Interview with Michelle Diamond

Michelle Diamond, an Australian transgender activist whose journey has already carved a place in her country’s history. Michelle became the first transgender goal umpire in Australian Rules Football, turning her love for the sport into a groundbreaking achievement for visibility and inclusion. Her path has been shaped by determination, resilience, and a passion for helping others, whether through her early activism, her candid YouTube videos about transition, or her efforts to make sports more welcoming for the transgender community. Michelle’s experiences reflect a life lived with courage and purpose, shaped by both personal challenges and inspiring victories. She has navigated transition, mental health struggles, and the complexities of coming out with honesty and strength, always motivated by a desire to support others on similar paths.

 

Her role models include figures who broke barriers in their own fields, and in turn she has become a role model herself for many transgender Australians who dream of living authentically. Through her ongoing work to create safer and more respectful spaces in sport, Michelle continues to push for the kind of change that uplifts entire communities. Her journey shows how one person’s determination can open doors not only for themselves but for those who will follow after them, creating ripples of hope far beyond the boundary lines of any playing field. Her voice adds depth, humanity, and inspiration to the larger story of transgender visibility in Australia, reminding us that change begins with individuals brave enough to believe in their own possibilities.

Interview with Brae Carnes

Brae Carnes, a young Canadian transgender activist whose courage and creativity helped spark an important national conversation. Many people first heard her name in 2015, when her social media campaign against bathroom bans captured the attention of the Canadian press and highlighted the dangers posed by the proposed amendments to Bill C279. Brae stepped into the spotlight not for personal gain, but to stand up for the safety and dignity of transgender women across Canada, and she did so with a clarity and determination that resonated far beyond her own community. At just twenty-three, she was already advocating for legal protections, participating in political discussions, and using her voice and her camera to document not only her own journey but also the broader challenges faced by transgender people.

 

Her work shows both her passion for justice and her belief that visibility can change minds. Beyond activism, she brings a sense of style, creativity, and heartfelt honesty to everything she does, whether she is talking about her transition, her role models, her love for fashion, or the importance of emotional support. Her story reminds us that even a single person with determination can open doors that once seemed firmly closed. She also represents a new generation of activists who are unafraid to challenge outdated narratives and speak openly about their lives. Her courage encourages others to find their own voices, even on days when it feels difficult. It is a joy to speak with her today.

Interview with Karine Solene Espineira

Karine Solene Espineira stands as one of the most brilliant and influential voices in contemporary transgender thought. Born in Santiago in 1967 and shaped by a life that spans Chile, France, activism, scholarship, and cinema, she has spent decades mapping the cultural, social, and political landscapes that define trans identities in our world today. Her work as a sociologist and researcher at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, as well as her role in the Gender and Sexuality Studies Laboratory at the University of Paris VIII, has made her a leading authority on the media constructions of trans identities, transfeminism, and the cultural frameworks that shape how society perceives gender itself. She has also been a driving force in international activism, contributing her expertise to the Stop Trans Pathologization campaign and serving on scientific committees dedicated to fighting racism, antisemitism, and anti-LGBT hatred.

 

At the same time, her creative life as a filmmaker, writer, and longtime community organizer has rooted her work in lived experience and collective memory. Her journey from Santiago to the heart of French academia is marked by an unshakeable commitment to widening the cultural lens through which society understands gender. Whether dissecting media narratives, documenting the hidden histories of trans communities, or challenging institutional norms, she has never stopped pushing for a world where knowledge and lived experience meet on equal ground. Her work shows how scholarship can carry the pulse of activism and how activism can carry the precision of scholarship, creating a vibrant space where trans voices do not merely react to culture but actively shape it. Karine is a woman whose intellectual courage, humor, and unwavering commitment to justice have helped shape the modern transgender movement in France and far beyond.

Interview with Merryn Witherspoon: Part 2

It has been more than a year since my first conversation with Merryn Witherspoon, and this second interview finds her in a profoundly different place, both personally and professionally. In the time between our talks, Merryn navigated loss, relocation, transition, and transformation with remarkable clarity and determination. She returned to North Yorkshire, embraced her life openly as a woman, underwent facial feminization and voice surgery, and turned her family home into a welcoming B&B that already resonates strongly within the trans community. Alongside these milestones, she became a grandmother, reconnected with her wider family, and continued to reflect deeply on visibility, belonging, and the everyday realities of living authentically.

 

In this conversation, Merryn speaks candidly about the practical and emotional dimensions of transition, from choosing surgeons and recovering from complex procedures to the subtle yet powerful shift in how society responds to her. She also shares updates on her music, her evolving artistic voice, and her growing commitment to education and advocacy rather than confrontation. Thoughtful, humorous, and grounded, Merryn’s reflections offer insight not only into her own journey, but into a moment of broader change, where trans stories are becoming more visible, more nuanced, and increasingly rooted in lived experience rather than stereotype.

