Monika: That timing sounds very intense, both professionally and personally. What happened next?
Fran: There seemed to be something cosmic to the timing. Personally, two days after my job ended, my mother spent nine weeks in the hospital and seven weeks in rehab for Hodgkin’s (she’s still here). The week before she came home, the Register hired me back as a paginator, someone who electronically lays out pages. I was part of a team that laid out pages for 10 daily papers and several weeklies in the Northeast. The pay was less than I made the first time around, but it was a job … until our whole department was dumped in December 2015. Still, I was grateful for the job because it allowed me to be around for my father’s final five months during his second bout with prostate cancer.
Monika: After that loss and another career setback, how did you manage to move forward?
Fran: Two days after his funeral in May 2016, and the week my unemployment ran out, I was hired by a French-owned company an hour from here. My title is listings editor. Our department inputs events from markets all over the States and Canada into a monster meta-database that clients buy for their use, newspapers, TV news websites, travel agencies, and other businesses. I now make about $100 less a week than I did on unemployment, 29¾ hours a week (so they don’t have to consider me full-time), at $10.22 an hour.
(And in a laughable twist, McClatchy is one of the company’s biggest clients, I'm now the de facto listings editor for the Fresno Bee, as well as their other three California dailies.) Thank God I still have a place to sleep for now, as I navigate life with a mother widowed after 56 years. Despite all that, the trans thing has never been a problem, here or at any other place I’ve worked as Frannie 2.0, on my second day on the job, the HR director even circulated a memo about trans inclusivity in the workplace. That kind of quiet support makes a difference.
Monika: And today? Where do things stand for you now?
Fran: I’m still at home at the moment, though I’m constantly thinking something good is bound to happen soon. I continue to put out job applications, only to receive no response in return much of the time. My whole M.O. with everything in life has been to throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. And something has to stick eventually! There’s still hope in me, even if it feels thin some days.
Monika: Your work history is incredible, but you also seem to have built a rich creative and advocacy life beyond journalism. Can you tell me more about the other passions and projects that have defined your journey?
Fran: I’ve done some other things that look good on any résumé. I’ve hosted radio shows since 1991. I had a regular show on WPKN, a well-regarded nonprofit community FM station in Bridgeport, for 13 years until my move, and I’ve sporadically done fill-in shows since. And since February 2013, I’ve hosted a regular show, Franorama 2.0, on Cygnus Radio, an online station based here in Connecticut. It’s a hybrid between a podcast and freeform ’70s FM radio; we play whatever we want (with me, it’s mostly garage, Northern soul, early punk, some great new sounds, and many things in between), whenever we want, and since we’re on the Web, we’re certainly not restricted by FCC language rules. And I have listeners from around the world. It’s one of the few places where I can fully express my musical taste without compromise.
Monika: That’s a fantastic variety, what’s been your experience working in film and music beyond the radio world?
Fran: In early 2017, I narrated a documentary, The High School That Rocked! It’s a half-hour film about Staples High in Westport, CT. Before rock concerts became an “industry,” they brought some of the biggest names in the business to their auditorium: The Beau Brummels, The Remains, The Animals, The Rascals, The Yardbirds with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck (with Steven Tyler’s teenage band opening), Cream, The Doors, Sly & the Family Stone, Phil Ochs, and Buddy Miles. It’s been well-received so far on the documentary circuit. I’ve also been a talking head in two music documentaries (on The Remains and longtime Connecticut band The Reducers) and sung on a couple of tribute albums (The Reducers and a longtime New Haven duo, The Furors). Sharing space with musicians I admire has been one of the most joyful perks of these projects.
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| Elvis and me. Fresno, late 2006, a little more than a year before my epiphany. |
Monika: You've also become active in trans advocacy and education, how did that come about?
Fran: I also do some public speaking and advocacy about the trans thing. I’ve spoken about the challenges of trans healthcare to an undergrad nursing class and a graduate nurse practitioner class at Southern Connecticut State University; talked about gender identity to classes at Capital Community College in Hartford and Manhattanville College, and to a teen group at the Unitarian Society of New Haven. I’ve also recently spoken to a meeting of the Connecticut Association of Electrology. These talks have helped me feel like I'm contributing to a better future for trans people navigating systems that often feel impossible.
Monika: You’ve done so much, yet I hear there’s also a lifelong dream you’ve recently checked off your list?
