JoAnne Wheeler Bland is an American transgender activist and attorney who practised law for 44 years and served as a Special Justice on the Kentucky Supreme Court. A former Vice-President of the Kentucky Fairness Alliance, she has been actively involved in LGBT rights advocacy and has worked to advance transgender equality through public speaking, education, and political lobbying. She has also served on the Fairness Campaign Coordinating Committee in Louisville and the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education’s Committee on Equal Opportunity. JoAnne’s journey towards living as her authentic self began in childhood, when she knew she was a girl inside but had no access to information that might help her understand her feelings. For decades, she tried to suppress her gender dysphoria, immersing herself in her legal career, genealogy, and theology. At the age of 64, she finally decided that she could no longer continue living in a way that denied who she was. Beginning her transition in 2010, she underwent hormone replacement therapy, facial feminization surgery, and gender-affirming surgery, embracing the opportunity to live openly as JoAnne. Her transition brought profound personal losses, including her marriage, professional partnership, home, and relationships with much of her family and community.
Yet it also opened a new chapter in her life, giving her the opportunity to become a role model and advocate for other transgender people. Following newspaper coverage of her story, parents and grandparents began seeking her advice about transgender children, and she became increasingly involved in educating families, students, legal professionals, and the wider public about transgender issues. A frequent university guest speaker and keynote speaker at the Kentucky Governor’s Equal Employment Opportunity Conference on “The Transgender Worker,” JoAnne has made education a central part of her advocacy. She believes that greater understanding is essential to combating discrimination, violence, and exclusion, and has worked to promote transgender rights in state and local government. Her commitment to making a difference is reflected in her personal goal of educating at least one more person about transgender issues every day. In this interview, JoAnne speaks candidly about discovering her identity, transitioning later in life, the challenges and sacrifices she faced, and her determination to help others find the courage to live authentically. Her story is a powerful reminder that it is never too late to embrace oneself and that even after decades of struggle, a new life can begin.
Monika: Welcome, JoAnne! It is a pleasure to have you here.
JoAnne: Thank you for interviewing me.
Monika: To begin, tell me a little about yourself and where your story starts.
JoAnne: First of all, I am a 69-year-old woman. I was born in Alabama in 1945 and raised in Kentucky. Like many, if not most, of the Transwomen near my age, I knew that I was “different” when I was a small child. I had no words to describe it, other than that, for some reason, I felt like I was really a girl inside. At night, I used to wish, hope, dream, and pray that I would wake up and be the girl that I knew I was. My family was not wealthy. We had a farm. We lived in a small town of 250 people in rural Kentucky. There was no access to any information, and I assumed back then that I was “the only person in the world who felt like I did.”
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| This is her “before” photograph. It was taken on the day that she was sworn in as a Special Justice on the Kentucky Supreme Court. |
Monika: What were your school years like?
JoAnne: Elementary school was difficult for me in that I was very timid and spent most of my time alone. I always hated the bathroom issue. I could not go into a boys’ bathroom because I felt that I did not belong in there. I did not like to play with boys. They were too rough for me. I preferred to play with the girls. I was always very intelligent, and school was always easy for me. I was a straight-A student. High school was equally difficult. I avoided playing sports. I could not go into the boys’ locker room. My father and my uncles were all great sports participants, and I had tremendous pressure put on me to play sports. I just could not do it. I hated puberty. I hated the hair that grew on my body. I hated my penis. I hated the sexual changes that happened, because I was developing male sexual characteristics and I did not want any of them.
Monika: Did that loneliness follow you into your friendships and relationships as you grew up?
I continued to be alone as I grew up. I did not have any close friends. I was always afraid to get too close to anyone for fear that my innermost secret might come out accidentally. I did not date very much. I wanted a platonic relationship with girls. I did not want a sexual relationship. And I sure did not want to date boys. I hated boys, men, and everything masculine.
Monika: Did you hope that college or marriage might change how you felt?
JoAnne: After high school, I started college at the University of Kentucky. I ultimately graduated twice, first with a BS in Business & Economics and later with a Juris Doctor degree in Law. While in college, I dated thinking that it would “cure” me. After obtaining my law degree, I got married thinking that it “would surely cure me.” It didn’t! I began practicing law in the fall of 1970.
Monika: Many people try to push these feelings away. Did you ever try to forget your dysphoria?
JoAnne: I tried to become totally immersed in my law practice as a means to keep my mind off who I really was inside. Constantly (24/7), I could not get my gender dysphoria off my mind. I constantly tried to stay busy and engrossed in something as a way to keep my dysphoria at bay. My spouse and I bought 50 acres of land. I spent hour upon hour clearing the land, anything to stay busy. Eventually, we built a house on the land, and I kept most of the 50 acres manicured like a golf course or park. Eventually, I became interested in genealogy and worked at that for 10 to 12 years. Then I got involved with theology and became immersed in that for 15 to 20 years. I studied theology a minimum of 4 to 5 hours per day for 13 years. I became very active in church work and eventually began to teach and preach.
Monika: At what point did you realize that you could no longer live as a man?
JoAnne: In 2009, at the age of 64, I got to the point that I just could not deal with my gender dysphoria anymore. I was so physically, mentally, and emotionally tired of trying to suppress and repress my feelings inside. I was always somewhat depressed because of it, but I hit rock bottom in 2009. I was suicidal. I just felt that I could no longer live pretending to be someone that I was not.
Monika: What did you decide when that moment came?
