 
 
 
 
Eli Clare Narrator   Andrea Jenkins Interviewer 
    
The Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies University of Minnesota 
 March 1, 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 1 
Eli Clare    -EC 2 
 3 
 4 
AJ: So, hello.  My name is Andrea Jenkins and I am the oral historian for the Transgender Oral 5 History Project at the University of Minnesota.  Today is March 1, 2016, and I just learned that 6 March 1st is the anniversary date of the Nuclear Disarmament March that happened 30 years 7 ago.  8 
EC: Lets call it the Great Peace March for Global and Nuclear Disarmament.  It started in Los 9 Angeles and ended eight and a half months later in Washington, DC.  Four hundred of us walked 10 the whole way. 11 
AJ: Oh my God, how incredible.  12 
EC: Here I am 30 years later.   13 
AJ: Still on the front lines for social justice and world peace.  So Im talking with Eli Clare.  Eli, Im 14 going to ask you to introduce yourself.  State your name, what your preferred gender pronouns 15 are, your gender identity and your gender assigned at birth. 16 
EC: OK.  Im Eli Clare.  My internal gender identity is gender queer and I live in the world as a white 17 man.  And both of those things are really important  how I live in the world and how people see 18 me and whats true internally.  I was assigned female at birth and my preferred pronouns are he 19 and him. 20 
AJ: Wow.   21 
EC: And, let me say another thing about pronouns.  When I was doing sexual transition, so changing 22 my name and changing my pronouns, they wasnt quite available. 23 
AJ: They? 24 
EC: No one was using they yet.  I suspect if I was doing sexual transition now I would have picked 25 they rather than he, but Im not interested in another pronoun transition. 26 
AJ: Right, oh boy.  So do you think this pronoun shift in language is a generational thing?  Because I 27 know that one of my dear friends, the late Leslie Feinberg, really promoted sort of an alternative 28 pronoun usage but it didnt really catch on until much later.  Whats your thought about that? 29 
EC: Language is interesting because what catches and what doesnt . . . because there have been 30 dozens of attempts to do gender neutral, singular, third-person pronouns. We could spend 10 31 minutes listing them from ze and hir to co and per.  Just a long list of pronouns that over the last 32 number of decades have been tried out and none of them have caught culturally.  And part of 33 the function of pronouns is that theyre familiar and theyre easy.  Because pronouns as 34 language kind of are supposed to disappear, except trans people know that they often dont 35 kind of disappear, right?  Thats one of the things we bring to the world  that pronouns dont 36 kind of disappear, that they identify us in these profound ways that become visible only when 37 
theyre wrong and do damage when theyre wrong.  But, some have them have enhanced so 1 much of the work that Leslie Feinberg, among others, was engaged in around pronouns  that 2 those words never became common, familiar, and easy.  So they never caught on.  And why 3 didnt they catch on?  Who knows?  But there is something about they that has started to catch 4 culturally. 5 
AJ: It has, its very interesting. 6 
EC: They was the word of the year, I think. 7 
AJ: Is that right? 8 
EC: This year or last year.  And so it has started to catch.  It makes me think of Ms. and how Ms. 9 caught.  But before Ms. caught, Ms. was seen as this complete radical outlier that would never, 10 never become common usage. And then, who knows why Ms. caught.  And so you had asked me 11 whether I thought they was a generational thing.  I think some of it is generational, some of it is 12 this kind of mysterious configuration of cultural factors because why has they started to catch 13 when ze and hir never caught, for instance.  I dont think . . . so some of it is generational but 14 there is probably other stuff in there. 15 
AJ: You used the phrase and I didnt quite catch it when you . . . you were giving some examples of 16 various pronouns, you said ze and zir and then there was another one. 17 
EC: Ze and hir and co and per.   18 
AJ: Co . . . c-o.  And Per . . .  19 
EC: P-e-r.   20 
AJ: P-e-r.   21 
EC: And co and per didnt even catch long enough for . . . it just had a single moment and I know 22 because I happened to be there at that moment. 23 
AJ: At that moment.  So Eli, I want to get a little reflective, and I know you have lots of really 24 interesting things for us to think about.  But tell me, whats your earliest memory in life? 25 
EC: My earliest memory in life is . . . so I was born with cerebral palsy and no one knew what was 26 wrong with me.  Big air quotes around wrong and my parents took me to a variety of doctors 27 over the first 10 or 12 years of my life trying to get a diagnosis.  My first memory is during that 28 diagnostic work when I was two and a half years old.  They took me to the Fairview Training 29 Center in Salem, Oregon.  Fairview was a state-run institution for people with what they then 30 called mental retardation, now called intellectual disability.  But at that time, the language was 31 mental retardation.  It was a place where 3000 people lived and the place where people lived 32 their entire lives  a very, very grim place.  My parents brought me to Fairview for diagnostic 33 testing.  I was walking by that point but I was not talking, I didnt have a single word.  So my first 34 memory is being on the table surrounded by people in white coats and being afraid I was going 35 to fall off the table. 36 