Fran: And in October 2015, I was asked for my input when the William Floyd School District, an 8,000-student district in Suffolk County, Long Island, was creating a formal trans-inclusionary student policy. And at the beginning of August, I fulfilled a lifelong goal by being a contestant on Jeopardy, a show I've watched since the very early days of the original version, as a toddler in Brooklyn. To the best of our knowledge (the staff's and mine), I'm only the third trans contestant they’ve had. I can't discuss how I did, as my appearance won’t be shown until mid-October, but it’ll make for some epic television, I can tell you that much. Just stepping on that stage made all the hard-won moments feel absolutely worth it.
Monika: You’ve spoken publicly about your experience as a transgender woman in several high-profile spaces, including The New York Times. What motivated you to be so open about your journey, even before that publication?
Fran: I had already been out publicly a few years by that point (2015). When I was first job-hunting in 2009, I figured that being out and open, and completely owning it, was the best defense. No one could hold any secrets over me, for one. For another, I had to learn to interact in public without drawing undue attention to myself. (Great lesson learned: Act as if you belong, and you’ll belong. People are so wrapped up in their own lives that they won’t notice you unless you act awfully nervous and draw attention to yourself. Easier said than done, I know.) And beyond that, I found a reserve of self-esteem and strength I never knew I had. That strength kept me moving forward even in moments of deep uncertainty.
Monika: Were there moments of hesitation on your way to fully transitioning?
Fran: I encountered these occasional speed bumps along the way, the inner voice asking, “Is this where you really want to go?” as I inched toward full-time and toward hormones. It was good to pause and reflect. And my answer was always the same: “Can you see yourself living as a man again?” Easy decision. But I told myself, when I decided to venture into trying to find a job, “Three things: 1) You’re not a freak, 2) you’re not a piece of shit, and 3) you’re not a second-class citizen, and you’re not gonna be treated as such.” I took that and internalized it, and I grew into it. I became, to some extent, the woman I wanted to have been all along. To a large extent, I owned it, and soon I could stride in heels figuratively as well as literally. That inner dialogue became the foundation of the confidence I’ve carried ever since.
Monika: How did writing fit into your coming-out journey?
Fran: I started a blog called Franorama World in the winter of 2010. The initial purpose was to let the job world know I was Web-savvy. (Didn’t help.) I was thrashing around trying to figure out what to write about, and somewhere early on, I had a “Duh!” moment, Write about your transition! It’ll help people try to understand what this crazy trip is that you’re going through, and it can be the basis for your book. So that I did. Writing became a way for me to make sense of the chaos and give it structure, humor, and hope.
Monika: And how did social media change the scope of your visibility?
Fran: In the winter of 2011, I broke down, at the urging of my dearest friend in the universe, Paola, back in New Haven, and started a Facebook account. That was my coming out to many friends back East. And people came out of the woodwork; I lost two people in the process (both back here) and gained hundreds around the world. I was lucky; I do count my blessings. It made me realize that visibility, even when messy or difficult, has a beautiful ripple effect.
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| Only one of us is made of Legos. Sam and me at the Mark Twain House, Hartford, December 2015. |
Monika: What led you to submit your story to The New York Times “Transgender Today” series?
Fran: In June 2011, the week I turned 50, Connecticut’s state Senate was debating adding “trans” to the list of protections in its civil rights laws. Since I was already out to many people, I emailed my old New Haven Register colleagues and pitched an op-ed piece leading into the vote at the session’s end later that week. Maybe if readers could attach a face to it, maybe someone they used to read regularly in the paper, it might help push the cause along.
The story ran on a Wednesday morning, and the messages and friend requests came in an avalanche. And damned if they didn’t run the piece in a story package on A1; I wasn’t expecting that. And the Senate passed the bill early Saturday morning, on my birthday. That experience gave me the courage to submit to the Times when their “Transgender Today” feature launched, a way of adding another voice to the mosaic, another story to the archive of our shared humanity.
Monika: You transitioned into a woman in your late 40s. Have you ever regretted doing this so late in your life?
Fran: I guess everything in its time, though it would’ve made my life a hell of a lot easier had I been able to do this at a much younger age. But I couldn’t have done this back when I was a kid, in the ’60s and ’70s, for several reasons. I grew up with strict parents in a Catholic home. Also, there was very little understanding of gender dysphoria at the time, among professionals and laypeople alike, I mean there wasn’t really a common language until the early 2010s, when you think about it, and had I gone to a therapist back then as a tortured teen, I might have ended up even more screwed-up.
