{ "id": "p16022coll97:84", "object": "https://cdm16022.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getthumbnail/collection/p16022coll97/id/84", "set_spec": "p16022coll97", "collection_name": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "collection_name_s": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "collection_description": "
The Tretter Transgender Oral History Project (TTOHP) collects, preserves, and makes accessible oral histories of gender transgression, especially as theyintersect with race, age, sexuality, citizenship, class, and ability. The project seeks to document the power and vision of trans movements for justice through the stories of activists working to imagine another world.
\n\nThe first phase of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project was led by poet and activist Andrea Jenkins—who became the first Black transgender woman to serve in office in the US after she was elected, in 2017, to the Minneapolis City Council. This phase of the project sought to document the life stories and experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming people, with a focus on people living in the upper Midwest as well as those often excluded from the historical record, including trans people of color and trans elders.
\n\nThe second phase of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project is led by trans studies scholar Myrl Beam. This phase of work seeks to document histories of trans activist movements and politics in the US, and is grounded in the belief that trans movements for justice are about more than rights: they are about survival, and about creating a new, more fabulous, more livable, and more expansive world––one not structured by racialized gender norms. The oral histories collected during this phase document the transformative power of trans movements, and the stories of trans activists who are building them.
\n\nFor more about the project, visit: https://www.lib.umn.edu/tretter/transgender-oral-history-project.
", "title": "Interview with Marcus Waterbury", "title_s": "Interview with Marcus Waterbury", "title_t": "Interview with Marcus Waterbury", "title_search": "Interview with Marcus Waterbury", "title_sort": "interviewwithmarcuswaterbury", "description": "Marcus Waterbury is a white transgender man raised in Minnesota. At the time of this interview, Waterbury was working as a wealth advisor based out of the Twin Cities. In this oral history, Waterbury speaks at length about his childhood experiences with gender, his family relationships, and dating as a straight man. He also touches upon his encounters with healthcare, his involvement with the National Center for Transgender Equality, navigating sexism, and sports.", "date_created": [ "2016-01-08" ], "date_created_ss": [ "2016-01-08" ], "date_created_sort": "2016", "creator": [ "Waterbury, Marcus" ], "creator_ss": [ "Waterbury, Marcus" ], "creator_sort": "waterburymarcus", "contributor": [ "Jenkins, Andrea (Interviewer)" ], "contributor_ss": [ "Jenkins, Andrea (Interviewer)" ], "notes": "Forms part of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, Phase 1.", "types": [ "Moving Image" ], "format": [ "Oral histories | http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300202595" ], "format_name": [ "Oral histories" ], "dimensions": "1:33:30", "subject": [ "White", "Midwest (United States)", "Work", "Wealth, Income, and Class", "Passing", "Privilege", "Family Relationships", "Health and Healthcare", "Sexism", "Art and Creative Work", "Spirituality, Spiritual Life, Religion", "Sex and Love", "Gender Affirming Care", "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project Phase 1" ], "subject_ss": [ "White", "Midwest (United States)", "Work", "Wealth, Income, and Class", "Passing", "Privilege", "Family Relationships", "Health and Healthcare", "Sexism", "Art and Creative Work", "Spirituality, Spiritual Life, Religion", "Sex and Love", "Gender Affirming Care", "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project Phase 1" ], "language": [ "English" ], "city": [ "Minneapolis" ], "state": [ "Minnesota" ], "country": [ "United States" ], "continent": [ "North America" ], "geonames": [ "http://sws.geonames.org/5037657/" ], "parent_collection": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "parent_collection_name": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "contributing_organization": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.", "contributing_organization_name": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.", "contributing_organization_name_s": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.", "contact_information": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies. 111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, 222 - 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455; https://www.lib.umn.edu/tretter", "fiscal_sponsor": "This project is funded through the generous support of The TAWANI Foundation, Headwaters Foundation and many individual donors.", "local_identifier": [ "tretter414_tohp178" ], "dls_identifier": [ "tretter414_tohp178" ], "rights_statement_uri": "http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/", "kaltura_audio": "1_4t85wdsi", "kaltura_video": "1_ta1kx7ks", "kaltura_combo_playlist": "0_1txp36tk", "page_count": 0, "record_type": "primary", "first_viewer_type": "kaltura_combo_playlist", "viewer_type": "kaltura_combo_playlist", "attachment": "148.pdf", "attachment_format": "pdf", "document_type": "item", "featured_collection_order": 999, "date_added": "2018-09-24T00:00:00Z", "date_added_sort": "2018-09-24T00:00:00Z", "date_modified": "2020-05-22T00:00:00Z", "transcription": "Marcus Waterbury\nNarrator\nAndrea Jenkins\nInterviewer\nThe Transgender Oral History Project\nTretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMarch 14, 2016\nThe Transgender Oral History Project of the Upper Midwest will empower individuals to tell their story,\nwhile providing students, historians, and the public with a more rich foundation of primary source\nmaterial about the transgender community. The project is part of the Tretter Collection at the\nUniversity of Minnesota. The archive provides a record of GLBT thought, knowledge and culture for\ncurrent and future generations and is available to students, researchers and members of the public.\nThe Transgender Oral History Project will collect up to 400 hours of oral histories involving 200 to 300\nindividuals over the next three years. Major efforts will be the recruitment of individuals of all ages and\nexperiences, and documenting the work of The Program in Human Sexuality. This project will be led by\nAndrea Jenkins, poet, writer, and trans-activist. Andrea brings years of experience working in\ngovernment, non-profits and LGBT organizations. If you are interested in being involved in this exciting\nproject, please contact Andrea.\nAndrea Jenkins\njenki120@umn.edu\n(612) 625-4379\nMarcus Waterbury 3\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1 Andrea Jenkins -AJ\n2 Marcus Waterbury -MW\n3\n4 AJ: All right, so . . . my name is Andrea Jenkins and I am the oral historian for the Transgender Oral\n5 History Project at the Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota. Today is March 14,\n6 2016, and I have the honor of sitting here chatting with Marcus Waterbury. We’re in his\n7 beautiful home in Minneapolis, in south Minneapolis. So, how you doing, Marcus?\n8 MW: Fine, nervous.\n9 AJ: Yeah, don’t be nervous – don’t be nervous. This is your story, your life, so you are the author of\n10 this story. Marcus, can you just state your name for the camera and your gender identity, your\n11 gender assigned at birth, and your preferred gender pronouns?\n12 MW: OK. Marcus Waterbury. Gender is . . . I’m a transgender man, the longer I go from when I\n13 transitioned, it’s getting to be more just male. Not to hide anything, but just fitting in more\n14 where I belong and less of an emphasis. And, I was assigned female at birth and transitioned at\n15 40.\n16 AJ: Oh, wow. OK.\n17 MW: So, 12 years ago. What else did you want?\n18 AJ: Yeah, just your gender pronouns which I’m pretty sure I know. But, you know, let’s state it for\n19 everybody else.\n20 MW: My gender pronouns are he and him.\n21 AJ: He and him.\n22 MW: Very much of a 50-year old, not a 22-year old.\n23 AJ: That was going to be my comment, Marcus, is that since I’ve been doing this project I have come\n24 across many, many, many different gender identities as well as various pronouns that people\n25 like to be called. So, you can never assume – you’ve got to ask. Just let me know if you need to\n26 stop and get a drink or something.\n27 MW: OK.\n28 AJ: So, Marcus, just to get us going, man, what is your earliest memory in life?\n29 MW: Oooh.\n30 AJ: And, please don’t try to wrack your brain thinking about your gender identity, but if it is related\n31 to that, that’s perfectly fine. I’m just saying . . . I just want to know what’s the earliest thing you\n32 remember.\n33 MW: I’m not real good at childhood memories, probably . . . I remember falling off a swing when I was\n34 little and mostly stories. I remember our house in Golden Valley and playing baseball and going\n35 off the end of the driveway to break my arm on my bike. All the pleasant ones.\nMarcus Waterbury 4\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAJ: Yeah, those really indelible 1 memories, huh?\n2 MW: Yeah.\n3 AJ: Yeah. So, where did you grow up?\n4 MW: We lived a couple different places, but I grew up here in the Twin Cities. We moved to Golden\n5 Valley when I was three and we were there and then moved over by Lake Harriet when I was in\n6 3rd grade – right before 3rd grade.