AJ: Boy, wow.  Thats kind of terrifying. 37 
EC: Yes  yes.  And that whole piece of diagnostic work was a terrifying moment in my life.  The 1 diagnosis that came back was mental retardation.  I bombed the IQ test because I wasnt talking.  2 The alternative IQ test is a test that requires a lot of manual dexterity and I dont have a whole 3 lot of manual dexterity now and I had even less when I was two and a half years old.  I did very, 4 very badly on the IQ test, a diagnosis of mental retardation.  If my parents had wanted to leave 5 me at Fairview, they could easily have done that.  I fit the profile exactly of what kinds of 6 children were left at Fairview.  So, its my first memory and its this moment that profoundly 7 shaped my entire life because, of course, if I had been left there I would have probably stayed 8 there until Fairview started moving people out just before their doors were closed.  I would have 9 lived there for 30 years. 10 
AJ: Wow. 11 
EC: And I would have moved to a group home.  So the whole progression of my life . . . I wouldnt be 12 here. 13 
AJ: It would have been dramatically different  absolutely. 14 
EC: Right.  So thats my first memory. 15 
AJ: Wow.  Ive asked this question 56 times now and I dont think anybody has identified their first 16 memory as shaping their entire life.   17 
EC: Right. 18 
AJ: Where did you grow up? 19 
EC: I grew up on the south coast of Oregon in a wide spot in the road called Port Orford. 20 
AJ: Port? 21 
EC: Port Orford.  O-r-f-o-r-d.  Fishing and logging town.   22 
AJ: So near the ocean? 23 
EC: Yes, on the ocean  70 miles north of the California border. 24 
AJ: So southern Oregon? 25 
EC: Right.   26 
AJ: What was it like growing up Port Orford? 27 
EC: Port Orford.  It was small, it was a town of 1000 people. 28 
AJ: 1000? 29 
EC: 1000.  My father taught high school so everyone knew us.  So there was no anonymity.  I was 30 one of the only disabled children in town and I was the first disabled kid to be mainstreamed in 31 that school district.  I started 1st grade in 1969, so well before the ADA and Section 504, the 32 Rehabilitation Act, which is what gave disabled children guaranteed access to public school.  33 What else was it like?  My parents desperately did not want a disabled child.  My mother 34 desperately did not want a gender ambiguous child. 35 
AJ: Oh wow. 1 
EC: I was one of those girls who was mistaken as a boy since I was five years old.  And she 2 desperately did not want that.  We fought about clothes. 3 
AJ: Really? 4 
EC: But actually we didnt fight because she won and I just put up with it, I just put up with it.  But 5 she was really desperate.  Both of my parents were really desperate not to have a disabled child.  6 My mom was really desperate not to have this gender-odd child.  And my life was really caught 7 between those two places of my mom really not wanting for me to be who I was in really 8 profound ways.  Because there was nothing to do about either piece.   9 
AJ: Wow.  Siblings?  Did you have siblings? 10 
EC: Yes.  Im the oldest and I have a sister three years younger and a brother who is six years 11 younger. 12 
AJ: OK.  So you were mainstreamed, sort of pre-legislative entry for disabled young people to go to 13 public school.  Were you teased?  Were you bullied?  Were you supported?  How was that?  14 
EC: I was brutally teased.  The way that bullying works is that really no one instance of bullying is 15 horrible but its the stack and the stack gets higher and higher and higher.  I was bulled 16 relentlessly from the time I started public school through the 6th grade.  And that progressively 17 went from taunts to having rocks and sand and rubber erasers thrown at me to being beaten up.  18 By the time I was in 6th grade I was being beaten fairly regularly by my classmates.  And then it 19 stopped in 7th grade, it was done.  Instead of being bullied, I was completely alone.  Of the two, I 20 vastly preferred being alone.  21 
AJ: Yeah. 22 
EC: Vastly.  And most of that bullying was around disability but at some point they started calling 23 me, Lezzy.  I dont know why.  I have no idea why that started.  And the first time I heard the 24 word lesbian was from the bullies, in the form of the word, Lezzy. 25 
AJ: Wow.  So the bullying and the taunting inundated initially from your physical disabilities and 26 then progressed to sort of perception of your sexuality.   27 
EC: Right. 28 
AJ: Wow.  I would suspect, based on just kind of what you have said, perceived gender 29 transgressions as well. 30 
EC: Yes.  That wasnt the language but Im sure its part of what propelled that.  Right.  So I was this 31 tomboy who was insistent on doing everything I could and more than I could, which meant 32 falling and . . . I mean my knees were always bloody because I would fall and fall and fall and fall. 33 
