your gender identities had any impact on your 1 professional life, your ability to make a living for yourself, your ability to contribute in the ways 2 that you want to contribute?   3 
KB: When I first came out and started living full time as a woman, I was a man in a dress.  I couldnt 4 get any work.  I almost got fired from the job I was on but my sales were too good so they 5 couldnt fire me.  But once I left there nobody would hire me so I went into phone sex.  I didnt 6 have enough confidence in my body and I was older, I was 36 or 37  I didnt have enough 7 confidence in my body to do sex work, I didnt think anybody would be attracted to me. 8 
AJ: What? 9 
KB: Yeah.  Well . . . yeah.  So I did phone sex work.  I made my living doing phone sex for a couple of 10 years.  And that led me to do . . . I could do telephone sales.  That was allowed to me, but no 11 one else was hiring me  no.  It helped launch me into theatre and writing, which are both sort 12 of gender-free professions.  But I couldnt get any parts except trans parts in those days.  So that 13 meant I had to write my own shows and produce my own shows and tour them.  So thats what I 14 ended up doing.  15 
AJ: And amazingly so.  Ive just been enamored by your theatrical and performative presence since I 16 first became aware of it.  The writings that you do, the book Gender Outlaws and the 17 subsequent books have made such a huge impact, I think, on womens studies, feminist studies, 18 queer studies, American studies.  Your work has impacted a lot of people, a lot of bills, 19 academia, and the way, I think, people view performance art.  How do you feel about the impact 20 of your career?  Just talk to me a little bit about that. 21 
KB: First off, let me trade admiration with you, Ms. Performance Poet.  I think I first heard you, it 22 was in Minneapolis at that bookstore, and oh my God.  You just have such electricity with an 23 audience, you have so much power with your words  Namaste sister of mine. 24 
AJ: Namaste. 25 
KB: What do I think of the impact of my life?  Ahhh . . . Im sort of half Buddhist, half Taoist, half 26 Jewish.  And Im pretty sure that whatever we do doesnt matter a fuck, were all . . . Im pretty 27 sure of that.  What it boils down to, I think, is very good intentions.  Whoever said the road to 28 hell is paved with good intentions . . . no, I think thats the only thing that will get us to heaven.  29 If we can honestly have good intentions, and a good intention isnt, Oh, I am good by forcing 30 that person to be good like me. No  no, no, no.  Good intention is, I want to help that person 31 stop suffering  period.  So to develop those kinds of good intentions, Im grateful that Ive had 32 an opportunity to develop those with the feedback Ive been getting from my writing.  Because 33 if you know you put out good loving stuff, people respond to you with good loving stuff  it goes 34 back and forth, back and forth.  Im a better person for the people who have admired my work, 35 not because of their admiration but because I hear myself back through their voices and I go, 36 OK, great  OK, great.  Then we are on a correct track together.  Im happy, I could die happy.  37 The book Im most proud of though is, Hello Cruel World:  101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, 38 Freaks, and Other Outlaws.  While transgender is a big factor in it, thats not the focus of the 39 book.  I know that one helps save lives so Im happy with that one.   40 
AJ: Wow. 1 
KB: Yeah. 2 
AJ: Thats something to be very proud of.  Whats up next for Kate Bornstein? 3 
KB: Im working on a book with a working title of Trans:  Just for the fun of it.   4 
AJ: I love it.   5 
KB: I want to get away from this its all deadly serious.  The great beauty for me of trans has been 6 the joy of being a girl  for goodness sake.  Wow.  And the fun sex I have by being a girl.  Wow.  7 So I just want to encourage more and more people to enjoy the gender youre being and enjoy 8 sex, or no sex, with it.  I think right now Im kind of going through a period of, well I am, 9 between BDSM as my sexuality  bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism and asexuality.   10 
AJ: Huh? 11 
KB: Yeah, I have long periods where Im just not interested and then the periods I am interested, its 12 more of an interest in SM. 13 