Interview with Valerie Lyn Brooks

Valerie Lyn Brooks is a multifaceted individual whose life reflects courage, creativity, and dedication to service. A former US Navy Gunner, she has built a remarkable career as a photographer, historian, and veteran advocate, and currently works in disaster recovery. Valerie is also a transgender woman, who recently marked her first year on hormone replacement therapy, embracing the subtle but meaningful growth that has come with her transition. She is deeply committed to advocating for the rights of transgender people and veterans alike, drawing inspiration from trailblazing figures such as Senior Chief Kristin Beck, Dr. Renée Richards, and Fallon Fox. Valerie combines her artistic sensibilities with a love for fashion, seeing it as a form of self-expression, and she channels her creativity into projects that honor the stories of LGBT veterans. With a clear sense of purpose, a dedication to service, and an authentic approach to life, Valerie Lyn Brooks exemplifies resilience, passion, and the power of being true to oneself.

Interview with Violet Bernarde

Violet Bernarde is a young video blogger who has been openly documenting her transition on YouTube, sharing both the challenges and triumphs of her journey. She describes herself as an average girl with a unique trait, embracing the idea that everyone has something that makes them different. Violet began her transition around her twenty-second birthday and quickly became a source of inspiration for others, motivated by a desire to create a personal diary, help the transgender community, connect with people, and support herself financially during the process. Known for her rational, goal-oriented approach, she has navigated the complex realities of hormone therapy, the costs of medical care, and the emotional challenges of coming out.

 

Violet reflects thoughtfully on the evolving situation for transgender women in her country, expressing both gratitude for the progress made and hope for broader access to healthcare and improved quality of life for all trans individuals. Beyond her personal journey, she admires transgender figures who have inspired her, finds value in connecting with trans stories through media, and contributes to her community simply by existing as a positive role model. Fashion, love, and future ambitions also play a role in Violet’s life, as she balances everyday practicality with curiosity, growth, and the dream of making a meaningful impact in medicine or other ventures. Her story is one of perseverance, reflection, and optimism, offering insight and encouragement to transgender women navigating their own paths.

Interview with Sophia Gubb

Sophia Gubb is a British-born writer who now lives in Germany and whose life and work move thoughtfully between personal reflection, creativity, and social awareness. She is the author of the autobiographical book Stubborn Soul published in 2015, a deeply honest account shaped by memory, vulnerability, and the need to tell a story before it fades. Through writing and public speaking, Sophia explores themes of gender transition, identity, spirituality, personal development, animal rights, and LGBT issues, always with a strong sense of humanity and self-awareness. Her writing emerged not from a calculated plan, but from a repeated and deeply personal process of telling her story as a way to release shame and connect with others. Over time, these retellings formed a narrative that felt necessary to preserve and share.

 

Currently based in Berlin, Sophia is navigating life after the most intense period of her gender transition, focusing on recovery, self-care, and rebuilding stability. She speaks candidly about the emotional cost of transition, including the loss of friendships and the feeling of abandonment that can follow coming out. At the same time, she emphasizes the importance of remembering that life does not end with transition, and that it is still possible to live fully, creatively, and even joyfully. Her perspective is shaped by lived experience across several countries, including Britain, Spain, and Germany, each of which has influenced her understanding of transgender communities and social attitudes. Sophia is also outspoken about the limitations of transgender representation in media, advocating for stories where being trans is not the sole defining trait of a character. In this interview, she reflects on love, politics, creativity, and resilience, offering a voice that is thoughtful, grounded, and quietly hopeful.

Interview with Teri Louise Kelly

Teri Louise Kelly is an Australian writer and poet whose work is as uncompromising, restless, and fearless as her life. Born in Brighton in the UK and shaped by years spent living across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, the Caribbean, New Zealand, and Australia, Teri brings a deeply lived, transnational perspective to her writing. Her books move fluidly between memoir, fiction, and poetry, drawing on memory, desire, exile, love, betrayal, and survival, often blurring the line between what is sharply recalled and what is half-forgotten yet emotionally precise. Teri is the author of several striking biographical and semi-autobiographical works, including Sex, Knives & Bouillabaisse, Last Bed on Earth, American Blow Job, and Bent, alongside poetry collections and verse novels that confront sexuality, faith, guilt, and intimacy without apology. Her writing is rooted in personal experience, not as confession for its own sake, but as a way of transforming fragments of life into narrative and voice.