AJ: You just had to climb that tree, huh? 34 
EC: Right, exactly.  Really rough and tumble with balance and coordination stuff that meant that I 35 was just . . . I was kind of a mess.   36 
AJ: Oh boy.  But you had a spirit.  I can just hear it, like there was this fighting spirit. 1 
EC: Yup.  First you asked me about my first memory and your saying fighting spirit, makes me think 2 of a story my mother used to tell me thats kind of my first . . . the first story she had of me that I 3 remember her telling me.  So I was born two months premature in 1963.  Two months 4 premature now isnt a big deal. 5 
AJ: Right. 6 
EC: But two months premature in 1963 in rural Oregon was a really frigging big deal.  I lived in an 7 incubator and she was not allowed to do more than stand at the door and watch me.  I was 8 there for a month.  She tells a story when shes at the door watching me and the nurse comes by 9 and theyre standing at the door and the nurse says, Which one is yours?  And my mom points 10 me out and they must have been talking about whether I would live or not, and the nurse says 11 to my mom, Shes going to live, we always know which ones are going to live because theyre 12 the fighters.  And thats the first story my mom has of who I am.   13 
AJ: A fighter. 14 
EC: Right.  Shes going to live, shes a fighter.   15 
AJ: Wow, thats pretty . . . Im getting chills.  But its very apparent in your comportment and in this 16 nebulous thing we call spirit.  When is the first time you realized you were different from the 17 gender you were assigned at birth? 18 
EC: I have a very distinct memory of that.   19 
AJ: Really? 20 
EC: Very . . . well, let me tell you two stories.  The first is . . . so we lived in this very rural, very white, 21 very working class town and one of the things that happened every year was there was this fund 22 raiser for the volunteer fire department in the gym at the local junior high that was a 23 combination of a fair and talent show and gags.  So the Man-eating Fish with the janitor eating 24 tuna out of the can.  There was a water . . . you know, throw sponges at the volunteer fire 25 department, that kind of thing.  So the year I was . . . I must have been 10 or 11, there was a 26 woman who was new to town who didnt yet know my family, who was drawing cartoon 27 portraits.  I must have had a dollar or two of allowance money and spent a dollar to sit down 28 and have my portrait drawn.  She was doing three-minute sketches. 29 
AJ: Caricatures? 30 
EC: Right, caricatures basically.  So I brought it home  I liked it, Im amazed that I liked it  but I 31 liked it.  And then the next week my mom came home with a story of me and this artist at the 32 grocery store.  So remember this is a town of 1000 and everyone knows my family because my 33 dad taught at the high school.  My moms story is we got talking and the artist, whose name is 34 Betsy, said . . . they were talking about kids and families and finally the artist, Betsy, said to my 35 mom, Didnt I draw your son last week?  And my mom said, No, my son is a one-year-old.  36 And Betsy was like, I think I drew your son last week.  And then they concluded that Betsy was 37 talking about me.  I was so happy about that story.  I was delighted by that story and I knew 38 enough to say nothing about the way I was happy.  Then I went back to the portrait and every 39 time I looked at the portrait, Im looking at me as a boy and it made me so happy.  It made me 1 so happy. 2 
AJ: So you were 10 or 11? 3 
EC: Yes.  And the second story is a year or two later. I would go to my sister and say, Do I look like a 4 boy or a girl?  Completely not sure, completely unsure.   5 
AJ: Wow.  What was her response? 6 
EC: I have no idea, I have no idea. 7 
AJ: Wow.  So that was sort of the beginnings of this recognition that something about this gender 8 identity is not quite how I look but its making me happy. 9 
EC: Yeah.   10 
AJ: What terms do you use to describe yourself today? 11 
EC: I use the word gender queer.  So I do a lot of speaking and training and teaching all over the 12 country.  Im a writer and my writing has led me to that work and to introduce myself in that 13 work I say that Im a white disabled gender queer who lives in the green mountains of Vermont.   14 
AJ: Thats a pretty long introduction.  How has that changed over time?   15 
EC: So, after those early gender experiences that I just talked about, I buried that recognition gender 16 by coming out as a lesbian  like being a dyke was a way of being a woman.  So I came out as a 17 dyke, felt like that was a way of being a woman and spent 15 years in the lesbian community 18 without a whole lot of awareness about gender other than being sir and son and young 19 boy some of the time.  And unlike other . . . that happens to dykes, and particularly butch 20 dykes.  Theres often discomfort or anger about it.  For me, there was never discomfort or anger, 21 its just what happened.  But there wasnt a lot of other self-awareness about gender.  So for a 22 lot of years I called myself a dyke.  I came out in 1982, so came out in the time where butch 23 femme was not a thing that the lesbian community was embracing at all, but as that started to 24 change I very much started using the language butch - butch dyke, butch lesbian, but more dyke.   25 