AJ: Intense contact sport. 14 
KB: Yeah.  Im a bottom, I like receiving. 15 
AJ: OK, thats wonderful.  Thank you.  You can actually . . . I think you can technically be engaged 16 with BDSM and still be asexual . . . or maybe non-sexual would be more the term.  Like youre 17 not . . . you can be engaged with BDSM and not have penetrated or . . . other kinds of genital 18 sex. 19 
KB: Right. 20 
AJ: So not quite the same as asexual but that is possible. 21 
KB: So what Im working on is that book and beyond that Ive got a young adult novel I want to 22 write, kind of loosely based on Breakfast at Tiffanys.  My Holly Golightly is going to be a young 23 trans woman named Charlie Valentine and shes going to be . . . shes 17-years-old and shes a 24 professional dominatrix in New York City.   25 
AJ: Thats a plot line.  Charlie Valentine.  Oh boy, I cant wait to meet her. 26 
KB: I know, right? 27 
AJ: Yeah.  Wow.  Well, Kate, this has been delightful.  I should mention that were here at Gender 28 Odyssey in Seattle, Washington, so were not in Minneapolis or New York City.  What message 29 do you want the attendees of this conference to sort of leave with? 30 
KB: There are many truths of gender  many truths of gender.  It behooves us to respect other 31 peoples truths of gender to the degree it eases their suffering and doesnt cause any suffering 32 in turn.  I think if we, as a trans movement, were operating more on that kind of a, Oh, youre a 33 what?  Oh wow, cool  I dont know what that is but you look happy.  Then to that degree, and 34 again it gets back to family.  Im trying to push family. 35 
AJ: Yes.   1 
KB: Right now Ive got a lot of my grandkids pissed off at me.  I love them too.  I do. 2 
AJ: Babies dont always like to take their medicine. 3 
KB: No  no, and thats OK. 4 
AJ: Is there a transgender movement? 5 
KB: No, there are many transgender movements because globally theres no agreement on what 6 transgender is.  My book, Gender Outlaws, just came out in mainland China in Mandarin. 7 
AJ: Wow, congratulations. 8 
KB: Thank you.  I have no idea what it says.  It came out in Korea, no idea what that book says.  But 9 theyre going to have fun with gender.  Cool, go for it.  And, for example, in China they 10 couldnt call it Gender Outlaw because Chinese hear the word outlaw  thats just a bad person.  11 Bad, bad, bad.  Gender outlaw is like a sex . . . like a baby raper.  No, no  Gender outlaw, 12 dont call it that.  What do we call it?  I dont know.  I said, Gender is a Butterfly.  No, no, 13 no, they told me.  If a Chinese person sees that theyll think its a childrens book.  I said, 14 OK.  Gender is a cocoon because its always cooking and youre always in the process of 15 change.  No, they said, Chinese people would see that and hear it as a trap, youre trapped 16 inside this thing.  I said, I give up.  And they said, Gender is a caterpillar.  I said, What?  17 Gender is a wooly worm, thats their kids name for caterpillar.  And thats the name of the 18 book  because caterpillars to a Chinese mind is full of possibility.  Who knows what beautiful 19 creature this person is going to become.  So its called Gender is a Wooly Worm. 20 
AJ: In China. 21 
KB: In China.   22 
AJ: Oh, this has been fascinating.  Im so grateful and deeply honored that you decided to spend a 23 little time talking with us, talking about your life, talking about the movement, talking about 24 these young trans people and gender non-confirming and gender anarchists and all of these 25 identities that we dont even have labels for yet.  I really, really appreciate it.  Fifty years from 26 now, what do you want that broad spectrum of gender fuckers to think about? 27 
KB: Fifty years from now.  No, not going there sweetie.  I would hope that there is a huge decrease 28 in gender-based suffering.  Thats what I would hope  and that would include misogyny, first 29 and foremost, because thats where most of the gender-based suffering is focused  on female, 30 feminine-type people, cis or trans.  Thats got to be the focus.  Im hoping that kids get more of a 31 chance to explore gender as theyre growing up so that they can make informed decisions.  That 32 would be good.   33 
AJ: Thank you, Kate Bornstein. 34 
KB: Thank you for inviting me.  Anything you invite me to do, Miss Jenkins, Im yours. 35 
AJ: I love you. 36 
KB: I love you. 1 

