Interviewed February 20, 2015

"My students will never be able to say they have never met a trans person. I feel it's my calling to let my trans and queer students know that they are not alone; that there are people like them. I typically come out on the second day of every semester."

Interviewed February 14, 2015

"I started transitioning in high school. [...] I put up this huge fight with my mother to grow my hair out. There was this big battle in 9th grade and I won. [... ]By 12th grade it was down to my waist. Lots of girls were very jealous of it."

Interviewed February 11, 2014

"I was given the chance to buy the club. Next thing you know I'm chairman of the board for ten years. Two of the other ten owners were Christian. When I started to transition, they immediately sold their interests in the club."

Interviewed on October 25, 2014

"I became homeless; I went to jail a lot here as opposed to San Francisco. It was the early 80s. The thing about San Diego was the Navy. There were a lot of sailors here. There was a lot of excitement for weekend parties and Johns."

Interviewed April 3, 2015

"I was part of the gender dysphoria program back in the 1970s at UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest. It was led by two gay guys. [...] I was in their program for a little more than a year. I badgered them to sign off on surgery."

Interviewed March 3, 2015

"She said that once you do this there is no going back. She said she would make an announcement to the staff and I would have to wear makeup every day, which was OK with me. The next day when I came, there was a new name tag with Cassandra on it."

Interviewed February 24, 2015

"Everybody on my last ship thought I was gay. It ended up that I got sexually harassed by my subordinate and XO. [...] My XO put me in a big meeting with my chain of command. [...] This is happening at eight months before my retirement."

Interviewed June 12, 2015

“I’d love to volunteer in the trans community and even the gay community, but I need to get myself on solid ground first.”

Interviewed April 17, 2015

"I witnessed the AIDS holocaust down there. I saw people dying on the streets. There were no services. And if you were trans so much the worse. [...] The meds were available over here but not over there."

Interviewed July 2, 2015

"I want to talk to trans women of color directly and say that you are loved, you matter and that your story is important. You are valuable and there are people who care about what you have to say. I can speak that because that is my experience."

Interviewed June 26, 2014

"Going through a lot of struggles and growing from that makes you who you are. It provides the foundation on how you create your relationships with people."