JoAnne: Toward the end of 2009, I finally accepted who I was and what I was. I knew that the time had come: either transition or commit suicide. It was a tough decision. It would have been much easier to die. I wanted to kill my male persona. I hated him. But from deep within, JoAnne pleaded with me not to die. JoAnne wanted a chance to live. Killing “John” would also kill “JoAnne,” and JoAnne wanted desperately to be able to finally live. I chose to transition, and I set out to make it happen after the first of the year 2010. I knew the WPATH Protocols and what they called for. So to that end, I started seeing mental health professionals in February of 2010. Soon afterward, I started on HRT and laser hair removal. I was seeing three mental health professionals at the same time that year.
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| This shows just how much her life glows now. |
Monika: Those years that followed must have been challenging.
JoAnne: Yes, 2010 was a difficult and, at the same time, exciting year. Difficult, in that I lost my spouse of 40 years, my law partner of 30 years, my land, my home, my law practice, my possessions, my animals, most of my family, my church family, my social friends, and my standing in the community. And still exciting, in that I was on a mission, a mission to let JoAnne be free. Hours upon hours of therapy, hours of laser hair removal, hormone replacement therapy, and I started living full-time on September 2, 2010. A week later, I scheduled my Gender Confirming Surgery.
Monika: Your medical transition took you to Arizona. How did that unfold?
JoAnne: On February 5, 2011 (one year to the date after I started mental health therapy), I flew from Louisville to Scottsdale, Arizona. On February 8, 2011, I had 12 hours of Facial Feminization Surgery, and one week later, on February 15, 2011, I had 14 hours of Gender Confirming Surgery and more Facial Feminization Surgery, all performed by the most awesome man I know, Dr. Toby Meltzer, M.D. I spent 18 days alone in Scottsdale, most of them in the hospital.
Monika: Was that the end of your surgical journey?
JoAnne: I returned to Scottsdale in January of 2012 to have the final cosmetic stage on my lower surgery and more facial surgery. All in all, I have had 32.5 hours of surgery from Dr. Meltzer. On both occasions, I returned to Kentucky and continued my life as JoAnne.
Monika: You champion a myriad of causes that touch on transgender rights. How did it all begin?
JoAnne: I have always been a Don Quixote type of person who wanted to help the “little guy.” I have been that type of lawyer. After my first return home from Scottsdale, front-page stories of my life were featured in newspapers. From those articles, people everywhere started contacting me with questions about transgender issues. Many were from mothers and grandmothers who were dealing with transgender children. They started bringing their children to me. I became an instant role model. I began to counsel children, parents, friends, and others. And it has never stopped. I love being able to help others face their gender dysphoria.
Monika: Tell me about the work of the transgender rights organizations you belong to.
JoAnne: I am not a member of any transgender rights-only organization. I have been involved with LGBT rights organizations. I have noticed that there really are very few transgender rights-only organizations. I have been advocating for transgender rights pretty much on my own.
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| Lecturing about Transgender at a University. |
Monika: What are the most pressing issues on the transgender agenda today?
JoAnne: Here is my list of the most pending issues: education, education, education. This is by far the most important. And we need education of not just the general public. We have to educate members of the LGB community as well, because they really do not understand us. And last but not least, members of the transgender community need to educate themselves as well.
Monika: Within the transgender community itself, how much do people know about these matters?
JoAnne: I am totally amazed by how little transgender people know about being transgender. They do not know the WPATH Protocols. They do not know legal issues. They do not know medical issues. They do not know employment issues. They do not know how to dress and act in public. These are but a few. For example, getting the transgender message out. This is part of education. How the public sees transgender women’s narratives is so important. And discrimination, violence, employment, schooling, and presentation. This is the second time I have mentioned this, and I cannot emphasize this enough: how we are seen and how we act in public is so important.
Monika: Drag culture closes your list. Why does it matter so much to you?
JoAnne: Distancing ourselves from the “drag culture” is also EXTREMELY important, in my opinion. The general public (in their ignorance) equates drag queens with the epitome of Transgender women. Drag queens are primarily “Gay” men who perform as female caricatures in bars and clubs. This is not who Transgender women really are. We are not performers. We are not pretenders. This is our being. It goes to the inner cores of our lives. So many of us have succumbed to suicide or have been on the very edge of death over our gender dysphoria. Watching “Gay” men dressed as women, performing as mere caricatures of real Transwomen (and cis-women), hurts our image in public. They are having fun performing for money and frivolity while we are on the very brink of life and death. And as I said earlier, the general public equates real Transwomen with nothing more than drag queens.
Monika: Your story shows that it is never too late to transition.
JoAnne: I guess that’s true. I knew that I was different at age 5. I tried to run from it, hide from it, suppress it, repress it, deny it, and hope that it would leave me alone for 65 years. It took 65 years for me to realize that this is never going away. I guess I was a little slow. But once I made up my mind to transition, I went from start to finish in 53 weeks. My only regret is not doing it earlier. However, I guess it was the right time for me, as my life has just taken off in every direction after I transitioned.
Monika: Coming out is rarely easy. What was the hardest part for you?
JoAnne: Knowing that I would lose my spouse, my friends, my family, and my church family. I knew what would happen if I transitioned, and it did.
Monika: When you transitioned, were there any transgender role models you looked to?
JoAnne: Not really. I have made myself a model for others. I had never met or knowingly seen another transgender person (other than my sister, Monika) before I started living full-time.
END OF PART 1
All the photos: courtesy of JoAnne Wheeler Bland.
© 2014 - Monika Kowalska