\n7 AJ: Lake Harriet in south Minneapolis?\n8 MW: Yes.\n9 AJ: Cool. And so, what elementary school did you go to? Tell me about elementary school.\n10 MW: I went to Noble for two years in Golden Valley; I don’t even remember where I went to\n11 kindergarten. We had a lot of . . . dad worked and mom worked and so we had child care – that\n12 was not one of my mom’s strong points . . . finding good child care was not one of my mother’s\n13 strong points, so they were pretty traumatic different experiences. I went to Noble and then we\n14 moved to Lake Harriet and I went to Barton for two years and it was too homogeneous, I just did\n15 not like it at all. And so, I transferred to Field and went to Field for two years. And, that was\n16 good. My memories of Field were good.\n17 AJ: Really? Field School has some pretty sort of historically recognized efforts around dealing with .\n18 . . I want to say immigration and racial issues and . . .\n19 MW: It was significantly more diverse, which was way more comfortable for me. So, the idea of . . .\n20 Barton I hated; Noble was fine. I didn’t know any better, but Barton – they wanted everybody\n21 to be the same and everybody . . . if you didn’t do everything the way everybody else did, it was\n22 not going to fly.\n23 AJ: It felt very uncomfortable to you.\n24 MW: I did not like that at all.\n25 AJ: Do you think it had something to do with maybe your gender identity when you think back\n26 about it?\n27 MW: I’m sure it was a combination . . . oh, yeah, the gender piece was a piece of it. I remember in\n28 one of those . . . 3rd or 4th grade, which was the two grades I was there, they had one of these\n29 pioneer days or something and I wanted to dress up as a boy and nobody else would do it.\n30 Three or four girls were like, “Oh, yeah, yeah – that would be great.” And then they didn’t do it.\n31 AJ: Yeah.\n32 MW: But my mom made me wear a dress or a skirt to school until 5th grade. There were no dress\n33 codes but she just felt that that was the proper thing – yeah. Most of my friends didn’t, but\n34 mom felt that that was important – the proper way to get dressed for school.\n35 AJ: What was your thoughts on that?\nMarcus Waterbury 5\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: I think you can guess, but 1 suffice to say . . .\n2 AJ: You didn’t rebel?\n3 MW: Rebellion wasn’t really an option at our house. There was just too much going on. My dad had\n4 been really, really sick when I was baby and he was supposed to die and so there was just a lot\n5 of dynamics that weren’t your sort of normal family dynamics. The focus of the family was don’t\n6 upset the apple cart because dad will die. So, you don’t upset the apple cart.\n7 AJ: Right. Wear your skirt to school and . . .\n8 MW: Yeah. Did I say, “No, I don’t want to.” Yeah. Did I try to . . . but there wasn’t . . . and we didn’t\n9 have any money, so it wasn’t like . . . all the clothes were made or hand-me-down. We didn’t go\n10 shopping for clothes, that was completely out of the question – not even a possibility.\n11 AJ: Wow.\n12 MW: So, it wasn’t like I could go pick something else out of the closet or go shopping for some pants\n13 that would fit the bill. It was, “Here’s what we have, OK.”\n14 AJ: And these are your options.\n15 MW: Yeah. I was pretty happy when it wasn’t polyester skirts.\n16 AJ: Oh, wow. OK.\n17 MW: Mom sewed most everything. She taught us to sew and we sewed a bunch of our own clothes\n18 until . . . it wasn’t until probably 3rd or 4th grade . . . or 5th, that we started to have enough money\n19 that we could go to whatever the discount . . . we probably went to Goodwill once in a while,\n20 but even that was sort of a stretch.\n21 AJ: Wow. Do you have siblings, Marcus?\n22 MW: I have a little sister.\n23 AJ: OK.\n24 MW: And we’re pretty polar opposite.\n25 AJ: Yeah.\n26 MW: She was a ballerina, very graceful, very much of a girl.\n27 AJ: Wow.\n28 MW: When we moved over by Lake Harriet, she had an all pink room – pink and flowers and wanted\n29 to play the flute and be a ballerina.\n30 AJ: You wanted no part of that.\n31 MW: I wanted no part of that. I wanted to play sports. I was probably more of a typical big brother\n32 than . . . I was the one who would harass her about her dolls or . . .\nMarcus Waterbury 6\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1 AJ: That’s interesting.\n2 MW: Yeah, so I think some of my stuff was gender, but some of it was just that I don’t . . . I don’t\n3 know how much of it is gender, I just didn’t need to fit in. She did, she fit in very well. We’re\n4 two years apart. She lives out in DC with her family and raises money.\n5 AJ: Do you guys . . . are you connected with your little sister?\n6 MW: Yeah, I mean, we talk but we are much better suited to be in different parts of the country.\n7 AJ: OK.\n8 MW: Half a country away seems to be about right. A day, two-day visit is about right. We get to\n9 three or four and . . . you know.\n10 AJ: Things start getting a little testy.\n11 MW: Yeah. The family vacations were . . . there was a demarcation in the seats and it wasn’t long\n12 before mom figured out that a cooler was about the right size – the big coolers in-between the\n13 two of us.\n14 AJ: Wow. So, when you were at . . . Barton, was it?\n15 MW: Yeah.\n16 AJ: Did you feel like you were being bullied or teased?\n17 MW: I was always teased. I was the kid . . . probably Noble was the least and Barton was the worst. I\n18 was the sucker that they put a “Kick me” sign on.\n19 AJ: Oh, wow.\n20 MW: That was a regular occurrence. I think some of that is just because I don’t get social cues, so I\n21 was pretty lost. And then you put the gender stuff on top of it and I was really . . . like didn’t\n22 know which way was up and whether people were laughing at me or with me or whatever.\n23 Luckily, I was tough enough, like at Field . . . I did get in a few fights, but that seemed to fix that\n24 problem. I never started them, but I didn’t shy away from them.\n25 AJ: You didn’t back down.\n26 MW: Yeah, I didn’t back down – no. I learned pretty quickly that was a bad idea but where it was less\n27 on that front and more on sort of the social . . . just social bullying front, which was more at\n28 Barton, that was hard because I just was a complete sucker for it.\n29 AJ: Yeah, it happens. I think that’s one of the reasons why it came up as a part of the questions . . .\n30 just to kind of get a sense do trans-identified people, as children, experience more sort-of\n31 harassment or feelings about a message and you kind of said you did. But, I’m glad to hear that\n32 things got better at Field.\n33 MW: Well, they did. My challenge . . . they did, a little bit – yeah. I mean, it was much more diverse\n34 so I didn’t have to look and be like everybody else.\nMarcus Waterbury 7\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAJ: Where did you go 1 to high school?\n2 MW: I went to Bryant Junior High and then Minneapolis Central.\n3 AJ: Oh, wow.\n4 MW: For three years and then finished the curriculum there and my mom wouldn’t let me go to\n5 college early. At that time, the only school in the Twin Cities that had classes I hadn’t taken was\n6 SPA. All the other private schools . . .\n7 AJ: OK, St. Paul Academy?\n8 MW: St. Paul Academy. All the other private schools didn’t have any more classes than Central did, so\n9 that didn’t do any good. I actually ended up going to Exeter where there really was quite a bit\n10 that I hadn’t taken.\n11 AJ: Wow.\n12 MW: And that was fabulous.\n13 AJ: And that’s in . . . on the east coast?\n14 MW: Yeah, it’s in New Hampshire.\n15 AJ: New Hampshire – yes.\n16 MW: But, they bullied kids there. I wasn’t the subject of it because it was very . . . (1) it was\n17 reasonably diverse, not like Central but they went to a lot of trouble to be diverse. But kids\n18 were bullied who weren’t very smart. Everything else kind of didn’t matter – gay, lesbian, color\n19 of your skin, where you were from. Many, many of the kids were not from the U.S. and so there\n20 were a lot of accents – none of that mattered. If you weren’t smart enough to get the\n21 conversation, it was not pretty.\n22 AJ: Oh, wow.\n23 MW: Because the kids were really smart and there would be all sorts of esoteric conversations and\n24 humor and things like that. Somebody who couldn’t keep up, I wouldn’t have . . .\n25 AJ: Just got pushed to the side, huh?\n26 MW: The boys, there was a lot of harassment, but I wasn’t in a boy’s dorm. The boy’s dorms were\n27 pretty brutal.\n28 AJ: Wow.\n29 MW: They were not a pretty scene, but I think they were an equal opportunity . . . I didn’t get the\n30 impression that they picked on one more than the other.\n31 AJ: When did you first realize that the gender you were assigned at birth was not the gender . . .\n32 your true gender identity?\n33 MW: Well, I know my mom has told me that I asked to be a boy and she told me I couldn’t when I was\n34 really little – so, probably three or four or something like that. Then I remember through\nMarcus Waterbury 8\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nelementary and early junior high, just really wanting to be a boy and 1 having a lot of trauma\n2 around getting my period. I’d always try to do sports with boys and make sure I measured up,\n3 but after that I sort of . . . I must have buried it because I sort of figured that that wasn’t going to\n4 happen at some point in elementary school or something. I completely buried it.\n5 AJ: Right, it just seems like an impossible dream.\n6 MW: Yes. But, it was really buried. It wasn’t sort of lingering there, that I can’t do it – it stopped\n7 being.\n8 AJ: Just stopped.