Monika: Trans-Mission required you to revisit childhood, violence, family, transition, medical experiences and
many other deeply personal memories. Was there a particular scene or memory that was especially difficult to put
into words, and did performing it eventually change the way you understood your own past?
Barbara: The scene where my boyfriend attacked me was very difficult to put into words, but also to act out and
revisit every time I performed the play. It was draining. The whole process was difficult because I was taking
experiences I had tried to put away and bringing them back into the room. But it was also cathartic. I premiered
Trans-Mission at Teatro Círculo in 2017, and then performed it at places including Brooklyn College, BAAD! and the
LGBTQ Center. I also brought it to Puerto Rico, to Centro de Bellas Artes, in Spanish, becoming the first trans
actor to present, produce and act in her own play on a theatre stage in the history of Puerto Rican theatre. Every
performance was another opportunity to take something painful and turn it into art. That is one of the strange gifts
of theatre.
Monika: After many years of living as a woman, you eventually reached the point of preparing for gender-affirming
surgery. How did your feelings about surgery evolve throughout your life, and what would you say to someone who
assumes that there is only one “correct” path to being transgender?
Barbara: There are many paths to being transgender. Gender-affirming surgery is not for everyone, and that does not
make a person more or less female-identifying. I honestly thought I was too old to have the surgery. I was 62. But
it WAS something I had always wanted and could not afford. Obamacare took care of that, and I am very happy. I don't
believe anybody should be pressured into surgery, or pressured not to have it. It is an intensely personal decision.
I had spent decades knowing what I wanted, so when the opportunity finally came, I took it.
Monika: You have experienced womanhood through several very different decades of your life. What has ageing taught
you about beauty, femininity and self-acceptance that your younger self could never have understood?
Barbara: I believe that there is beauty at every stage, whether one chooses to age gracefully or with a few
touch-ups. I am an actor, an entertainer. I owe my audience a glamorous, ageless look. I have had several facial
procedures and will have more if needed. I don't have a problem with being 71. I have a problem with looking 71. I
also understand myself much better now. When I was younger, I spent much more time worrying about how I appeared.
Now I know that femininity is not something I need to prove every morning when I wake up.
Monika: Imagine that you are sitting between two young transgender women. One is beginning her transition in 1975,
and the other is beginning hers today. What would you tell each of them about courage, danger, love and the
importance of staying alive long enough to discover who she can become?
Barbara: I make it a point never to give that kind of advice because all of our journeys are different. I can tell
someone what happened to me, but I cannot tell her what her life should be. What worked for me may not work for
another woman. I think the most important thing is to listen to yourself, get proper medical care, be careful about
who you trust and understand that you don't have to follow somebody else's timeline. We didn't have the choices
people have today. Younger women have more information and more possibilities, and I hope they use them wisely.
|
|
"I don't have a problem
with being 71. I have a problem with looking 71." |
Monika: Do you ever worry that the history of your generation of transgender women, the women of the clubs,
cabarets, dressing rooms and small stages, could disappear because too few people have taken the time to record
it?
Barbara: That had not even crossed my mind. I lived it. I was busy working! I was performing, travelling, competing,
acting and trying to make a living. You don't always realize that you are living through history while you're doing
it. Now I understand that people are interested in those stories because so much of what we did was never properly
documented. There were no smartphones recording every night, and nobody was keeping an archive of the dressing room.
Most of us were simply trying to survive and entertain people.
Monika: What do you most want historians to remember about those women?
Barbara: That we were here. The pioneers. The elders. We weren't just people in wigs and costumes entertaining in
nightclubs. We were artists. We were creating careers in a world that gave us very few opportunities. We were
singers, actors, comedians, dancers, pageant competitors and businesswomen. Some of us travelled internationally.
Some created our own shows because nobody would create roles for us. And we built a culture that younger generations
inherited, whether they know our names or not.
Monika: Your autobiographical work carried the wonderful title
I'm Still Herr
. After more than fifty years as a performer, after Puerto Rico and New York, glamour and hardship, love and
violence, transition and activism, what does that sentence mean to you now?
Barbara: It means that through my entire life, with all the challenges and successes, I am STILL the same person I
was from the very beginning. Humble and grateful. The title also makes me laugh a little because, after everything,
after all the changes, I'm still Herr! I've gone from Bobby Herr to Barbara Herr, from the Bronx to Puerto Rico and
back to New York, from nightclub stages to theatre and autobiographical work, but underneath all of that, I'm still
the same person. I didn't become someone else. I finally became more completely myself.
Monika: Who is Barbara Herr today, when the audience has gone home, the lights are off and she is finally alone
with herself?
Barbara: She is a homebody. A regular person with everyday tasks. A doggy mom who happens to be an actor and who
lives a very quiet and normal home life. I have had a very unusual life, but I don't live every day as if I'm in a
cabaret. I've done the clubs, the pageants, the theatre, television, film and autobiographical shows. I've received
awards, including the HOLA Award and a Latin Alternative Theater Award, as well as every major award for Latino
theatre, recognition from the National Puerto Rican Day Committee, and I've even received recognition from the City
of New York for my work and activism in the LGBTQ community. But when I go home, I'm just Barbara. I like my quiet
life.
I also still feel connected to the Bronx and to places like BAAD!, which have given me a creative home and a place
where trans, Latinx and artists of colour can belong. I'm still involved in that community. I'm still performing and
telling stories. After more than fifty years, I guess I really am still Herr.
Monika: Barbara, thank you so much for the wonderful interview!
END OF PART 3
All photos: courtesy of Barbara Herr.
© 2026 - Monika Kowalska
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