 

Whether she is writing about loneliness, migration, infidelity, or identity, her work resists comfort and instead invites the reader into complexity. As a transgender writer who transitioned at forty, Teri speaks openly about loss, fear, reinvention, and strength, themes that echo throughout her creative output. She is also a powerful performance poet, known for reading in pubs, on festival stages, and across Australia, insisting that poetry should be lived, heard, and sometimes challenged rather than politely observed. Her work carries an edge that asks audiences to forget labels and listen first to language, rhythm, and truth. This interview offers a chance to explore not only Teri Louise Kelly’s books and poetry, but also her reflections on transgender experience, love, art, and resilience, told with candor, wit, and an unflinching eye for what it means to survive and create on one’s own terms.

Interview with Karen Adell Scot

Karen Adell Scot is a woman whose life story spans extraordinary professional achievements, personal courage, and unwavering activism. She is an award-winning high school science teacher in California, a former Major in the military, a law enforcement officer, a feature film screenwriter and producer with movies shown in theaters, and a beauty queen who captured public attention after winning the Miss Trans 2015 pageant. Karen Adell Scot also became widely known after her transition was forcibly exposed by the media, an experience that shaped her outspoken advocacy for transgender dignity, accurate representation, and access to healthcare.

 

Her story is deeply rooted in lived experience, shaped by an early awareness of her womanhood, a later-in-life transition completed with determination and clarity, and the painful reality of family rejection that so many transgender people face. Through teaching, filmmaking, political activism, and community work, including her TransCare initiative, she has dedicated her life to visibility, education, and support for transgender people. Whether standing in a classroom, speaking to policymakers, writing screenplays inspired by her own life, or mentoring others with compassion and honesty, she embodies resilience, strength, and an unyielding commitment to helping others live as their authentic selves.

Interview with Amy Tashiana

Amy Tashiana is a woman whose life story reflects an extraordinary chapter in the cultural, fashion, and transgender history of Singapore. A former model, fashion coordinator, performer, and beauty pageant winner, Amy became one of the most recognizable transgender figures of the 1980s and early 1990s, long before visibility and acceptance were part of everyday conversations. She entered the modeling world at just seventeen with professional training and quickly established herself in an industry that demanded not only beauty and discipline, but also caution, resilience, and impeccable social awareness. Amy’s journey unfolded at a time when being openly transgender required constant negotiation with society’s expectations. While she found support within creative circles and among fellow performers, she also had to navigate strict social norms and unspoken rules, particularly in public life. Her elegance, intelligence, and professionalism allowed her to move from modeling into fashion coordination and performance, earning respect in an era when transgender women were often misunderstood or reduced to stereotypes. Her success was not accidental, but built on hard work, training, and an unwavering commitment to presenting herself with dignity.

 

Central to Amy’s story is the legendary Bugis Street, once a vibrant and spontaneous meeting place that drew tourists, celebrities, and locals from around the world. There, Amy and her sisters found visibility, camaraderie, and a rare sense of freedom, transforming an ordinary street into a living stage filled with glamour and confidence. Beyond the spectacle, Bugis Street represented survival, self expression, and the fight to be seen as whole human beings. Amy’s experiences there, combined with her later achievements in modeling, film, and fashion choreography, offer a deeply personal lens into a world that no longer exists, yet continues to shape conversations about gender, identity, and acceptance today. Speaking with Amy Tashiana is not only an encounter with timeless beauty and style, but also an opportunity to listen to a witness of history. Her reflections on love, work, transition, and personal growth reveal a woman who has evolved with grace, learning when to fight, when to adapt, and when to move forward. This interview is an invitation to understand not only who Amy Tashiana is, but also what it meant, and still means, to live authentically in a society learning how to see transgender women clearly.

Interview with Andrea Zekis

Andrea Zekis is a cartographer, transgender activist, and a tireless advocate for equality in Arkansas, where she has made her home since 2005. Originally from the Chicago area, Andrea came out as a transgender woman at the age of 30, after years of navigating her identity and life changes. Her journey of self-discovery transformed her from someone cautious and reserved into an open, adventurous, and determined individual, embracing new challenges from changing careers and faith to even becoming a stilt walker. As executive director of the Arkansas Transgender Equality Coalition and consultant to the Human Rights Campaign in Arkansas, she has played a pivotal role in advancing transgender rights and creating supportive spaces for her community. Andrea’s work spans statewide initiatives and national advocacy, reflecting her belief in the power of grassroots action and coalition-building to drive meaningful change. Her dedication to uplifting transgender voices, fostering inclusion, and mentoring others has made her a guiding light for many, and her personal journey embodies the possibilities of living authentically, even in the American South.