\n9 MW: Yes. And then . . . but I did do a lot of things where I was making sure that I was as good as the\n10 guys or better. So, working at a hardware store and doing set work and building and things.\n11 AJ: Set design – like . . .\n12 MW: No, building. So, I was a master carpenter for summer stock theatre in college.\n13 AJ: So, for theatre – right.\n14 MW: Yeah, for theatre – not the design part though, the actual building part.\n15 AJ: The building part of the set, OK. All right. So, yeah, that’s incredible.\n16 MW: Yeah. Suzan-Lori Parks was a year ahead of me at Mount Holyoke.\n17 AJ: Is that right?\n18 MW: Yeah.\n19 AJ: She’s a pretty significant voice in American theatre.\n20 MW: So, it was cool . . . I didn’t do much alongside her but there was a lot of overlap and stuff. The . .\n21 . yeah, so I did that and then it was . . . when I started dating women, figuring that out seemed\n22 to be a good thing. And so that sort of . . .\n23 AJ: You say that kind of casually. “When I started to date women . . .” That was not necessarily a . .\n24 .\n25 MW: Casual thing.\n26 AJ: Yeah.\n27 MW: No, I got involved with my roommate at Exeter, who was sort of my first love and we dated\n28 completely . . . well, we thought, completely hidden.\n29 AJ: Nothing is ever really completely hidden, Marcus.\n30 MW: No, no, no – we found out later that that was very much not the case as I ran into somebody\n31 who was on her freshman floor in college and they all said, “Oh, yeah, we all looked up to you.”\n32 AJ: Oh, wow.\nMarcus Waterbury 9\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: So, that seemed to make things a little bit not as urgent, I think, being 1 able to have those\n2 relationships. When I finished college, I came out to my parents. I figured it was better to wait\n3 until they wrote the last check.\n4 AJ: Right – good idea. Even though, knowing your parents . . . I know your parents and I think you\n5 would have been able to finish college had you decided to tell them ahead of time. But, maybe\n6 I’m wrong. You know them much better than I do.\n7 MW: I think the people who knew my parents from . . . whatever, 50 years ago or 40 years ago, a lot\n8 of them were really surprised I told them.\n9 AJ: Oh, wow.\n10 MW: That they have some pretty strong opinions on a number of things – things like divorce, which\n11 they are perfectly happy to tell me how they feel about and it’s not nice. So, just because it\n12 affects their kid doesn’t mean that they’re nice about it.\n13 AJ: Wow.\n14 MW: And they were both reasonably, my dad especially, reasonably active in the Republican party\n15 and had grown up a Southern Baptist. So, there were lots of reasons to not necessarily . . .\n16 AJ: Come out.\n17 MW: Yeah. But, I came out to them and moved to Boston a week later. I figured that was safe. If it\n18 went poorly I was going to be on the other coast and . . . we were not a close family. Everybody\n19 talks about going to school and being homesick . . . I went to Exeter . . . it wasn’t a big deal.\n20 There was one phone for our whole dorm and I don’t . . . once in a while I’d wait in line to use it,\n21 but probably on two hands could count the total times in a year that I did.\n22 AJ: Wow.\n23 MW: So, it was not something – and probably half of those were logistics.\n24 AJ: “Mom, pick me up from the airport at . . .”\n25 MW: Yeah, yeah. Or, “What flight am I on?” Or, “When are you coming?” Whatever. So, that part . .\n26 . the idea that I would pick up and move to Boston if it didn’t go well. It did, I left them with a\n27 bunch of books. It wasn’t until my late 30s, after a few failed relationships where I figured out it\n28 had to partly be my fault, and that I really needed to look at what was going on. I was doing the\n29 women’s social and I had the whole issue of transgender and how that fit into it really made me\n30 have to sort of have to look at that question. There were . . . and I think now, a long time later,\n31 some of the decisions I would keep the same, but some of them I would widely change. But,\n32 just the whole conversation was around . . . I wasn’t that comfortable with it. So, I was your\n33 typical sort of person who, when you’re uncomfortable and you’re scared, you push away.\n34 AJ: Right.\n35 MW: And, that kind of forced me to say, “Well, why does this matter so much to me?” And, looking\n36 at that piece, why does it matter, made me sort of say, “OK, yeah, it matters.”\nMarcus Waterbury 10\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAJ: It matters 1 – because it does.\n2 MW: It does matter, but I do think that that’s how . . . that’s certainly how I did and I think it’s not\n3 uncommon for people when something is really scary, to push it away.\n4 AJ: Yeah, I don’t think that’s uncommon at all. In fact, I think when something that scary, speaking\n5 from experience, I know people push it away quite frequently.\n6 MW: Yeah. And I was pushed on it and, at the time, I was with Jacqueline and she was very helpful in\n7 that piece of really pushing me on why . . . why do you care so much? Why is this so important\n8 to you? Once I put the pieces together, then it was sort of . . . then it was easy. It was like, “OK,\n9 this fits,” and then just went forward. There wasn’t a lot of . . . I had seen so many people in the\n10 closet as gay and lesbian and how much pain that caused, mostly to them, that it wasn’t a hard .\n11 . .\n12 AJ: Nobody else knows because you didn’t come out yet.\n13 MW: So, I figured it out and I went . . . I was like, “I have to tell my parents.” And Jacqueline was like,\n14 “Do you think you could wait a week?” “No.”\n15 AJ: Why? Why did she want to wait a week?\n16 MW: Oh, she just . . . I don’t know. I mean, I think a lot of it was her stuff. I think . . . I don’t know. It\n17 would be total conjecture.\n18 AJ: I mean, it doesn’t matter . . .\n19 MW: It doesn’t really matter. They were . . . my dad was so . . . he knew I had something to say and\n20 he was so afraid that I was going to say I didn’t want to be in the business anymore that when I\n21 said I was transgender, they were like, “Oh, that’s good.”\n22 AJ: Phew.\n23 MW: Exactly.\n24 AJ: “Oh, just that.”\n25 MW: “It’s just that.” So, I was lucky in that way and I was also very lucky – one of my classmates from\n26 college who I had done some stuff with, Christian fellowship and a bible study and trying to\n27 figure out who I was and be OK with who I thought I was but who I was then is being a lesbian,\n28 and that person, it was a pretty small group of us that had decided to have a more liberal Bible\n29 study and a number of us had come out as lesbian – like there were eight of us and six of us\n30 came out.\n31 AJ: Wow.\n32 MW: But, one of those people had transitioned a few years before I did and it was somebody who I\n33 had sort of stayed in touch with. He had been the best friend of my first wife, so we weren’t\n34 that close, but I had realized that he had transitioned so I was able to reach out to him. It was\n35 Justin Tanis, it is Justin Tanis, who has also written on transgender in religion, that was his\n36 dissertation. And, I was able to go stay with him for a couple of nights and just sort of\nMarcus Waterbury 11\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nunderstand his process. We used a lot of the connections that we had made 1 with the gay and\n2 lesbian community to meet other folks.\n3 AJ: OK. So, Justin . . . how do you spell his name?\n4 MW: Justin . . .\n5 AJ: I mean Tanis.\n6 MW: T-a-n-i-s, I believe.\n7 AJ: T-a-n-i-s. OK>\n8 MW: Yeah, I can show you his book.\n9 AJ: That would be great. So, was Justin the first transgender person you met?\n10 MW: No, I had known a number of people in the Twin Cities.\n11 AJ: OK.\n12 MW: I probably knew you before that. In fact, I’m sure I did because you had come to my women’s\n13 social.\n14 AJ: Multiple times.\n15 MW: Yeah. So, no, I knew a number of people. There weren’t that many trans men that I knew and\n16 that’s still a struggle and I don’t have a good answer. I would love somebody to have a good\n17 answer because we are so invisible, whether we want to be or not. I can’t . . . as a lesbian, I\n18 could put a picture up in my office or talk about the person I was with and that would out me\n19 without clubbing the other person over the head or making any assumptions about where the\n20 other person stood on the issue. It’s really hard as a trans person to do that.\n21 AJ: Yeah. You look pretty much like a white guy walking down the street, Marcus. I’m just going to\n22 say.\n23 MW: Well, that part was hard too.\n24 AJ: So, no one can visually tell.\n25 MW: No, although on the phone I still sound like a woman apparently. That happened today. I was\n26 not very polite with the person on the other end of the phone.\n27 AJ: Really? Wow. Is that right? How does that affect you?\n28 MW: It unnerves me. It bothers me. I think my name is fairly masculine.\n29 AJ: It’s masculine.\n30 MW: And a lot of times it’s Mr. or it has my gender someplace on it. Sometimes it feels almost as if\n31 somebody looks by it. Now, Anita will give me exercises that, if I did, I probably would work\n32 better.\nMarcus Waterbury 12\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1 AJ: Who is Anita?\n2 MW: Anita Kozan.\n3 AJ: Anita Kozan, a voice coach.\n4 MW: A voice coach, yeah.\n5 AJ: So, you worked with Anita.\n6 MW: I worked with Anita before I ever knew I was trans – before I sort of re-discovered it, because I\n7 lost my voice and I was sent to her.\n8 AJ: Really? That’s interesting – you were sent to the Twin Cities leading transgender voice coach.\n9 MW: But she wasn’t at the time.\n10 AJ: And you weren’t identified as transgender at that time.