AJ: And you use that consciously, Im noticing  dyke versus lesbian.  Was that a political choice? 26 
EC: Yes  very much.  Part of that reclaimed language  were going to use the language that 27 specifically has been used to hurt us in a way of reclaiming, of making sure that language isnt 28 going to be used against us because were using it ourselves.  Also, I had this . . . like I was really 29 political in terms of having kind of this radical social justice vision of the world.  You notice I 30 didnt come out into Gay, Inc.  And it also . . . dyke had some connections to working class 31 culture and although thats not where I came out, I came out in college.  I got a scholarship and I 32 got the hell out of this white, really conservative, very small town  thankfully I got out.  But still, 33 a lot of connection with working class community, so I think thats another part of how dyke 34 resonated for me. 35 
AJ: Wow. 36 
EC: And this was years before the word queer became a reclaimed word.  That happened in what?  1 The early 1990s. 2 
AJ: Mid-1990s, I would say.  It was very . . . underground.  It was not as . . . sort of common 3 nomenclature as it is now.  4 
EC: So dyke is almost an earlier version of queer. 5 
AJ: I like this idea that you talked about around reclaiming language.  Im curious how you feel 6 about the word tranny.   7 
EC: Yeah.  I think some words get reclaimed and that others do not.  There is no logical sense to 8 which words become reclaimed by whom and which words dont.  The word queer is not 9 universally embraced by LGBT folks and so there is no logic in terms of which words are 10 reclaimed and then no real logic to which people within which communities embrace that 11 language.  The word tranny . . . you know, in trans masculine community, for a while the word 12 tranny . . . I dont know, in the mid-1990s and very early 2000s, sounded a little like a word of 13 affection and reclaimed language.  And that marked such a divide between trans women or 14 trans feminine people and trans masculine people.  Trans women and trans women of color 15 have been so clear that theres no way to reclaim the word tranny.  So the trans masculine 16 community that Im connected to, there is such . . . not exclusively, but there is some vague 17 intention.  But one of the strong strands is that we are not reclaiming that word because were 18 being told loud and clear that it cannot be reclaimed.  To return a moment to disability, the 19 word  and Im going to now say a word that is full of hate, so this is a heads up.   20 
AJ: OK, thank you. 21 
EC: The word retard has never been reclaimed . . .  22 
AJ: Never. 23 
EC:  . . . by disabled people.  And its a word I heard once a day, at least once a day when I was a kid.  24 It was one of the words that was used against me and was accompanied by rocks and fists.  But 25 its a word that I know no one who has reclaimed the word retard.  And yet some of us in the 26 disability community have reclaimed the word cripple  we call each other crip.  So what words 27 get reclaimed and by whom and why . . . but how much we have to respect the people who are 28 the primary targets of those words  which gets back to tranny, because its never been trans 29 masculine people whove been the primary targets of the word tranny.  Its been trans women 30 and its been trans women of color. 31 
AJ: Yeah.  Thats a very interesting analysis.  I personally am a reclaimer of the term and maybe . . . I 32 think its generational.  I came out of a sort of . . . I came out in sort of a drag community 33 because those were the only spaces that really embraced transgender women.  And even 34 though that language was really just on the verge of becoming popular, tranny usually referred . 35 . . when I was first . . . it was transsexuals, and it was a term sort of endearment.  It was a term 36 of affection within the community.  And, in fact, I rarely heard it as a term of disaffection until it 37 became sort of co-opted into mainstream culture and, hot tranny mess.   38 
EC: Right. 39 
AJ: Thats when I first started hearing it  sort of as this derogatory kind of thing.  I know that so 1 many young trans-identified women, and particularly women of color, feel . . . I should just go 2 back and say that it was popularized in porn culture as well, right? 3 
EC: Absolutely.  Thats my understanding.  To go back to that conversation we were having before 4 you turned the camera on around the archive and about what was in the archive about trans 5 folks.   6 
AJ: Yeah.  So people reject the term because they dont want to be objectified.  I absolutely believe 7 and respect the fact that people say they were beaten up and that word was used to denigrate 8 them.  But I still feel some positive connections to the term in some ways.  So its interesting, as 9 you say, what words get reclaimed, by whom and for what purposes. 10 
EC: And it makes me think so much of reclaimed language as insider language  how the language 11 inside particular communities can be really different from outside the community.  You say 12 tranny inside particular communities to particular people is different from me saying the word 13 tranny  thats different from some cis white man saying the word. 14 