Interview with Jer'ell Hartsig

Jer’ell Hartsig is an American writer originally from Macomb, Michigan, who now lives in Los Angeles, California. Jer’ell is the author of the autobiographical book The Wind that Ruffled the Field, published in 2014, in which she traces her deeply personal journey toward becoming the woman she always knew herself to be. Her story is shaped by courage, self-belief, and the determination to follow her inner truth, even in the absence of early support from family and friends. Through her writing and reflections, Jer’ell offers insight into the realities of gender dysphoria, the importance of listening to one’s instincts, and the power of finding community along the way. This interview is an opportunity to explore her life, her views on transgender representation and activism, her love of art and fashion, and her ongoing creative work, including a new book set in Hollywood that continues her commitment to telling meaningful transgender stories.

 

Beyond her personal journey, Jer’ell brings a thoughtful and reflective voice to wider conversations about transgender visibility, the role of the media, and the need for education and understanding. She speaks openly about the influence of early role models such as Christine Jorgensen, the challenges of coming out later in life, and the patience required when social progress feels slow. With a background in art, illustration, and interior decorating, and a lifelong passion for fashion, her creativity shapes both her writing and her outlook on life. Grounded in the belief that love, in all its forms, is essential, Jer’ell continues to look forward, embracing new projects and sharing stories that remind others they are not alone and that it is never too late to live authentically.

Interview with Victoria Masl

Victoria Masl is a remarkable young transgender woman from Russia, recognized as the first known deaf Russian T woman and the first LGBT Russian disabled and deaf refugee in the West, officially granted refugee status in 2012. Currently living in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Victoria has faced extraordinary challenges throughout her life, from growing up in small military towns in the USSR to navigating a society deeply hostile toward transgender people. She began her transition at the age of 31 under incredibly difficult circumstances, overcoming both systemic obstacles and personal dangers to become the woman she always felt herself to be. Victoria’s journey has taken her from the scrutiny of Russian media and the dangers of daily life as a deaf transgender woman in her home country, to the hardships of adapting to life in Spain as a refugee, and finally to finding a sense of safety, respect, and normalcy in Northern Ireland. Her story is one of resilience, courage, and the pursuit of authenticity, intertwined with moments of profound love, personal discovery, and hope for a future where the positive image of transgender people can be recognized and celebrated in mainstream society.

 

Victoria’s life continues to be an inspiration, showing the strength it takes to survive adversity while remaining true to oneself. Throughout her journey, Victoria has faced isolation not only from the broader society but also from the communities she might have expected support from, demonstrating her remarkable inner strength and perseverance. Her experiences highlight the intersection of disability, gender identity, and refugee status, offering a unique perspective on the struggles faced by marginalized individuals worldwide. Despite these challenges, Victoria has maintained a commitment to personal growth, education, and advocacy, seeking to help others navigate similar paths. She has also found profound joy in moments of true love, which have shaped her understanding of human connection and self-acceptance. Looking ahead, Victoria remains determined to contribute positively to society, raising awareness about transgender issues and inspiring future generations to embrace authenticity and resilience.

Interview with Veejay Floresca

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Veejay Floresca, a talented young fashion designer from the Philippines, whose work graces the covers of many fashion magazines. Hello Veejay!

Veejay: Hi Monika.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?
Veejay: I am from the Philippines and I moved here to San Francisco two years ago to finish my master's in fashion design.
Monika: How did you start your fashion designing career?
Veejay: I got my bachelor's degree in fashion design in the Philippines. I discovered that this is something I want to do and I am so passionate about it. I love everything about my job.

Interview with Grace Anne Stevens

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Grace Anne Stevens, an American writer, speaker, trainer, blogger, design engineer, and senior engineering manager, with two patent awards. Hello Grace!

Grace: Hi Monika, It is a pleasure to chat with you here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?
Grace: I consider myself incredibly blessed to have transitioned as a “senior” while working in two workplaces and have lost no one in my life.
Monika: Your resume shows over 40 years in high tech, building successful teams and processes in both startup and large companies; holding Director and VP positions … 
Grace: Yes it does. It took me a long time to realize that even with this apparent successful career there was still something missing. The biggest realization was taking action to discover what that was both in my personal life as a transgender woman and my work and training. I really took to heart the famous quote from George Elliot – “You are never too old to be what you might have been.”

Interview with Kristina Ferarri

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Kristina Ferarri, a Serbian artist, model, dancer, and TV celebrity. Hello Kristina!

Kristina: Hi there! ;)

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?
Kristina: What to say what the world doesn’t know? :) I was born and raised in a small town in the east of the country. I left my family home at the age of 16 and moved on to my grandmother’s house.
Now more or less I live alone for one decade in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. This city offered me stability and few more options to fulfill my dreams and start the transition of my life. So I found myself as a striptease dancer at the age of 21. This was the beginning of my journey.