\n11 MW: I identified as lesbian and, at the time, she was just in the very early stages of figuring out\n12 coming out as bi. She was not out as bi. Yeah, so we got to be friends. She got my voice back,\n13 which was amazing. I was on some meds because of my allergies that had really hurt my vocal\n14 chords and my throat so I had completely . . . and, it was early in the Lynx tenure so shouting at\n15 the Lynx game on top of that was not helping anything.\n16 AJ: So, you’re a basketball fan?\n17 MW: I am, I am. I played basketball sort-of OK in high school. I was one of the white kids on the\n18 team.\n19 AJ: You’re an athlete – you went to practice every day.\n20 MW: Oh, yeah – three sports in high school.\n21 AJ: Really? What sports?\n22 MW: Swimming and badminton, which at that time was a women’s varsity sport in Minnesota. Now, I\n23 think it’s mixed but it’s not your backyard game, which most people . . .\n24 AJ: Yes, it gets pretty competitive.\n25 MW: Most people, once they see it outside America, everywhere else it’s really a very serious sport.\n26 It was a lot of fun.\n27 AJ: No, it’s quick reaction, very quick reaction. There’s strategy, there’s physicality, there’s chance\n28 for injury even – pretty significant.\n29 MW: Oh yeah – oh yeah.\n30 AJ: So, wow – I just learned something. I did not know you were a young athlete.\n31 MW: I did. I figured out how to do it. I’m not widely gifted in any of them, but enough hard work and\n32 just a little bit of luck.\nMarcus Waterbury 13\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAJ: It’s all about desire, I think. Do you want to 1 do this or not?\n2 MW: I was the one who could read everything that was going on and I got more steals than anybody.\n3 I think I made one layup. That was a form of bullying – they called me, “lead booty” because I\n4 couldn’t get down the court very fast.\n5 AJ: Oh, wow. OK.\n6 MW: They could all run . . . I’d be a guard and pick off the ball and both teams would be at the other\n7 basket by the time I got there.\n8 AJ: Funny.\n9 MW: But, we got the ball.\n10 AJ: So, when you identified as lesbian, did you identify as butch?\n11 MW: Much more butch.\n12 AJ: OK.\n13 MW: There was no risk of me being a femme lesbian.\n14 AJ: Did you use that terminology or you just kind of . . .?\n15 MW: I didn’t, and part of it was the time – and I went to a women’s college. So, that whole concept\n16 of gender roles was sort of not in vogue. The idea was to break down . . . this was the 1980s,\n17 early 1980s, and it was sort of break down all the gender roles – not just in lesbian relationships,\n18 but in all the relationships. I found it interesting that we had a professor who was quite good in\n19 women’s studies at the time. She talked about what she thought were the nature versus\n20 nurture of gender. I don’t know what your experience has been, but mine has been a lot of\n21 them are sort of polar opposite – like the things that she thought would be taught were much\n22 more of a natural; and things that people thought were just natural, I think, were much more\n23 taught.\n24 AJ: Learned.\n25 MW: Societal.\n26 AJ: I think that some of that is definitely a part of my background and experience. So, just . . . I\n27 guess, can you just talk about . . . and I think you have talked about this a little bit, but what are\n28 some of the challenges that you have faced since you’ve decided to express your true gender\n29 identity?\n30 MW: I struggle, personally, with just how to go through the world sometimes. The whole power\n31 dynamic is so subtle but is really important. I’m going through thinking I’m doing things the\n32 same way I’ve always done, but they’re being heard and responded to totally differently.\n33 People are saying, “Well, you told us what to do.” It’s like, “I asked a question.” And they said,\n34 “Well, you just seem like you know what you want to do and you don’t want any input.” It’s\n35 like, “Well, which part of asking a question didn’t you get?” I think . . . I don’t know, it just feels\n36 like as a woman in order to have any space at the table, I had to be much more forceful and\nMarcus Waterbury 14\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\neven with a lot less of that as a guy, people just feel like I’m just barging ahead. 1 That isn’t what\n2 I’m intending. I struggle a lot with the whole community question because I think as a woman I\n3 thought when I transitioned that well, I’ll just go find a bunch of guys as friends and hang out.\n4 But, there’s not a lot of community with guys.\n5 AJ: True.\n6 MW: They sort of get together to drink beer or hang out, but there just isn’t . . .\n7 AJ: Watch sports or play sports or something.\n8 MW: Yeah. A lot of competition, a lot of jockeying but there isn’t just sort of a comfortable\n9 community and I’ve found that a lot of the women in my life, there’s just a whole different\n10 reaction. So, even as a lesbian, I could show up with another woman and people would think I\n11 was just out with a friend. Now, if I show up with a woman, everybody assumes that there is\n12 something else going on. I don’t . . . I mean, I don’t know that for sure, it’s just the looks and\n13 stuff.\n14 AJ: But, you feel it.\n15 MW: Yeah. So, that’s really hard because it’s fun to just to have a bunch of people to hang out with.\n16 So, I’m still struggling with all that. I was really surprised at how big a difference the surgery\n17 made. It was really . . . the first set of surgeries was kind of what I needed to do legally with\n18 chest and a total hysterectomy. But, the genital reconstruction was really enormous as far as\n19 feeling inline, a sense of alignment, which I was not expecting at all. I did it because I was going\n20 to date and I didn’t really want to explain things. It was better to explain that I’m little than it\n21 was to explain totally different anatomy.\n22 AJ: Right, exactly.\n23 MW: And, it’s not like I’ve not been completely open with everybody long before that came up, but I\n24 think I was not expecting at all the sense of alignment and the sense of things sort of coming\n25 together with that.\n26 AJ: So, you feel . . . wow, thank you for sharing that. I mean, that’s literally one of my questions and\n27 I didn’t even have to ask it – it works out sometimes that way. So, you really feel alignment with\n28 men, you identified as a lesbian, you sort of came of age during second-wave sort of feminism –\n29 you know, abolish gender roles and these kinds of things, do you identify . . . do you classify\n30 yourself as a feminist today?\n31 MW: Oh, yeah – absolutely. It’s much harder to do as a guy, so I’m still figuring that piece out. I think\n32 the more comfortable I am, and the surgery had a lot to do with it as far as safety and other\n33 things, the more comfortable I am standing up to guys and saying, “You didn’t really mean that,\n34 did you?”\n35 AJ: Right.\n36 MW: Or, “That’s not very appropriate,” or that sort of thing.\n37 AJ: Sure.\nMarcus Waterbury 15\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: I’m blown away by how sexist guys are and how demeaning 1 they are to women.\n2 AJ: Even with your own experience with womanhood, you see it at a different level – because\n3 you’re on the inside now.\n4 MW: Yeah, it’s really hard sometimes. You know that whole space, there’s just a lot of treating\n5 women like objects and a lot of sort of degrading or not being terribly respectful and that’s\n6 really hard – partly because I haven’t really figured out how to respond in a way that’s\n7 constructive.\n8 AJ: Yes.\n9 MW: Sometimes it’s guys who just don’t know any better. I am learning that a lot of it is just how\n10 they see the world is so different that they don’t understand why women are doing whatever it\n11 is they’re doing.\n12 AJ: Yeah, they’ve been socialized in such a way that they think women want that.\n13 MW: You know, I think it’s just a different view of the world because I’ve also experienced, as a guy,\n14 women just expecting me to provide. As a woman, with another woman, it was much more of a\n15 partnership and I really appreciated that. Getting that, as a guy, seems to be really hard – just\n16 this incredible sense . . . even with a number of my friends like, “Well, no, that’s the guy’s job.”\n17 AJ: Right.\n18 MW: I don’t have any intention of whatever it is. I’ve struggled with that – how do . . . that doesn’t\n19 feel comfortable to me. I’m happy mowing the lawn, I’m happy shoveling the walk, I’m happy\n20 building and things like that. But, I’m not real happy if somebody is like, “I’m never going to do\n21 that,” because they’re a woman. That piece I haven’t run into, but the idea that I’m somehow\n22 supposed to . . . if I’m with a woman that I’m supposed to provide for them, whether they work\n23 or not, I don’t do well. I would have been perfectly happy if it was a joint activity to raise kids,\n24 but just in a couple with nothing else going on.\n25 AJ: Sure.\n26 MW: But, that seems to be very much of a societal thing and a lot of the guys wouldn’t dream of not\n27 doing that or not feeling guilty about that. It’s just kind of interesting.\n28 AJ: That is, it’s fascinating in fact. What have been some of the positive aspects of expressing your\n29 truest gender identity?\n30 MW: Just being comfortable – like not being . . . just a sense of alignment and a sense of being who\n31 I’m supposed to be and not . . . and understanding why things didn’t make sense. Being a lot\n32 more comfortable. I’m perfectly comfortable in a suit and tie, which most guys are running for\n33 the thing . . .\n34 AJ: Right.\n35 MW: But, I’m just so happy to put on a tie instead of nylons. I’ll wear a tie all day.\n36 AJ: Oh, wow. That is interesting.