AJ: Right, yes.  Absolutely. 15 
EC: And all of those contexts are really important. 16 
AJ: They all matter. 17 
EC: Absolutely. 18 
AJ: What challenges have you faced since you began to express your true gender identity? 19 
EC: The answer to that question . . . theres a line, like the challenges were one thing before 20 transition and another thing since transition.  And the difference is that since transition Im read 21 as one gender very consistently as I move through the world and its the first time in my life that 22 Ive been read as one consistent gender in the world. 23 
AJ: I would imagine thats a positive thing. 24 
EC: That is positive and its such a surprise.  Im 12 years into that experience and it still is surprising 25 me every day when Im he and sir everywhere I go.  So the challenges before transition were 26 about some street harassment . . . pronouns just flying in the decade before I transitioned.  Id 27 be he on one street corner and she on the next street corner and it on the third street 28 corner and it depended on which way the wind was blowing.  It had no connection to me.  29 Sometimes Id be in rooms, in queer community or at work, and Id be she on one end of the 30 room and he on the other end of the room.  I have a really garden variety history with womens 31 restrooms.  I was never arrested and I was never hauled out of a womens restroom, but I was 32 laughed out of womens restrooms, I was taunted in womens restrooms, I was questioned in 33 womens restrooms and thats really what drove me to the mens room  because men are not 34 paying attention to each other in mens room.  35 
AJ: Right, exactly. 36 
EC: And so the consequences can be really high when caught in the mens room as not a cis man.  37 The consequences if caught are really high but the chances of being called on that are very low 38 compared to the womens room  where women are policing.  Well, policing isnt exactly the 1 right word but women are very . . . 2 
AJ: Attuned. 3 
EC: Attuned, and there are reasons for that attunement, but there also is a lot of bullshit in that 4 attunement. 5 
AJ: Right, exactly. 6 
EC: Many times women were not reacting to me in ways that say, Im scared.  So there was stuff 7 about the womens restroom.  Employment was pretty OK for me.  I had jobs where I didnt get 8 fired or my supervisors witnessed a lot of gender stuff, but I was never fired.  All the 9 employment stuff Ive faced is about disability, not gender.  Finding work as a disabled person 10 has been like pulling teeth.  So were the challenges.  And then there were challenges being part 11 of the dyke community.  For a long time lesbians did not . . . just fierce, fierce, fierce tension 12 around transition.  So one of the barriers to transitioning was that being part of this community 13 was so important and losing it felt so untenable to me.  And what changed was like Im not fed 14 enough by this community, the longer I knew myself as trans the more I was not being fed by 15 the lesbian community.  So those were the challenges before transition.  The challenges since 16 transition, there are mainly fewer challenges since transition  and some of that is about . . . the 17 word passing doesnt express whats happening but its the language we have and its the 18 language we have to talk about this really important experience and how some of us get to slide 19 through the world and some of us dont.  Its very important to know that difference.  So Ill use 20 the word passing, even though that word doesnt express half . . . you know? 21 
AJ: Yeah. 22 
EC: But I pass in the world, except on the phone.  I dont pass on the phone at all, but again thats 23 my disability and Id much rather be understood on the phone than . . . but in the world Im read 24 as a white guy and part of the ease for me now is Im consistently one gender, that gender, 25 although not an intensely . . . not a perfect match with my internal sense of gender, is closer 26 than woman ever was.  And, white is a really important part of that.  White is a really . . . and 27 thats why when people ask me about my gender, I talk about being a white guy in the world.  I 28 never just talk about being a guy in the world.  It almost feels like the gender is a white guy  the 29 gender isnt just guy.  White is not just an adjective that describes a noun. 30 
AJ: Right, it is the noun.   31 
EC: Right, it is the noun.  Those two words combined to make one gender identity.  So there are 32 many fewer challenges and yet . . . locker rooms are a challenge.  Navigating . . . Im someone 33 who is really out, part of the leverage of my writing.  If I wanted to be stealth, I dont know what 34 I would have to do if that was something I wanted. 35 
AJ: Im sorry, if you . . .  36 
EC: Wanted to be stealth. 37 
AJ: Stealth  yes.   38 
EC: Right.  I would have to change my name and never refer to 25 years of writing.  Thats not 1 something I want.  So Im really out but even with that, there are the daily challenges of how do 2 I talk about having the first 15 or 20 years of my adult life as a lesbian.  What do I do with new 3 friends, when do I come out?  That sort of stuff.  I am lucky in my relationship.  Im in an 4 incredibly trans positive relationship so Ive not had any relationship struggles.   5 