So yes, I would’ve loved to have been able to transition as a child or a teen because it might have helped me avoid years of depression and the accompanying depression/anxiety overeating that came with it. And, of course, I would’ve been much more of myself. But it’s what it is. It wasn’t possible at the time for a lot of reasons. I’m just glad that it happened while I was still young enough to enjoy much of it.
Monika: During the early days of your transition, were there any figures, public or personal, who helped shape your understanding of what was possible for a transgender person?
Fran: Not particularly. But I mean, there were certainly people I made note of over my formative years who made an impact on me before I truly knew where I was headed. I read wire stories about Christine Jorgensen and the noted English travel writer Jan Morris not long before puberty; I was especially taken with Morris’ before-and-after photos, a dour, unhappy-looking man and a woman with a total, unabashed smile. There was Caroline Cossey, aka Tula, who became a Bond girl. Their visibility made something click in me, even if I didn’t yet have the words for what I was feeling.
Monika: And as you continued to grow and explore your identity, did you find more voices or stories that resonated with you on a deeper level?
Fran: In the ’80s, I’d read about and seen photos of Roberta Close, the stunning Brazilian model. In the ’90s, a good friend bought me Holly Woodlawn’s memoir, A Low Life in High Heels, one birthday. (The wild side, indeed!) And in the ’90s, I read Leslie Feinberg’s Transgender Warriors; the book was a great history lesson (I guess I actually was questioning back then, or at the least fascinated), and I felt a deep respect for Feinberg and what she had done. These were people who gave me a sense of continuity, a lineage of resistance and brilliance that made me feel less alone.
Monika: Do you think about those early pioneers often, especially in light of where we are now?
Fran: I have great and special respect for everyone who transitioned early on, with no real path to follow, little info to go on, sometimes lots of research to do, and a LOT of fear of repercussions, of shunning, of losing jobs, of ridicule, of violence. Obviously, and sadly, while we’ve come a long way, those fears are still all too real and justified. Their courage laid the groundwork for so many of us to begin walking more openly, even if the road is still full of hazards.
Monika: In today’s evolving landscape, are there any transgender women whose work, visibility, or resilience particularly inspire you?
Fran: Well, generally speaking, I have respect for anyone who’s gone through our particular trip! I haven’t found my niche yet, which is frustrating, I haven’t found the place where I can best use my talents, social connections, and visibility to truly make a difference, but I have great respect for trans people in general, across the spectrum, who have made some impact. A few years back, I met Christina Kahrl, who’s one of the country’s most respected baseball writers (as a co-founder of Baseball Prospectus, she was at the forefront of statistics-driven baseball); she’s a baseball editor at ESPN, and her work as a journalist has obviously broken down barriers. When she was living in Chicago, she also did a lot of work to further trans civil rights there. Meeting her reminded me how trailblazing can take many forms, quiet persistence can be just as powerful as bold activism.
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| DJ Franorama 2.0, working the Detroit Cobras show, Cafe Nine, New Haven, 1/1/2015 |
Monika: Are there any other women whose stories have stayed with you or influenced your thinking about what’s possible?
Fran: There are other women as well whose stories in recent years have inspired me on some level. Victoria Kolakowski, in Alameda County (Oakland), became California’s first trans trial judge while I was living out west. Also, there was Amanda Simpson, who became a deputy defense secretary under Barack Obama, the first openly trans presidential appointee. And of course, Laverne Cox’s story, from struggle to stardom, is well-known at this point. Their achievements push boundaries and show that our presence and excellence belong everywhere, from the courtroom to the screen.
Monika: Many trans women pay a steep price to live authentically, losing families, friends, careers, or social standing. Was fear the hardest part of coming out for you, or was it something else?
Fran: The hardest thing was, as I’m guessing has been the case with so many of us, fear. I firmly believe fear and gravity are the two ruling forces that govern the world. Had I, as is the case with many of us, not been so afraid of the consequences earlier in life, I could have done this at a younger age. (And maybe, as I mentioned, I wouldn’t have been in a position where I’ve had to struggle with my weight for half my life. I’m doing my damndest now to right that ship so I can keep health problems from popping up.) Fear was paralyzing, but it was also what pushed me, eventually, to confront what I’d been running from.
END OF PART 2
All the photos: courtesy of Fran Fried.
© 2017 - Monika Kowalska
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