\nMarcus Waterbury 16\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: So, yeah. To be able to have a beard 1 is really cool.\n2 AJ: Yeah, it looks great too.\n3 MW: Well, that’s cool too.\n4 AJ: Did you ever think that that would happen when you were 15 years old?\n5 MW: No, no. But, it was one of those things that’s like, “Oh, wow.” When I was younger watching my\n6 dad shave and wanting to be able to shave and not being able to. My dad never grew a beard, I\n7 don’t even know why. We asked him at one point, but I always thought, “Why doesn’t he grow\n8 a beard?” Because he can.\n9 AJ: Yeah, it’s just not his thing.\n10 MW: No, he’s a Marine . . . well, he wasn’t a Marine, he was Army, but he’s got that Eagle Scout piece\n11 to him.\n12 AJ: Sure. Oh, boy.\n13 MW: But, just feeling connected and feeling in the right place is well worth it.\n14 AJ: That’s awesome. So, it sounds like your relationship with your family is . . . I mean, I know you\n15 said it’s sort of a distant and not a close, close relationship, but does that level of closeness still\n16 exist?\n17 MW: Yeah. I mean, I talk to my parents a fair amount but we don’t get into any sort of real intimate\n18 subjects very often. That’s fine, that’s what I’m comfortable with, that’s what they’re\n19 comfortable with.\n20 AJ: Right.\n21 MW: My mom is pretty close to my sister but between all of us, I don’t think there’s a lot . . . that’s\n22 just now part of the picture. They’re very supportive, my whole family – my whole extended\n23 family, has been very supportive. My parents are really awesome in the sense that they figured\n24 out early on when I was out as a lesbian that a lot of things that people said that were really\n25 bad, didn’t have to do with me – they had to do with whoever is talking.\n26 AJ: Oh, good.\n27 MW: So, when I came out as trans they told me right away, “Well, if anybody says anything bad to\n28 you or has a problem with you, we’re not going to tell you, because it isn’t about you.”\n29 AJ: Right.\n30 MW: And, it doesn’t do any good to tell you. We’ll deal with it and we’ll talk to them if somebody is\n31 unhappy or angry or anything. I had a great aunt who we all loved, but it was very much of a . . .\n32 in a religious area that . . . I don’t remember if it was Southern Baptist, but she didn’t like the\n33 fact that I was a lesbian. Dad was doing everything – he was helping her with all her bills, he\n34 was doing her taxes and everything, and she just wouldn’t leave the subject of me being with a\nMarcus Waterbury 17\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nwoman alone, and so he just walked away from it. He just said, “You go deal 1 with it because if\n2 you can’t accept my kid for who they are, then I don’t have time to do this.”\n3 AJ: Wow, that’s a powerful story.\n4 MW: Yeah.\n5 AJ: Did she ever come around?\n6 MW: I don’t know, I don’t even know if she’s still alive. I asked my dad if she was still alive, he didn’t\n7 know.\n8 AJ: Oh, boy. OK.\n9 MW: But, he was . . . I’m quite sure she’s probably not. If she is, she’d be over 100 now. And she was\n10 a spry person, she could have been, but they’ve been very supportive in that way. So, that piece\n11 has been unexpected but really wonderful. I would say to any parent the best thing you can do\n12 for your kid is just believe in who they are. If you’re going to protect your kid, that’s how you\n13 protect them.\n14 AJ: Wow. Marcus, talk about this . . . this is not a question that I typically ask, but you made me\n15 think about it. Just, what . . . if you can describe what it’s like to move from one gender and be\n16 totally engrained and socialized and then to move to this new gender. Everybody I’m\n17 interviewing experiences this, but I haven’t really asked this question in this way.\n18 MW: Yeah. It’s a good question and I think it’s different . . . I really was. I was out there pounding the\n19 pavement for lesbian rights and feminist rights and just very much in that space. And,\n20 sometimes it feels sort of like I’m an alien or something – just so different and so not . . . sort of\n21 not one of the changes any of us ever expect really. It wasn’t in my list of things I expected to\n22 do before I died.\n23 AJ: Right.\n24 MW: And, it really has been eye-opening in that the work I was doing pounding the pavement and the\n25 feminist work was . . . it reaffirmed that none of that was sort of made up, that everything that\n26 we were talking about – you know, we talked about . . . I remember talking about going to the\n27 Minneapolis Club with another friend who is also a woman, and this was a while ago. They sat\n28 us toward the front of the restaurant and didn’t serve us very quickly.\n29 AJ: Right.\n30 MW: Just this idea that we were just women so we didn’t have jobs to get back to.\n31 AJ: Right. And, you didn’t deserve to be in the . . .\n32 MW: In the serious part. Luckily, I was on a committee at that point and brought that up quickly and\n33 found other people that had the same experience and we were able to make some real changes\n34 there. But, I think in life, a lot of times, you go to a restaurant and how many times they look at\n35 me and they never look at the other person.\n36 AJ: Right.\nMarcus Waterbury 18\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: How many times they give me the check – even when we’ve indicated to 1 the server that they\n2 should be split or some other arrangement. How often they look to me to make the decision\n3 and . . . I don’t even remember . . . going shopping with a friend for something for the house and\n4 they’ll look to me. Even after I’ve said it’s for them, I’m just here as a support.\n5 AJ: Right.\n6 MW: I don’t know how we fix it other than just be aware of it and sort of pound . . . you know.\n7 AJ: Yeah, there’s a lot of inherent sexism and patriarchy that is deeply engrained in our culture and\n8 society.\n9 MW: Yeah. So, seeing all that is a shift. I mean just . . . that’s probably the biggest thing, just the\n10 personal interactions and what that’s like. In a way, I think I was more confident as a woman\n11 because I didn’t know that . . . I didn’t totally fit in my body, but I had memorized many of the\n12 social cues so I could move smoothly and I was much more comfortable speaking than most\n13 women. I think some of that is that I’m a guy and so I wasn’t hesitant, I wasn’t looking for some\n14 guy’s approval – that whole message that I was supposed to wait for a guy’s approval didn’t click\n15 with me. And so, it was easier to have a voice and be out there then it is . . . now, I find myself\n16 sometimes a little more hesitant – and a lot more careful about trying to make sure that the\n17 women that I’m with are noticed.\n18 AJ: Right.\n19 MW: And not take advantage of where I’m sitting, but that’s really hard because so much of it is\n20 subtle.\n21 AJ: Right.\n22 MW: And unless I’m paying complete attention, it’s really hard to see sometimes.\n23 AJ: So, now you’re learning all these sort of new social cues as a white male in our society.\n24 MW: Hopefully.\n25 AJ: I mean slowly, you’ve got to pick up on them eventually.\n26 MW: Yeah, I’m slowing learning them. I’m still trying to figure out things like when to open doors and\n27 when not to open doors and all that stuff. I’m still pretty much of a neophyte on that.\n28 AJ: Wow. You talked about medical intervention, where did you have your surgery?\n29 MW: Here I had . . . I really wanted to be able to do as much in the Twin Cities because I feel like\n30 because I am in a position where I’ve got some more money. We’ve been very active, so we\n31 have some noticeability, that I knew there were a lot of trans guys and trans women, but\n32 especially trans guys with chest surgery and how important that was. Many of them, there were\n33 one or two surgeons here that were pretty clumsy and otherwise guys were going away. So, we\n34 had a couple of family friends that are fairly well known in the plastic surgery world and went to\n35 them. One of them put me off on his partner and I just said . . . you know. The other one was\n36 happy to do the surgery and I learned a lot about plastic surgeons and where they were coming\nMarcus Waterbury 19\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nfrom because both of these folks I trust inherently – you know, very much. 1 She talked about the\n2 horror stories in their professional world of doing surgery on trans women and then having\n3 them figure out that that wasn’t where they wanted to be and suing the surgeon and how\n4 unqualified she felt to know . . . she could do the surgery really well, but she had no\n5 qualifications to say whether that was an appropriate surgery for that person.\n6 AJ: OK.\n7 MW: So, she does it now and is very available, has done a lot of work, but she does it all through Deb\n8 Thorpe who was the OB person. But, it has given access to lots of people to a very, very fine\n9 surgeon who really just does cleft lips and chests.\n10 AJ: Oh, wow. Because you . . .\n11 MW: Because I pushed it . . .\n12 AJ: . . . decided to stay here and re-educated her.\n13 MW: Yeah.\n14 AJ: She took a chance and . . .\n15 MW: She took a chance. It was really funny . . . plastic surgeons are artists.\n16 AJ: Yes.\n17 MW: And so, she looked through . . . this was 2006, and so she was like, “OK, what chest?” So, she\n18 was looking through all the magazines of all the movie stars and she’s like, “OK, Brad Pitt.”\n19 AJ: So, you’ve got a Brad Pitt chest?\n20 MW: That’s what she was aiming for. So, she’s got the magazine out and she’s like, “Well, can you\n21 come in the night before the surgery?” She’s drawing all over my chest to figure out how she\n22 wanted it to look so she didn’t have to do that . . . she could take her time.