AJ: You are just winning. 6 
EC: Yes  yes.   7 
AJ: Which feels like a really . . . I dont know, certainly non-observant thing to say because one of 8 the things that you have talked about is that your physical disabilities have really been more of 9 the focus of your challenges in life.  So, Im really interested . . . and Ive got a whole set of 10 questions here, but Im really interested in this intersection and intersections of identities that 11 transgender people live with on a daily basis  but interested in hearing about it from your 12 perspective, from your personal perspective as a trans person living with disabilities.  And then, 13 more broadly because Im pretty sure you think about how other intersections  like race or 14 class, really factor into trans identity as well. 15 
EC: Yes.  So, your question about barriers, I took a really long time to transition.  I knew fairly early 16 that transition was attractive.  In the early 1990s, I saw Leslie Feinberg and went to my first 17 Pride.  It was right after Stone Butch Blues when she/he came out.  She/he wasnt out yet but I 18 think Minnie Bruce was reading from the manuscript and they did this beautiful reading  just 19 beautiful, beautiful, beautiful reading.  And I knew from that moment, that opened the door.  I 20 knew from that moment that transition of some sort was attractive.  And that took . . . I didnt 21 start medical transition for nine or ten years.  One of the challenges was that I had spent so 22 much of my childhood dealing with doctors  that first memory I talked about a half-hour ago, of 23 doctors and doctors having complete control of my body, complete authority about who I was 24 and that authority carried many, many risks with it.  Ive spent my entire life working to love my 25 disabled body exactly as it is.  From the time I was six years old, people were asking me, If there 26 was a hypothetical cure pill for cerebral palsy would you take it? 27 
AJ: Wow, and what was your response? 28 
EC: Well the assumption is that I would say, Yes, of course, without hesitation  in a heartbeat.  I 29 dont know exactly what I said to that as a child but my answer to that from the time I was 15 or 30 16, long before I had any disability politics, long before I understood about internalized 31 depression and shame, long before I was done aching to be normal, I was saying, No, because I 32 have no idea who Id be without this specific body, without my shaking hands, without my 33 slurred speech.  Thats my answer today, I have no idea who Id be without this specific body.  34 And so, really its not an exaggeration to say, Ive spent my whole life working to love my 35 disabled body exactly as it is and resisting a lot of cultural and medical pressure to change my 36 body.  So I get an articulated trans identity, I get to this attractive thing called gender transition 37 and Im suddenly faced with this really huge contradiction.  Ive worked all this time to love my 38 disabled self exactly as I am and then here I am wanting to use medical technology to change my 39 gendered and sexed body.  And that took me a decade to figure out.  It was like, What the hell 40 is that about?  If self-love is important as we are, I need to do that in terms of gender and I 41 couldnt.  That took a long, long time to work out.  And then it took a long time to be like, If I 1 make this choice it means making a pretty intense choice to be connected to doctors.  I had 2 spent a lot of years without health insurance, I spent a lot of years avoiding doctors, I spent a lot 3 of years dealing with disability bullshit in exam rooms.  Go to the doctor for bronchitis or flu or 4 whatever, and the first thing they want to know about is CP and its like . . . I know dozens of 5 trans people with the same story around gender.  You go into the doctor for appendix and what 6 they want to know is what your genitals look like or how long youve been on estrogen or 7 testosterone or . . . whatever.  But trans identity and the experience become the focal point 8 whether thats the medical issue or not.  So it took me a long time to be like, OK  Im going to 9 make these choices that connect me closely with doctors.  So those have been some of the 10 places of pretty intense connections for me between disability and transness.  You know, the 11 thing I hear in community, with some regularity, and I dont know whether this is in the trans 12 feminine community, but in trans masculine communities among folks who have used medical 13 transition or medical technology for gender transition or who want to . . . theres this train of 14 thought that says, My transness is a birth defect that needs to be cured and I deserve good 15 medical . . . 16 
AJ: Access. 17 
EC:  . . . access, just like disabled people have good medical access.   18 
AJ: How do you feel about that? 19 