\n23 AJ: In the morning, right.\n24 MW: So, that was kind of fun. She had it all in whatever marker.\n25 AJ: Marker, yeah.\n26 MW: You know, your Sharpie – she had the Sharpie out and she’s doing all this.\n27 AJ: Oh, boy.\n28 MW: So, that was kind of cool and she’s learned stuff since.\n29 AJ: Were you pleased with it?\n30 MW: I am pleased with it. I suspect the work she does now is phenomenal so I was the first one . . .\n31 she usually was doing . . .\n32 AJ: Do you have a significant scar?\nMarcus Waterbury 20\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: I don’t think so. I notice it, other people don’t notice 1 it as much.\n2 AJ: OK, because I’ve seen a lot of trans men and the scar is extremely prominent – there’s no way\n3 that no one notices it.\n4 MW: I think if somebody looks . . . I’ve been really blessed. After . . . again, I think it’s alignment, I\n5 think my body was just so happy to have the genital surgery and it all fit – the hair growth and\n6 everything took off, and so I actually have quite a bit of hair growth around the scar so it’s not as\n7 prominent. But, if someone were looking . . . you know, went like this, they would . . . but, no,\n8 I’m quite happy with it. I knew there was some risk, so I knew that I wasn’t probably going to\n9 get the same job as I did if I went to one of the top surgeons someplace else. But, I also didn’t . .\n10 . I went under once and had both the OB and the chest all at once.\n11 AJ: Oh, really?\n12 MW: Yeah, because I figured the hardest part was coming out of it. And both the surgeons were\n13 thrilled because there was something to distract me from the pain they caused.\n14 AJ: OK, the other pain. So, you couldn’t decide which pain was worse because everything was\n15 hurting.\n16 MW: And then the genital stuff I went to Dr. Meltzer in Scottsdale.\n17 AJ: OK. Toby Meltzer.\n18 MW: Toby Meltzer, and he did a phenomenal job. It was five surgeries, one of which was a revision,\n19 but the rest were all to get me . . . and one was because I’m not the skinniest kid on the block so\n20 they did something that was like . . . I guess it’s the same thing they do for tummy tuck, so\n21 everything lifts it up and it’s more visual. That was close to the most painful one.\n22 AJ: Yeah, I’ve heard tummy tucks are really, really painful.\n23 MW: Yeah, I was not expecting that.\n24 AJ: Yeah, it sounds so cute – tummy tuck.\n25 MW: Yeah, yeah. Well, apparently, they take the band out that is what kind of holds the baby up,\n26 that is just extra skin if you don’t have a baby to hold up.\n27 AJ: Right, yeah.\n28 MW: But that was five surgeries over the course of a year.\n29 AJ: Boy, wow.\n30 MW: But his team was magnificent and . . .\n31 AJ: And that was just for the bottom, the genital surgery.\n32 MW: Yes.\n33 AJ: What was the cost on that?\nMarcus Waterbury 21\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: I think it ended up being around . . . almost all of my surgery was covered 1 by insurance.\n2 AJ: OK – awesome.\n3 MW: I think the total was probably around $50,000. I did have some lypo because they don’t shape\n4 women’s thighs the same as men’s.\n5 AJ: Right.\n6 MW: So, there’s some issues with things hitting things.\n7 AJ: Yeah – yeah.\n8 MW: So, I had that corrected along the way and that was out-of-pocket for me. It was $1,000 or . . . a\n9 couple grand or something. But, almost everything else was mostly covered. He makes you pay\n10 up front, which I was able to do – thankfully, but got reimbursed relatively quickly.\n11 AJ: OK, wow. That’s great.\n12 MW: Yeah.\n13 AJ: And, you had that all sort of worked out prior to make sure the insurance company was going to\n14 reimburse you before you dished out the cash.\n15 MW: Yeah. I was blessed in that for a lot of different reasons, I was in a position where if I needed to,\n16 I could pay for it. So, I was able to go into more with, “Well, I’ll fight the insurance company and\n17 get whatever I can out of them,” than I was, “If they aren’t going to cover it, I’m not going to do\n18 it.”\n19 AJ: Got it.\n20 MW: And, when I did the surgery in 2006, which was completely the wrong way to do it except that it\n21 worked.\n22 AJ: OK.\n23 MW: Which was, I didn’t go in asking a lot of questions. I went to both doctors and said, “In as much\n24 as you can, please don’t go into a lot of detail that this is gender re-assignment,” because at that\n25 point most of the insurance wasn’t going to cover it, but I also recognized that they have\n26 licenses and rules and I said, “Don’t do anything that . . . I don’t know what your standards are,\n27 so follow your standards. Within that, if you can . . .”\n28 AJ: Well, plus you want to get the reimbursements so you’re going to have to tell them something.\n29 MW: Yeah, yeah. But, I got all the reimbursements so I give my employer a lot of credit for that.\n30 AJ: That’s amazing – that’s really, really cool.\n31 MW: But Toby does, I do think that they have different payment plans and all sorts of things like that.\n32 And there are ways that people could do it so it would cost less than the way I did it. So, some\n33 of the people end up figuring out some sort of rooming situation, they won’t stay down there as\n34 long. I was able to stay in a hotel room and have family or friends be with me.\nMarcus Waterbury 22\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAJ: Sure. So, the five surgeries . . . you already said this, they happened over the 1 course of a year.\n2 MW: It was over a year, yes. Most of them . . . yeah, they were pretty much . . . he’s got an order that\n3 has to do with . . . it’s not like pick and choose.\n4 AJ: Right, you don’t get a menu – first I’m going to do this, then next visit we’re going to do this.\n5 MW: Yes, so that it has the highest probability. Because going from female to male is more\n6 complicated with things like urinary stuff and so they have to do it . . . and I really wanted to be\n7 able to urinate out the penis.\n8 AJ: Your penis, yeah.\n9 MW: I haven’t spent . . . anyway, I haven’t spent the time to practice so that I feel comfortable doing\n10 this in public, but . . . people don’t realize that.\n11 AJ: You need to do it couple times a day though, don’t you – at least.\n12 MW: Oh, yeah, but it takes being someplace where you can do it and get it all over yourself to figure\n13 out how to do it without it . . .\n14 AJ: Without getting it all over yourself. OK.\n15 MW: And, that’s the piece I haven’t done. I mean, little kids learn it when they’re little – most boys\n16 learn it when they’re this high and there’s somebody to clean it up after them.\n17 AJ: Right. So, you’re still working that little piece out.\n18 MW: Or not, I’ve just sort of resigned.\n19 AJ: Just have a seat and just keep it clean.\n20 MW: Yeah, keep it clean, have a seat – yeah. Every so often I get motivated but not very much.\n21 AJ: Yeah.\n22 MW: Wow.\n23 AJ: I did not know that that was an issue. I never knew that.\n24 MW: Well, you have to choose. They don’t . . . going from female to male, they don’t have . . . you\n25 have to choose between size or feeling – you either get erotic feeling or you get size. I choose\n26 the erotic feeling, which is not much size, which means it takes more training to . . . I’m sure had\n27 I gone for size, it wouldn’t have been an issue.\n28 AJ: Got it, got it. OK.\n29 MW: Yeah, they haven’t figured out how to get it so that you can actually get good feeling and size –\n30 because size, they take skin from someplace else.\n31 AJ: A graft.\nMarcus Waterbury 23\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: Yeah, and they haven’t figured out how to get that skin to have . . . it has 1 feeling, but it doesn’t\n2 have erotic feeling.\n3 AJ: Got it, yeah.\n4 MW: Someday they’ll figure it out.\n5 AJ: So, you opted for erotic feeling?\n6 MW: Yes.\n7 AJ: Which was going to be one of my questions is that do you have . . . are you able to have . . . I\n8 don’t know, I guess, orgasmic sex?\n9 MW: Absolutely. Still learning more about it, but yes, I am.\n10 AJ: That’s wonderful.\n11 MW: It’s small enough that I end up using some sort of prosthetic dildo for the other person’s\n12 pleasure, but for my pleasure I do just fine.\n13 AJ: That’s good.\n14 MW: The women haven’t minded not having something so large that they’ve got to figure out what to\n15 do with it.\n16 AJ: All right. So, the women, the women – the women. Dating, love, relationships – what’s going\n17 on with you? Who do you date?\n18 MW: I date women.\n19 AJ: You date women.\n20 MW: Yeah, that hasn’t changed.\n21 AJ: Are you in a relationship right now? You’ve loved women all your life and that is still . . . it’s\n22 probably because you were internally a heterosexual guy.\n23 MW: I was always a straight guy. Yeah, I’m learning about the whole thing – about dating straight\n24 women, because they are not the same as lesbians. It’s a very different dynamic.\n25 AJ: Different expectations.\n26 MW: Very different expectations. I haven’t figured it . . . I’m still figuring it out. I don’t have any\n27 answers and . . .\n28 AJ: Right, yeah – well.\n29 MW: But I seem to do pretty well at it, so I can’t . . . they seem to . . . it’s a lot more of the social stuff\n30 and how you work together on everything else. I have not had any bedroom issues – at all.\n31 AJ: That’s good news. The hard part of a relationship is when you’re in the world, right? How do\n32 you deal with that stuff?\nMarcus Waterbury 24\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: Yeah, I think the women . . . it took a little bit for them to sort of . 