EC: It makes me incredulous.  This assumption that disabilities somehow equals good access to 20 health care and equals respectful health care and that is so far from true I cant even express it.  21 I could spend all day telling stories and citing statistics about how the exact opposite is true and 22 yet theres this train of thought, not overall but one train of thought, that leverages this 23 hypothetical thing about health care and disability to get health care for gender transition.  It 24 also assumes this thing about birth defect.  And defect is a word Ive heard all my life in one way 25 or another.  The assumption that we all want our defects fixed goes back to that hypothetical 26 cure.  So for me . . . let me back up.  I work really hard to respect every single way each trans 27 person identifies our relationship to gender, gender identity, gender expression and our 28 transness.  Ive come to understand that for some people being trans is a birth defect and is a 29 disability.  I want to respect that and yet the assumption that defect leads to cure reinforces 30 some of the crap Ive spent my entire life struggling with.  And for me, being trans is not 31 anywhere near defect . . . and I know there are many, many different relationships to being 32 trans.  33 
AJ: Wow.  Yeah, because in many ways I mean, based on the narrative that Im hearing, your trans 34 identity has really, in many ways, made life more accessible for you? 35 
EC: Made life plentiful, made life possible in a way of expressing myself as whole.  Yeah. 36 
AJ: Yeah  which is fantastic.  Boy, you started out . . . well, we just had this long conversation about 37 medical technology and trans identity, so to the extent that you feel comfortable sharing, Eli, 38 have you experienced any medical interventions in your gender transition? 39 
EC: Yes.  I had top surgery in 2002.  And thats what I spent a decade figuring out compounded by 1 how am I going to do that  part of that was money, part of that is navigating doctors.  It was a 2 very, very, very good thing to do.  I can remember being nine-years-old, having my shirt off 3 outside, my mother ordering me to put my shirt on right now.  So for me, chest reconstruction 4 surgery was the connection right back to that nine-year-old.  A really good thing for me to do, 5 really hard thing to navigate into . . . like for a long time it was just like, Where am I going to get 6 $8000?  Eight thousand dollars seemed like . . . flying to the moon seemed more possible than 7 having $8000.  But I was able to . . . yeah, I had a boss who insisted on my doing a promotion 8 and that promotion I saved every single penny from that promotion for four years.  So top 9 surgery was a really, really good thing that gave me so much more access to my body.  I was not 10 . . . I had no idea how much access it would give me, like inside myself not even talking about 11 what it means on the street  just inside myself.  At that point, I thought that top surgery would 12 be enough, that I didnt really want to be on testosterone for a number of reasons.  It wasnt, 13 once I had top surgery, testosterone started shouting in my ear, shouting at me every single day.  14 Two of my best friends where three years into F to M transition and so I was watching them and 15 watching them with envy and with respect and with, I want this, I dont want this.  But after 16 top surgery, testosterone just wouldnt leave me along.  And so finally . . . it wasnt a proactive, 17 Im choosing hormone replacement therapy, but it was a, Ive got to try this and it might not 18 be right but the only thing left is for me to try this.  And it was the right thing.   19 
AJ: Wow.  Youre in a beautiful relationship. 20 
EC: I am. 21 
AJ: You described it . . . talk a little bit about your sexual orientation.  Are you in a heterosexual 22 relationship right now?   23 
EC: Right. 24 
AJ: And how has it been navigating relationships? 25 
EC: Well, in the trans community we have this politics that says gender identity is here and sexual 26 orientation is here and theyre really different things and dont confuse them.  My experience is 27 that theyre not the same thing but theyre here . . . theyre . . . 28 
AJ: Yeah, theyre not disconnected. 29 
EC: Theyre not disconnected at all.  So I came out as a lesbian when I was 18-years-old and I found I 30 was attracted exclusively to women.  That felt really right.  I spent a lot of years there and the 31 moment trans stuff came up, that was a new question.  The moment trans stuff came up its 32 like, Oh, its more complicated than that.  Oh, Ive been attracted to butchs my entire life, 33 and butchs of a variety of gender identities.  But I had submerged that when I came out as a 34 lesbian as . . . and so as gender opened up, sexuality and sexual orientation opened up and as I 35 have more access to my body, sexuality kept opening up.  Im currently in a relationship with a 36 trans man and that relationship . . . we move through the world as gay men, theres no question 37 about that.  Internally we bring so many different kinds of history with us that Im not sure what 38 . . . weve never sat down and said, Inside the relationship, what kind of relationship is it?  39 That said, I dont have my primary queer and trans connection, community questions, arent 40 with gay male community.  Ive spent some time in the gay male community but thats not 1 where my primary connections are, thats not where I find political sustenance, cultural 2 sustenance, comfort.  Thats in a wider queer and trans community where the lines are much 3 looser.  What else?  So when we were filling out the paperwork and you asked me about sexual 4 orientation, wanting that one-word answer . . . I dont know.  I dont have a one-word answer, 5 thats part of why queer is so lovely.  Now part of who Im attracted to is like all over, just all 6 over.  And thats something that loosened . . . it either loosened up or it changed during 7 transition.  I dont know which one.   8 
AJ: Wow, fascinating.  Im just recognizing the time.  I guess . . . youve sort of alluded to some of 9 this, but what do you think the relationship is between the LGB and the trans community? 10 
EC: That is such an important and deep question and that goes so deep into the history and 11 detentions and pain and progress and what . . . yeah, it makes me think about Stonewall and 12 whose version of history gets listened to about Stonewall and the rebellions before Stonewall, 13 that kind of Compton Street Cafeteria. 14 
AJ: Yeah. 15 
EC: And I forget the name of the lunch counter rebellion in Philadelphia. 16 
AJ: Right, yes.  Boy, I cant recall the name either, but yes there was an action, long before 17 Stonewall even, that was led by trans . . . or they didnt necessarily identify themselves as trans 18 but certainly queers and drag queens and sort of people who were on the margins of the gay 19 community, if you will. 20 
EC: Right.  So some of my understanding is that there has always, always, always been so much 21 gender variance and gender non-conformity within gay and bi communities, or what we would 22 now call lesbian, gay and bi communities.  Theres always been this high level of gender 23 variation and theres a way in which it feels like the last 15 or 20 years a lot of that gender 24 variation has been pushed into T.  And the T part ought to be T.  And, at the same time, all of 25 this tension between the cis gender, non-trans LGB folks and trans folks.  Some of the 26 connection that there are lots of trans folks who are also lesbians, gay, bi  some of the 27 connection is that there is then, and still remains, a lot of gender variation among lesbian, gay, 28 bi folks that dont necessarily name themselves as trans.  Politically I think about kind of that 29 move in the late 1980s or early 1990s when trans communities started to have louder collective 30 voices and that happened at different times and different places around different specific trans 31 communities.   32 
AJ: Stone Butch Blues, Transsexual Menace . . .  33 
EC: Yes.  I think about Susan Strykers documentary about the Compton Street Cafeteria and the 34 incredible community of trans feminine women, trans women, and drag queens in the 35 Tenderloin.  But as trans voices became more collective and stronger and less isolated in little 36 pockets, that decision to connect ourselves to what the gay and lesbian and bisexual, you know 37  the B of LGBT, having its own long history.  But that decision for trans folks politically to 38 connect with the lesbian and gay movement, Ive heard so much debate about was that a good 39 thing, was that a bad thing.  I kind of strategically feel like it was a very important decision.  It 40 gave trans people a degree of political infrastructure that would have taken decades to build 1 from the ground up.  And yet, its cost us so much too.  All the struggle, all the transphobia that 2 we have encountered among non-trans or cis gender lesbian, gay and bi people has been 3 intense.  The ways weve been kicked out of non-trans lesbian and gay space.  I think of the 4 Michigan womens festival and trans women, I think of the struggle that trans women have who 5 are lesbian or bi-identified in terms of just finding people to date  tremendous, tremendous 6 pain, tremendous struggles.  So its not just political struggle, its also really, really personal 7 struggle.  I think of the kind of ferocity of radical feminists against trans people  trans women in 8 one way and trans men in another way and how ugly thats been.  Theres been so much 9 transphobia weve dealt with among non-trans lesbian and gay people.  Its like . . . how ugly gay 10 male communities have been about both trans women and about trans men in really different 11 ways.  Sometimes its like it hasnt been worth the political infrastructure and strategy to decide 12 to do this funny amalgamation of the LGBT.  I dont know.  I dont know. 13 
AJ: (Doorbell).  You know, thats Ben.  I just saw him walk up.  This has been such a fascinating 14 conversation.  I hope that we can, at some point in time, talk again.  I dont want to say 15 continue, because weve covered so much here that its been a pure joy and a blessing.   16 
EC: Exactly.  Thank you so much. 17 
AJ: But there is so much more to discuss. 18 
EC: Thank you so much. 19 
AJ: Thank you, Eli.  I appreciate your willingness to be a part of this. 20 
EC: Absolutely. 21 
AJ: Until we meet again, my friend. 22 
EC: And thank you for doing this oral history.  Oral history is so important.  Histories vanish so 23 quickly. 24 
AJ: Absolutely.  Thank you.  25 