1 . . the women that I have had\n2 more intimate . . . I’ve had lots of dates, and those all seemed to go well. The response was\n3 always people were so surprised that I was so easy to talk to, because apparently guys aren’t\n4 easy to talk to. I didn’t know that, but apparently, they just kind of show up and go, “Uggg,\n5 hmm.” They don’t ask interesting questions or listen or engage, I guess. I don’t know. But, the\n6 ones that I’ve been more intimate with I think it’s fair to say that there was a little bit of them\n7 kind of adjusting to it not looking quite the same. But, once they did, I think they were very\n8 happy with everything.\n9 AJ: The outcomes, huh?\n10 MW: The outcomes.\n11 AJ: Oh, boy. Wow. Are you in a relationship right now?\n12 MW: Sort of.\n13 AJ: OK, OK. It’s complicated.\n14 MW: It’s complicated – life is complicated.\n15 AJ: Life is complicated. But, it’s really just wonderful to know that trans people, transgender\n16 people, are being loved and being able to return love and share love.\n17 MW: Yeah. I would say that one of the things I’ve discovered probably was a big issue before I\n18 transitioned was that other people, people I was with, loved my body and I didn’t.\n19 AJ: Right.\n20 MW: Which created a lot of trouble in bed.\n21 AJ: Yeah.\n22 MW: And I think had a lot to do with my earlier relationships not working was that they were in love\n23 with somebody that I didn’t . . . I couldn’t stand really. And, so now I think . . . the challenge of\n24 the relationships is more of just learning what it’s like to be a guy and just everything else I\n25 brought into it that doesn’t have anything to do with being transgender. So, just all sorts of\n26 family stuff and how do we go through the world and who are we.\n27 AJ: Yeah.\n28 MW: I’m finally at the point where that’s the question instead of, “Am I really me showing up?” So, I\n29 would say it is the difference – somebody who is transgender will . . . I just, from my own\n30 experience, find it really hard unless somebody is more in the middle. But, if they really are in\n31 the wrong body how anybody can really show up and be present in a sexual relationship until\n32 they’ve transitioned. So, it’s not only can you but you kind of have to, I think, kind of transition\n33 to really be excited and present.\n34 AJ: That’s interesting – excited and present . . . for the person sexually?\n35 MW: Yeah – for myself and for that person. Both people kind of have to be there and be present.\nMarcus Waterbury 25\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAJ: Absolutely. You talked about who performed sort of the medical aspects of your 1 transition, but\n2 there’s also sort of a psychological transition as well as social transition, which is a whole other\n3 thing. Did you go to programs at the University of Minnesota at all?\n4 MW: No.\n5 AJ: No, how did you approach that, did you go to a private therapist?\n6 MW: Yeah, I went to a private therapist, so once I figured it out I asked around and in the T-men\n7 group, at least at that point, the U . . . there were a lot of problems with the U as far as trans\n8 men go. Trans women loved it, it was their savior, it was the best thing. But, the trans men\n9 repeatedly had all sorts of trouble getting letters and being dragged out for a long time.\n10 AJ: Right.\n11 MW: So, I decided I didn’t want to do that. I found a therapist, Diane . . . I can’t even remember her\n12 last name. I should. I went to her and it was sort of like I showed up and we talked and she\n13 said, “Well, you need to be in therapy for X period of time.” I showed up . . . I think by the third\n14 time she said, “Well, haven’t I given you that letter yet?” I think I had done so much of my own\n15 work by the time I got there . . .\n16 AJ: Yeah, you were ready to go.\n17 MW: I was ready to go. I was 40, or 39, so I didn’t have the issues of child birth or somehow taking\n18 away my ability to propagate, so that wasn’t an issue. Since then, most of the therapy . . . I\n19 found a men’s group with this wonderful man, Sigurd Hoppe, who has since retired.\n20 AJ: Can you say his first name again?\n21 MW: Sigurd or Zigurd . . . Sigurd.\n22 AJ: OK. How do you think he spells . . .?\n23 MW: S-i-g . . .\n24 AJ: S-i-g . . .\n25 MW: Maybe e-r-d, a-r-d. German.\n26 AJ: OK, and his last name is?\n27 MW: Hoppe. H-o-p-p-e.\n28 AJ: OK, all right. Thank you. I’m sorry for interrupting but yeah, that name threw me off a little bit.\n29 MW: OK, yeah. Depending on whether you say it . . . he’s German, he was a German immigrant to the\n30 U.S.\n31 AJ: But you go to his group?\n32 MW: I went to his group and he retired last November. At 83, he thought it was time to retire.\n33 AJ: OK.\nMarcus Waterbury 26\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: But, he was just super sharp. He’d be sort of half dozing in and he’d be 1 like, “Boom,” and ask\n2 the perfect question.\n3 AJ: Right.\n4 MW: So, I started going to the group probably in 2005 or 2006, really, to kind of have a community\n5 where I could be safe asking questions.\n6 AJ: Sure.\n7 MW: That wasn’t just . . . I’d been to a number of trans things and met a lot of people through the\n8 activist work and stuff, but it was all a trans perspective. So, I wanted to get guy’s perspectives\n9 and have them say, “Well, that’s not really how it works,” or, “What about this?”\n10 AJ: So, this was not a trans man group? This was a men’s group.\n11 MW: This was a men’s group.\n12 AJ: A men’s group.\n13 MW: Yeah, at the time I joined I think there were eight or nine of us and there were two guys that\n14 were gay and then myself, and everybody else was straight. It was the whole gamut of truck\n15 driver to noted surgeon.\n16 AJ: That is awesome.\n17 MW: So, they’ve been really helpful. I still, every Wednesday, go and sometimes they’ll say, “Well,\n18 that’s what it’s all about,” and other times they say, “No, really, you can do this,” or, “You\n19 shouldn’t do that,” or whatever. So, it’s been really helpful.\n20 AJ: And they know your transgender status?\n21 MW: Yes.\n22 AJ: Nice, I love it – I love that. That is so cool.\n23 MW: Yeah. And I’ve done a couple of other things where there were more intensive sessions and\n24 every time I’ve insisted that people be aware that I’m trans, that I don’t want to be stealth.\n25 Most of it is selfish, because I don’t want to have to change my story, I don’t want to have to\n26 edit what I’m talking about.\n27 AJ: Right, yeah.\n28 MW: And, I would – if I’m in the closet . . .\n29 AJ: Yeah. Holyoke is just not going to really . . .\n30 MW: Yeah. Or, if I want to talk about sometime when I was identified and lived as a woman, I don’t\n31 want to have to try to re-gigger that story so that it fits. But, all the rest of it – the other\n32 intensive work and what not has been with just straight therapists, some of whom have since\n33 then acquired a number of trans patients.\n34 AJ: OK. Wow.\nMarcus Waterbury 27\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: But, I haven’t . . . it was just more about the social pieces and that 1 part of it. When I\n2 transitioned, they did a big . . . my parents threw a big party for me.\n3 AJ: Oh, really?\n4 MW: At the Minneapolis Club and I think we had a few hundred people there.\n5 AJ: Sort of like a coming out party.\n6 MW: It was a 40th birthday/coming out party.\n7 AJ: Oh, cool.\n8 MW: So, that was pretty cool. Along the way, and it’s been so long that I don’t do this as much\n9 anymore because it doesn’t come up as much, but along the way I just kept trying to look for\n10 opportunities where I had some privilege to bring up the question and say, “OK, how are we\n11 going to handle this?” Or, “How do we make it safe?” Or, that sort of thing.\n12 AJ: Have you been involved with any LGBT organizations?\n13 MW: Besides NCTE?\n14 AJ: Well, NCTE. What is that?\n15 MW: So, I was on the board of the National Center for Transgender Equality.\n16 AJ: All right, gotcha.\n17 MW: Someday they’ll get you.\n18 AJ: One of these days, they’re trying to reel me in, Marcus – they really are.\n19 MW: You’d be a great addition to that.\n20 AJ: They’re in DC, right?\n21 MW: They’re in DC. They’re the national organization – THE national organization that does policy\n22 work for transgender folks. They are not a lobbyist organization, they really work with the\n23 administration and in all other areas of government where policies are being made. Sometimes\n24 there are policies that then go to Congress to be turned into a law, but a lot of times they’re just\n25 straight policies. So, they have a lot to do with Social Security gender changing, driver’s license\n26 policy, policies for the veterans for the service, for the government employees.\n27 AJ: Immigration documents.\n28 MW: Immigration documents. When TSA was . . . somewhere along the line here with TSA they . . .\n29 oh, when they started to have those big new scanner things where you’d go in and do this stuff .\n30 . .\n31 AJ: Body scanners, yeah.\n32 MW: And everybody, “You were going to see too much.” So, we worked closely with TSA and we\n33 collected every sort of prosthetic that a trans person would use – anything anybody could find,\nMarcus Waterbury 28\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nand worked with TSA so they had people in there looking at what all 1 these looked like and\n2 helping train them. Anytime there was a trans event someplace that we knew about where\n3 people would be flying in, go to that TSA and train them.\n4 AJ: Wow.\n5 MW: So, if there was a conference, like the Philly Health Conference, we’d go to the Philly airport\n6 right before the conference and train the TSA agents on here is what these things look like, here\n7 is what you can do. A lot about if you need to be patted down, who does a trans person . . .\n8 AJ: Feel most comfortable with.\n9 MW: Most comfortable with, but is TSA OK with that.\n10 AJ: Right.\n11 MW: Because TSA has their own hang-ups. And the piece that we weren’t so successful at, and I\n12 haven’t checked it lately, but at least through about a year, year and a half ago, is you\n13 technically can’t be trans and work as a TSA employee.\n14 AJ: What?\n15 MW: Which was a big issue, but there’s some bizarre something somewhere . . . oh, I know what it\n16 was. They were arguing back to the pat down that they needed every agent to be able to do pat\n17 downs and if they didn’t know what gender the person was, they couldn’t do . . . like, they didn’t\n18 know . . .\n19 AJ: But they know people’s gender.\n20 MW: So, the camera should swing around now and see the look of disbelief.\n21 AJ: Yeah . . . are you kidding me? Oh, man.\n22 MW: Yes, because when people come through and need to be patted down they ask for a woman or a\n23 man. And, if it’s a transgender employee, which one are they? So that the traveling public is\n24 comfortable. One time, though, I had a lot of fun. I was in there and I needed to be patted down\n25 – and they never asked me. So, I’m there pretty . . . long before beard, long before I was on\n26 hormones, so I’m pretty asexual – butch, but asexual. And nobody asked me. So, they’re like,\n27 “Female pat down.” The agent comes and looks at me and then you hear, “Male pat down.”\n28 The agent comes and looks at me and then you hear, “Female pat down.” And then this butch\n29 agent comes and she’s just like, “OK.”\n30 AJ: “Whatever, let’s do this. Get your ass on the plane.”\n31 MW: But, I had plenty of time and I was just being amused. The other thing I like to do is in a group of\n32 guys that are . . . your basic white arrogant yuppie guys. Before . . . oh, I know, we were talking\n33 about schools and it’s really easy with sports to get them to talk about where they went to\n34 school. And then the question is, “Well, where did you go to school?” And then I say, “Mount\n35 Holyoke.” And one of them says, “Well, isn’t that a women’s school?” And I say, “Yes,” and\n36 then I leave.\nMarcus Waterbury 29\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1 AJ: Oh, wow.\n2 MW: And then they are just . . . they can’t figure it out. They’re looking at me, “Je-je-je-je . . .” Look\n3 at me, “Je-je-je-je . . .” And I just . . . it’s so much fun.\n4 AJ: Wow, that’s a good one, Marcus.\n5 MW: Just leave them very, very unsettled.\n6 AJ: Where do you think the transgender community is going to be in 50 years?\n7 MW: You know, I think it’s so interesting where our comfort zone is. We are very comfortable as a\n8 society. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but certainly here, with gender and with\n9 people fitting into a gender and following the gender norm. I see the transgender acceptance\n10 actually being way ahead of gay and lesbian in the not too distant future – not necessarily the\n11 gender queer because that leaves people sort of unsettled and just like what I said, people don’t\n12 like to be unsettled.\n13 AJ: Yes.\n14 MW: And so, I think, reasonably quickly the idea that somebody is whatever gender, people are going\n15 to be fine with because they would much rather see me as a guy than in a more asexual space.\n16 And they’d much rather see me as a guy with a woman than they would see me as a woman\n17 with a woman.\n18 AJ: Right.\n19 MW: I think the challenge is standing up for ourselves. I think it’s us talking for ourselves, I think it’s\n20 not letting all the different organizations that are primarily gay and lesbian talk for us, and that\n21 really is difficult for me to see how much of what’s going on is not being led by trans folks.\n22 AJ: Yeah.\n23 MW: We had our voice taken away from us by the medical community and a whole bunch of people\n24 who acted like we didn’t know how to handle our own bodies.\n25 AJ: Right.\n26 MW: But now we’ve almost given it over to the gay and lesbian community to talk for us. Instead of\n27 saying, “No, if you haven’t been doing trans programming, before you go out and raise money in\n28 our name, we need to be part of this and we need to be leading this.”\n29 AJ: I love that. So, let me ask you this controversial last question. Do you think the L, the G, and the\n30 B should be included with the T?\n31 MW: No. I don’t think so. I do know the history of it though, because I asked this question. A\n32 number of the people on the NCTE board were big studies. Marissa, especially, is a history\n33 professor and had studied civil rights, a lot. And, she talked about how . . . and Meredith Bacon\n34 also was a professor and studied civil rights, there were two things that were clear to me. One is\n35 that . . . the biggest one is the trans group is not big enough by itself.\nMarcus Waterbury 30\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAJ: Right, at least prior to . . . people weren’t 1 coming out.\n2 MW: It’s not clear whether it still is. There’s a critical mass you need and the gay and lesbian has it –\n3 not hugely, they sort of just have it. It’s somewhere in the 10% range. So, I think . . . I don’t\n4 know that there’s anybody that’s suggesting 10% is transgender.\n5 AJ: I don’t think so. I don’t know that for sure, but I would be deeply shocked if somebody thought\n6 that 10% of the world’s population or the United States population, or even Minneapolis’\n7 population was transgender identified.\n8 MW: It’s a pretty big number we would need to have, as a group, even with . . . then you have\n9 supporters and that’s all sort of built in, but if you don’t have a certain size of group, you can’t\n10 move policy. And so that is two things – one it’s this idea that we’re going to pass a policy and\n11 we’ll add trans later, it won’t get added. Because we’re not big enough and historically we\n12 haven’t added to civil rights legislation. So, back in the 1970s and early 1980s, the transgender\n13 activists realized that they needed to align with a group. And, the choices were sort of more of\n14 a feminist group, the ERA and things like that, or the gay/lesbian group. I think at that point you\n15 had a fair number of trans women who were with women and the lesbians group was not very\n16 strong. So, when I came out in 1986, the lesbian was in a similar space to where trans was when\n17 I came out in 2004. So, I watched that part of the community build and gain some power, but I\n18 think it was an easier place. I think a lot more of the women who were very powerful in the\n19 women’s rights movement, didn’t like the idea of including transgender, which was really trans\n20 women at that point.\n21 AJ: Right.\n22 MW: And so, they took the easier of the two routes. I actually think it’s much more of a gender issue,\n23 which would put it with feminism and women’s rights, which are really gender rights.\n24 AJ: Right, exactly.\n25 MW: Feminism really isn’t about women, it’s about all of us.\n26 AJ: Absolutely, absolutely.\n27 MW: So, I think the transgender is really just an extension of all of that. And, our struggles come out\n28 of the fact that, as a culture and as a community, we have gender roles. If we had no gender\n29 roles and no gender expectations, being transgender wouldn’t be a big deal.\n30 AJ: Right.\n31 MW: So, I think that that would be a more appropriate place and I don’t . . . I feel like we’re very\n32 welcome, this is going to tick . . . who knows who watches this anyway, that we’re . . . until there\n33 was money and there was no more marriage, we weren’t that interesting. But, as soon as there\n34 is no more marriage to raise money and all of a sudden, these organizations don’t know what\n35 they’re going to do with themselves and how they’re going to survive, we look like a pretty good\n36 target.\n37 AJ: Yeah.\nMarcus Waterbury 31\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMW: So, I don’t really feel loved by the gay and lesbian community. And, since I identify 1 as straight, I\n2 feel regularly misunderstood. A lot of people don’t understand I’m not gay, I’m not . . .\n3 AJ: Yeah, bi.\n4 MW: Yeah, I’m just an ordinary old straight guy. As much as that sort of horrifies me, the idea that I\n5 would be an ordinary straight guy was . . .\n6 AJ: Because that is not who you were.\n7 MW: That is not who I was, that’s not who I was. But, I’ve learned that it’s a really bad idea for me to\n8 say, “I never,” or, “I couldn’t be caught dead,” because usually . . . I said I’d never go to a prep\n9 school and I’d never go to a women’s college, so it wasn’t . . .\n10 AJ: Yeah, you kind of failed at those too.\n11 MW: Yeah.\n12 AJ: Well, Marcus – wow. Thank you for your insights, thank you for your openness, thank you for\n13 your honesty, and thank you for your time that you have shared with me today - but, more\n14 importantly, committed to this movement overall. I just want to say thank you.\n15 MW: Well, thank you. Thank you for doing this work and documenting this.\n16 AJ: Absolutely.\n17 MW: I think it will be huge for a lot of people.\n18 AJ: Yeah.\n19 MW: And, just kind of giving our community some . . . just some sense of being and mattering and . . .\n20 AJ: And some visibility.\n21 MW: Visibility.\n22 AJ: Yeah. Well, until we meet again, my friend.\n23 MW: Yes, thank you.", "_version_": 1710339101746528256, "type": "Moving Image", "collection": "p16022coll97", "is_compound": false, "parent_id": "84", "thumb_url": "https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1369852/thumbnail/entry_id/0_1txp36tk", "thumb_cdn_url": "https://dkp5i0hinw9br.cloudfront.net/9d44097fc9533eaed31fb0676805a8bff61b6477.png", "children": [ ] }